shit i think i am a heathen

does anybody remember this one from the old 'love4oneanother.com'?...i thought it made some interesting points...


The Holey Season...
happy birthday 2 who?

Here we r, a handful of days away from the celebration called Christmas.
But
where does this Dec. 25th 'holy day' come from? Was it really Christ's date
of birth?

Nowhere in the Bible or in writings of his day, is Christ's actual birth
date mentioned. Yet the New Testament offers clues 4 calculation:

Luke 1:5 states: "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a certain
priest named Zacharias, of the daily division of Abijah…"

Priests worked 'divisions' (shifts of approx. 2 weeks) in the temple; each
division named 4 its leader (full list at 1 Chronicles 24:10). Abijah was
the eighth of 24 divisions, so Zacharias' shift would have been around the
15th-16th weeks of the year. (Remember, March was the 1st month of the
Hebrew year.)

Luke 1 goes on 2 xplain that during Zacharias' turn in the temple, the
angel
Gabriel appears and tells Zacharias his wife, Elizabeth (who had been
unable
2 bear children), would conceive. He returns home after his shift, and soon
his wife is pregnant.


Calendar math 101
Let's look at the Hebrew months as they correlate 2 r Western calendar:
(note: Hebrew month lengths vary slightly from the western system, so some
overlapping occurs.)

Nisan (Abib) = March
Iyyar (Ziv) = April
Sivan = May
Tammuz = June
Ab = July
Elul = August
Tishri (Ethanim) = September
Marchesvan = October
Chislev = November
Tebeth = December
Shebat = January
Adar = February


The division of Abijah, 15 weeks in2 the year, would've been near the last
2
weeks of Tammuz, June. Zacharias would've been back home by the beginning
of
Ab, the following month, and soon after, his wife had become pregnant.

In Luke 1:26-37, Gabriel visits Mary and in4ms her she will bear a son,
Jesus. He also tells her that her cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth month of
pregnancy. (doing the math, this would've been sometime during the month of
Tebeth, December). Mary conceives soon after - by the time she hurries 2
Elizabeth's village, the enspirited Elizabeth realizes she is talking 2 the
mother of Christ.

Counting nine full months from the end of Tebeth is the month of Tishri -
late September/early October on r calendars. If Mary had a full-term
pregnancy, Jesus would've been born around this time.

One can only speculate the actual date of birth, but from the sources at
hand, it appears 2 b far from Dec. 25.

So y is Christmas celebrated when it is, and y is it called Christmas?


Travelling back 2 the early years of this millennium, we find Greeks and
Romans still holding strong 2 the ancient religious systems honoring their
own deities - time gods, earth goddesses and war gods whose names r still
repeated thru the naming of the months, days, planets and constellations.
Every change of season was attributed 2 one of these deities.

In 273 AD, the emperor Aurelian officially declared Dec. 25 the Roman
winter
solstice (solar standstill) festival. (note: winter solstice is the
shortest
day of the year - days prior 2 it r progressively shorter, those after it
gain the lost daylight back.) It was called Birthday of the Unconquered
Sun,
a feast which signaled the day in which the ancient sun god Mithras-Apollo
would reverse the cycle of dwindling daylight hours and 1ce again banish
the
darkness with more light -- the sun was 'reborn'.

When Constantine 'legalized' Christianity in 313, it wasn't long b4 this
feast was adopted as the celebration of Christ - the one who eternally
banished darkness. This 'new spin' on an old tradition allowed those with
clandestine polytheistic beliefs 2 continue celebrating them under the
guise
of Christianity.



What's in a name? Sick but true...
The word Christmas does not mean 'birth of Christ' at all, as we have been
led 2 believe. Let's look up its roots: Christ + Mass. 'Christ' means
"anointed;" 'mass' comes from Latin "missa", which meant '2 send away.'
Catholic masses got that name bcuz at the end of them, the priest would
say,
'ite missa est', meaning: "go, it is the dismissal."

Christmas is a celebration of sending Christ away?!! It almost seems so,
when we c his actual date of birth has been clouded by the fog of time, and
is instead noted on the day of an ancient pagan celebration (how convenient
- the tradition stays the same!).

Another tradition has attached itself 2 this holey season: 'purchase envy,'
the competition 2 c who can buy the best gifts. Visit a toy store during
this time and watch greed, tempers and words fly when another gets in the
way of the master Santaplan. Hardly a way 2 honor Christ, or any1 4 that
matter!

Y is there only one day in honor of the one who said honor one another,
EVERY day? Let us honor one another ALL days thru unselfish love, and
therein rediscover the greatest gift of all.



---

lord, it gets worse as the years progress...

its called the Celebration of Michaelmas or Winter Solstice...


dayum pagans don't have these issues...Ooops i mean problems...i'd hate to be his kid, cheap bastard...

rio said:

I don't remember that one. Cool you were able to post that again. 8)

july said:

It was reposted for reference because it was sent out by NPGMC last year. I do agree with some of it, and I disagree with some of it. 8) But I don't actually celebrate any holidays.
[This message was edited Sun Dec 8 3:26:26 PST 2002 by july]

Happy B-day Santa!

totally off topic, but can u post that pic in your avatar so i can see it big july please? it looks lovely!

Christmas is crap, really.

Fun for children tho'.

Therapy said:

This my avatar enlarged it looks different for some reason?

july said:

awww DON'T BRING that shit back here! We're still trying to forget that from LAST year dammit

Christmas may very well be from pagan or mistaken origins, just like almost everything else if you look into its history, but I choose to celebrate the birth of Christ who came to earth and was murdered speaking the Truth so that ALL of us may know that we have a Father who loves us forever and will deliver us unto His kingdom someday. Whether you celebrate his first day of coming to this earth in March, December, October, or any month, or you choose to give gifts or put up a tree, the important thing to remember is this is a time for family and love, a time to reflect on the gifts that God gives us everyday, including the gift and birth of his Son. I am just trying to say that just because something may have started out in shambles, doesn't mean that it can't manifest into something beautiful and right. I don't know many Christians who celebrate Christmas the way it was created back in the BC times. I celebrate Life and Love on Christmas and certainly don't feel that it is wrong to do so.