Why do Christians celebrate Christmas?

[Amergin]

I wonder why this holiday is important to those who claim to believe in Jesus of Nazareth. There are weak reasons.

1. Was Jesus born on the Winter Solstice?

2. Scholars (Christian ones) say Jesus was born in the spring of the year as sheep are set out to pasture.

3. Traditional Pagan religions had the Sun God die at the night of the Winter Solstice as the Solar angular distance is in the Southern Hemisphere. Then on the following day, the Sun God is born again (the solar angle starts to shine further north as the Earth's axis begins to tilt back toward the Sun.) The Morning after the Winter Solstice is supposed to be the rebirth (resurrection) of the Sun God.

4. In the spring as new growth starts. The Sun God does not die. He exerts full power as humans plant their crops. The symbols of Easter are not death images but life images (flowers, rabbits, young animals like lambs, and birds.) The Cross of Roman Death has no place in Easter. Easter is not a time of Death.

Conclusion:

The birth of infant Jesus should be lambing time of Easter when animals and plants are beginning to grow.

The death and resurrection of Jesus, the Sun God, should be at the Winter Solstice. He dies, as the days get shorter and is dead at the peak of the Solstice. Then when the Earth slowly reverses its angle to Earth, and days start to lengthen, that is the resurrection of the Sun God (Jesus, Mithras, Lugh, Lieu, Baldur, and others in the Indo-European Traditions.

So, should Christianity switch Christmas and Easter to make more sense?

The Cross of Death should be displayed at the day before the Winter Solstice (Dec 20 or 21.) It is the death of the Sun God. In addition, the day after the peak of Solstice should be the Resurrection of Jesus from the Tomb giving the hope of survival of the people.

Good Friday should be abolished or celebrated before the Winter Solstice, perhaps Dec 20.

Easter Sunday should be the Nativity Scene of Jesus born in a stable with young lambs. The visits of shepherds and Magi bringing gifts represent the agricultural peasants making gifts or sacrifices to the young Sun God. This hopefully will result in Jesus (Sun God) providing a plentiful growing season of summer leading to a good harvest.

Amergin

 

[wil]

Having fun are we?

I'll answer the OP as all the rest just seems intended be satyrical, rhetorical, comical or inciteful (as in riot, not consciousness).

I celebrate Christmas because my parents did, because it is a conventional norm, because my society does. Because I have good memories of it, because I enjoy it, because my kids enjoy it.

Now I had a coworker that asked me to write a Santa Claus letter for her child....it seems appropriate here....

From: the elves
Sent: Monday, December 013, 2010 9:54 AM
To: Jessica Poe
Subject: Letter received.

Jessica,

We are forwarding this to your email as we believe the letter we received from Megan was from your daughter. Can you please give this to her.


Elf letter department, north pole.

Fwd: From: Santa Claus
Sent: Monday, December 013, 2010 2:36 AM
To: Megan
Subject: Letter received.



Megan,

I really appreciate your taking the time to write. We love letters and knowing what children are doing in their lives.

It looks like you want some nice presents, and it looks like you are willing to clean your room in trade.

Can I tell you something? Christmas is really more of a reminder than an event. Some think of Christmas as Santa Claus bringing gifts, but my job is really to represent the gift giving, the help your friend, family and neighbor idea in all of us. You may know that Idea from the words of Jesus. Christmas not only represents his birth, but the birth of that idea, the idea of loving your neighbor, of taking care of family and friends, of helping others who don’t have as much, and of doing what is right….yes Christmas and I represent the birth of the idea of doing what is right, a reminder that we should be doing that all year long.

While there is nothing that makes Santa happier than the smile of child opening a present on Christmas morning; what makes Santa smile all year long is children doing what is right all year long. And you are right, keeping your room clean is part of that, helping out around the house is part of that, smiling and doing what your parents ask (even when you don’t want to) is part of that. All those things make Santa happy.

So while I expect you to honor your promise of cleaning your room, I want you to think about how else you can make Santa smile. And while I know you are going to get many of the gifts you want I want to ask you another question.

Can you make a list of the gifts you’ve already gotten all year long? Do you know that many kids in our world do not have a bed to sleep on or food to eat every day? Are you thankful for those gifts you’ve got? Do you know many children do not have a school to go to to learn new things every day? Do you know that there are many kids who in recent hurricanes and earthquakes have lost their parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents and friends….how many of those do you have to be thankful for?

So in the Christmas season, I always want kids to think of all the presents they’ve got (every day, every year) and all the presents they give, by smiling, by loving, by helping out, and by being a good friend to others.

I know you are a good little girl. I know you try, but I also know you know you could try harder. So if you have time (after you clean your room today), make a list of all those gifts that people (Your mom, your dad, your grandparents, your brother, your aunts and uncles, friends) and whatever you give them for Christmas, also give that list of presents (of things you are thankful for) to them. And you’ll get to smile like Santa does when he gives gifts.


