The celebration of Christmas brings a parallel to a woman who was married to her first husband. He turned out to be abusive and mean to her, did not help with chores or fix the house, squandered a lot of their finances, often was out drinking and at parties, and was seeing other women while he was married to her. She got fed up and divorced him.
After awhile, she met another man who was very good and faithful to her. But her second husband noticed that she would not remember their wedding anniversary or his birthday, but would remember the wedding anniversary to her first husband only and also remember the birthday of her first husband. She also hung up pictures of her first husband on the walls.
Now what do you think this second husband would think and would do about his wife's behavior?
And then why is it OK for Christians to do that to their Messiah by using previously pagan holidays (some with human sacrifices) as His birthday?
As a daughter of a Christian pastor (evangelical, fundamental denomination), I would like to explain things about the Christmas celebration. When my step-father was in the theological seminary, I got to study a lot about Christian history and its effects on Europe and the Western world. There are a lot of things that most people do not hear about. It was great reading about church history when my step father was in the Christian pastors' college in the early 1970s. We saw evidence about the very early believers on when they celebrated Jesus' birthday, and it wasn't December 25. Christmas (like Easter) was created by the Christian church in its early history by the church fathers to help the pagan converts stay within the defined bounds of Christianity while being able to keep their old pagan festivals, and also not have to follow the festivals in the Bible. So what did those Church Fathers do?
Take pagan holidays, just "add" Jesus to them and wah lah, the Church had new holidays instead of the Bible holidays Here are some sites on the inspirations given to the gentile Church Fathers to make pagan holidays as the birth date of Jesus instead of celebrating the holidays that the Bible says (and also the winter festival of John chapter 10, the festival of dedication):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
(see the term "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" for the pre-Christian holidays as the precursor for Christmas)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x466474172/Ancient-winter-festivals-contributed-to-our-holiday-customs
http://ezinearticles.com/?Christmas---History-and-Trivia-for-Parties&id=356716
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318012,00.html
http://www.essortment.com/christmas-pagan-origins-42543.html
http://www.essortment.com/legends-folklores-myths-behind-christmas-traditions-63554.html
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm
(a 4000 year old festival for Christians)
http://www.novareinna.com/festive/xmas.html
http://christmas-celebrations.org/264-zagmuk.html
Saturn's festival in late December with garlands and candles got absorbed by the Church Fathers:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/holidaysfestivals/a/solsticeceleb.htm
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html
http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Saturnalia
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina21224.htm
http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p235.html
http://www.biblequestions.org/bqar092.html
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/Saturnalia.html
12 days of Christmas from the 12 days of Saturnalia
http://www.carnaval.com/saturnalia/
http://www.brenna.co.uk/xmas.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/saturnalia/a/saturnalia.htm
(and it also involved human sacrifices to Saturn)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm
http://www.cracked.com/article_15719_pagan-orgies-to-human-sacrifice-bizarre-origins-christmas.html
http://www.hope-of-israel.org/christ~3.htm
http://www.hope-of-israel.org/cmas1.htm
These types of pagan festivals, such as this festival to contact the dead ancestors and the spirit deities, were "adopted" by the gentile Church Fathers in the third and fourth centuries. The Church Fathers did this as ways for the pagan converts to still be "Christians" and yet have their previous pagan festivals become newly-made Christian holidays without having to follow the Biblical festivals like the Chanukkah winter festival mentioned in the gospels (and thus have the converts get too close to acting like the Jews). The Christmas tree is a very common pagan symbol for fertility and also the combination of Earth spirits and Air / Sky spirits. Some of the ancient Middle East religions surrounding old Israel used the tree as a "connection" with the goddess Ashtoreth (and other names given to the fertility goddess). The ancient Babylonians used trees during the time of the winter solstice, now the time of Christmas , for their gods, such as Marduk. The tree itself became the object of worship in that the gods and goddesses were said to either live in the tree or else come alight in the tree during certain ceremonies.
