Pagan Christmas!!??

Do not let your hearts be troubled by Christian Christmas-bashers calling the Season Pagan.

Have you ever encountered a Christian Christmas-basher? I know plenty.

I am talking about a growing number of Enlightened Christians, some ex-Catholic anti-Catholics, who roam about on social media, waging war against Yuletide cheer. They must be heroes in their minds, risking “everything” to inform blind saps like me that Christmas is Pagan. 

“Did you know that Christmas is a PAGAN holiday?” they ask. “Did you know that Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas? Because it’s PAGAN.” And so on.

To understand, here’s a video breakdown.

Watch out! It’s Pagan!!

Recently, I saw a Christmas bashing post on Facebook, Internet Island of Misfit Toys, with this header: 

WHY ARE CHRISTIANS STILL PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS TREES? 

What followed was the usual nonsense about how many Christians betray Jesus each Christmas. Then comes the usual spiel about how we jeopardize our eternal salvation by pandering to the Pagan gods such a Kris Kringle, Jack Frost, and evil Rudolf.

Receiving this dire warning, I wondered, do these Christmas killjoys know how inconsistent they are? For example, for those of them that are married, why are these Christians wearing wedding rings? Or veils? And why they have “best men” and “courts” at their weddings? If they were consistent, shouldn’t they reject Western wedding celebrations because almost every element in them comes from the pagan world?  

Pagan? Or the Misuse of Intelligence?

For that matter, going by their “logic,” why do Christians learn astronomy and math? In the time of Jesus, astrology, mathematics, and astronomy were all one and the same. There really wasn’t much difference between solving a geometry problem and giving a horoscope. Our Bible ends with a great example of this, the book of Revelation. It’s an astronomic report full of gods (Mediterranean sky entities) other than Yahweh. Therefore, according to the Christmas-bashers’ logic, shouldn’t they reject the book of Revelation? 

Of course, we aren’t really talking about logic here. We are talking about stupidity, the misuse of intelligence. And in this case, we are dealing with a psychological blockage that prevents clear thinking. 

The stupidity can grow absurdly in Christmas-bashers. Why should they, as Christians, sing, dance, and play instruments at worship?—after all, the “Pagans” did that wildly as they immolated the persecuted Christians.

Pagan Weekdays

 Whenever a Christian Christmas-basher approaches me with his or her Christmas bashing, I always ask them about the weekday. “What day is it?” I ask them. Usually, they respond by telling me the day of the week. For instance, “Wednesday.” And then I’ll ask them, “and so yesterday was Tuesday?” And they’ll affirm that. “And tomorrow will be Thursday, right?” “Of course,” they invariably say.

They go to pieces when I then greet them as a fellow Pagan, informing them that Wednesday is the day of Wōden—Odin (in runic, ᚢᚦᛁᚾ), King of the Norse gods. I explain that because the All-Father travels so swiftly, it is sensible for him to be associated with his day, Wōdnesdæg, or Wednesday. This is because, after this hump-day, the rest of the week follows quickly.

Once, one of these Christmas-killjoys, a Latin American, stopped me at that point, informing me that he doesn’t call it “Wednesday,” but rather miércoles. I promptly commended him for honoring Mercury, the swift messenger god of Mediterranean peoples. I applauded him for paying respect to his Latin Pagan roots by each week celebrating Mercury with Mercurii dies, or día de Mercurio (“Day of Mercury”). 

Inconsistently Pagan

Talk about inconsistency! These people get so upset with us celebrating Christmas once per year. Still, they don’t bat an eye about their own weekly celebrations of the god of the Sun (Sunnandæg = Sunday) and the Moon-goddess (Mōnandæg = Lunes = Moonday = Monday). Over fifty times each year. 

They reject Christmas, but each week honor Mars or Týr (ᛏᛁᚢᛦ or also Tíw in Old English), the god of war (Tiwesdæg  = Martes = Tuesday). 