Santa Claus

 

[wil]

Maybe the question really is, why do non christians celebrate Christmas?

More than nine in 10 Americans celebrate Christmas — even if they’re atheists, agnostics or believers in non-Christian faiths such as Judaism and Islam, according to two new surveys.

But the surveys also indicate that while most call Christmas a holy day that’s primarily religious, their actions speak volumes to the contrary.
Many skip church, omit Jesus and zero in on the egg nog, according to the polls done by LifeWay Research, a Nashville-based Christian research organization, and USA Today / Gallup Poll.

LifeWay’s survey of 2,110 adults found 74 percent called Christmas “primarily” religious. The Gallup Poll of 1,000 adults found 51 percent say that, for them, it’s “strongly religious,” up from 40 percent in 1989.
Most of those surveyed said they will give gifts (89 percent), dine with family or friends (86 percent), put up a Christmas tree (80 percent) and play holiday music (79 percent).

But the percentages plummet when it comes to religious activities: 58 percent say they “encourage belief in Jesus Christ as savior”; 47 percent attend church Christmas Eve or Christmas Day; 34 percent watch “biblical Christmas movies”; and 28 percent read or tell the Christmas story from the Bible.

“It’s alarming to me that while nine in 10 celebrate Christmas, only six in 10 encourage any belief in the source of Christmas and only three in 10 actually read the story of Christmas,” says Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay.

Gannett News Service

Scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins has admitted he does celebrate Christmas - and enjoys singing traditional Christmas carols each festive season.
The writer and evolutionary biologist told singer Jarvis Cocker that he happily wishes everyone a Merry Christmas - and used to have a tree when his daughter was younger.
Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists in the world, was interviewed by Sheffield born Cocker when he stepped in as a Christmas guest editor on Radio Four's Today programme.
'I am perfectly happy on Christmas day to say Merry Christmas to everybody,' Dawkins said. 'I might sing Christmas carols - once I was privileged to be invited to Kings College, Cambridge, for their Christmas carols and loved it.


Read more: Why I celebrate Christmas, by the world's most famous atheist | Mail Online]

So Amerigen...as an atheist, how do you celebrate Christmas?

 

[Diagoras]

Sorry Wil but you must have bored that child stupid and put her off ever writing again, I gave up in paragraph 2.

The honest truth is that Christmas has evolved to become two things. 1: Those of your first statement "I celebrate Christmas because my parents did, because it is a conventional norm, because my society does. Because I have good memories of it, because I enjoy it, because my kids enjoy it." and 2: a commercial feeding frenzy full of hypocritical nonsense and cheap Chinese plastics.

Either way people will take from it what they need and most people will enjoy it.

I wish everybody here a very enjoyable Christmas.

Diagoras Equuinium

 

[Amergin]

Maybe the question really is, why do non christians celebrate Christmas?

So Amerigen...as an atheist, how do you celebrate Christmas?

As a child atheist with an atheist father, atheist grandfather, and nominal Christian mother, and my Irish Grandmother was Catholic.

We celebrated Christmas like most people in the UK. It was mainly secular as is the American Christmas. It was a time of decorated evergreen trees with gifts under the tree. We had no serious inclusion of the Jesus birth in a stable myth.

Eventually in my early teens we were drawn to the Celtic Revival. We tried to regain our historical pre-Christian traditions. It was Winter Solstice not Christmas. Happy Winter Solstice (in Gaelic) Seas-ghrian aig Geamhradh Shona! Dagda the creator so loved the world that he created his son, Lugh the Sun God, with a human woman, to bring light and drive out the darkness.

ALBAN GEAMHRADH (in Scotland) like WINTER SOLSTICE celebrations all over the world, celebrates the return of the sun following the shortest day in the year. It's no wonder the Christian church adopted these holidays as the birthdate of the Son. From ancient Celtic and Norse mythology we enjoy such holiday traditions as holly and mistletoe (sacred to the druids), the Yule log, Santa Claus in his aspects of Father Christmas or the Holly King.

Theistic belief has little to do with actual Christmas or Winter Solstice holidays in the Celtic Lands and the USA. In my family I introduced the veneration of God the Father named Dagda or Aed Álainn, and the Son of Dagda, Lugh the Sun God or Bringer of Light.

Lugh, the Sun God, and son of the High God Dagda/Aed Álainn. Lugh was also born of a Human Virgin, much like the later story of Jesus.

Under the Kirk of Scotland at its strictest, Christmas was viewed as an idolatrous celebration and not observed. Today, the more secularised Scots put most of their merry-making efforts into Hogmanay, the New Year's celebration.

Thus I am a Cultural Celtic Pagan but like many Christians, gods are not believed in or taken seriously any more.

Amergin