Easter: Named After A Pagan God

 Religion  No Responses »
Apr 182014
 

For the next few days, Christians will be going on about how the true message of Easter is about their religion. Well they’re welcome to their views of course, but there’s no reason why the rest of us should not celebrate Easter in our own way.

Usually by eating tons of Easter eggs of course.

The interesting thing is that the name Easter comes from a pagan god – Ēostre. And in the pagan past of England (before Bede), we used to hold feasts in her honour throughout the month of what is now called April. Which evolved into a month of celebrating the “resurrection” of Jesus and eventually became the modern Easter.

Yet another pagan custom that Christians stole.

So It Turns Out St Augustine Had Something To Say About Ken’s Performance

 Religion  No Responses »
Feb 062014
 

Recently a Creationist (Ken Ham) debated with a sensible person (Bill Nye) about the merits of Creationism. The full debate can be found online :-

However it can all be summed up by a response to a simple question: “What would make you change your mind?” :-

Bill: “Evidence”
Ken: “Nothing”

So what is this about St Augustine? It turns out that Christians have known they’ll look stupid if they get too literal about the story of creation, for a very long time. St Augustine had this to say about the likes of Ken :-

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.”

St Augustine of Hippo, from “The Literal Meaning of Genesis”, appx 400 C.E.

So I guess St Augustine is busy rolling his eyes and cringing at the sight of christians like Ken.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Winter Solstice! Or Whatever!

 General, Religion  No Responses »
Dec 212013
 

First of all, take whatever seasons greetings you would like from the list above, and ignore the others.

And now onto the ranting.

Reading some US-based Atheist blogs, it appears that our friends on the other side of the pond can sometimes get a little wound up about what seasons greetings they receive. To the extent that a woman has been punched for saying “Happy Holidays” – hopefully the assailant will get prosecuted for ‘aggravated assault’ or something equivalent. After all getting physical with someone who has deliberately insulted you is wrong; getting physical with someone who has just wished you well is downright evil.

Except for occasional outbreaks of gross stupidity such as Birmingham’s winterval controversy, people in the UK are just a little bit more sensible about the whole situation. In particular christmas is not seen as an exclusively christian event – to the extent that I’m seen as a little weird when I wish people “Happy Winter Solstice” (and I’m happy to be thought of as weird!) even though people know I’m not a christian.

Christmas isn’t a christian event? Of course not. Even christians don’t do the religious thing over the whole period; for most there is just a short christmas midnight mass and then it is back to eating and drinking too much in the company of family. If I were the christian god, I’d be shouting “Get on your knees you miserable sinners” the whole period.

And bear in mind that some of us get confused as well: I recently wished someone a “Happy Winchester” as a seasons greeting.

The Origin And Importance Of Christmas …

 General, Religion  No Responses »
Dec 032013
 

Before those po-faced spoilsports start jumping up and down screaming that Christmas is supposed to be all about the baby jesus, let’s take a look at the origins of Christmas…

Turns out that it might not be an exclusively Christian thing after all – despite “his” name being right there in the name – as it seems there have been other religious festivals at around the same time of year. And long before Christianity.

After all the puritans did oppose Christmas as being too “pagan”. And there is a lesson to be learnt from the mistakes made during the English Civil War – however long ago it may have been – whilst the ultra-religious are perfectly free to believe that Christmas is all about religion, it is plain that the overwhelming majority of the population are more interested in the party aspect of Christmas.

No harm in that. There’s a lot to be said for having a party or two with friends, co-workers, and family in the “bleak mid-winter”. No reason to introduce any religious poppycock if that isn’t your thing.

But where did this notion of paganism in association with Christmas come from? It turns out that having a mid-winter festival has been popular for ages :-

  1. Yule is a Germanic mid-winter festival that has vestiges in our current celebration of Christmas such as the Yule log and probably the Christmas tree.
  2. Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival in honour of the god Saturn marked with revelries and gift giving.
  3. The Winter Solstice has probably been “celebrated” as a brief time of plenty before the famine months of winter begin, for thousands of years. Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe are all aspects of Christmas with a potential pagan past.

There is a tradition that the date of Christmas was deliberately chosen to match the dates of existing religious festivals; whether this is true or not is almost irrelevant. What is almost certainly true is that the importance of the christian festival of Christmas owes a great deal to earlier mid-winter festivals.

After all Christians are masters of the art of syncretism.

UK Is Persecuting The Christian Minority?

 Media, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Mar 302013
 

In something I first heard about in the Daily Mail, so there was an instant credibility gap, it seems that Lord Carey has been blathering on about how Christians feel like a persecuted minority, and that the government is discriminating  against them.

Which is of course complete rancid rhino bile.

And any christian who feels persecuted against needs to take a good hard look at things.

According to the 2011 census, 59% of the UK population claimed to be christian. Given that 59% is more than 41%, I’d say that any christian who feels that they are a minority probably needs to take their socks off to count above 10. It is the rest of us – humanists, secularists, muslims, buddists, hindus, atheists, agnostics – who have the right to claim to be a minority. Given that 2001 (72% christian) was the first time the question was asked, it is hard to make historical observations regarding levels of christianity in the UK. Christians would of course say that we have been historically a christian society where everyone was a christian; others would say those who weren’t christian were under a great deal of pressure to pretend.

There are occasions when we get forced to sit through some sort of christian ceremony, although it was more common in the past than today. And it can be quite creepy listening to you guys speaking to your imaginary friend (or is it friends?).

Nothing to do with what goes on inside your churches of course, but christian ceremonies in public life can be excluding to those who are not christian. Take for example, the infamous council meetings where pre-meeting prayers are no longer permitted. Or rather praying out loud as part of the meeting is no longer permitted. If such prayers are part of a council meeting, they are effectively an unconscious expression of the kind of people who should take part in the meetings – that is practising christians. Or in other words, you are saying that the real minorities – atheists, muslims, etc. are not welcome.

Not that a period of silent contemplation at the start of a council meeting is a bad idea – indeed, it is probably a very good idea. And nobody is saying that you cannot talk with your imaginary friend(s) in the silence of your mind.

Carey specifically mentions the legalisation of gay marriage as one of the symptoms of “aggressive secularisation” within the government. Actually legalising gay marriage is simply doing the right thing; there is nothing in the legislation that forces anyone to get married to someone not of their choice! So it is merely allowing those who choose to, to get married to the person of their choice.

What christians who oppose gay marriage are complaining about, is that they are no longer allowed to impose their views of what marriage should be onto those who believe differently.

In other words christians are complaining about not being allowed to persecute others.

If christians still feel they are being persecuted in the UK, perhaps they should look at some of the real examples of christians being persecuted around the world (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians). Any kind of inspection of what happens around the world will make any decent person claiming that UK christians are being persecuted thoroughly ashamed. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case (and frankly in the case of the BA employee, both sides could do with being told to just grow up), being unable to wear a cross in jewellery form at work hardly compares to being stoned to death.

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