Oh goody, it's December. And December in America means that retailers and Jesus Freaks ratchet up the noise... well, actually it just gets louder from November (and October) when the retailers start trying to convince us that buying shit is the only way to spend the holidays and all-the-time when the Jesus Freaks find something to bitch about.
Anyway, I pretty much hate Christmas. It's just phony. Commercialized, annoying, obnoxious and divisive. That's Xmas... oh fuck... I mean "CHRISTmas." I sure as hell don't want to get bitched at by some jackass who takes offense that I don't explicitly include the Greek title for some dead Jewish guy that may or may not have had superpowers. Never mind the fact that the letter "X" is essentially shorthand for "Christ". See, in the original Greek, X is the letter "Chi" which is the first letter in the word we know as "Christ." Thus, the letter X is really a symbol for "Christ" and for most people who aren't ignorant, touchy assholes, a perfectly acceptable abbreviation for "Christ." Hence, "Xmas."
So every time one of you fucknuts complains about "Xmas," you are showing how little you know about your own religion. Wait, an ignorant American theist that doesn't know history? Say it ain't so!
Second up is "Happy Holidays" which seems to cause explosive diarrhea for Jesus Freaks. That's the only thing I can figure since they seem to want to wipe out the saying. Truly, it must have some magical powers for it to incite such contempt by the faithful. But wait! The word "Holiday" is etymological evolution of "Holy Day" and by adding the "s" to make it plural, is an easy way to encompass a period of time in which there are several days of celebration of a religious nature. There are like 20+ "holidays" in December (and a few more if you count the season as going through Epiphany on January 6th, the ACTUAL 12th day of Christmas). Of course the major ones are typically Hanukkah, Christmas, and Yule/Solstice (Kwanzaa is a cultural event more than a religious one) and they are technically celebrated by three different faiths (although the secularized Christmas has crossover appeal and the Pagans are often pretty loose with the rules).
Lots of folks (primarily Team Jesus) get offended if you don't specifically recognize their religious holiday, which is stupid. It is. It's stupid. Grow up you fuckers. I'm not going to tailor my greetings based on remembering who does what. You get a "Happy Holidays" at best. If that offends you, then you get a "Fuck off, Asshole" which avoids the whole seasonal issue by replacing it with a universal undated expression of shut the hell up you fuckstick. You have to SHARE the month with other religious days, most of which PRE-DATE your fucking religion anyway.
Which brings us to the unbearably asinine "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" bullshit. This is the pinnacle of ignorant assholery by Christians. First off, a "season" is a loose subdivision of the annual calendar based on changes in daylight and weather (among other things). Seasons pre-date humans and are a response to the regular solar cycle and rotation of the Earth, which is caused by gravity. Jesus ain't got shit to do with it.
The season of importance here is the transition from Autumn to Winter upon the Winter Solstice around December 21st (Gregorian Calendar). That's when the daylight hours reach their shortest per day and it starts the hardcore cold (Northern Hemisphere at least) when stuff goes dormant and doesn't grow. Early peoples, who somehow managed to calculate these things despite not having calculators or Google, understood the effects the seasons had on their lives but weren't able to determine the reasons for the seasons (again... not fucking Jesus). So, they did what a lot of people did and created magical invisible beings who controlled such things. And since these beings must have had some essence of thinking, perhaps they could get in good with the beings by having parties for them. The Winter Solstice was kind of a big deal since a lot of folks weren't sure they'd survive the cold and the lack of fresh food so they decided to have big feasts in what was a similar philosophy to Blue Bell Ice Cream where they would eat all they could and then store what could be stored to live off of during the bleak months until Spring. (The Spring Equinox, another important Pagan celebration of new life and rebirth... weird how that seems similar to Easter.)
So, the "Pagans" (i.e. another Christian word they don't completely understand and think means "doesn't worship Jesus") had pretty much planted their flag on the late December "Holiday" calendar long before Jesus showed up.
Another group who had a Decembertime party before Jesus? Jesus' peeps, the Jews. Hanukkah started a good century and a half before Jesus hit the scene. Granted, it isn't really a HUGE deal in the Jewish culture (it's been blown out of proportion thanks to the insanity that is now Christmas), but it is still a religious based celebration around the Solstice (although the Solstice is unrelated).
Okay, so the whole Pagan thing relates to the Roman Saturnalia, itself a Pagan holiday that involved partying and gift-giving, which was all around mid to late December. And there is also the Germanic/Norse celebration of Yule which was a 12 day party. And then there is the already well-documented pagan ties and origins of things like the "Christmas" tree, mistletoe, and other of the fun aspects that are now a part of Christmas. Why? Because when the Church really started their roaming evangelist movement of converting those awful pagans into Christians they found that many of the pagans responded with: "You have one boring ass religion. Why the fuck would we want to give up the fun we have?" So the Church people began creatively figuring out ways to show the pagans that the stuff they believed was actually just Jesus and Company IN DISGUISE! So it was all cool. And we'll keep the parties if that's what it takes to get your asses under our thumbs.
Yes, the fun aspects of Christmas were all taken from other religions and non-Jesus cultures. As was the date. See, there is no significant evidence that Jesus was born on or near December 25th. In fact, most research indicates he was born in August or September. But, with the realization that something was needed to subjugate the Solstice Festivals, and nobody really knew any better anyway, December 25th was decided upon almost 300 years after the actual event.
But it isn't just the largely European Pagan festivals that had influence. There was also Mithras. Mithras was this god that had Hindu and/or Zoroastrian ties dating back more than a thousand years before Jesus. Mithra was born to save mankind, born of a virgin, linked with "sun" allegories, and was resurrected after death. Oh, and did I mention that his birthday WAS DECEMBER 25th?!!?!?! Yeah, Mithras was also a factor in the birthday of Jesus decision.
It should also be mentioned that Zoroastrianism had some significant influence on the Judeo-Christian belief systems. But that's a whole other tale. This is all about Jesus not being the fucking reason for shit.
So, let's sum up: Actual seasonal changes made early people take notice and do things differently for Winter months. Several cultures had celebrations/festivals/holy observances in mid to late December. These typically existed before said culture new of the existence of Jesus. Some of them had deities that were similar to the Jesus as he is now portrayed.
Jesus is not the reason for the celebratory season around the Winter Solstice. Jesus' ball lickers hijacked the season in order to get people pay attention to Jesus instead of the other deities they had before said ball licking assholes showed up.
In conclusion, THIS IS A FESTIVE SEASON OF VARIOUS HOLIDAYS THAT EXISTED BEFORE JESUS AND WOULD MOST LIKELY STILL EXIST IN SOME FORM WHETHER LORD DOOFUS SHOWED UP OR NOT.
Jesus is NOT the "Reason for the Season" and I will shove a goddamned candy cane into the ear of any fucking asshole that says this in my presence.
And no, I didn't site my sources, but I did some cursory fucking research which is still way more research than the fucking tool that came up with "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" did.
