CHRISTMAS IS A PAGAN FESTIVAL, NOT CHRISTIAN!

Happy New Year 2019, my dear friends, and a Merry (post-)Christmas to y'all! It's going to be this year's last post on this stupid blog.

    I still remember my teacher who taught me Social Studies when I was in school. She once told the entire class that it was haram (forbidden) in Islam to celebrate Christmas and utter "Merry Christmas" unto anyone. When someone asked her why, she returned: "Because it proposes that Mary married God and conceived Christ." I was shocked at her careless transfer of a blatantly baseless piece of misinformation to a dull bunch of mundane students. So, I rectified her by explaining the difference between these two homophones "Mary" and "merry". She was embarrassed (so was I [I can still feel my cheeks reddening from speaking against the teacher!]) and she told me not to be such a smart-ass. Well, moving on to the our actual subject which is to discuss the genuine history of Christmas!

    Every year, people all over the world celebrate Christmas. It is probably the greatest festival of the modern-day humanity (actually, it's not!). Its joys are shared by Christians and non-Christians alike. It is one of the emblems of the Western civilization to have a Christmas dinner at your home (again, it's just what the Western media shows us!). Christmas brings, doubtlessly, a message of love, peace and brotherhood to the entire humanity. All festivals do! We enjoy God's blessings and promise to share them with the poor. But how did this festival of Christmas originate? Why did the early fathers of Christianity lack Christmas? Last Christmas was on December 25, 2018 CE (and I suggest we all stop using Anno Domini in Pakistan too). Was Jesus really born exactly 2018 years ago? How can we be sure that it is the correct date of birth of the founder of the greatest religion (but not the most practiced one, mind you!) on earth?

    By the way, I'm posting this article by the end of December instead of publishing it on the Christmas day. Why am I being deliberately late? Due to two reasons. First of all, I live close to Eastern Christianity where they observe this festival in January. Shocking, right? Nah! Most people already know about this. Second of all, Christmas is extended for 12 days (see: Twelvitude) to link it with the festival of Epiphany. And, pray, what is this Epiphany about? Search on Google please! Well, I think we can begin with the flood of information the end of this sentence's going to follow:

[I'd originally meant Banimesh to be a center for light topics but God is a witness of this philosophy of mine that human mind naturally adores conflict and is attracted by controversy]

    Jesus Christ (Yasu' Masih) - actually the so-called founder of Christianity - was a Jewish Apocalyptic prophet who was born around two thousand years ago in Palestine, the region on earth which is internationally known as the land of Israel. What does an Apocalyptic prophet preach? Well, these people talk about how humanity has defiled the land of God and His judgement is to come when the believers will be saved from the divine punishment but the wrongdoers shall perish because of their continuous disobedience to the instructions of the Almighty (hence, establishing His kingdom on earth). This is what Jesus taught as we read in the Bible. Just download an online copy of the Gospel according to St. Matthew and search the keyword "kingdom" in it.

    Jesus actually was not trying to replace Judaism. The basic tenets of Christianity dictate that Jesus is the Son of God who abolished the Law and will bestow salvation upon those who get baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. None of these tenets were actually taught by Jesus rather were the result of how his students and Christians of the latter-day generations interpreted his teachings (though this sentence is contestable). Jesus explicitly states at many places that he didn't appear to replace the Law. Jesus brought some noteworthy changes in the orthodox Jewish religion but his main purpose was not to completely discredit it. Early Christians disputed what the actual reason of Jesus' birth and crufixation was. Some Christians (those led by Marcion) assumed that the Jewish God (YHWH) was an evil impostor and the Father, who'd sent Jesus down on earth, was the genuine deity. These Gnostic Christians emphasized Christ's divinity more than his human nature and considererd Luke's Gospel as the genuine exegesis of Pauline doctrines. On the other hand, some Christians thought that Jesus was a human possessed by a divine being and that was the reason why he, just before his death, had cried out: "My Lord, my Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?" They believed that it was a human being who was crucified, not the divine entity possessing him. Others believed that Jesus' death had liberated them from the burden of the Law and God had become available to both Jews and Gentiles (as the curtain hiding the Holiest of the Holies is torn apart mysteriously [so, no need to get your penis chopped off or keep the sabbath]). This last sect survived the centuries-long battle between several conflicting Christian sects. After that, we got to see the doctrine of Arius (that the Father created the Son and then made the world through him) getting discourages at the Council of Nicea (which was called on the orders of Constantine the Great) by that of Athanasius (that the Father and the Son have always existed together).

