My Muse, tired of sickness and pain and crutches and scooters (Lord, especially scooters!) keeps coming back to The Season, which is Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. And the New Year, of course. Essentially, it's an American combination of religious celebrations and rites, a time to reflect on what was and will be, and a time for family. And a time for unbridled spending although this year's awful economic downturn, THE worst since the Great Depression, will probably cause the retailers to justify firing thousands of full-time workers in addition to the seasonal help added for the Christmas rush.
An aside: see what wars bring ya? Especially tax breaks for the wealthy during war? And record-breaking deficit spending by those frugal, small-government advocating Republicans...naw, let's blame it on the black guy! He's a socialist, radical Muslim who wasn't even born in the United States, right?
And speaking of ridiculous conspiracies...I had a kind of interesting discussion with a friend recently over the manner in which the proponents of Creationism/Intelligent Design present their “intellectual”, as opposed to religious, arguments for replacing Darwinism with the concept that everything derives from a single Creator.
My friend's argument rested on this person's desire to believe that we are the product of God's infallible design and not the “less comforting” idea that we evolved from “primordial ooze.” Others who follow this ridiculousness have stated, incorrectly, that they are offended to be told they “come from chimps.” Well, the theory does not state empirically that we evolved “from chimps”; instead, it predicts that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill.
The fact of the matter is that Creationism does not stop with a critique of Darwinism; rather, it is but the starting point of a critique of secular humanism/materialism and it relies on scare tactics outlined in the Wedge Strategy that connects the dots from Darwin to the Devil, to Karl Marx and to Sigmund Freud, among others. It's not the oddly repugnant idea that we possibly evolved from ooze; it's the sinful repudiation of The Bible as The Infallible source to every question residing in every fundamentalist's heart of hearts. Yes, I know, the same group that ostensibly proselytizes the peaceful teachings of Jesus Christ and strongly identifies itself as pro-life also supports the use of torture as well as the war in Iraq.
This antagonistic view of progressive thought makes one wonder if the freeing of the slaves and suffrage for American women would be platforms supported by this group or not. After all, the Bible is rife with references to the woman's subservience to man as well as the use of slaves. In fact, the system of apartheid that brutally divided the ethnic groups of South Africa between White masters and everyone else was largely a construct of Dutch Calvinists in the Dutch Reformed Church. Let us not forget that our own heritage springs from Calvinists benignly referred to as “Pilgrims” or “Puritans” were the same folks who burned witches at the stake and whose vestige (from Latin vestigium for 'footprint' ) includes our own version of apartheid called “Jim Crow Laws” and the continued assumption that whites are more or less superior to darker skinned citizens.
Why do you think Pres. Obama has more death threats than any preceding U.S. President in recorded history? Why do you think the idea of whites as a minority scares the bejeezus out of so many white folk? Why does the school that some relatives attend in Talibama allow boys to pray aloud while the girls are to pray in silence in recognition of their subservient status to men? And I ain't talking about 150 years ago. They attend now. And they don't learn science in science class. Instead, they learn of Darwinism in a class entitled “Christian Evidences.”
In a related manner, the fundamentalists I've spoken with or read online adamantly believe in the literal, as in WORD-FOR-WORD, translation of the Bible. Which leads me to ask, “How do you address situations or issues not specifically written in the Bible?” What about entire books of the Bible edited out by men? How did we determine that December 25th is the actual date of Jesus' birth? Well below is a passage from Unexplained Mysteries of the World website that most will find interesting and, better yet, edifying. Please let me know what you think with the emphasis on the word 'think' and not 'let me know' for, if nothing else, I hope we can foster a site that encourages and promotes actual thinking and the rejection of passive acceptance of whatever is politically advantageous or makes me look good in the eyes of others. You know who you are.
Peace—JR
“Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th? Most people assume that it has always been a Christian holiday and that it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. But it turns out that Jesus was not born on December 25th. However, a whole bunch of pagan gods were born on that day.
In fact, pagans celebrated a festival involving a heroic supernatural figure that visits an evergreen tree and leaves gifts on December 25th long before Jesus was ever born. From its early Babylonian roots, the celebration of the birth or "rebirth" of the sun god on December 25th came to be celebrated under various names all over the ancient world. You see, the winter solstice occurs a few days before December 25th each year. The winter solstice is the day of the year when daylight is the shortest. In ancient times, December 25th was the day each year when the day started to become noticeably longer. Thus it was fitting for the early pagans to designate December 25th as the date of the birth or the "rebirth" of the sun.
The truth is that thousands of years before there was a "Santa Claus", there was another supernatural figure who would supposedly visit a tree and leave gifts every December 25th.
His name was Nimrod.
The celebration of December 25th goes all the way back to ancient Babylon.
According to ancient Babylonian tradition, Semiramis (who eventually became known as the goddess Astarte/Asherah/Ashtoreth/Isis/Ishtar/Easter in other pagan religions) claimed that after the untimely death of her son/husband Nimrod (yes she was married to her own son), a full grown evergreen tree sprang up overnight from a dead tree stump. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod would visit that evergreen tree and leave gifts each year on the anniversary of his birth, which just happened to be on December 25th.
This is the true origin of the Christmas tree.”
Interesting article, but it falls short on historical criticism, I'm afraid. The president who received the most death threats (weighed by the population of the United States at the time) was Lincoln. Since our population is much greater, the number of actual threats would be much greater. We also count the protesters holding signs about killing Obama as death threats and didn't do so under Bush. So the numbers are skewed, at best.
ReplyDeleteNice article for Christmas, but it, too, is overstated. The ancients didn't have our modern calendar, so putting a date out there is speculative. The "christmas tree" entered our traditions during the middle ages in Germanic states. Not too likely that they studied ancient religions, so it would probably be more likely that it entered for different reasons, even if it could be traced back thousands of years to Nimrod (Gen 10:8-11).
JR, I agree wholeheartedly that fundamentalists are whack. I also think that any religion whose beliefs are more important than human dignity, safety, and health is nothing but a facade for "we are better". But, considering all the angles, it behooves us to try to deal with a present issue without trying to destroy with the knowledge of previous superstitions. This just makes the believer more defensive and more likely to act out than to think.
Good job in general, and I hope you get the "true" meaning of, and spirit of, Christmas before the holiday passes... that being: whatever is good for you. The religious find it religiously edifying, while the pagans have a good reason to party and shop. Both are valid.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteYour comments are both erudite and appreciated; however, I have to challenge your Dec 25th as a modern date criticism. I believe the reason Dec 25th is most often noted as the "rebirth" of the sun is based on the solstice, which is always gonna be on the same day of the year regardless of the calendar used.
Also, I'm not quite sure what you're saying in para#3: would you please rephrase for the slower thinkers in the group, viz. me?
Thanks for reading,
JR