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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18962
[Society]
Date Posted:
12/1/2007
8:42:32 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 7,151
RSS: 16,215
Comments: 23
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There's Good Reason For Calling The Season 'Christmas'
Author: Stan Nelson Source: Pueblo Chieftan (CO)
Title: THERE'S GOOD REASON FOR CALLING THE SEASON 'CHRISTMAS'
The Christmas season is under way, and so, presumably, begins the tiresome, annual controversy over religious sensitivity. Should we call it Christmas, or not?
Might as well fire our shots now. It's Christmas, as in Christ.
Ask yourself this: Would there be any wintertime celebration in modern civilization if, for some reason, the events of Christmas didn't happen?
The record seems to indicate there wouldn't be. A lot of winter solstice-based pagan celebrations survive only among small knots of enthusiasts who somehow discovered them and practice pale imitations on the appointed, or estimated, days.
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Community Thoughts: There are 23 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| GRRRR.... | Dec 3rd. at 4:57:07 am EST
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Whitewolf (Schenectady, New York) - Email Me
I said in my last comment "the shortest night and longest day...." I MEANT to say "the shortest day and longest night!" I goofed, sorry!
Love to all
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| Oh Give Me A Break | Dec 2nd. at 5:58:13 am EST
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Moonlight Wolf (Bradford, England) - Email Me
This guy has obviously done no research on the subject of Paganism and very little research on the subject of winter holidays.
Christmas trees and holly wreaths are Pagan, not Christian and most people celebrate Christmas to give gifts, eat and be merry. (many get drunk as well.)
In fact when Oliver Cromwell came to power he wanted to stop people from celebrating Christmas and wanted it to be a day of reflection and reverance.
This is my opinion but I imagine most people would want to open presents, eat, get drunk and be merry than simply spend the day reflecting upon their lives.
This article is an attack on Paganism. I believe there would have been winter festivals if Christianity had not come to the west. Yes they may have been localised but who cares. Localised festivals and lifestyles were influenced by the landscape around them.
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| First Off... | Dec 2nd. at 5:01:29 am EST
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Rhiannon Dragonraine (St. Robert, Colorado) - Email Me - Web
Let me say how hilariously ironic it is that he RAILS against the media for using it on slow news days- guess what buddy you just got used as a vehicle for media agenda!
Secondly I am saddened that drivel like this is posted at all, let alone such unfounded and unresearched drivel.
Thirdly I want to say that I think the schools and such call it the "Winter holiday season" because a season is much longer than a day. Let's see if this guy can follow simple math: Christmas is one day, a season consists of 3 months which is equal to 90 days which means that christmas is 1/9th or .01% of the entire winter SEASON! I have no problem with you referring to the 25th of Dec. as Christmas- it is when you add season that it becomes misleading- by his way of thought than Channukah (which spans 8 days making it .08% of the entire Winter Holiday season) should be the namesake of the season simply by taking up the majority of the time, leaving out Christmas altogether; not to mention Kwanza, Yule, advent, and New Year's Eve, Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, Ground Hogs day/ Imbolc, St Patricks day and so on in this 3 month period of Winter spanning from Dec. To March- with Christmas being one day out of 90 I don't see why we should call it the "Christmas Season" - Christmas Day yes! The season is Winter and there are other holidays with in that season besides Christmas this is where my issue lies. Over all I agree with him that i am tired of the debates over what to call it but I don't understand this need to overshadow anything that isn't of your religion.
Well I think I have said my two cents worth. Anyway I wish everyone a Happy/ and or Merry whatever holiday they chose to celebrate and may they find them selves warm and fed all winter.
Bright Blessings,
Solstice Rayne
Also I have included a link to my own personal thoughts on this particular subject.
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| I Wrote To The Writer | Dec 2nd. at 2:22:25 am EST
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Arachne Priestess (Cookeville, Tennessee) - Email Me
and told him he had given me something to be thankful for this New Years, inappropriate fertility rites. He wrote me back with a one word response, 'Yipe!' LMAO
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| Speaking Of Ignorant Fools... | Dec 2nd. at 1:44:09 am EST
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Orion 6Xray (Park City, Kentucky) - Email Me - Web
To everyone who stood with me in the online poll at the Family Research Council website here is an update. We won that poll and Tony Perkins attributed to a few web savvy homosexuals. And to prove himself right that the web savvy homosexuals skewed he is leaving it up there but blocking certain I.P. addresses so that they cannot vote. He made his rules and now that we mobilized to prove him wrong he breaks them in favor his buddies. He is allowing people in his faith to vote again but if you do not have a I.P. address that doesn’t match one of his members list he will block you.
