A Mythless Christmas
The winter season is upon us, and soon all good and not so good Christians will become insufferably pious and good. There will be weird chanting, and symbolic displays of affection, wealth and merriment. Soon there will be no escaping the fact that he was born on this day, or so some believe. His arrival was to introduce a new round of peace on earth and good will to all mankind. His arrival would unleash reigns of terror across the world that no other single event will duplicate.
Over the centuries, because this one man was born on Christmas day, so named because Christ’s birth date was superimposed on a variety of pagan myths, more people have grown to rue the day,the man and the date.
So what if we could remove the mythology from the day? Separate out the horror of his coming and bask in the glory of a winter celebration in honor of the horrors of the cold and misery that our ancestors must have felt at the start of what has become a weird celebration of life in the face of certain death?
Think about third century Europe on December 25, the knowledge that the food would run out before the first harvest would be in, that the cold could not be alleviated by fire because there was never enough wood, or the walls themselves leaked cold wintry blasts, the stench of animals brought in for protection from predators. Even the castles where the learned bishops congregated to accept or dismiss bits and pieces of the lore surrounding the man, were never warm, and bundling under covers led to spontaneous sex and nine months miracles, not unlike the weird way our savior was born by spontaneous cohabitation.
Later, when women were relegated to secondary status in this misogynistic culture, they would attempt to grab some of the glory that the holy bastard had stolen by touting the sexless mother, from whose unsullied womb sprang the little lord Jesus.
Imagine the pageantry, the noise, the adoration of carved images of our boy hanging there thirty some years later in his underwear. It all started with the myth of Christmas and it masked some horrible truths.
The winter season is upon us, and soon all good and not so good Christians will become insufferably pious and good. There will be weird chanting, and symbolic displays of affection, wealth and merriment. Soon there will be no escaping the fact that he was born on this day, or so some believe. His arrival was to introduce a new round of peace on earth and good will to all mankind. His arrival would unleash reigns of terror across the world that no other single event will duplicate.
Over the centuries, because this one man was born on Christmas day, so named because Christ’s birth date was superimposed on a variety of pagan myths, more people have grown to rue the day,the man and the date.
So what if we could remove the mythology from the day? Separate out the horror of his coming and bask in the glory of a winter celebration in honor of the horrors of the cold and misery that our ancestors must have felt at the start of what has become a weird celebration of life in the face of certain death?
Think about third century Europe on December 25, the knowledge that the food would run out before the first harvest would be in, that the cold could not be alleviated by fire because there was never enough wood, or the walls themselves leaked cold wintry blasts, the stench of animals brought in for protection from predators. Even the castles where the learned bishops congregated to accept or dismiss bits and pieces of the lore surrounding the man, were never warm, and bundling under covers led to spontaneous sex and nine months miracles, not unlike the weird way our savior was born by spontaneous cohabitation.
Later, when women were relegated to secondary status in this misogynistic culture, they would attempt to grab some of the glory that the holy bastard had stolen by touting the sexless mother, from whose unsullied womb sprang the little lord Jesus.
Imagine the pageantry, the noise, the adoration of carved images of our boy hanging there thirty some years later in his underwear. It all started with the myth of Christmas and it masked some horrible truths.
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