    What the world usually calls Christianity is actually the Western version of Christianity. There are Armenian, Greek, Russian, Coptic, Abyssinian, Lebanese and Byzantine ones too. Some are still there while others have gone extinct. The modern-day Christianity was founded by St. Paul who converted to Christianity from Judaism and was a contemporary of the Apostles. Most of the books in the NT are authored (or supposed to be penned down) by Paul. His main idea was that faith alone was required for salvation. But, on the other hand, James - called the brother of Jesus (Galatians 1:19) - assumed that actions were required as well, and faith alone would not suffice for salvation (and then he explains in his letter how God had tested Abraham to check whether his faith reconciled with his deeds or not).

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them?"

[James 2:14]

[The existence of rival schools within Christianity (Galatians 2:11 [Paul's rivalry with Peter a.k.a. Cephas]) and Gospels considered as heretic writings (Galatians 1:6) is witnessed by Paul's own letters]

    Anyone familiar with the basic Christian story knows that Christianity came into being when there were already two famous and poweful religions present in Palestine i.e. Judaism and Roman paganism. After the ascension of Jesus, Jews revolted against their Roman masters and were persecuted (as it's always the way of the world with the Jews). Those Christians who considered themselves Jews were also oppressed by the Romans. But the Christians who separated their church from the Temple of Solomon were immuned from the government-enforced ban on the practice of the Hebrew traditions. Thus, their faith acquired strength. But they were still a tiny minority among a huge majority of heathens who believed in Jupiter (a.k.a. Juno [the Roman counterpart of the Greek supreme deity Zeus]) as the Father and Apollo (the sun god) as his son. So, the belief that God can beget another deity was already present to influence early Christianity (as reflected in Arius' teachings).

[For a detailed and trustworthy account of the formation of the Church, read Cardinal Danielou's Une Vision nouvelle des origines chretiennes, le judeo-christianisme (A New Representation of the Origins of Christianity: Judeo-Christianity)]

    Ever heard a critic of Islam mocking at Muslims for following moon-o-theism instead of monotheism because Allah, before Muhammad started preaching in His name, was worshiped as the moon god in the Arab pantheon? Well, sun and moon had played a major role in the making of many world religions! Just look at the Hindu adoration of Sun. Persian and Egyptian emperors had also called themselves the children of Sun.

    Jesus' historicity is quite vague which prompted some scholars to deny that he ever existed. He is supposed to have died (and then raised) around 30 CE. The first non-Christian who mentioned Jesus (probably Josephus the Jewish historian) was writing a hundred years after Jesus (see: Pliny the Younger). Thus, it may be argued that Jesus was just a plagiarized version of Apollo invented by some Jews to incite their brethren against Roman tyranny. Though this conspiracy theory is weakened by the Christian sources (i.e. Paul's epistles, the four Gospels and the Acts of Apostles) which all agree on basic points regarding Jesus (i.e. his virgin birth, his baptism, his miracles, his trip to Jerusalem, his trial and his execution). For further assurance about Jesus being a historical figure, you may read the works of Bart D. Ehrman.

