Xmas Roots
Trey Spruance, mad composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and eccentric, seems to spend his time between recording and obsessively mixing the Secret Chiefs 3’s yet unreleased final two thirds of the “Books” trilogy reading about religions and freaking people out with his witchy Middle-Eastern interests. And he has a collection weapons and loves Kool Keith. A year ago this gem popped up on www.webofmimicry.com and it has remained to this day, even though his fans anxiously await further news and his side of the Mr. Bungle break-up story. I post it now, a year later, just because I like it and it should shut folks up when they bitch about Xmas and Jesus and all that cal.
A Yuletide Reconciliation
At WoM we believe that all persons can and should be a little happier around Christmas. We could all use a little less Humbug in our lives, so here is our Yuletide reconciliation between Godless Atheism and Pious Observance.
In the latter part of the 4th Century the Roman Church ordered that December 25 be celebrated as the day of the birth of Christ, though prior to that it had been assumed (according to Biblical clues, common logic and arithmetic) that Christ was born sometime in the Fall. December 25 happened also to be the same day of the old Roman feast of Sol - the Sun God, and as Frazer points out in The Golden Bough, "The largest pagan religious cult which fostered the celebration of December 25 as a holiday throughout the Roman and Greek worlds was the pagan sun worship - Mithraism... this winter festival was called the Nativity' - the Nativity of the Sun." And none other than the Catholic Encyclopedia states that "the well-known solar feast of Natalis Invicti (the Nativity of the Unconquered Sun) celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date."
Confusion erupted in the Christianizing of pagan customs to the point where "Tertullian had to assert that Sol was not the Christians God; Augustine denounced the heretical identification of Christ with Sol. Pope Leo I bitterly reproved solar survivals..." When we give and receive presents at Christmas time we do so also in the spirit of the inherited practices of the extravagant Roman Saturnalia, such as the giving of gifts. Christians have long lamented the obscuration of Jesus beneath the demon specter of Satan Claws. The Three Wise Men, of course, presented gifts to Jesus - not to each other!
All this talk of paganism might partly explain why so many non-Christians allow themselves to be cheerfully swept along with the Spirit of Holiday - because it is not really a Christian holiday in the first place! We feel that the True Christians understand this already, and feel less despair at the "true meaning of Christmas" being lost in the materialism of the modern world than they do at the total obliteration of Christ under the mediating idols of Babylon and its pagan "Christmas" rituals. And I'm sure they Thank God in the security of knowing that the True birth of Jesus, a fact which exists in reality, has never ever had anything to do with the world-mad festivity of "Christmas"! All the better for them if they have made it a time which is personally meaningful, despite all the Occultation and schism.
And so, Christians are free and welcome to join in the mad celebration of Saturnalia and the Nativity of the Sun now called "Christmas," and are in no danger of compromising their beliefs in the process! Similarly, since it is a Pagan Holiday, the godless atheist hordes are exempt from recognizing the Jesus Christ during the holidays. For the rare few who choose such a route wishing to revel in the true spirit of Christmas, it is recommended that they become familiar at least with the rites of Mithras, Dionysus or Sol, if only because by doing so they might find some small inner inspiration and thereby thwart the tendency to be such psychotic cutthroat sons-of-bitches on highways and in shops during the holidays. And just think, they can still almost call themselves 'atheist' at the end of the day!
[ Reference: Babylon Mystery Religions by R. Woodrow ]
Merry Christmas to all
A Yuletide Reconciliation
At WoM we believe that all persons can and should be a little happier around Christmas. We could all use a little less Humbug in our lives, so here is our Yuletide reconciliation between Godless Atheism and Pious Observance.
In the latter part of the 4th Century the Roman Church ordered that December 25 be celebrated as the day of the birth of Christ, though prior to that it had been assumed (according to Biblical clues, common logic and arithmetic) that Christ was born sometime in the Fall. December 25 happened also to be the same day of the old Roman feast of Sol - the Sun God, and as Frazer points out in The Golden Bough, "The largest pagan religious cult which fostered the celebration of December 25 as a holiday throughout the Roman and Greek worlds was the pagan sun worship - Mithraism... this winter festival was called the Nativity' - the Nativity of the Sun." And none other than the Catholic Encyclopedia states that "the well-known solar feast of Natalis Invicti (the Nativity of the Unconquered Sun) celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date."
Confusion erupted in the Christianizing of pagan customs to the point where "Tertullian had to assert that Sol was not the Christians God; Augustine denounced the heretical identification of Christ with Sol. Pope Leo I bitterly reproved solar survivals..." When we give and receive presents at Christmas time we do so also in the spirit of the inherited practices of the extravagant Roman Saturnalia, such as the giving of gifts. Christians have long lamented the obscuration of Jesus beneath the demon specter of Satan Claws. The Three Wise Men, of course, presented gifts to Jesus - not to each other!
All this talk of paganism might partly explain why so many non-Christians allow themselves to be cheerfully swept along with the Spirit of Holiday - because it is not really a Christian holiday in the first place! We feel that the True Christians understand this already, and feel less despair at the "true meaning of Christmas" being lost in the materialism of the modern world than they do at the total obliteration of Christ under the mediating idols of Babylon and its pagan "Christmas" rituals. And I'm sure they Thank God in the security of knowing that the True birth of Jesus, a fact which exists in reality, has never ever had anything to do with the world-mad festivity of "Christmas"! All the better for them if they have made it a time which is personally meaningful, despite all the Occultation and schism.
And so, Christians are free and welcome to join in the mad celebration of Saturnalia and the Nativity of the Sun now called "Christmas," and are in no danger of compromising their beliefs in the process! Similarly, since it is a Pagan Holiday, the godless atheist hordes are exempt from recognizing the Jesus Christ during the holidays. For the rare few who choose such a route wishing to revel in the true spirit of Christmas, it is recommended that they become familiar at least with the rites of Mithras, Dionysus or Sol, if only because by doing so they might find some small inner inspiration and thereby thwart the tendency to be such psychotic cutthroat sons-of-bitches on highways and in shops during the holidays. And just think, they can still almost call themselves 'atheist' at the end of the day!
[ Reference: Babylon Mystery Religions by R. Woodrow ]
Merry Christmas to all
posted by ZombieDante at 8:56 AM
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