Also trees (or poles) were used by many European and Mediterranean tribes to mark the solar sun path during the year. The tree or pole was considered a symbol of male sexuality and spirituality by certain pagans (due to its vertical shape). During the winter solstice, the tree or wooden pole would cast the longest shadow, indicating a "sacred" time for people to contact the spirits. The Celts and other ancients of Ireland have their sacred openings pointed to the sunset of the winter solstice at which time the shamans would take people to the sacred mounds and go through a vision quest, facing the setting winter sun. This occurred around December 21 through the 28 or so, and when Christianity came to the British Isles, these Celtic customs were adapted by the Christians so that the pagans would be able to be more "Christian" while keeping their old festivals. In Biblical thought, trees were used as metaphors for righteous people (as in the Psalms), but not as worship objects or sexual spirituality or others uses that the pagans used and are now sugar-coated by the Church.
The custom of kissing under the mistletoe is closely related to a Scandinavian goddess. Frigga, the goddess of love in Norse mythology and from whom we get "Friday", is strongly associated with mistletoe, which has been used as a decoration in homes for thousands of years. Mistletoe is associated with many pagan rituals. In fact, the Christian church disliked the plant so much, thanks to its pagan associations, that it forbade its use in any form. Some churches continued this ban as late as the 20th century! According to Charles Panati's excellent book, Extraordinary Origins of Ordinary Things, holly became a Christian substitute for mistletoe, which is why we "deck the halls" with it. The sharply pointed leaves in holly were supposed to symbolize the thorns in Christ's crown and the red berries were to symbolize his blood.
http://www.blackhillscelticevents.org/Events/CelticMistle.htm
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/norsegodspictures/p/mistletoe.htm
http://blog.stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk/2010/12/04/pagan-mistletoe-symbolism-and-legend/
BTW, Santa probably is a rendition of the Siberian shaman who often wore a red suit and had bells or rattles with him. In certain tribes, an animal would be sacrificed to the spirits, a robe or felt dipped into the blood of the sacrificial animal, and then the shaman would get into a vision quest using sea shells (later metal cymbals) that were shaken to get the shaman's conscience into the spirit world. The shaman would bring back things ("gifts") for people from the spirits to the people. Since this was done at the winter solstice, Santa became the Christian adaptation of the Siberian (Russian and Scandinavian) shaman bearing gifts at the Christmas equivalent of Winter Solstice connections.)
http://toolong.com/?s=christmas
http://www.calendersign.com/en/am_hare_hedgehog.php
And below are links about a Roman emperor who helped initiate solar sun worship practices that eventually were practiced by the Romans even as they converted to Christianity. These festivals were "adopted" by the early Church Fathers to keep pagan converts from celebrating the pagan festivals (just added Jesus to them and made the now-accepted Christian holidays)
http://fascinatinghistory.blogspot.com/2005/06/emperor-elagabalus-teenage-pervert.html
http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/elagabalus-index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus
NOTE the black stone worshiped here by Elagabalus, just as Muslims worship a black stone in Mecca:
http://www.crystalinks.com/blackstone.html
Santa Claus (a good substitute for the Lord and His works?)
http://ezinearticles.com/?Santa-Clauss-Past---The-Surprising-History-of-Saint-Nicholas&id=5173536
http://www.rkdn.org/alternative/santa.asp
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=4118
And maybe some help there for Santa:
http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/hallucinogenic-mushrooms-and-santa-claus/
Associations of demon spirits with Santa Claus in Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_of_Saint_Nicholas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-travels-with-st-nicholas/
Other European "Santas" and the Epiphany day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchta
One reason non-Christian people are fighting Christmas celebrations are as follows: Christmas is a church-created holiday and a church-sponsored holiday. In some places, government employees are FORCED to take vacation time off between Christmas and the new year, just for this one particular religious holiday. Whereas if they want to take time off for other religious holidays, like Passover, then they must take additional vacation time off. If they didn't have to take time off for Christmas, they could use it for their own time. And as a final note, the real birth of Jesus was probably at the time of the feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), since that was the expected time of Messianic revelations and deliverances during the Second Temple times and the time of the Christian scriptures. See Acts 26:14 for the culture and language of that time.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2494
Also has an audio program with a deep look into what the church leaders knew about the holiday, including its history of human sacrifice (with cookies in the shape of the victims), slaughter of Jewish people, and other nasty things.
