[plug] Xmas (point by point, more detail than you want to know!)

[Leon Brooks]

To head off the Santa-is-scientifically-impossible posts, here are several 
rebuttals:

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rascalzo/arch/palace/library/humor-tech/santa-physics.html

On Monday 23 December 2002 01:09 am, Mark Nicholls wrote:
> On British T.V. there was some cove[r]age that the Red Cross, charity shops
> were not allowed to have any Xmas decorations, reason: some ethnic
> minorities; other religions may be offended!

They're caught between a rock and a hard place, for several reasons:

 1. Some of their customers will be offended at the _absence_ of
    Christmas decorations; and

 2. In theory, Christians themselves ought to be offended by `Christmas',
    since it may be many things, but Christian ain't one of them (see
    below); and

 3. If as a charity they accept money to provide for underpriviledged
    people, they have a moral obligation to not spend that money on
    anything besides the stated purpose, and Christmas decorations are
    not going to feed, clothe or house people.

IIRC, John as a JW has also been taught that Christmas is evil and should not 
be celebrated. This may seem extreme to some people, but IRL it's not. Even 
from a purely secular PoV, Christmas involves a lot of pointless waste and 
people overspending. The latter involves social stress and occasionally, 
through being the final straw in a delicate situation, leads to bankruptcy 
and/or suicide. Christmas is one of the interesting contradictions in our 
society.

If you are an Atheist, Christmas represents belief in some kind of god no 
matter how you cut it, so it should be anathema.

If you are a Pagan, Christmas represents a ridiculous caricature of several 
important figures of your religion, so it should be anathema.

If you are Muslim or Judaic, you'll be struggling to find anything at all in 
Christmas which could be bent to accord with your beliefs, so it should be 
anathema.

I'll gloss over a passel of mostly-minority religions for space reasons.

If you are Christian, while Christmas does involve an opportunity to speak to 
people about Christ and an occasion where people are nice to each other, 
there is an awful lot in there which speaks against your religion, so it 
should be anathema.

Specifically... (-: guess who's been busy with Google :-)

The timing, dress and customs of Christmas all coincide with the Saturnalia 
and similar feasts. Saturn (AKA Kronos, see http://www.kronos.com/ for some 
mind-bending cosmology WRT Saturn) is the Pagan god for whom Saturday is 
named.

The Christmas tree is specifically spoken against in the Good Book, 
specifically in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 10: "Learn not the way of the 
heathen [sorry, Pagans etc], and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for 
the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for 
one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, 
with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with 
nails and with hammers, that it move not."

The origins of much that is held dear in Christmas really do suck. For 
example, the ancient Norse, Germans and Germanic Britons worshipped the 
general-purpose mother-earth-goddess figure (think of the fairy atop the 
tree) as Nerthus, and in her lundr - sacred evergreen groves where her `earth 
forces' are/were stronger - would massacre enemy captives (particularly 
generals and commanders), leaving their bodies to rot at the bases of their 
sacred trees (think of presents under the tree), and attaching their victims' 
heads to the trees, sometimes nailed to the trunk and sometimes hung from 
branches (think of red Christmas baubles). Tollund Man was one such sacrifice 
(Tollund == Tor Lundr, `Thor's Sacred Grove', the trees lent themselves to 
masculine symbology).

The Swedes worshipped Woden, Thor and Freya in similar manner: `to the gods of 
everything that is male they offer nine heads, with the blood of which it is 
customary to placate gods of this sort; the bodies they hang in a sacred 
grove that adjoins the temple' (quoting Adam of Bremen, 1075AD).

The god Odin would ride through the air on his trusty steed Sleipnir, and 
recipients of his benevolence would leave a shock of grain in their fields 
for Sleipnir. Elderly, overweight Thor rode through the air from his palace 
in the Northland in a chariot drawn by two goats, Cracker and Gnasher, to 
individual chimneys where he would descend into `his' element, fire. 
Naturally, he wore red. The transformation of goats to reindeer and increase 
in their number to eight seems to have taken place in the USA.

It doesn't help that Santa is an anagram for Satan. (-:

Christmas literally means `Christ-death', yet Christmas is supposedly about 
Christ's birth (Easter is supposedly about Christ's death, but Easter is a 
whole sad story by itself).

Christ wasn't born in Palestinian midwinter; amongst other things, shepherds 
wouldn't be out in the field to `guard their flocks by night' because they'd 
need a crowbar to chip the pathetic, frozen bodies of their flocks off the 
ground in the morning. For the curious, there is much debate on the topic, 
but the most believable date I've seen picked is September 29, +/- 2 days. If 
Christians are supposed to celebrate Christ's birthday, why isn't the exact 
date well-known?

By a strange `coincidence', the winter solstice falls about then, and many 
Pagan cultures celebrate the rebirth of their chosen sun-god on the day. 
Christians are invited to read Ezekiel chapter 8 WRT sun gods.

Sun gods of particular interest here are Tammuz and Mithra. Tammuz' key 
concept is symbolised by a small tree growing out of the stump of a large 
tree. In the northern hemisphere, the Yule log is burned on Christmas Eve - 
as Pagans have done for many centuries, apparently starting in Scandinavia - 
to symbolise the destruction of the old, and the young, evergreen Christmas 
tree symbolises the renewal.

Mithra's contributions include having Aurelian establish the festival of Dies 
Invicti Solis, `The Day of the Invincible Sun', on December 25th.

And of course, the festival of Saturn/Kronos is kind of evident today `All 
work and business was suspended. Slaves were given temporary freedom to say 
and do what they liked, and certain moral restrictions were eased [e.g. 
alcohol was freely drunk, even by children]. The streets were infected with a 
Mardi Gras madness, a mock king was chosen (Saturnalia pinceos). The seasonal 
greeting "I O Saturnalia" was heard everywhere. Presents were freely 
exchanged, principally wax candles and little clay dolls (sigillaria).' The 
candles are symbolic of the light of the renewed sun dispelling the darkness.  
Carols by candle-light. Hmm. Not left over from Druidic chants? (-:

What have I missed? Oh, yes, holly and mistletoe (`kiss under'), the evergreen 
symbols of regeneration worn by Saturn. These evergreens were so well 
connected with winter solstice rites that for a very long time they were 
banned from churches.

For about 200 years from the 1600s to the 1800s, celebrating Christmas was 
against the law in the USA. It's interesting that this law was not seen as a 
confusion of Church and State.

This is a condensation of part of the material available on the topic. The 
curious are referred to http://www.google.com.au/ (I started being redirected 
to that on about Thursday when I went to the main site).

Cheers; Leon