American Heathen®

Breaking news: Religious leaders are now demanding that people refer to December 25th as CHRIST-Mass and not “Christmas”.  Furthermore, they are demanding that people pronounce it “KRYST-mass” instead of “chrissmess”, and that they would not oppose any legislation that would call for the death penalty for anyone who says “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” instead of the required “CHRIST-Mass”.  Religious leaders say that the changes in spelling and pronunciation should eliminate any and all doubt as to what the season is supposed to represent.

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Okay, that was done in jest, but let’s face it… the more the HOLIDAY season is assaulted by the self-righteous FoxFundies, the more and more FICTIONAL it gets.

It’s really crazy because you have these long drawn-out explanations to try to justify how they should have EXCLUSIVE control over these elements, because we “ALL KNOW” that Santa Claus was right there in the manger scene along with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, carrying a poinsettia plant, a decorated wreath, mistletoe, and drinking an ice cold Coca-Cola.  It’s right there in the New Testament, somewhere in Leviticus, dontcha know?

So let’s go over a few things about this HOLIDAY season…

1. Jewish tradition (of which FoxFundies love to flaunt in the Old Testament) did not celebrate birthdays!  That was considered a PAGAN celebration.

Think about it… aside from the saints and popes, are there ANY OTHER birthdays celebrated in Christianity?  Moses?  Elijah?  John the Baptist?  Any of the Apostles?  Peter?  James?  Simon?  How about the zealot/hypocrite/faux-apostle Paul?  How about Mother Mary?  Mary the Ho? (The two Marys are NOT interchangeable.)   Joseph?  (You know, Joseph the carpenter and charity spouse.)  How about the traditional Old Testament figures?  How about Abraham?  Noah?  Adam?  ADAM!  The supposedly first human!  No birthdays for the first human?  Nope.

Why?  Because birthdays are a PAGAN celebration in old Jewish traditions.  You don’t celebrate birthdays.  You remember DEATH DAYS!  You remembered when people DIED, not when they were born.

2. According to the New Testament, Joseph and Mary (the one with the out-of-wedlock kid) were traveling to Joseph’s birthplace so he could be accounted for in the Roman Census and to pay taxes.  THEY WERE NOT HOMELESS! They HAD a home; they just didn’t have a place to stay for that night.

Homeless advocates really need to stop trying to spread the myth that they were homeless.  They didn’t need social services, they just needed the Imperial version of Travelocity.

3. The three “wise men” were traveling magicians (that’s what “Magi” means in the old language), who asked Herod the Great to verify whether or not the ancient prophecy was true about a “redeemer”.  This is an old legend that goes back to the days of Moses, as was Herod’s reaction to the news of a prophesied “redeemer”… which was to send soldiers to kill all the newborn babies.  They also DID NOT arrive on the same night as when Jesus was supposedly born.  It took them several days chasing a star to arrive where they were, and by then the family was on the move because someone tipped them off about Herod’s “death panel”.

So all those nativity scenes with the trio off to the side representing the Aramaic versions of Penn and Teller are far from accurate.

4. The three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – were presents a traveling trio of entertainers would give to nobility.  Gold for the king, frankincense (incense) for the priests, and myrrh (embalming oil) for the dead.  There was nothing prophetic about carrying those items.  It’s like giving a kid a quarter because that’s all you have in your pocket.

5. The whole scene DID NOT HAPPEN IN DECEMBER!  December was the festival of Saturnalia, or the festival of Saturn, Roman god of the agriculture, justice, and strength.    It pretty much was a big celebration for the Winter Solstice.  Roman politicians know better than to have ANY kind of government activity during this time.

A magistrate by the name of Gaius Caecilius said the following about not doing business during that time…

…especially during the Saturnalia when the rest of the house is noisy with the licence of the holiday and festive cries. This way I don’t hamper the games of my people and they don’t hinder my work or studies.’

Does that sound like a time that anyone would want to run a census or collect taxes?  That’s like a college scheduling mid-terms during Spring Break.

Scholars believe that the actual time of the census was sometime between March and April.  Someone even suggested the middle of May.

So why was the whole birthday – which, remember, is a PAGAN celebration – moved to December?  The first mention of it was in a Roman calendar in the year 354.  You can thank some delusional Roman for mistaking the celebration of the “Sun God” into that of “God’s Son”.  It was then formalized as a celebration during the Middle Ages… at least until the Puritan Reformation started castigating it for being too PAGAN.

6. As I (David 2) reported in the December 5th broadcast of “American Heathen®“, the push to make the holiday a “family-friendly” event was actually a marketing decision to dissuade the more “heathen” elements of the various celebrations that it STOLE.  In other words, the drinking and merriment of the old Yule celebrations were considered “SINS” and had to be replaced with church services and family gatherings.

You want it to be a PURELY CHRISTIAN celebration?  Go to church and stay in church all day.  Don’t decorate, don’t exchange gifts (the Gift of the Magi were for the CHURCH, not to each other), don’t sing songs.. if it’s good for the Puritans, it’s good for the FoxFundies.

7. Finally, the following elements of the season are PAGAN in nature and therefore Christians have NO EXCLUSIVE CLAIM TO THEM:

*Decorated trees (actually pre-dates Christianity by a few hundred years)

*Decorated wreaths (Norse celebration)

*Mistletoe (Norse celebration of fertility – in other words, making babies)

*Sleigh rides (see the next one)

*Santa Claus (sorry, that was originally the Norse god Odin) and the flying reindeer (originally horses)

*Poinsettia Plants (Norse again)

*Celebrations and references of Yule (caroling, drinking plum wine, and eating fig pudding, minced pies, and cooked goose) – oh, and that includes references to “scary ghost stories”.

*The Yule Log (obviously!)

*Frosty the Snowman (come on guys… a magical hat?)

*and of course Fruitcake… although I’m sure most of the devout would probably be willing to give up on this one.

I know a lot of Heathen readers are atheists, so I will simply say – to piss off the FoxFundies – Happy Holidays, regardless of which holiday you chose to celebrate (or don’t).

This entry was posted on December 24, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.