NOTE: There are no guarantees or warranties (expressed or implied) on the links in this blog as to the computer safety of those websites. I Catherine as the author wrote all of these words on my own, most of which I wrote previously for other public reviews, letters to editors, and other public blogs in the past. There are NO copyrights by the author on the words in this post. FALSE accusers will be dealt with by my Lawyer
After awhile, she met another man who was very good and faithful to her. But her second husband noticed that she would not remember their wedding anniversary or his birthday, but would remember the wedding anniversary to her first husband only and also remember the birthday of her first husband. She also hung up pictures of her first husband on the walls.
Now what do you think this second husband would think and would do about his wife's behavior?
And then why is it OK for Christians to do that to their Messiah by using previously pagan holidays (some with human sacrifices) as His birthday?
As a daughter of a Christian pastor (evangelical, fundamental denomination), I would like to explain things about the Christmas celebration. When my step-father was in the theological seminary, I got to study a lot about Christian history and its effects on Europe and the Western world. There are a lot of things that most people do not hear about. It was great reading about church history when my step father was in the Christian pastors' college in the early 1970s. We saw evidence about the very early believers on when they celebrated Jesus' birthday, and it wasn't December 25. Christmas (like Easter) was created by the Christian church in its early history by the church fathers to help the pagan converts stay within the defined bounds of Christianity while being able to keep their old pagan festivals, and also not have to follow the festivals in the Bible. So what did those Church Fathers do?
Take pagan holidays, just "add" Jesus to them and wah lah, the Church had new holidays instead of the Bible holidays Here are some sites on the inspirations given to the gentile Church Fathers to make pagan holidays as the birth date of Jesus instead of celebrating the holidays that the Bible says (and also the winter festival of John chapter 10, the festival of dedication):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
(see the term "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" for the pre-Christian holidays as the precursor for Christmas)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x466474172/Ancient-winter-festivals-contributed-to-our-holiday-customs
http://ezinearticles.com/?Christmas---History-and-Trivia-for-Parties&id=356716
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318012,00.html
http://www.essortment.com/christmas-pagan-origins-42543.html
http://www.essortment.com/legends-folklores-myths-behind-christmas-traditions-63554.html
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm
(a 4000 year old festival for Christians)
http://www.novareinna.com/festive/xmas.html
http://christmas-celebrations.org/264-zagmuk.html
Saturn's festival in late December with garlands and candles got absorbed by the Church Fathers:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/holidaysfestivals/a/solsticeceleb.htm
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html
http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Saturnalia
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina21224.htm
http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p235.html
http://www.biblequestions.org/bqar092.html
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/Saturnalia.html
12 days of Christmas from the 12 days of Saturnalia
http://www.carnaval.com/saturnalia/
http://www.brenna.co.uk/xmas.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/saturnalia/a/saturnalia.htm
(and it also involved human sacrifices to Saturn)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm
http://www.cracked.com/article_15719_pagan-orgies-to-human-sacrifice-bizarre-origins-christmas.html
http://www.hope-of-israel.org/christ~3.htm
http://www.hope-of-israel.org/cmas1.htm
These types of pagan festivals, such as this festival to contact the dead ancestors and the spirit deities, were "adopted" by the gentile Church Fathers in the third and fourth centuries. The Church Fathers did this as ways for the pagan converts to still be "Christians" and yet have their previous pagan festivals become newly-made Christian holidays without having to follow the Biblical festivals like the Chanukkah winter festival mentioned in the gospels (and thus have the converts get too close to acting like the Jews). The Christmas tree is a very common pagan symbol for fertility and also the combination of Earth spirits and Air / Sky spirits. Some of the ancient Middle East religions surrounding old Israel used the tree as a "connection" with the goddess Ashtoreth (and other names given to the fertility goddess). The ancient Babylonians used trees during the time of the winter solstice, now the time of Christmas , for their gods, such as Marduk. The tree itself became the object of worship in that the gods and goddesses were said to either live in the tree or else come alight in the tree during certain ceremonies.
Also trees (or poles) were used by many European and Mediterranean tribes to mark the solar sun path during the year. The tree or pole was considered a symbol of male sexuality and spirituality by certain pagans (due to its vertical shape). During the winter solstice, the tree or wooden pole would cast the longest shadow, indicating a "sacred" time for people to contact the spirits. The Celts and other ancients of Ireland have their sacred openings pointed to the sunset of the winter solstice at which time the shamans would take people to the sacred mounds and go through a vision quest, facing the setting winter sun. This occurred around December 21 through the 28 or so, and when Christianity came to the British Isles, these Celtic customs were adapted by the Christians so that the pagans would be able to be more "Christian" while keeping their old festivals. In Biblical thought, trees were used as metaphors for righteous people (as in the Psalms), but not as worship objects or sexual spirituality or others uses that the pagans used and are now sugar-coated by the Church.
