Pharyngula

Posted by: heironymous | December 22, 2010 12:01 PM

Now if someone would just update the video, I wouldn't have to explain it to my kids...

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | December 22, 2010 12:08 PM

What about glorifying the mythical 1950s when everyone was happy because they knew their place and the zombie faith ruled supreme?

Posted by: catalinsf | December 22, 2010 12:22 PM

Totally great cartoon. Short and sweet.

Posted by: Grahame | December 22, 2010 12:28 PM

I keep hearing this Mithras/Horus thing, both in relation to Christmas and in relation to Easter (dying/rising gods) but I have never found any original documents to confirm it, just a circle jerk of websites quoting each other. I don't need to believe it of course to believe that Jesus is a mythical character, but it seems we are playing the theists' game of confirmation bias.

Posted by: oihorse | December 22, 2010 12:33 PM

I wonder if we can find some Roman-era writings about the War on Mithras.

Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM | December 22, 2010 12:37 PM

What is funny is that Charles Shultz ended up thinking of himself as a secular humanist. It is true that early in his career, he helped to fund the building of a church. But it is also true that he ended up drifting away from that.

Posted by: Phil65 | December 22, 2010 12:42 PM

In later life, Charles Schulz became something of a skeptic. His most authoritative biography quotes him as saying, "I'm not an orthodox believer, and I'm becoming less of one all the time."

I think he just mined the Bible for material more than anything else.

Posted by: KG | December 22, 2010 12:47 PM

Great, making Peanuts even less funny than it was. - Glen Davidson

Is that even possible?

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893 | December 22, 2010 12:54 PM

If I could get that as a Christmas card, there is absolutely no doubt I would.

A family friend keeps trying to convince my wife (who was raised in a far less-Christian culture than America) that "Christmas is a Christian holiday, you know," and have been so tempted to bust out with the same lecture as is on this card... But I never have, in spite of my rude atheist ways.

This as a card would give me a chance to let her know she needs to rethink that statement. But since I'm way too polite, I'll probably never do it.

MikeM

Posted by: David | December 22, 2010 1:11 PM

"I think the best religion is no religion at all." -- Charles Schulz

It's hard to say just when Schulz came around to a more humanistic way of thinking, but by 1980 at least, there's a lengthy arc wherein the kids find to their dismay that the summer camp they're attending is run by fundies:

http://comics.com/peanuts/1980-06-09/

http://comics.com/peanuts/1980-06-20/

http://comics.com/peanuts/1980-06-21/

Posted by: chrstphrgthr | December 22, 2010 1:21 PM

I keep hearing this Mithras/Horus thing, both in relation to Christmas and in relation to Easter (dying/rising gods) but I have never found any original documents to confirm it, just a circle jerk of websites quoting each other.

Someone made the same point in the comments on the comic, but it isn't a huge leap in logic to assume a birthdate where one isn't specified.

Whether it is stated in scripture or not, any sun god worshipped by agrarian peoples would have been "born" a few days after the solstice.

Agrarians keep track of the seasons as a matter of livelihood. Gods were explanatory symbols of natural phenomena and important phenomena to remember generationally were usually written into the life story of the related deity.

So, again, regardless of the culture or available citation, agriculture + sun god = big fucking party on 12/25ish.

Posted by: mikerattlesnake | December 22, 2010 2:04 PM

@20

June 20th and 21st were great. There may be a lot of filler in Peanuts (how many years was he at it?) but its best moments are among the greatest comics that have been made.

Posted by: Rumson | December 22, 2010 2:46 PM

If you like your Peanuts to be nsfw, try "Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski".

Posted by: Liquid | December 22, 2010 3:11 PM

http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/

I forgot to add this to my previous post. Sorry about the double post.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 22, 2010 3:21 PM

Steve Pastis has a great story about how Schultz took a good portion of his day to hang with him and give him feedback on his, then unpublished, cartoons.

Posted by: Alverant | December 22, 2010 3:26 PM

@oihorse #10
I've been working on an idea for a comedy sketch called "Keep Saturn in Saturnalie" which takes place in the Roman Empire. It's a dialog between a pagan and early christian. The christian insists people say "happy holidays" so Christmas would be included. The pagan Roman makes the same sort of arguments we hear today from Bill Donohue and his ilk (Rome was founded on pagan principles, pagans dominate the population, why should every minority faith be included, etc). Basically it's switching roles to remind christians that at one point, they were in the minority.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 22, 2010 3:44 PM

@31, :) *checks list twice, to confirm who has been naughty or nice*

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | December 22, 2010 4:30 PM

It looks to me a bit like a few questions are being conflated, here. And I think the answers and solidity thereof are not the same.

To the first question, are Christmas and earlier, pre-Christian midwinter holidays now a mangled syncretism, yes, absolutely. Really no question. So many of the associated rituals are attached to those earlier traditions.

Next question: did Christians deliberately co-opt the earlier holidays? A smidge less clear, okay. Dunno. But again, point is: separate question.

Last question: was Jesus himself entirely a syncretic glob cobbled together from earlier myths... separate question again. And as it's been battered around here endlessly, I'm not gonna bother. Just noting: this last answer could could theoretically be no, and Christmas and Yule could still pretty much be the same damned thing.

Posted by: CJO | December 22, 2010 5:10 PM

AJ Milne, agreed. And as regards your second point about deliberate co-option "to make it easier to convert new Christians" as the comic has it, syncretistic adoption between traditions like this was rarely if ever a matter of deliberate "hijacking" with so clear a rationale. It should be considered that religious "conversion" in a syncretic polytheistic atmosphere like the early Roman empire would not necessarily have entailed a complete abandonment of old practices. Likely the early church at Rome co-opted the Saturnalia because nominal Christians were still observing it anyway, not as a selling point for prospective pagan converts.

