What is the Pagan Angle on Christmas?
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It’s Christmas Day 2008; and in view of that it just doesn’t seem right to post about technology today. – In fact most bloggers probably won’t be posting at all at this time. I’m my own person though; so as such I’m posting on Christmas Day 2008. I write the odd Pagan article in this blog every now and again; because I can, and because I want to. Largely this is a technology-related blog; and as such it shall remain largely that way. As a Pagan, though, I see things from a Pagan perspective, and I therefore relate things from such a perspective. Although the subject of technology is very much identical despite whatever one’s religious beliefs may be; I do like to use this blog to focus, at times, on areas only loosely related to technology: Even at times I post the occasional article unrelated to technology, and this is one of those times:- It being Christmas Day I thought I’d post about Christmas Day – And why not? Behold the following ramblings:-
I was watching the church service on BBC1 that interfaced Christmas Eve with Christmas Day: Yes I actually find even the Christian chants melodious; in a few cases even more so than a lot of the Pagan chants. – Anyway I was thinking of the Christian message at this time of year. A virgin birth? Yes it’s possible. There is a syndrome around even today, known as Turner’s Syndrome, where in certain women, unfertilised eggs can develop into embryos. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote on Turner’s Syndrome in 2003, the content of which was sourced from a publication on the subject:-
"All such births are female and have a condition known as Turner’s Syndrome; signs of which include raised capillaries near to the dermal surface, sometimes causing vivid birthmarks and intermittent dermal haemorrhage, especially during periods of exercise and stress. Also breast development in these subjects is limited, however the rib cage is large in proportion to that of other females. Despite having fully-formed female genitals; menstruation is uncommon in women with Turner’s Syndrome."
But Jesus (Latin) or Yeshua (Hebrew) was a man wasn’t he? Well allegedly so yes; but factually we have in reality no idea exactly what he looked like, or for that matter what sex he actually was. Note I said what sex he actually was: All indications from the Bible are that he was a male; but the validity of, in places contrary accounts written by a number of different men over 40 years plus after his death, does not in any way appear to constitute believable evidence. On the contrary in fact; it would appear to be drawn from local memory and from hearsay more than from fact. Could he not just as easily have been a non-menstruating Turner’s Syndrome female posing as a man? All we have are seemingly-erroneous accounts from a few of his friends written a long time after he died, plus further accounts of a similar nature written by people who never actually knew him in person. I refer here to the Gnostic Gospel writers as well as to the four Gospel-writers in the Christian Bible as it is today. Any amount of factual, unbiased, study will lead you to the fact that the celebration of Christmas as we know it today is based upon a blending of Pagan and original Christian teachings: The date of the Christmas celebration coming from the Roman Pagan festival of Saturnalia, dedicated to the deity of an an all-male Roman cult of Mithras, whose teachings were strangely in line with Christian mythology of present-day-times. It is evident, then, that they have the original date of the birth of this alleged male; Yeshua, wrong – and that the real date of birth of this "man" is lost forever: ‘Strange that: Such an important figure’s records are seemingly eternally lost. What we do know is that this man; if male is indeed his true sex, and if the Biblical accounts of the shepherds watching their flocks by night are also true; that his birth date couldn’t have been in December. It would appear, at a logical guess, that it would more likely have been in September. It gets rather cold – near freezing at times – by night at those latitudes, even in the Middle-East, in December. In all probability no shepherd would be sitting around outside watching sheep all night at that time of year. The Biblical accounts are all synonymous with one another in their claim that this person was the "Son of God". The first question is; which god? Well from the Jewish belief we can safely assume that the writers mean Yaweh, the Jewish god. Once again, though, there is little if any, solid concrete evidence for this claim. He could just as easily have been a Witch; after all he did have a coven of followers. Yes; the Biblical account says that he talked to his father, god (Yaweh).- But we’ve already had ample cause to dispute the validity of those accounts which were written years after his death. I don’t mean to go much further with this article; and I’m not going to do so, other than to point out in summary that we can’t be sure, without at least a shadow of a doubt, that Yeshua was even male; nor can we be sure that he was the son of the Jewish god – or for that matter any god. What we can be sure is almost certainly wrong is that Christmas was not the time of the birth of Yeshua, but rather the time of a Pagan festival that was adopted by the church.
Although I don’t myself celebrate Christmas itself out of personal preference, preferring instead to celebrate the Winter Solstice or Yule on or around the 21st December only; I see no reason why it should be against Pagan beliefs to do so; bearing in mind its Pagan origins. There’s certainly nothing un-Pagan or anti-Pagan about doing so. It’s the Feast of Mithras after all, and all of the symbolism contained therein as regards the "Christian" celebration has Pagan origins:- The Yule-log, the tree, the baubles on the tree representing the Sun; indeed Santa himself, have Pagan roots probably stretching back millennia.
Whether you’re Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, whatever; enjoy this festive time of year. This is a truly multi-theistic celebration that pretty much all faiths or non-faiths can celebrate. Enjoy it and season’s greetings to you all. If you’d like to comment I’d be interested to know your thoughts on this.
- And don’t worry: I’ll be talking tech again very soon; so do drop by again for more in the line of geekery.
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