    Christians borrowed some pagan elements to sustain their religion. These elements were not taught by Jesus. So, we can see that there is only one single verse in the NT that references to Trinity in explicit terms and even this verse has now been shown to be a later addition by some scribe. Jesus' references to his own personality as being the Son of God was quite common among Jews. OT calls multiple people the Sons of God and the begotten of YHWH. Thus, David was the Son of God and the Messiah at the same time. Jews were the progeny of God. The believers were the Sons of God. Even Jesus calls his followers to speak to their Father hence the Apostles were the Sons of God too! Ever heard of Melchizedek? No? Then read his life story in the Bible about how he'd met Abraham and helped him. Melchizedek was a total bad-ass priest who will seem to be an ex-Jesus to you or even better. Why? 'Cause Jesus only lacked a biological father, Melchizedek lacked both parents (Hebrews 7:3). Whoa! It was a surprise to you, wasn't it? Liberate tutumi ex infernis.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

[Matthew 5:9]

"I will proclaim the LORD’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father."

[Psalms 2:7]

    Then why the hell is this article about Christmas? Well, as now you've read about how I think Christianity has imported many pagan elements to strengthen their faith and make it look attractive for any Roman who was deciding to convert, I am also going to tell you that Christmas was a heathen festival as well. Not just Christians, Muslims and Jews too learned a lot from their pagan rivals. Jews were influenced by their religious adversaries so much that they included their own artificial verses in the Mosaic Pentateuch which depicted Yahweh in a more physical manner. If you study Bible starting from the Book of Genesis, you'll see that you are reading actually two narratives combined in a singular formation. Muslims borrowed expansionism, misogyny, racism, extremism and Arab tribal leadership system from their pagan predecessors. The festivals of Nowruz and Mahomet-mas (Mawlid [Birthday of Muhammad]) are certainly latter-day inclusions into the Muslim culture.

    How did Christmas originate? If you study the works of the ancient fathers of Christianity, you'll find that they don't include Christmas as a Christian holiday. Iranaeus and Tertullian happened to live in the third century CE and they have omitted Christmas from their lists of sacred days. Constantine the Great converted to Christianity in the fourth century CE and propagated his new faith as the state religion of the Byzantine Empire. He is recorded to have celebrated Christmas. He was a devout follower of Sol Invictus and it is speculated that Christmas was a replacement of this pagan deity's devotional worship festival. Then, from the fifth century CE onward, Christians officially began to celebrate the birthday of their Savior. Though the festival of Epiphany was always there to replace Christmas as Christmas had replaced it in the first place (as ancient Christians treated Epiphany the same way present-day Christians treated Christmas). What's Epiphany? Haven't you searched it on Google yet? Well, let me tell you about Epiphany. In Western Christianity, Epiphany is marked by the visit of the three Magi who came to meet and worship Jesus. In Eastern Christianity, however, Epiphany denotes the Baptism of Christ by the hands of John the Baptist. It falls on January 6.

    There are multiple possibilities regarding the true origins of Christmas. One of them has been mentioned above regarding Sol Invictus. Thus, one thing's for sure i.e. Christmas was borrowed from the Sun worship of the heathens (as, if you don't know much Latin, Sol Invictus was the Sun god of Romans). Jesus had been tried to be depicted as the Sun through Christmas (the halo over his head was also an imitation of how Romans depicted Sol Invictus). We have winter solstice festival of the Romans honoring sun. We have the Egyptian god Horus. We have Mithraism. But the strongest hypothesis regarding the commencement of Christmas is that it was established to replace the Roman festival of their mightiest sun god Sol Invictus (Latin for "Sun the Invincible", got it?). His festival was called Natalis Invicti and it was celebrated exactly on December 25. But then his worship was abandoned in favor of Jesus when Constantine the Great saw the light of Christianity. This theory has wide following among neutral analysts.

    There are other examples of pagan influences on Christianity as well. The whole concept of dying-and-rising gods may be an imported belief. James Frazer has argued (and many have refuted him) that Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis and Dionysus were all gods who'd died and then had come back to life. His hypothesis states that Christians were inspired by these gods' myths to invent Jesus' revival chronicle. Two gods' death-and-revival story will be summarized by me.

