this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
592 points (99.3% liked)

World News

45282 readers
3651 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Like all religion, it can be messed up and carried on.

Sort of like when the winter solstice turned into “dead and buried three days, then rose again” and a bunch of zombie religions are still around.

[–] Danquebec 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That's for Spring (rebirth, Easter), not Winter.

Christmas is for Winter, it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. It came from Saturnalia, probably the most important holiday of Roman society.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No. I mean, first of all let's start with the fact that both Winter solstice and Spring Equinox were so-called pagan holidays that Christianty subsumed. Right? Let's start there.

Then let's understand that those so-called pagan holidays were traditions based on earlier - much earlier - observances. And those observances were astronomical in origin.

The winter solstice is when the sun stops moving for three days - it rises in the same location whereas all the time before that it had been moving slightly every day.

After those three days it starts moving back. That's the birth. Life is born again. We're going to make it around the sun another time. That sort of thing.

Spring / Vernal equinox is when we make sure everyone has progeny. Rabbits. Flowers. Eggs. Chrisitanity decided to appropriate this one to mark Jesus' ascent into heaven. Fine. But irrelevant. Because it has nothing to do with life on earth - very literally, it's about leaving earth and going to heaven.

That's why there's such a disconnect about crucifixion and rabbits and eggs. They don't have anything to do with each other because the church yoinked a pagan tradition to keep people from celebrating it outside the church.

[–] Danquebec 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

That makes a lot of sense. Until you consider that around Winter solstice, Christians don't celebrate the resurrection, yhey celebrate the birth. How do you explain that disconnect?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

This explains some of the reasoning, although because it was 350 CE they can't confirm anything with 100% certainty. Such is history.

What is certain to anyone who has studied it even a little bit is that the winter solstice was near-universally recognized by all cultures prior to the common era.

December 25 is very often the solstice, or close enough to it that it was selected by some as the annual celebration for their deity of choice. As the article notes, in Rome that was the birthday of Sol Invictus. It's also the birthday of Saturn, Mithras, and depending on whether you believe some fourth-century Christian authors, also Horus.

So Pope Julius "chose" - note that no one is in any doubt the date was selected, it wasn't like Jesus' old birthday cards were found and everyone knew that was his actual birthday - Pope Julius chose Dec 25 as the annual celebration day for Jesus. That became known as his birthday. But it wasn't. What it WAS was the winter solstice.