The custom of kissing under the mistletoe is closely related to a Scandinavian goddess. Frigga, the goddess of love in Norse mythology and from whom we get "Friday", is strongly associated with mistletoe, which has been used as a decoration in homes for thousands of years. Mistletoe is associated with many pagan rituals. In fact, the Christian church disliked the plant so much, thanks to its pagan associations, that it forbade its use in any form. Some churches continued this ban as late as the 20th century! According to Charles Panati's excellent book, Extraordinary Origins of Ordinary Things, holly became a Christian substitute for mistletoe, which is why we "deck the halls" with it. The sharply pointed leaves in holly were supposed to symbolize the thorns in Christ's crown and the red berries were to symbolize his blood.
http://www.blackhillscelticevents.org/Events/CelticMistle.htm
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/norsegodspictures/p/mistletoe.htm
http://blog.stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk/2010/12/04/pagan-mistletoe-symbolism-and-legend/
BTW, Santa probably is a rendition of the Siberian shaman who often wore a red suit and had bells or rattles with him. In certain tribes, an animal would be sacrificed to the spirits, a robe or felt dipped into the blood of the sacrificial animal, and then the shaman would get into a vision quest using sea shells (later metal cymbals) that were shaken to get the shaman's conscience into the spirit world. The shaman would bring back things ("gifts") for people from the spirits to the people. Since this was done at the winter solstice, Santa became the Christian adaptation of the Siberian (Russian and Scandinavian) shaman bearing gifts at the Christmas equivalent of Winter Solstice connections.)
http://toolong.com/?s=christmas
http://www.calendersign.com/en/am_hare_hedgehog.php
And below are links about a Roman emperor who helped initiate solar sun worship practices that eventually were practiced by the Romans even as they converted to Christianity. These festivals were "adopted" by the early Church Fathers to keep pagan converts from celebrating the pagan festivals (just added Jesus to them and made the now-accepted Christian holidays)
http://fascinatinghistory.blogspot.com/2005/06/emperor-elagabalus-teenage-pervert.html
http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/elagabalus-index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus
NOTE the black stone worshiped here by Elagabalus, just as Muslims worship a black stone in Mecca:
http://www.crystalinks.com/blackstone.html
Santa Claus (a good substitute for the Lord and His works?)
http://ezinearticles.com/?Santa-Clauss-Past---The-Surprising-History-of-Saint-Nicholas&id=5173536
http://www.rkdn.org/alternative/santa.asp
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=4118
And maybe some help there for Santa:
http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/hallucinogenic-mushrooms-and-santa-claus/
Associations of demon spirits with Santa Claus in Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_of_Saint_Nicholas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-travels-with-st-nicholas/
Other European "Santas" and the Epiphany day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchta
One reason non-Christian people are fighting Christmas celebrations are as follows: Christmas is a church-created holiday and a church-sponsored holiday. In some places, government employees are FORCED to take vacation time off between Christmas and the new year, just for this one particular religious holiday. Whereas if they want to take time off for other religious holidays, like Passover, then they must take additional vacation time off. If they didn't have to take time off for Christmas, they could use it for their own time. And as a final note, the real birth of Jesus was probably at the time of the feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), since that was the expected time of Messianic revelations and deliverances during the Second Temple times and the time of the Christian scriptures. See Acts 26:14 for the culture and language of that time.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2494
Also has an audio program with a deep look into what the church leaders knew about the holiday, including its history of human sacrifice (with cookies in the shape of the victims), slaughter of Jewish people, and other nasty things.
NOTE: There are no guarantees or warranties (expressed or implied) on the links in this blog as to the computer safety of those websites. I Catherine as the author wrote all of these words on my own, most of which I wrote previously for other public reviews, letters to editors, and other public blogs in the past. There are NO copyrights by the author on the words in this post. FALSE accusers will be dealt with by my Lawyer