    Dionysus was the son of the Greek god Zeus. Titans lured him with a toy when he was a child, killed him, threw his heart out, cooked him and ate his flesh. When Zeus learned of what Titans had done, he destroyed them all. Then Dionysus' grandmother Rhea gathered his ashes, placed the child's heart in it and revived Zeus' son.

   Ra or Atum was the father of Shu with his sister-wife Iusaaset. These are Egyptian gods I'm talking about. Ra is the deity whose name was used to model the word "Pharaoh" after. Shu married his sister Tefnut and fathered Geb and Nut. Then Nut's ancestor tried to marry her but she loved Geb so the enraged suitor took her to the heavens in order to separate her from her lover Geb. Thus, Geb and Nut became the gods of earth and heaven respectively. At night, they met and made many children. Three of them were Osiris, Isis and Set. Osiris became the lord of the earth. He wanted to marry his sister (God, too much incest here!) who was also desired by Set. But Isis preferred Osiris for her matrimonial life. Thus, Set killed Osiris by dividing his body into multiple parts. Isis combined all those pieces of flesh together, made a mummy out of her husband and then revived him. Osiris came back to life. He and Isis had a son named Horus. It is believed that the depiction of Horus lying in the hands of his mother provoked Christians to revere the Mother of God i.e. Mary. Hence, Isis-worship was replaced by Mary-worship. This theory of Osiris-Horus influencing Yahweh-Jesus relationship was supported by Jung as well.

    In fact, the word Christmas originated in England and it was first used in the eleventh century CE as "Cristemasse". As Constantine began the festival of Christmas, it soon became a secondary Christian festival just for to Epiphany took over again by the start of the Middle Ages. Charlemagne's coronation of Christmas in the ninth century CE returned this great festival back to its ancient grandeur.

    The Christmas Tree was a German addition to Christmas. Santa Claus (St. Nicolas) was actually England's Father Christmas, a Christian parody of the heathen belief system regarding space-wandering spirits. Puritans banned Christmas and Oliver Cromwell forbade his subjects to celebrate this great festivity. Most important of all, Arnobius, writing in the beginning of the fourth century CE, mocks at pagans for celebrating the birth-date of their deities. Little did he know that a future convert to his religion i.e. Constantine, would originate the same kind of festivity in favor of Jesus! Let's see what the OT has to say about the Western custom of buying trees and adorning them with ornaments:

"For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a skilled worker shapes it with a chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter."

[Jeremiah 10:3-4]

    Exactly when Jesus was born? Iranaeus placed him being born in the 41st year of the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus, by extension, around 2 BCE. Eusebius mentions a period 3-1 BCE as the time of the arrival of the Lamb of God. Thus, we can agree on 2 BCE as being the most correct date. As for the exact month during which Mary conceived the blessed child, Clement of Alexandria (who was alive in the third century CE) mentions people who claimed Jesus had been born in March/May/April. November has also been suggested as the month in which Jesus appeared in human form on earth. But most scholars agree, as I've described earlier, that December 25 was chosen to celebrate Christmas because it was the winter solstice festival in the Roman civilization. As Augustine of Hippo (d. fifth century CE) writes, Jesus was born on the shortest day on earth. Interestingly enough, the idea of Christians linking Christmas deliberately to correspond to the winter solstice festival was also suggested by Isaac Newton. More importantly, not all Christians on earth have Christmas celebrations of December 25. Eastern Christianity celebrates this festival close to that of Epiphany (January 6). Armenians celebrate Christmas with Epiphany. Coptic and Orthodox (Russian and Central-Asian) ones observe it on January 7. Puritans, as I've mentioned before, consider it haram. Then which is the correct month of Jesus' birth? I guess it could be March, the month of spring, as some scholars have deduced after a careful study of the Gospels.