So here is the short of it, the poll is open for one more week and I recommend that if you can vote again do it. If you can go to school and vote on multiple computers, do it. Spread this message around to Pagans, Homosexuals, Transgender, alike.
Keep up the good work and if we can do that to a poll just by a few people passing email, imagine what we can accomplish when we all unite under a common banner and cause. On top of that Tony Perkins is one of the multitudes that start the xmas war every year by fostering divisiveness with his friend or foe campaign. If we could unite the Pagan, Homosexual, Transgender, and anyone else who has or is feeling the sting from these intolerant despicable people then “WE” would be a force to be reckoned with. That way we could ostracize those who have creeds and faiths diametrically opposed to the human event. That being anyone with a creed or dogma that states they are the only true way and their doctrine passes judgment, forced conversion, and execution for non-believers. That way the reins of power stay in the hands of those who can reason, reflect, and exercise law with ethical virtue.
[Web LINK]
Yours in the fight,
Orion
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| Oh, How Convenient... | Dec 2nd. at 12:25:07 am EST
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
So, it was the Christians who gave the world Christmas... Okay, that much may be true. But the idea that there would be absolutely no celebrations at all if it were not for the Christians.....
Just where, does this fruitcake think, did the practice of placing an EVERGREEN TREE in the house come from? What about decorating said tree with lights? How about hanging Mistletoe? Or just the idea of celebrating the RETURN OF TO THE EARTH? I would list more things that are definitely PAGAN in origin, but I think we all know them by now (and if you don't, then you have either been living in a cave - or you just haven't been paying attention) . Heck, the time of year for the whole thing was chosen by the Pagans....
Yep, it was the Christians who gave us Christmas, alright -- but not the trappings of Christmas. Those were in use a LONG time before the Christians showed up.
----nasionnaich
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| You Say Potato, I'll Say Potahto.. | Dec 1st. at 8:41:11 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
Time to lay this argument to it's proper resting place among the other equally ridiculous arguments by which we have been assailed as of late.
He might call it "Christmas", but there are many who do not, nor do they need to.
And there are many who do not see JC as the "reason for the season"-but rather the return of sunlight and longer days to our Earth.
This predated Xtianity, and Constantine, who incorporated it into the religion as a political expediency, to win converts away from Mithras, a known Sun God.
The real problem isn't in those who call it something different, but in those who insist we call it christmas just to please a sense of religious ego.
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| What I Wrote To Stan | Dec 1st. at 6:48:07 pm EST
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Dana Corby (Anderson Island, Washington) - Email Me
Well, Stan, your article was as usual full of misinformation, wild suppositions, and parochialism. But for once, I agree with your main point. I happen to be a Wiccan high priestess, and I'm with you on the issue of what to call Christmas. It's Christmas, for heaven's sake, it has always been Christmas in America, and I hope it will always be Christmas in America!
It's not we Pagans who object to the Christ in Christmas, but the corporations who own the stores that are afraid to use a 'sectarian' word lest it alienate somebody who probably has no intention of buying any of their stuff anyway. It's the cowardly politicians who, rather than allow the symbols of every religion that celebrates the midwinter festival in whatever guise to go up in the town square, are forbidding any display at all. And it's the fault of the radical 'Christians,' most of whom would not recognize Christ if he stepped on their foot, whining and moaning about having to share the world with non-Christians. All the joy is being squeezed out of life by a bunch of selfish, boorish, short-sighted grinches.
Christmas is, despite your contentions, based in part on wide-spread European Pagan beliefs and customs. It's not that big a philosophical leap from the rebirth of the Sun to the birth of the Son, which is why the church fathers put the celebration of Christ's Mass on the Winter Solstice, where it stayed until the reorganization of the calendar in the 18th century. It's one of the few times of the year when we who've been moved to separate ourselves from mainstream religion can feel like we share anything with the families who, while they may still love us, don't understand us at all. If to us it's Winter Solstice - - Yule - - that's sacred and Christmas that's merely cultural instead of the other way around, that's a minor thing. We are all celebrating the birth of the Light, the miraculous Child, from the darkness. We are all in need of the love and closeness and joy of the family circle to make it through the dark times.
