a note on the holiday season

[lauralh]

First of all, I'm not a huge fan of Christmas. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why now, just a couple of them. Last year I was going through my rabid atheism phase (which honestly hasn't calmed down all that much, but I interact with fewer Christians so I don't think about it much), so I had another reason to hate Christmas: it fucked up a perfectly good heathen holiday with the ideas of virgin birth and goodwill toward men and whatnot.

Not that I'm keen on the religious aspects of that thing, either. Sure I like sausages and hedonism as much as the next girl, but I'm not going to pretend it's because the Lord of Death slew the Sun or whatever. Basically I like the gift-giving traditions, but not enough to spend a lot of money (esp. not while unemployed), and I like the idea of celebrating the end of winter. Or beginning, whatever. Days getting longer, that indeed is worth celebrating, I think. Last year I simply meditated and watched the sunset (because it was actually sunny that day) as the afternoon turned into dusk. Somewhat solemn, and then afterwards the gluttony of food and drink. Probably try something similar here tomorrow. We'll see how the weather holds.

Comments

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

These articles are technically incorrect, unfortunately. It's based off of Mithraism, not the worship of various Roman gods. Constantine was a Mithraist before converting to Christianity (he actually converted to Arianism and _then_ Catholicism later, something most people ignore). Both Mithraism and Christianity celebrated their respected God's births on the winter solstice, so Constantine more or less merged the two religions (which were theologically about as disparate as Catholicism and Anglicanism), then moved the combined festival to the 25th as a way of merging it with Saturnalia, and therefore combining two big parties into one.

Personally, if I had to worship anyone, the White Bull of the Sun isn't too bad a choice.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually knew that (the whole Mithrais --> Christ thing is something that fascinates me to no end). Still worshiping anything just rubs me the wrong way.

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm as atheistic as they come. No argument here.

[jvb419.livejournal.com]

It's 40 years since I read William Gaddis' "The Recognitions," but I still recall with delight the scene when the Rev. Guyon, the main character's father, is discovered on Christmas morning on the altar of his Episcopal church, stark naked and covered with the blood of a bull he's just sacrificed to Mithra. Now *there's* a conversion experience...

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

Eh, I dunno. For too many years, I hung around with people for whom the height of humour was to tweak the nose of Christians, or cause them to act profanely as if this was somehow a dramatic act of resistance in an oppresive theocracy. I've since gotten sick of the various would-be Harlequins of this world for the most part, and declared peace with religion. Once you've won, there's little point in continuing, and we secularists have won, hands down.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

easy for someone who lives in Canada to say.

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

True. Nonetheless, even the "Christianity" of the US is in my experience a mixture of crude superstition with deism rather than possessing a truly religious character. Memorise a few simple logical problems with the notion of God, make your contempt of the emotional argument apparent, don't get angry, and I find most religious people will become so terribly confused that you can avoid the pointless screaming matches that characterise so many religion-atheism discussions.

[jvb419.livejournal.com]

In light of the statistics showing much higher rates of religious belief, church attendance etc. among Americans than among Europeans, I'm not so sure. But in any case I don't think Gaddis was interested in biting his thumb at the Christians. "Recognitions" in in some ways a very Christian novel, I think--or a Manichean one, anyway. And he makes it fairly clear that Rev. Guyon hasn't just become a practicing Mithraist, he's also gone right round the bend.

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

Fair enough - I've never read the book. The described incident merely brought back memories of one chap I know who used to replace the sacramental wine with Welch's grape juice as if this was some deep and fundamental attack on the very pillars of Catholicism itself.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

har har har!