Posted by: rachel.wilmoth | December 22, 2010 7:42 PM

But did do wish he took one page from Watterson's book and not allow his characters to be used in ads.

Same here. What really got me was seeing boxes of Charlie Brown Christmas trees for sale at the local Target. Somebody seemed to miss the whole "Christmas is too commercialized" point of the Charlie Brown Christmas special.

Posted by: John Morales | December 22, 2010 8:08 PM

CJO @38, good point.

Also, the necessary cynicism of the populace is not irrelevant.

cf. Peace of Augsburg (Cuius regio, eius religio).

Posted by: arachnophilia | December 22, 2010 8:21 PM

alot of this "plagiarized christ" accusation is mostly nonsense, fabrications, and obfuscation.

the comic is mostly true -- christianity did intentionally steal the holiday from pagan traditions focused on the winter solstice. but it is a far jump from that later, intentional decision by the church to assuming that every last bit of the christ narrative was taken in whole cloth from somewhere else. certainly, there were influences, and i am not denying those.

it's just that we shouldn't go about making shit up, or listening to people who have simply made shit up. a lot of this falls under the heading of "conspiracy theory" and has similar rhetoric. this page, largely pointed at the paranoid ramblings of the zeitgeist "movie" seems to fairly address a good number of these points.

Posted by: Uglyhip | December 22, 2010 9:07 PM

It's funny how religious traditions can be so obviously pulled out of thin air and/or based on other religions, but followers still insist on the "originality"/"authenticity" of their version — without even providing an alternate justification.

When non-Christians point out that the calendar placement of Christmas clearly stems from the Solstice (in one way or another), Christians often dispute it — but they don't provide any alternate story for how it came about! The Bible certainly doesn't give anything explicit.

It's the same way with the canonical gospels — the main reason there are four of them (rather than just one as was the case for many early sects) is because Irenaeus liked the number four. He was straightforward in his writing about the numerological importance of this. There isn't even some nice justifying myth involving the True Texts rising out of a pile of apocrypha. It's just nakedly there, but because of the special powers of the word "God", everyone just knows that all the priests and whatnot must have some good reason for it.

However, something bugs me about Linus's speech here… Would it even be correct to say the ancient Greeks had a "December 25", and considered that precise date a birthday? Just curious…

Posted by: John Morales | December 23, 2010 12:31 AM

ABQ, your insult towards "the average Christian" is noted with mild amusement.

Posted by: э̀иэЯ | December 23, 2010 5:19 AM

Explaining what Xmas is all about in ALL CAPS isn't going to work for me.

Posted by: Nij | December 23, 2010 10:34 AM

Do any of you seriously think that the average Christian Pharyngulite gives the slightest rat's a flying suirrel fuck festival that they stand accused of 'hijacking the holiday' from pagans what Al the Fuckwit thinks? I mean, seriously, obtain the semblance of a brain, fuck off, you inane drive-by troll.


There, I made it better.

Posted by: bananacat | December 23, 2010 12:46 PM

Umm, Horus wasn't a pagan god, and I'm suspicious about some of the others listed. That's sort of like saying Frodo is a character from Moby Dick, and I won't stand for it.

Posted by: Owlmirror | December 23, 2010 3:29 PM

I've been working on an idea for a comedy sketch called "Keep Saturn in Saturnalie" which takes place in the Roman Empire. It's a dialog between a pagan and early christian. The christian insists people say "happy holidays" so Christmas would be included. The pagan Roman makes the same sort of arguments we hear today from Bill Donohue and his ilk (Rome was founded on pagan principles, pagans dominate the population, why should every minority faith be included, etc)

Hm. Are you aware of this?

What's this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people with, ‘Io, Saturnalia.’ ‘We have all these different cultures in Rome,’ they tell us. ‘We shouldn't offend anyone,’ they tell us. ‘We should be inclusive. We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree decorations and their fire rituals, and the weirdos from Gaul cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle, and the Mithraists, the Zoroastrians, the Isis cults and, of course, those characters that hang out in the catacombs.’ ‘Hail, winter,’ we're supposed to say. I ask you, what next? We lose the feast? We stop the solstice parties? No more honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?

I was buying some candles and greenery down by the Forum the other day and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, ‘Good Yule.’ So I go, ‘Hey, in this country, we say, "Io, Saturnalia." Maybe you should go back from where you came from.’ Then Macrobius goes, ‘She can't; she's a slave.’ Whatever. At this time of year, the Visigoths sacrifice a pig and burn a special log which they then dance around instead of acting like normal people and going to the temple of Saturn.

I swear, I was at this party over at Septima Commodia's house the other day--she always has a Saturnalia party--anyway, she decorated the place with prickly green leaves. ‘It's holly,’ she said, ‘the latest fashion from Britannia. They all do it over in Londinium.'

It gets worse. She had this statue of some goddess from Ultima Thule or somewhere—name of Frigga—sitting right there on the dining room mensa. I mean, this is darn near blasphemous. I'd be scared of what the lares and penates would do if I put that thing in my house. But Septima Commidia just said, ‘Oh, get over it. We're cosmopolitan around here.'

Cosmopolitan; that's what they call it. Well, by Jupiter, I live in Latium, I'm a Roman and this empire was founded on the principle that the gods, our gods, must be honored at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. None of this foreign heretical nonsense or these strange customs from Germania or Hibernia or Palestine. I say, ‘Io, Saturnalia,’ and if you don't like it, you can leave.

It's a monologue rather than a dialogue, but it's more or less the same thing.

Posted by: Grahame | December 24, 2010 1:27 AM

Ben and MSM, thanks for that info. I will look into it. I must admit, I would like to find debunking evidence, not that it would convince those who Believe.