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Your Spiritual Journey

Christmas is originally a pagan festival. Celebrate the tree and Sun. Not the Son.

Christmas is a pagan festival from Europe meant to celebrate solstice. Christianity and Roman Catholic Church in particular has appropriated a wonderful festival and has converted into a festival of otherwise insignificant event called birth of Christ.

No on really knows if Jesus was born in December let alone 25th of December. If we look at Bible, the weather described during the birth of Jesus appears to be summer. Specifically the guiding star was an event that indeed happen somewhere around 2000 years ago. However there is no need to believe it has anything to do with the actual birth of jesus. Often when a peasant grows up to be a powerful figure his followers randomly assign well known events with his birth. For example it is said that when Muhammad was born Kaba was attacked by elephants. In reality this even had happened around 200 years before Muhammad’s birth.

Celebration of a tree is a very pagan tradition and anyone should be able to see the irony that a very anti-pagan anti-animist religion like Christianity would somehow celebrate a tree. Tree worship is common in Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American religions. The most common way of worship is basically tying things to the tree. Like how married women tie a thread to Banyan tree during Vat-Pornima.

The so called Christmas tree is actually a fir tree or some other evergreen tree. In Europe where the tradition emerged, Winter basically meant death. It killed all crops and most trees would lose its leaf. The fir tree however stays strong. It grows even in winter and remains just as green. It also grows straight as if it is going to the Sun. Pagans of Italy worshipped this tree as symbol of Sun.

As Christians took over Europe they forced people to convert. They managed to convert people to the new religion but they wont give up their old traditions. Church saw and opportunity in appropriating this festival claiming that it may be celebrated as birth of Christ.

The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year. [History Channel]

Was Jesus really born on Christmas ?

Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. [History Channel]

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