I want to see the beautiful chreches brought out of their ignominious storage in thousands of church basements and town warehouses and up on display again, and I want to see them alongside menorahs the size of goal posts and Yule sun-faces shining like klieg lights in every town square and shopping mall in the country. I want to sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' and the 'Dreidel Song' with my neighbors, and have them sing 'Sun Arise' along with me. This time of year, as at no other, we are one. Or we could be, if the grinches would just keep out of it.
I'd like to refer you to a song that charmingly expresses the Pagan & Wiccan attitude toward Christmas, "The Christians and the Pagans," by Dar Williams, at: [Web LINK]
A Blessed Yule and a Merry (& Proud to Say it) CHRISTMAS
Dana Corby
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| ... | Dec 1st. at 3:38:56 pm EST
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
This idiot needs to get away from the crack pipe once in a while.
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| I Will Never Celebrate Thanksgiving Again | Dec 1st. at 3:38:36 pm EST
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
This little bit of research inspires me to celebrate the time of cheap turkey meat as something entirely other than Thanksgiving - christians are wonderful people.
Let us remember a glimpse of the REAL history of Thanksgiving. The year was 1637.....700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their annual "Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now known as Groton, Conn. While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they
were surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down.
The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared:
"A Day of Thanksgiving", thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children. For the next 100 years, every
"Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a governor or president was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.
This shows how a little history goes a long way to spoil modern day holidays - I would rather have a little inappropriate fertility rite myself.
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| We Could Leave It At Dec 25 As The Romans Did | Dec 1st. at 3:29:51 pm EST
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
and, do as they did and celebrate all of the sun gods at once - all they really did was add christ to the list of sun gods celebrated on that day. After all, they ruled most of the known world and, what they said WAS the law. They changed the name to christmas because the christians turned out to be the worst set of jews they had ever tried to rule and they just gave in.
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| One Comment: | Dec 1st. at 2:39:52 pm EST
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Arachne Priestess (Cookeville, Tennessee) - Email Me
Lets give thanks this year for totally inappropriate fertility rites!!! Darn, and Thanksgiving is already over too. If only he had put this stupid article out a week ago. Sigh....well at least now we have something for New Years!! lmao
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| Christmas Is Defined By "Pagan Celebrations!" | Dec 1st. at 2:29:48 pm EST
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Stormsinger (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) - Email Me
All the trappings of Christmas that this writer probably fondly remembers, other than standing (or sitting) in church and listening to sermons, stem from Pagan celebrations, including the time of year in which they are performed. Why? Because the Pagan peoples who were coerced or convinced to become Christian did so generally on the understanding that they could keep their "traditions" intact under the new religion. Some were given "Christian" meanings, but some (mistletoe, anyone?) were adopted in their entirety. I suspect if you name just about ANY Christmas tradition, I could find you the Pagan seasonal equivalent in under two minutes.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. " To which I'll add: except perhaps willful ignorance and making a virtue of stupidity.
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| This Gentleman .... | Dec 1st. at 12:18:31 pm EST
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Leafy (Albuquerque, New Mexico) - Email Me
.... is engaging in some heavy wishful thinking. Christmas, Easter, etc., did "replace" ancient festivals, just as Ramadan, Purim, etc. displaced ancient celebrations where they existed. The more heavy-handed a belief system is, the more it will take over.
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| Ask Yourself This: | Dec 1st. at 12:01:52 pm EST
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Ursyl (Murrysville, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
Would there be any wintertime celebration in modern civilization if, for some reason, the events of Christmas didn't happen?
Yes there would, because the Solstice celebrations and such never fully went away.
Indeed, I notice that the Solstices still occur, whether honored/acknowledged or not, and the seasons change, regardless of our activities.
There have always been people who notice those hard facts, and sometimes honor them. They're called farmers, and we'd starve without them.
Imagine that, the world goes on.
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