Marvel Comics fans should always remember the origin of Thor’s Day, I mean Thursday (Þūnresdæg = Day of Thor). Or would it be more “orthodox” (more Mediterranean?) to call it jueves? That word relates to Jove or Jupiter, originating from the Greek Zeus-Pater (“Zeus Father”). This is followed by Friday or Freya’s Day or Venus’ Day if you call it viernes (like a venereal disease). 

Finally, we have Saturn’s Day, or Saturday, or sabado. In ancient Hebrew, the word for the planet Saturn is Shabbathai—from the Babylonian Saccuth. Uh oh! Looks like the Sabbath is pagan also! 

Pagan Bible

And what happens when these people learn that the Bible begins with a Persian-authorized mythic surrejoinder to the Babylonian Creation story? Or that Persian-authorized Scribes gave the Israelites their Exodus narrative? The satan, angels, devils, Pharisees (like Farsi), and resurrection ideas of righteous people becoming stars after they die? I guess we Christians are pretty screwed since everything Hebrew is already blended with the Pagan.

Every day is Pagan. The whole week comes from different pantheons of Pagan gods. Stop placing severe monotheism in the Old and New Testaments—it’s rarely encountered in the Scriptures. I am not saying it is UNTRUE, mind you. It just took our ancestors quite a while to arrive at it! 

New Testament communities were composed of mostly henotheistic Israelites honoring God’s sky servants while exclusively honoring their Patron God of Israel. They knew well of the seven glorious “wanderers” on the Ecliptic Pathway in Sky Vault. The book called “Revelation” showcases this celestial stuff on every page! We still maintain a ghost of this ancient tradition, birthed in the Pagan, filtered by many Pagan and polytheistic sky lore traditions.

The Way Out from Nonsense

Here are some essential things to keep in mind with all this Christmas-basing silliness. 

The first should be obvious but strangely is somewhat elusive to so many Christian dunderheads—symbols have at least two meanings. While an apple might mean the Fall of Humankind to one person, it merely implies lunch. Who’s correct? They both are. 

In the beginning was the interpretation. Get over yourself—your understanding is not necessarily more or less correct than someone else’s. Symbols are polyvalent. Therefore, no one interpreter owns the patent on what something means.

Pagan is Anachronism

The second thing to understand involves the misnomer “Pagan.” You see, “Pagan” is a much-abused word. This is because there weren’t any first-century “Pagans.” It wasn’t until after Constantine that Christian elites coined the term “Pagan.” They labeled it on non-Christians (see James J. O’Donnell’s “The Demise of Paganism,” in Traditio 35, pp. 45-88).

Therefore, “Pagan” is an anachronism when applied to celebrations and traditions existing before Constantine. When reading the Bible, instead of “Pagan,” use Gentile or non-Israelite.

Anthropological Pessimism

Third, any Christianity that sees evil as more pervasive than good in the world is pathetic, bearing a false and worthless gospel. It is tragic when Catholics approach things with a fundamentalistic and condemning “there is ABSOLUTELY nothing good about it” attitude. Such a position is ontologically absurd. We must continually learn to see God in all things, even as we forever refine our images of God. 

The chief catholic principle is sacramentality, the vision that sees God in all things. So in sacramentality, the early Church saw truth, goodness, and beauty in the Mediterranean and Germanic feasts, symbols, and practices. Therefore, she baptized them and disclosed Christ hidden therein. She found occasion in the “pagan” Winter Solstice feasts to celebrate the World’s unconquerable light, Jesus Christ. The calendar we share with the so-called pagans became our catechism. The so-called “pagan” Winter Solstice is an appropriate time to celebrate Christ’s nativity.

More Ridiculous Nastiness to End 2020

With Christmas trees going up and people decking the halls, morally-superior Christian Christmas-bashers want to dump on Christmas. This is yet another unnecessary insult at the end of a brutally long year, folks. 

I admit, there are many things about how people celebrate Christmas (whether Christian or secular) that need to be criticized, challenged, and seriously thought about. But people putting Christmas trees in their house being devil-worship? Who needs a Christianity that holds that nonsense?