    Some people believe that the stories of Jesus' miracles were inspired by the Greek legends of their medicine deity Aesculapius (Asqalibus in Arabic). Though this theory may be weak (like the theory that Muhammad read the apocryphal Christian works at the time when simple biblical verses were unheard of by common people!) but it's a fact that the Gospels were not written by eye-witnesses. The authors of the four Gospels were describing the true life events of an actual Jewish prophet from their own perspective. This is a widely-accepted hypothesis that Gospels were written by Christians who were not writing to give factual information regarding Jesus rather they were only providing their respective sect with textual support to back the religious claims they'd made about Christ. Let's look at some examples of this theory.

    Matthew writes that Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on two donkeys. He was actually trying to fit an OT prediction on Jesus. The prediction did mention two asses (Zechariah 9:9) but, as any linguistic expert in Hebrew/Arabic can tell you, the plural only meant singular i.e. twice usage of the word "donkey" was just being used to emphasize the presence a single donkey. Matthew didn't know this fact about Hebrew language (another indication that the author wasn't Jesus' Apostle) so he mistakenly made Jesus ride two asses simultaneously (a possible but bizarre feat!). Similarly, to show that Jesus was the Immaneul who was foretold to be born in the OT (Isaih 7:14), Matthew made Jesus being born of virginal birth with the exception of a biological father. However, Jesus was not the Immanuel. The boy Immanuel was born just after the predictin had been made. The word which was wrongly translated as "virgin" actually denoted a "young woman". A third example of the authors inventing historical traditions to support their faith can be the timing of the tearing of the curtain. Gospels tell us that Jesus was prosecuted (one Gospel tells us Jesus didn't speak anything but another one portrays him giving lengthy speeches) by Pontius Pilate (a Gospel depicts as if Pilate was trying to release Jesus but Jews were forcing him to execute the Messiah and another Gospel shows Pilate in a more negative light), he was sentenced to death and told to carry his own crucifix (one Gospel tells us it was another guy, not Jesus, who carried his crucifix). Then Jesus was left to rot and die. Now, one Gospel mentions that the curtain in the Temple was torn from in-between and then Jesus died. Here the author is showing God's displeasure with the Jews for killing His Son. But another Gospel tells us how the curtain was torn after Jesus had dead. This shows that, with Jesus' death, the burden of the Law was uplifted and God became available to everyone. We can sense how each author of the four Gospels was trying to convey his own version of Jesus' sirah (biography) to us.

    Summary of the points discussed in this article is as follows:
⦁    Jesus Christ was not born exactly 2018 years ago.
⦁    Jesus Christ was not born on December 25.
⦁    Christmas was borrowed by Christians from their pagan neighbors.

    So, next time your child asks you to tell him the Nativity story, pray tell him the actual history of Christmas. If you don't want to do that, just tell your child that Santa Claus is a hoax. If you can't even do that, how can you stop your next generation from believing in the flat-earth theory?

    Now, is it haram to celebrate Christmas? Of course, not! Don't we Muslims have Nowruz and Basant festivals in our cultures? Aren't these festivals pagan in origin? Celebrating a festival is not forbidden in Islam provided that you don't commit any non-Islamic act during the celebrations. So, don't eat pork, consume alcohol or touch non-mahram women. Celebrate our Id and their Christmas under the restrictions imposed upon us by Allah Almighty. If you do so, you can enjoy your life. If you don't care about the restrictions of God, it doesn't matter to Him at all. It only matters to us. How can we trust a person to abide by our own man-made constitution if he dares to go against the one established by the Creator of the universe? Just think.

    Please share this blog or the PDF version of it as much as you want. Because copyright act is bullshit (as violating it doesn't render the original author responsible for his work!). In the words of Rene Descartes:

"One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not been already said by one philosopher or another."

    May God help us all in understanding this rigmarole of religions!