Xmas

So, it's that midwinter break again where we gather with family and friends to eat and drink too much in the name of the supposed birthday of an itinerant preacher from Palestine approximately 2,000 years ago. The date was appropriated from a logically placed pagan festival, where the days clearly started becoming longer again, by a growing horde of monotheists across the Roman empire, choosing monotheism over the even more batshit pantheism that preceded it, deciding on December the 25th as put forward by Hippolytus in the 3rd century CE. The exact date continued to be disputed for centuries by the various factions of the new religion, and still is by the Eastern and Western branches, never mind their smaller offshoots. In any case, what is celebrated by both at the more flexibly timed Easter is the crucifixion by the Roman occupiers and local Jewish theocracy of a bothersome man who made them feel threatened by saying some things about social equality and being nice to each other. This wasn't enough for Christians, who had to convert the pagans of the planetary natural cycle-based festival they'd taken over to join their ranks. So they retrospectively gave the victim superpowers and, just to be on the safe side, also asserted that he was the direct son of an invisible, inaudible entity that purportedly created the whole universe, and confusingly the the entity itself made flesh. The incarnation was also necessary so that the other tenet of their fairytale, the concept of the Christ figure taking the burden of the sins of the whole of mankind on his back and then 'saving' us all through getting killed about 30 years later, would carry more weight.

I do like the tunes of many carols (if I ignore the hatstand lyrics, which can be hard to do) the idea of having a period of peace, exchanging presents and having fir trees and candles in our houses. I just wish there weren't even more of the nutjobs around spreading the 'good word' than there are normally. And I'd also appreciate it if they stopped trying to tell people to worship 'little Lord Jesus' all the bloody time. Oh well, at least they left the summer solstice alone.

Merry Christmas.