Merry, not a Pagan festival, Christmas

As I get older I am increasingly at odds with the world around me. As I have said elsewhere my memories of the Christmas's of my childhood are all good ones, with the admitted occasional near miss.

My memories are full of joy and laughter.

And I still love Christmas. Being a sedentary festival, with plenty of food and drink and hopefully good will to all, it's suits me, and my Parkinson's isn't yet an obstacle to enjoying it.

Oh and we also go to church.

But as with so many things, people can't leave it or people alone. And those who wish to trash Christmas, want to gut its core message and leave it as nothing more then a winter festival. 

With Santa or Dusty the Snowman, being the important lead figures.

Now I get it that people who are anti-theist, will have a difficulty embracing a festival about a child, born of God and a human mother. They are fully entitled to celebrate, or not, Christmas as they wish. So they may simply wish to have fun with their family and particularly if they have small Children, by checking where on the Santa Cam (care of NASA)  they will find Santa and his sleigh.

Believing in the bigger story doesn't mean I didn't have fun with the Santa legend with my son when he was little. Santa was his first hero.

But what does nark me about so much of what makes up the anti-Christmas brigade, is their absolute certainty in their rationality and ability to sift evidence, and come to a measured conclusion based solely upon properly sourced evidence.

If only. 

The evidence, more often then not, would appear to suggest otherwise.

So the Christian heart of the Christmas story is attacked on several fronts, which generally come under an umbrella accusation that Christmas is actually a pagan festival. This has been repeated so any times that its simply accepted as fact, with little attempt to check the validity of these claims. Its enough that we 'know them to be correct'.

I'm not going to go through all these 'claims', just a few of the better known.

So lets start with the date of Christmas itself, the 25th December. It is claimed that this was previously the  Roman festival Saturnalia, which the nasty Christians robbed for their own nefarious reasons. Unfortunately all the evidence leads to the conclusion that Saturnalia fell on the 17th December not the 25th. Now the festival was very popular so in the way of these things, it was celebrated over several days. But never beyond the 23rd December.

So cannot qualify as the origin for the date of Christmas.

Another popular anti Christmas belief was that the story of a child, born of a virgin, actually originated in the story of the birth of Mithras. It is claimed that he also was born of a virgin on the 25th December and because of his greater antiquity, must be the origin of the Christian version. The sources for this are unreliable and includes Bill Maher, an American comedian.

On a side note, it is interesting how many of the leading anti-atheists have embraced interesting names for themselves. Aaron Ra is one that comes to mind. Each to their own.

However any supporting evidence for this is hard to find. Indeed it would appear that Roman sources that we have show this to be nonsense. These sources have Mithras leaping fully formed from a rock, the Petra genetrix, with no date given.

So again this claim is unable to qualify as the source of the virgin birth story. 

Santa Claus has a robust line of descent from a real Christian Saint, Bishop Nicholas. There is no real debate about this in either secular or Christian academic circles. Amongst experts in the field his existence is accepted as the origin of Santa Claus. 

And the origin of Santa Claus's gift giving.

So no Pagan origin stories then? Well never under estimate peoples credulity and the ability to believe what they want to believe, never mind the evidence.

So step forward Odin a Germanic God, the real source of Santa! In pre-Christian times it is claimed he was a kind, generous God dressed in red who left gifts for Children.

And again it would seem that the lack of any supporting evidence, like in so many of these Pagan anti-Christmas proofs, is a feature of this claim. Indeed there are no references in any of the early sources for any of these claims.

Far from being kind, Odin was presented as both dangerous and frightening.

So again not the source of a pagan Santa Claus. And where other options should be, we find a gaping hole.

On a quick side note our (British) Father Christmas is not simply another name for Santa Clause, but was a personification of Christmas, whose separate identity has been lost over the years, until now where he has been absorbed by the American Santa Claus.

I think I'll start a campaign to bring him back. To much Americanisation of Christmas, bah, humbug.

Of course none of this proves there is a God, or the virgin birth, or the wise men. December 25th may or may not be the date of the Saviours birth, but please note the Bible doesn't say it is and the ancient Orthodox Church celebrate it on a different date anyway.

Neither it should be pointed out does it prove the opposite, that their isn't a God. What it does prove is that the non-religious can be a credulous as the religious, so a bit more humility by both parties would probably be a good thing.

Anyone interested in finding out more about this, please Google History for Atheists, a very good site, run by Tim O'Neill. Well sourced articles, with rational arguments.

I will admit that most of what I have come to understand about the claims about the origins of the Christmas festival, and other Christian festivals, such as Easter and Halloween, are due to his diligence.

Anyway time for a bit of Christmas music; See link below

Arabic Byzantine Christmas Chant