cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10008769
Why do Christians put up saturnalia trees? 😝😝
A fun tradition is a fun tradition.
Lol it's so deeply ingrained right in front of everyone's nose. Magic Santa, magic reindeer, magic elves and that's just the stuff before propaganda like Rudolph and Frosty came around.
God forbid I get a Harry Potter book on Christmas and being magical thinking into this mess.
Old St.Nic is only dressed in red cause of coca-cola, more a capitalist celebration than a Christian one at this point
Well what do you know! Thanks for that.
Saturnalia trees are probably a myth.
The first references we have to Christmas trees are in 16th century Germany. They probably didn't come directly from any pagan traditions seeing as Germany had been Christian for multiple centuries at that point.
Fair…. Then why do Christian’s celebrate “Coca-Cola”? lol
Current Santa is from Coke lol
But honestly it was just funny, I don’t really care. Personally, I just like indoor trees
Current Santa is from Coke lol
Nope: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
Oh damn!
Ultimately I don’t much care either way, but interesting facts nonetheless!
I’ll do you one better: Why is Easter a fertility celebration? None of the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection directly tie it to fertility. These became popular as Christians became exposed to cultures that had spring fertility festivals.
The religious celebration of Christmas includes Advent wreaths, church services, and traditionalist music (Joy to the World, Silent Night, etc.) Everything else is the secular celebration.
It's what you get when you put at least half a dozen traditional festivities, customs and good old commercialisation and put them in the blender.
I personally think it’s fantastic when, every Dec 25th, the world comes together to celebrate Isaac Newton’s birthday.
I go a step further and respond to "merry Christmas" with "happy Newtonmas".
when the sciencemas tree gets filled with presents by darwin claus
Except that according to the Gregorian Calendar he was born January 4th, 1643.
You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
Does anyone actually celebrate Valentines day without a lover? Seems like the logic doesn't work
Yeah this is ahitty comeback
Used to go to giant valentines day parties
Orgies?
You mean those where people are supposed to meet and find a partner?
Why do Christians? Jesus was born in the summer.
I'm french and I have always been told that our Gaullish ancestors had festivities going on at that date already and the roman empire made sure to destroy our culture and traditions by replacing our celebrations. They also built churches on the exact same spots as our previous cult places. Like, they even built a new city (Tours) from scratch to make Amboise become irrelevant. Christmas was part of the violence inflicted to our ancestors
That's the only correct answer. Just use the existing celebration dates, and remove the old religion.
Why on earth doesn't modern Christians question the Eastern celebration, which follows the moon-calendar?
We don't actually really know.
One idea is that Jesus's conception was said to have been in March for assorted reasons, and December is 9 months after March.
Another is that it appropriated Roman solstice celebrations.
One of the main reasons to believe that the birth date of Jesus is not reliable is because we have historical records of when there were censuses, and they tended to not to be in the winter months for fairly obvious practical reasons. There is no record of one occurring in December or anywhere near that time around the supposed date of his birth, so how could Jesus have been born on the way to a census if there wasn't one in December?
The only option is that the date of the birth is out by about 10 years (there was a census in December 10 years earlier) or the month of his birth is out by about 6 months. Which of those two options we don't know but we definitely know he wasn't and couldn't be born at the date that the bible says. The reason people go for the summer birth hypothesis is it's easier to understand how the date could have been moved six months a lot less easy to understand how people could have thought he was 10 years younger than he actually was.
That's a pretty good reason.
The story of the census appears in the gospel of Luke, which was written around 100 CE and edited for a while afterwards.
It places Jesus' birth during the census of Quirinius, which happened in 6 CE.
That's flatly contradicted by the earlier gospel of Matthew, which has Jesus being born during the time of Herod the great who died in 1CE.
There's no historical evidence that Roman censuses required people to go to the town they were born in; it'd be such a big disruption that it seems fairly implausible. It's more likely that the story about the census was made up by early Christians who were trying to edit details of the story to make Jesus fulfill more prophecies.
One thing that isn't in the Bible? Christmas.
Christmas trees are though - and specifically forbidden
What? Can you cite that?
I am (s)lightly joking. I'm referring to this passage which does seem to describe Christmas trees. Although if you're actually doing a deep theological study you can make a good argument for how it's referring to a specific form of idolatry — but it is amusingly close!
Jeremiah 10 NIV
1 Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel. 2 This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. 3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4 They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter.
Well there you go. God is against Christmas trees!
His question has a logic in his mind. Religious holiday, non-religious folk, what gives?
Of course the logic breaks down at the tiniest amount of scrutiny, but that would be beyond the capacity of Kevin's little head.
Just celebrating Yule or the Winter Solstice.
Sol Invictus
Saturnalia!
I get paid time off from work during christmas (or jul, as we call it here). I will celebrate anything that gives me paid time off
Between the stroke-induced brain damage and the religion-induced brain damage, Sorbo is pretty much at the point where we should wrap him, put in a bow and throw him in the nearest dumpster.
I'd miss the clever replies he attracts, though.
Because Christmas is as much about Christianity as my rear end. It's a nice festivity that comes from old customs, and nobody has a problem with keeping the nicer parts of culture and customs while filtering out the crappy parts.
Because parties are fun dumbass.
Oh, please show me where in the Bible we can read about anything about Christmas!
I didn't need the reminder but I like it and I love the burn. What an idiot.
Posts of clever comebacks in response to someone.
Rules: