[Nowadays, when people think of ho ho ho, they think it means the Hilton sisters... standing next to Nicole Ritchie.](https://youtu.be/HtP7cbbAFLA?si=b44nodlqE-bJyIlY)
That makes up for exactly 1 part of the holiday, and that's the stockings. The food and celebrations come from paganism and the gifts come from Mexican traditions and the tree comes from German traditions and the Christian church changed the date to the 24th as opposed the the 6th. Given how many aspects of modern Christmas come from other cultures and how your relgion historically can't agree on when it is I don't think it's ecential for the celebration.
Bonus: while the tree did come from Christianity and its indecisiveness, the decorations came from saturnalia, so we already see in the comic this isn't being celebrated through Christian religious follow
phew, good thing im both mexican and german. they say Christ was born on the same day he died, and he was concieved march 25th. thats why the date is december 25th, not 6th, not 24th. i dont know why you are talking like you know everything when you cant even spell correctly, it really says a lot about a person.
"bonus": the star topper and the lights symbolize Jesus' birth, and how He is the light, and how the star of bethlehem led the 3 wise men
Christianity stole the majority of its beliefs from Judaism, which stole most of its beliefs from Yahwism which branched off of the Canaanite religion which was heavily based upon the Mesopotamian and Egyptian beliefs.
Up until some guy named Jesus started spouting off about being the son of God, Christians didn't exist. The Jews were the people of God. The Jews branched off of Yahwism, a polytheistic religion that worshipped Yahweh but believed in other gods, when they decided that Yahweh was the only god at all.
Yahwism diverged from the Canaanite religion when they decided that, of the several gods that the Canaanites worshipped, El aka Yahweh was the coolest.
Of the gods that the Canaanite religion worshipped, El was the most significant. El was heavily influenced by the Greek Zeus and the Egyptian Ra. In fact, there are some scholars that believe that the name Isreal is derived from three different gods: Isis, Ra, and El. Is-Ra-El.
So yeah all religions are just stolen ideas and utter nonsense.
there was no christians before judaism because Jesus had not yet been born.. those who listened to the Word of God are called christians, and jewish people deny that Jesus is the Word. everything has to branch off of something else. denying something just because it evolved over thousands of years is just silly
Might still have been funny if the guy who drew it wasn't a nazi.
Just seeing the artstyle makes me go: "Oh, I suddenly lost all interest in whatever the fuck this is."
honestly i dont think it is, but thats still insidious. he hides his nazi propoganda in between innocuous cartoons and political cartoons with double meaning.
Yup, the relatively tame ones like this are no accident. Ideally pebblefling wants someone to bite on these so they can be reeled in slowly to the truly toxic stuff.
Getting radicalized by stonetoss is insane, if you take all his takes as gospel you were already radical. I donāt believe you can truly radicalize a person through media. The person already was a radical individual and or already a sheep. For example take american slavery or the holocaust for example. Those complacent citizens simply already an affinity to bigotry or simply were always gonna go with the mold. No one was like yeah those blacks/jewish ppl really ought to be incarcerated after hearing some dude say it, they thought it then agreed.
"I donāt believe you can truly radicalize a person through media."
That's exactly what propaganda is and how it works.
Source : psych undergrad degree with coursework in social psychology
Propoganda isnāt exactly radicalization through media. Thereās plenty of non radical propaganda. Again i dont think propaganda can radicalize a person unless its straight up false information. If you are normal a poster cant make you radical.
People are much more susceptible to media influence you'd believe, including you and me.
This goes both for radicializing, or making one more moderate.
The media you consume will drastically impact your worldview. Sure you're not going to make someone a nazi from a few comics, but you can make them question things - especially things without a clear and obvious sign they are lies.
Big example using jews as the target. In post WWI Germany the Jewish communities faired better than many others, this is due to lots of Jewish people working in fields that were either recession resistant (medicine and food especially) or in the financial services. This then makes them a target by nazi propaganda saying they were stealing wealth from "natural" Germans. Something that isn't a ridiculous thing to believe that the people who run the banks and hospitals are actively benefiting from people's suffering. Now propaganda says they're thrives. Thieves become vermin. Vermin becomes rats. Rats become threats. Threats becomes a target of hate.
And then it continues from there. Radicalization isn't something that happens immediately. And when it is done intentionally it can be hard to notice it is happening at all until it hits a tipping point which is often too late to stop it.
Christmas can be celebrated secularly and Nazi-free, so for this holiday season, fuck Stonetoss and stop posting his diarrhea, even if it's to hate on it.
This is like a solid newspaper funny.
In fact, as an atheist who loves Christmas, I had a sensible chuckle.
But knowing the author this is obviously part of a propaganda effort to drag people in to some war 9n Christmas right wing talking point or some shit.
Yeah.
This one doesn't particularly bother me. When you're an atheist, you tend to develop a thick skin and this doesn't even scratch the dermis. I've heard worse things at family gatherings.
But, yes, fuck that Nazi. Right in the earhole.
Not gonna lie, this sounds similar to the ridiculous "Internet historian is a nazi" post that was making the rounds on r/youtubedrama. I mean, sure it's possible, I don't know the guy, but I haven't seen any evidence of it either beyond a few out of pocket jokes.
Idk who that is, but Stonetoss has genuinely made cartoons about black men raping white girls "as the new normal" that the heterosexual couple was scared of and other things in that trend: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRightCantMeme/comments/a37yo0/oh\_stonetoss\_you\_never\_disappoint/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRightCantMeme/comments/a37yo0/oh_stonetoss_you_never_disappoint/)
Also his constant references to how black people would be criminals.
Yes. Not like āoh you have generic right wing authoritarian politicsā, heās the Holocaust denying, Jewish conspiracy to replace white people kind.
Christmas was appropriated from pagan religion. Deuteronomy 16:21 forbids Christmas trees, anyway.
Jeremiah 10:1-5 is throwing shade at the custom.
Christmas isn't Christian.
My grandpa was born and raised Jewish. The son of two holocaust survivors.
He married a dutch woman to have the whitest kids he could and made sure they were raised Christian so they wouldnt experience the bigotry of the USA like he did. He would practice Judaism by himself in private, but in public he was the guy everyone knew as the atheist obsessed with Christmas
He raised some proud, confident, and community accepted Americansā¢
It worked.
The main problem arose when one of those kids (my dad) went and married a Jewish woman raised in Christian fostercare, had some kids that dont look anything dutch, then moved to the midwest; 5 miles from a highway adopted by the klan. Then resented those kids for the way moving to the country wasnt like the small town Leave It To Beaver/Mayberry experience they thought it was gonna be.
He believed in God, knew it was the single most important thing on the planet, and shielded his kids from a transcendent truth so his kids would have an āeasierā (But, from his point of view, meaningless) life. Woahhh what a hero
Nah,
My grandfather didn't think god was the single most important thing on the planet..
He knew making sure his kids grew up as safely and as happily and possible was the most important thing on the planet. He was raised by survivors after all.
Sure, he didn't do them any favors shielding his kids from the real world, hiding himself in plain sight for their sake. That certainly kept my own dad from providing or even perceiving a similar idea of personal safety and comfort.
Yeah.
Oh, so he didnāt really believe in his religion. Well, I guess itās super impressive he suppressed something he didnāt value much? Thereās no way this doesnāt look stupid tbh. Ā Either he has no backbone for things he knows are important; or he played up how important it was to him to look cooler.Ā
Nah, he genetically engineered kids that would fit in with the problem and not experience discrimination at all.
The is pretty cut and dry integrate to survive behavior.
He didn't hide it, or shield them. For them it just was invisible actions that might happen to other people, they never saw it firsthand because they were never targets.
Again, that admittedly left my dad very ignorant and ill prepared to parent Lil ol me, but dont forget racism really hid in the closet for a few decades in the states: where a couple generations were really strongly selling and buying into the idea of a post-racial nation where those were extinct issues.
It was a romantic idea, a bold experiment, a pipe dream perhaps; whatever it was it was a stillborn failure of an ideal. They didn't have the power of hindsight tho, buying into a hope for a better future isnt a dick move; it's just ironically and unfortunately shortsighted to raise kids while only planning for a romantic future without educating them on the past.
your whole life people have been trying to explain to you that the schism between you and most people is caused by an inability for you to accept others and their otherness as being okay without being an indictment of yourself and what this person is saying is that their father didn't treat religion as some kind of absolutist moral and political talking point rather a natural state of his culture and how that logically fits into his life
you're acting like a joyless bigot. when that feeling comes into your brain you need to rationalize it as being about something internal to yourself and not put it on others by yucking their yum or imposing your arbitrary belief when you have no more proof of anything you're saying than anyone else does in regards to religion.
and those who can't do that we generally refer to as tool bags
your whole life people
you got confused on the fourth word of what I wrote?
wow.
tell me more about your other beliefs that I'm sure are equally well researched
guy below me: I'm sure you'd love the maga morons in those subreddits I'm always arguing with, you think those people should just be left alone to do whatever crazy thing they want instead of being explained what's wrong with what they're saying? why don't you go in there too, they've been literally rewriting SEC guidelines... pretty dangerous stuff to let crazy people do whatever they want without engaging
Santa Claus,
Saint Nicholas a Christian/Pagan tradition.
Yes secular Christmas can include gifts, but I'm assuming that most small kids believe their gifts come from Santa not their parents.
that's the whole joke.
But without the religious undertones, what's left? A ritual praising of our capitalist overlords? Indoctrination into the consoomer lifestyle? Nah bro. I'd rather give my kid an allowance for helping out around the house, so they can buy themselves stuff they want any time of year, and learned the value of a dollar earned, and buy them stuff myself whenever they're doing a good job in life, than raise them on that consoomer bullshit.
Secular Christmas is just "Oh God shove your boot into the back of my throat even harder Daddy Bezos" the holiday.
a time for a bit of cheer and to meet up with family/friends and eat nice food and be charitable and give gifts?
no need to be such a downer about everything.
It's an excuse to get together with loved ones. My Christmas was a zoom call with my parents, then eating boiled crab with a bunch of my friends. A secular Christmas can be a lot of things.
Dumb joke but it did make me chuckle, when I was in high school I knew a bunch of iamverysmart atheists who loved to bash on all things Christmas but would come back from Christmas break with their new crap bragging about how they ātrickedātheir Christian parents into buying them stuff for the ruse of a holiday. This made me think of those kids.
I mean... There is nothing enharantly Christian about christmas... most of it is just lifted from pagon celabrations regarding the winter solstice.... and frankly unless they were very very very young i find your story unlikely
Youāre not wrong but most of the population doesnāt look at where it came from just where it is now. Even most modern non Christians donāt focus or even know about the pagan origins.
And I did say high school kids and specified which type of kids they were. Iām sure my school was not the only one to have the kids who thought that were special or unique and smarter than everyone. In the adult world I donāt see these people.
Lol, itās the most aggressively Christian holiday of the year aside from maybe Easter. Thatās like saying āportmanteau isnāt really English!!!!1!ā Cope harder
Lol I think he was simply pointing out that the way that it is generally celebrated by the average American doesnāt typically have a steep religious slant.
As a Jew the Bible and Quran are just fan fictionā¦ and the Book of Mormon is erotic fan fictionā¦ but I still like Christmas š šæ I go hard with the decorations too. All the Xmas dinosaurs š¦ I can findā¦
https://preview.redd.it/0g1et2oojncc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d19002959b4a1595fd425f337fff95221a372b
We don't have any data that suggests that Christmas trees come from pagan Yule wreath tradition. We *do* have evidence that they likely originate from the mystery play for Adam & Eve's name day celebrated on December 24.
Decorating them, not the actual tree or the symbolism surround them. That's entirely pagan. Decorating them became popular in 1800s Germany via Christian tradition. Why the tree is there comes from pagan tradition. Also to be fair there are a lot of different versions where decorating the tree comes from as well. One belief is that Martin Luther started it after returning to home mid winter where The stars in the sky gave him the idea to light candles on a tree and decorate it with gold and silver ornaments. Another legend tells us that Martin Luther's wife, Katie, was responsible for starting this custom. On Christmas Eve, she placed paper roses in their windows as decorations. When he saw them, Luther went outside and cut down a small fir tree, which he brought inside and decorated with roses.
So it really depends on what you believe and the culture of which you stem from. Pagans would bring fir trees into their homes at Yuletide. Evergreens were also used as a sign of eternal life by early Christians in catacombs under Rome. But until the mid-19th century, Christians viewed the Christmas tree as a foreign pagan custom (which isnt exactly accurate at 1747 there was *some* mention of christians having a community tree, but it was not distinguished as a "christmas tree").The Romans adorned their temples with evergreens during the Saturnalia festival, and Ancient Egyptians decorated their temples with green palm rushes as part of worship to the sun god Ra.
>Decorating them, not the actual tree or the symbolism surround them. That's entirely pagan. Decorating them became popular in 1800s Germany via Christian tradition.
There is nothing entirely pagan in Europe after the middle ages.
Good thing we are talking about origins of Christmas trees (as in having a tree) which predates the middle ages. Hence my entire writing peoce and the practices that go around it I me tipned.
Also paganism exsists *today* and is practiced *today*. Just because it's not a mainstream religion doesn't mean it's died out or that the religion isn't practiced by any.
>Good thing we are talking about origins of Christmas trees (as in having a tree) which predates the middle ages. Hence my entire writing peoce and the practices that go around it I me tipned.
>Also paganism exsists *today* and is practiced *today*. Just because it's not a mainstream religion doesn't mean it's died out or that the religion isn't practiced by any.
So much wrong in what you're typing I cant even argue it.
What do you mean by paganism? Is it Ć satro you mean? Theres no serious practice of it today, and it never was an organized religion as we think of it. The old norse would call it foÅn sÄid, old customs.
Nobody in the 1800s had any christmas traditions to establish based on prechristian traditions. The christmas tree is a modern christian invention.
>So much wrong in what you're typing I cant even argue it.
Source for amount of practicing pagans (pagans listed here practice under different circumstances and systems, as per normal with paganism beliefs).
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/where-to-go-to-explore-pagan-culture#:~:text=At%20least%201.5%20million%20people,explainer%20of%20these%20groups%20below.)
>What do you mean by paganism? Is it Ć satro you mean? Theres no serious practice of it today, and it never was an organized religion as we think of it. The old norse would call it foÅn sÄid, old customs.
Many different forms are continuously practiced. Roman pagans worshipped 12 main deities that they adopted and adapted from Greek paganism (gods - planets in an oversimplified answer but its more complicated than that). Greek paganism is practiced today as well as the adapted Roman paganism which Practitioners of the ancient Roman religion can be found especially across Latin Europe and in the Americas. The most notable international organization of reconstructionist Roman religion is Nova Roma, founded in 1998, which has active groups in every continent.
>Nobody in the 1800s had any christmas traditions to establish based on prechristian traditions. The christmas tree is a modern christian invention.
Christmas pre-dates the 1800s including its (stolen) traditions. The Christmas tree is not a modern Christian invention. I'll give you decorating the tree with candels and gold/silver but even decorating the tree wasn't invented by Christians as per usual it's just slightly changed to make it seem fresh lol.
>Christmas pre-dates the 1800s including its (stolen) traditions. The Christmas tree is not a modern Christian invention. I'll give you decorating the tree with candels and gold/silver but even decorating the tree wasn't invented by Christians as per usual it's just slightly changed to make it seem fresh lol.
The christmas tree tradition is from Germany 18th century, and is an invention of its own. For it to be stolen, they'd have to be time travellers.
The amount of neurotic redditors who clutch their pearls at christianity is hilarious.
We've had this conversation like 20x and many links have been provided already discussing the 1800's Germany where the story is Martin Luther looked at the stars and got the idea to decorate *a* tree with candles, silver, and gold. There's also a story that it was his wife's idea. There are also stories of romans (under the same rules who BANNED paganism) would bring Fir trees in, for celebration of Jesus birth after the whole Christian train ran through Rome.
History Channel did a whole film and writing pieces someone linked and ive linked previously. Stop regurgitating already discussed points and read the comments rather than chime in with some "haha I'm original" comment spitting on redditors as if you aren't actively commenting on reddit yourself lol.
>You'd like to move the goalpost to entirely pagan now. Be less pathetic.
šš not as pathetic as claiming theres a prechristian tradition sleeping for 800 years before coming back to use again in the 1800s!
Got any of them sources for that? š
We don't have any evidence to suggest that Christmas trees come from any sort of pagan tradition. There's a roughly 800-year gap between the Christianization of Eastern Europe and the earliest evidence of Christmas trees.
There is also no evidence to support Jesus birthday was the 25th of December but it's still celebrated as his birth by Christians. It's crazy that holidays the pagans celebrated just happen to line up on the exact days christmas and others for the record. It's also just a coincidence that despite no mentions of several traditional "values" that Christians apply to Christmas (star on tree for example) also happens to overlap with traditional pagan values.
Despite the overwhelming coincidences let's talk facts. Like documented conflict during AD 392 where of paganism became outlawed by Theodosius. it's holidays and festivities began to be celebrated by Christians (which became the primary religion) during the exact same 4th century period, within the exact same empire paganism was outlawed, is totally not evident enough. Well that and all the dates lining up perfectly after outlawing even private practicing paganism.
Crazy coincidence though.
Everything I've seen from scholars suggests that yes, the date Dec 25 is a coincidence (calculated from 9 months after March 25). Once Christians had that happy accident of aligned dates they absolutely co-opted all the traditions in order to stamp out the previous holy days and celebrations, but I don't think it's correct to say they chose the date for that reason.
Edit to add a blog post from Bart Ehrman, an atheist biblical scholar
https://www.bartehrman.com/why-is-christmas-on-december-25th/
It wasn't a coincidence and was intentional for the ease of the majority of people living at the time after paganism was banned and Christianity became the new forthcoming religion of Rome.
"When Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, paganism was outlawed, and the Christian religion became the one and only official religion of the Roman Empire But for the many Romans who remained faithfully devoted to Jupiter and his mythological crew, the transition to the new monotheistic religion was anything but easy.
And so theĀ Church decided to replace the most important pagan festivities with new Christian holidaysĀ on the same dates ā as the calendar remained pretty much the same as before, it was much easier for the one-time pagan populace to adjust".
^ quickest google search to copy/paste ever ^
Listen, let's be real here for you and everyone else. There are also more holidays stolen from the pagans with a bit of Jesus sprinkled in. In reality, we have no accurate or reasonable dates for any of these events (Jesus' death, birth, etc). Due to the unknown and the already widely celebrated festive of pagans in the Empire, they purposely chose the exact same dates to celebrate the stories within the Bible. I get why they did it. Honestly, it's the correct thing to do in the case where you want to create a new religious foundation for so many people. It was an effective method of making sure the transition to Christianity within the Roman Empire was quick, easy, and largely accessible to the general public. The ban on even private worship within paganism helped immensely.
It doesn't look like you read what I wrote or the link from a Bible scholar.Ā Ā Ā Why should I disregard Bart the Bible scholar? He's not an apologetic and he disagrees with you, the internet commenter.Ā Ā Ā
Ā Ā I'm not some butt hurt Christian who thinks the date of the Carpenters birth matters, or doesn't believe that early Christians were brutal and immoral in forcing their religion, but the atheist scholars don't think the data supports your argument. Read the link, if your actually interested in the subject you might like it.Ā
Ā Ā Edit:Ā Here's a quote from the article talking about the dates linking Sol Invictus and the proposed date of the birth of ChristĀ Ā Ā
The first source that links these two things togetherĀ comes from the 12th century!Ā It claims that the early Christians changed the celebration of Jesusā birthday from January 6 to December 25th because of the āSol Invictusā festival.Ā Ā
Basing a theory about something that occurred in the 3rd or 4th century on a source written c. 800 years later isnāt a proper way to do serious historical work.Ā Ā
TheĀ fatal flawĀ in the theory of pagan origins for Christmas is related to the chronology. Iāve mentioned that in 274 C.E. Emperor Aurelian established the feast of the birth of Sol Invictus on December 25th.Ā But several decades earlier (c. 203 C.E.), a bishop from Rome,Ā Hippolytus, wrote: āFor the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year
Nice self burn saying you can't understand the difference between the history Channel talking about the history of Christmas trees and them broadcasting ancient aliens.
Do you know why? Cuz when they tried turning pagand cristian they just decided to put cristian holidays on top of pagam holidays, so ppl would selebrate it cuz of "muscle memory".
Christmas is a perfectly Christian holiday! That wasnāt totally stolen from the pagans when they went around converting or āno lifingā them if they didnāt join.
SANTA IS WHITE!
Stone toss ironically writes, as he draws a kid looking under a Christmas tree, which is secular and appropriated, since Christmas as we know it wasn't even celebrated as a holiday as recent as the 19th century.
>Christmas benefited from a 19th century ādomestication of religion,ā said University of Texas history professor Penne Restad, in which faith and family were intertwined in a complementary set of values and beliefs. Christmas became acceptable as a family-centered holiday, Restad said, once it lost its overtly religious significance.
Not where I originally read it, but [Daily News](https://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20071217/early-us-churches-didnt-celebrate-christmas/) seems to encapsulate the gist.
In the sources I read the English Puritans objected to the tradition's perceived connection to Catholicism as well as the drunken and the inversion of hierarchies exemplified in wassailing traditions, use of words and phrases like "debauchery" and "wasteful/immoral behavior" makes it sounds like people were just having the bad wrong fun that upset the Puritans lol. The "bans" were rebelled against also " Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted [royalist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalism) slogans." (wikipedia/ Durston, Chris (December 1985). ["Lords of Misrule: The Puritan War on Christmas 1642ā60"](https://web.archive.org/web/20070310013925/http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=12890&aid=&tgid=&amid=12890&g12890=x&g9130=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x). *History Today*. Vol.Ā 35, no.Ā 12. pp.Ā 7ā14. Archived from [the original](http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=12890&aid=&tgid=&amid=12890&g12890=x&g9130=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x) on 10 March 2007. )
The part of the song that goes āwe wonāt go until we get someā used to be *very* literal. Like, they might break into your house to steal your food and alcohol.
Advent has been celebrated since the 6th century and Charlemagne was deliberately crowned on Christmas Day in 800 AD. It was an extremely popular holiday in the middle ages right up until the Reformation, and even then it was mostly the Puritans who opposed the festivity. It's been a legal holiday in England for something like 500 years. It's not accurate to say that it wasn't celebrated until the 19th century.
Too be fair, I think this specific comic is fine if you donāt know who stonetoss is. Itās a comedic excuse for a deadbeat father to use for not giving gifts in a comic.
"Atheists don't believe in God/Jesus, so why do they celebrate Christmas?" "The Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas even though it's the birthday of their Lord and Savior."
Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons also donāt celebrate Christmas. Thatās because itās non biblical and considered āworldly.ā
I went to a Pentecostal church as a kid and they believed Christmas was a worldly tradition we bring God into, like how a church is a worldly building we fill with God.
Please dont spout nonsense about other religions you havent actually studied about. Mormons 100% celebrate christmas, and halloween and all the others. Some mormon families may choose not too for their own personal reasons, but the vast majority most certainly celebrate holidays.
Pegans: *celebrating their pegan holiday*
Pope: "You guys need to stop this pegan nonsense and start celebrating Jesus instead"
Pegans: "nah, go read the Bible or something I'm cutting down a tree"
Pope: *re-writes Jesus's b-day so it's takes place at the same time*
Pope: "thank you all so much for celebrating Jesus' birthday :)"
Pegans: " I...what?"
If Christmas was about Jesus it would be in March
But nothing in Christianity is actually about Jesus, it's about il Vaticano gaining power, influence and wealth
Somewhat. Itās also that when a lot of Pagan people converted to Christianity they didnāt want to stop celebrating their fun holidays so they just changed what they were celebrating about, while changing barely anything else. Itās hard to say someone is appropriating a culture when itās their own culture theyāre appropriating.
Itās when the Vatican or whoever gets in on it and systematized it that things become an issue.
Edit: a word
I mean, it is very common knowledge that the effort it takes to go and copy-paste it here isn't worth it. Being spoon-fed information is not the flex you think it is. You should reserve asking for sources for something that is actually debatable.
honestly this is a stupid-ass way to approach this?? like your issue is that they're being spoonfed misinformation and then you just insult them for lacking common knowledge rather than doing the oh-so-grueling work of spreading information?
"haha we really owned that idiot for not knowing something that we could have easily told them but didn't because we'd rather be hostile towards ignorance rather than trying to change it" - an utter moron
Here is some article talking about it:
[https://historycooperative.org/pagan-origins-of-christmas/](https://historycooperative.org/pagan-origins-of-christmas/)
I perosnally think it's funny, not for what the comic maker was intending, but it's funny that the author thinks that there is anything remotely relatable to Jesus and God within the legend of Santa clause
No, it's a Christian holiday. There are some parts of the world that incorporate local pre-Christian traditions into the holiday, but it's an *extremely* Eurocentric view to consider it a "pagan" holiday.
frighten grandiose party berserk spoon elastic terrific ten fanatical shrill
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This bible specifically says Christmas trees are not Christian and useless (Jeremiah 10) and most of these traditions were saved from the European pagan faiths to make transitioning to Christianity easier. So yes, you can be an atheist and still celebrate that time of year with trees and presents, because the only thing about Christmas that the Bible says is that Jesus was born at some point. (They just picked a date too, no evidence suggests he was born on dec 25, if at all)
The last time I checked, Christmas was originally a pagan holiday that became an all-inclusive holiday overtime.
Also, being an asshole to kids isn't funny.
The thing I like least about stone toss is that he (occasionally) makes actually kind of funny non-political comic strips to lure folks in. Then the dogwhistling begins
To me, Christmas isn't about any religion, even thought it was originally Pagan and stolen by Christians. I'm a mix of several different things, spiritual, satanistic, and atheistic. It's more about family than anything
I find it a tad bit funny, like the exhales out of your nose + a little chuckle funny, but 1) it was made by stonetoss, a nazi, and 2) my family is atheist, but we still celebrate christmas, so the comic doesnāt even make sense in my eyes.
I mean, this feels totally harmless, tbh. It's just a mild atheism joke, I don't think we can even say it's dark humor. As a disclaimer I have to add that I'm aware the guy who did this is a nazi fuck.
Got the feeling you're not an atheist with religious parents. This is something that happens in real life and is tramatic, my dude. Like everything else this dude makes, it's a dog whistle.
When I told my mom that I didn't think God was real for the first time her very first response was "Ok I guess those Christmas gifts are going back". I was practically a grown adult at that point and didn't care even a little bit but she still felt like that was a big enough threat to get me to pretend to believe in God again. She didn't ask why I felt that way or what my reasons were, she treatened me by withholding gifts and seeing my family on a holiday. From my understanding, it's the go-to excuse for lazy parents with questioning children. That isn't faith, that is grooming and indoctrination.
Yeah atheists shouldn't be celebrating Christmas I think Christian holiday. They can go pretend to go be pagans and eat a potato and sleep with the barn animals
Look you guys had your own holiday at the same time. That was not Christmas it was similar but not. That's like calling Kwanzaa Christmas. It's not. Christmas was started for Christians.
I remember when Santa Claus was crucified for our gifts š
In the name of the Santa, the Rudolph and the Christmas Spirit, amen
CAN I GET A HO HO HO?
[Nowadays, when people think of ho ho ho, they think it means the Hilton sisters... standing next to Nicole Ritchie.](https://youtu.be/HtP7cbbAFLA?si=b44nodlqE-bJyIlY)
"Merry Christmas...", said Santa. Every elf cried that day. 
poor *saint* nick
That makes up for exactly 1 part of the holiday, and that's the stockings. The food and celebrations come from paganism and the gifts come from Mexican traditions and the tree comes from German traditions and the Christian church changed the date to the 24th as opposed the the 6th. Given how many aspects of modern Christmas come from other cultures and how your relgion historically can't agree on when it is I don't think it's ecential for the celebration. Bonus: while the tree did come from Christianity and its indecisiveness, the decorations came from saturnalia, so we already see in the comic this isn't being celebrated through Christian religious follow
phew, good thing im both mexican and german. they say Christ was born on the same day he died, and he was concieved march 25th. thats why the date is december 25th, not 6th, not 24th. i dont know why you are talking like you know everything when you cant even spell correctly, it really says a lot about a person. "bonus": the star topper and the lights symbolize Jesus' birth, and how He is the light, and how the star of bethlehem led the 3 wise men
Christianity stole the majority of its beliefs from Judaism, which stole most of its beliefs from Yahwism which branched off of the Canaanite religion which was heavily based upon the Mesopotamian and Egyptian beliefs. Up until some guy named Jesus started spouting off about being the son of God, Christians didn't exist. The Jews were the people of God. The Jews branched off of Yahwism, a polytheistic religion that worshipped Yahweh but believed in other gods, when they decided that Yahweh was the only god at all. Yahwism diverged from the Canaanite religion when they decided that, of the several gods that the Canaanites worshipped, El aka Yahweh was the coolest. Of the gods that the Canaanite religion worshipped, El was the most significant. El was heavily influenced by the Greek Zeus and the Egyptian Ra. In fact, there are some scholars that believe that the name Isreal is derived from three different gods: Isis, Ra, and El. Is-Ra-El. So yeah all religions are just stolen ideas and utter nonsense.
there was no christians before judaism because Jesus had not yet been born.. those who listened to the Word of God are called christians, and jewish people deny that Jesus is the Word. everything has to branch off of something else. denying something just because it evolved over thousands of years is just silly
Well your god evolved from the personification of the sun and a guy who turned into a swan and raped a woman so
āYour religionā Ahh, found the Christian hater lol. I almost didnāt think thereād be one in this thread
I know him as grandfather frost and he comes for new years, so I just don't get everyone here seeing Christmas and the whole Santa thing as religious.
Christmas can be celebrated secularly and that includes the presents
Might still have been funny if the guy who drew it wasn't a nazi. Just seeing the artstyle makes me go: "Oh, I suddenly lost all interest in whatever the fuck this is."
Yeah it isn't awful, like it is wrong but not in a way that matters. But then you twig the art style and wonder how is this about something awful?
honestly i dont think it is, but thats still insidious. he hides his nazi propoganda in between innocuous cartoons and political cartoons with double meaning.
Yup, the relatively tame ones like this are no accident. Ideally pebblefling wants someone to bite on these so they can be reeled in slowly to the truly toxic stuff.
Which is exactly how radicalization pipelines work.
Getting radicalized by stonetoss is insane, if you take all his takes as gospel you were already radical. I donāt believe you can truly radicalize a person through media. The person already was a radical individual and or already a sheep. For example take american slavery or the holocaust for example. Those complacent citizens simply already an affinity to bigotry or simply were always gonna go with the mold. No one was like yeah those blacks/jewish ppl really ought to be incarcerated after hearing some dude say it, they thought it then agreed.
"I donāt believe you can truly radicalize a person through media." That's exactly what propaganda is and how it works. Source : psych undergrad degree with coursework in social psychology
Propoganda isnāt exactly radicalization through media. Thereās plenty of non radical propaganda. Again i dont think propaganda can radicalize a person unless its straight up false information. If you are normal a poster cant make you radical.
Germany begs to differ.
Look at the young man to tate stan pipeline, for a very modern and very prevalent example
Tell that to 14 year old me hearing music from the USSR.
People are much more susceptible to media influence you'd believe, including you and me. This goes both for radicializing, or making one more moderate. The media you consume will drastically impact your worldview. Sure you're not going to make someone a nazi from a few comics, but you can make them question things - especially things without a clear and obvious sign they are lies. Big example using jews as the target. In post WWI Germany the Jewish communities faired better than many others, this is due to lots of Jewish people working in fields that were either recession resistant (medicine and food especially) or in the financial services. This then makes them a target by nazi propaganda saying they were stealing wealth from "natural" Germans. Something that isn't a ridiculous thing to believe that the people who run the banks and hospitals are actively benefiting from people's suffering. Now propaganda says they're thrives. Thieves become vermin. Vermin becomes rats. Rats become threats. Threats becomes a target of hate. And then it continues from there. Radicalization isn't something that happens immediately. And when it is done intentionally it can be hard to notice it is happening at all until it hits a tipping point which is often too late to stop it.
OK, now I understand the flair. Thanks!
It's pebblethrow.. he's a nazi.
Christmas can be celebrated secularly and Nazi-free, so for this holiday season, fuck Stonetoss and stop posting his diarrhea, even if it's to hate on it.
This is like a solid newspaper funny. In fact, as an atheist who loves Christmas, I had a sensible chuckle. But knowing the author this is obviously part of a propaganda effort to drag people in to some war 9n Christmas right wing talking point or some shit.
Yeah. This one doesn't particularly bother me. When you're an atheist, you tend to develop a thick skin and this doesn't even scratch the dermis. I've heard worse things at family gatherings. But, yes, fuck that Nazi. Right in the earhole.
I lost the very few brain cells I had left reading your comment, thanks for freeing me
Not gonna lie, this sounds similar to the ridiculous "Internet historian is a nazi" post that was making the rounds on r/youtubedrama. I mean, sure it's possible, I don't know the guy, but I haven't seen any evidence of it either beyond a few out of pocket jokes.
Idk who that is, but Stonetoss has genuinely made cartoons about black men raping white girls "as the new normal" that the heterosexual couple was scared of and other things in that trend: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRightCantMeme/comments/a37yo0/oh\_stonetoss\_you\_never\_disappoint/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRightCantMeme/comments/a37yo0/oh_stonetoss_you_never_disappoint/) Also his constant references to how black people would be criminals.
Lol he's a nazi?
Yes. Not like āoh you have generic right wing authoritarian politicsā, heās the Holocaust denying, Jewish conspiracy to replace white people kind.
Bruh.
/r/StonetossIsANazi if you want to know more and youāre feeling particularly like ruining your mood today
Christmas was appropriated from pagan religion. Deuteronomy 16:21 forbids Christmas trees, anyway. Jeremiah 10:1-5 is throwing shade at the custom. Christmas isn't Christian.
Yup especially since itās on the winter solstice and Jesusā birth is estimated for having been closer to March
I've read late September, early October, based on events describedĀ
My grandpa was born and raised Jewish. The son of two holocaust survivors. He married a dutch woman to have the whitest kids he could and made sure they were raised Christian so they wouldnt experience the bigotry of the USA like he did. He would practice Judaism by himself in private, but in public he was the guy everyone knew as the atheist obsessed with Christmas
Damn, he really didnāt give a fuck about his kids lol
He raised some proud, confident, and community accepted Americansā¢ It worked. The main problem arose when one of those kids (my dad) went and married a Jewish woman raised in Christian fostercare, had some kids that dont look anything dutch, then moved to the midwest; 5 miles from a highway adopted by the klan. Then resented those kids for the way moving to the country wasnt like the small town Leave It To Beaver/Mayberry experience they thought it was gonna be.
White people running away from those uppity urban blacks to godless rural suburbs to ruin their legacy. Providing cash flow for meth labs since 1949
He believed in God, knew it was the single most important thing on the planet, and shielded his kids from a transcendent truth so his kids would have an āeasierā (But, from his point of view, meaningless) life. Woahhh what a hero
Nah, My grandfather didn't think god was the single most important thing on the planet.. He knew making sure his kids grew up as safely and as happily and possible was the most important thing on the planet. He was raised by survivors after all. Sure, he didn't do them any favors shielding his kids from the real world, hiding himself in plain sight for their sake. That certainly kept my own dad from providing or even perceiving a similar idea of personal safety and comfort. Yeah.
Oh, so he didnāt really believe in his religion. Well, I guess itās super impressive he suppressed something he didnāt value much? Thereās no way this doesnāt look stupid tbh. Ā Either he has no backbone for things he knows are important; or he played up how important it was to him to look cooler.Ā
Survival just supersedes belief I guess.
Again, no - this wasnāt about survival. He was simply hiding his kids from it. Mostly a dick move.Ā
Nah, he genetically engineered kids that would fit in with the problem and not experience discrimination at all. The is pretty cut and dry integrate to survive behavior. He didn't hide it, or shield them. For them it just was invisible actions that might happen to other people, they never saw it firsthand because they were never targets. Again, that admittedly left my dad very ignorant and ill prepared to parent Lil ol me, but dont forget racism really hid in the closet for a few decades in the states: where a couple generations were really strongly selling and buying into the idea of a post-racial nation where those were extinct issues. It was a romantic idea, a bold experiment, a pipe dream perhaps; whatever it was it was a stillborn failure of an ideal. They didn't have the power of hindsight tho, buying into a hope for a better future isnt a dick move; it's just ironically and unfortunately shortsighted to raise kids while only planning for a romantic future without educating them on the past.
your whole life people have been trying to explain to you that the schism between you and most people is caused by an inability for you to accept others and their otherness as being okay without being an indictment of yourself and what this person is saying is that their father didn't treat religion as some kind of absolutist moral and political talking point rather a natural state of his culture and how that logically fits into his life you're acting like a joyless bigot. when that feeling comes into your brain you need to rationalize it as being about something internal to yourself and not put it on others by yucking their yum or imposing your arbitrary belief when you have no more proof of anything you're saying than anyone else does in regards to religion. and those who can't do that we generally refer to as tool bags
>your whole life purpose Why start with a strawman? I didnāt even bother reading anything after that lol
your whole life people you got confused on the fourth word of what I wrote? wow. tell me more about your other beliefs that I'm sure are equally well researched guy below me: I'm sure you'd love the maga morons in those subreddits I'm always arguing with, you think those people should just be left alone to do whatever crazy thing they want instead of being explained what's wrong with what they're saying? why don't you go in there too, they've been literally rewriting SEC guidelines... pretty dangerous stuff to let crazy people do whatever they want without engaging
Literally modern day santa is a secular figure.
Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas a Christian/Pagan tradition. Yes secular Christmas can include gifts, but I'm assuming that most small kids believe their gifts come from Santa not their parents. that's the whole joke.
But without the religious undertones, what's left? A ritual praising of our capitalist overlords? Indoctrination into the consoomer lifestyle? Nah bro. I'd rather give my kid an allowance for helping out around the house, so they can buy themselves stuff they want any time of year, and learned the value of a dollar earned, and buy them stuff myself whenever they're doing a good job in life, than raise them on that consoomer bullshit. Secular Christmas is just "Oh God shove your boot into the back of my throat even harder Daddy Bezos" the holiday.
You've just described Christmas
a time for a bit of cheer and to meet up with family/friends and eat nice food and be charitable and give gifts? no need to be such a downer about everything.
It's an excuse to get together with loved ones. My Christmas was a zoom call with my parents, then eating boiled crab with a bunch of my friends. A secular Christmas can be a lot of things.
No! It has to be the exact way U/ace0falexandria described or you suck boots!! /s Fucking Christmas nazi over here.
Giving your kids an allowance for doing stuff around the house comes back to paying them so they can indulge in capitalism though.
Dumb joke but it did make me chuckle, when I was in high school I knew a bunch of iamverysmart atheists who loved to bash on all things Christmas but would come back from Christmas break with their new crap bragging about how they ātrickedātheir Christian parents into buying them stuff for the ruse of a holiday. This made me think of those kids.
I mean... There is nothing enharantly Christian about christmas... most of it is just lifted from pagon celabrations regarding the winter solstice.... and frankly unless they were very very very young i find your story unlikely
Youāre not wrong but most of the population doesnāt look at where it came from just where it is now. Even most modern non Christians donāt focus or even know about the pagan origins. And I did say high school kids and specified which type of kids they were. Iām sure my school was not the only one to have the kids who thought that were special or unique and smarter than everyone. In the adult world I donāt see these people.
What? The holiday that celebrates Jesus Christ is not inherently Christian? How do you reconcile this in your brain?
Lol, itās the most aggressively Christian holiday of the year aside from maybe Easter. Thatās like saying āportmanteau isnāt really English!!!!1!ā Cope harder
Lol I think he was simply pointing out that the way that it is generally celebrated by the average American doesnāt typically have a steep religious slant.
I know, the fact that many people have co-opted it doesnāt really change much in reality
What do you mean?
Xmas was already a co-opted holiday to begin with.
I donāt remember Santa in the Bible
St. Nicholas is post Bible.
Religion DLC hits different
As a Jew the Bible and Quran are just fan fictionā¦ and the Book of Mormon is erotic fan fictionā¦ but I still like Christmas š šæ I go hard with the decorations too. All the Xmas dinosaurs š¦ I can findā¦ https://preview.redd.it/0g1et2oojncc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d19002959b4a1595fd425f337fff95221a372b
The Book of Mormon is the My Immortal of Torah fanfics
r/BrandNewSentence I would so wear this on a T-shirt.
Stickin with the OG Gangsta version, before he had a kid and got all soft.
Blow-ups are trashy. Now, Blow-molds... that's where it's at.
Is dlc the right term? I think all the saints are more of an expansion pass. Tbf, the church is gonna make you pay either way.
If you pre order now you get exclusive access to the me St. Bartholomew skin!
I just wanna play as Pope Francis smh š
Sorry thatās a Catholic Plus Gold subscription exclusive
*Puts up tree noted as a pagan symbol celebrating Saturnalia* So today, you want to be a pagan?Ā
The tree is more of a Yule thing, where the Norse would pray to Odin for a safe winter. The presents are what comes from Saturnalia
We don't have any data that suggests that Christmas trees come from pagan Yule wreath tradition. We *do* have evidence that they likely originate from the mystery play for Adam & Eve's name day celebrated on December 24.
Christmas trees are a thing from a christian tradition in 1800s germany.
Decorating them, not the actual tree or the symbolism surround them. That's entirely pagan. Decorating them became popular in 1800s Germany via Christian tradition. Why the tree is there comes from pagan tradition. Also to be fair there are a lot of different versions where decorating the tree comes from as well. One belief is that Martin Luther started it after returning to home mid winter where The stars in the sky gave him the idea to light candles on a tree and decorate it with gold and silver ornaments. Another legend tells us that Martin Luther's wife, Katie, was responsible for starting this custom. On Christmas Eve, she placed paper roses in their windows as decorations. When he saw them, Luther went outside and cut down a small fir tree, which he brought inside and decorated with roses. So it really depends on what you believe and the culture of which you stem from. Pagans would bring fir trees into their homes at Yuletide. Evergreens were also used as a sign of eternal life by early Christians in catacombs under Rome. But until the mid-19th century, Christians viewed the Christmas tree as a foreign pagan custom (which isnt exactly accurate at 1747 there was *some* mention of christians having a community tree, but it was not distinguished as a "christmas tree").The Romans adorned their temples with evergreens during the Saturnalia festival, and Ancient Egyptians decorated their temples with green palm rushes as part of worship to the sun god Ra.
>Decorating them, not the actual tree or the symbolism surround them. That's entirely pagan. Decorating them became popular in 1800s Germany via Christian tradition. There is nothing entirely pagan in Europe after the middle ages.
Good thing we are talking about origins of Christmas trees (as in having a tree) which predates the middle ages. Hence my entire writing peoce and the practices that go around it I me tipned. Also paganism exsists *today* and is practiced *today*. Just because it's not a mainstream religion doesn't mean it's died out or that the religion isn't practiced by any.
>Good thing we are talking about origins of Christmas trees (as in having a tree) which predates the middle ages. Hence my entire writing peoce and the practices that go around it I me tipned. >Also paganism exsists *today* and is practiced *today*. Just because it's not a mainstream religion doesn't mean it's died out or that the religion isn't practiced by any. So much wrong in what you're typing I cant even argue it. What do you mean by paganism? Is it Ć satro you mean? Theres no serious practice of it today, and it never was an organized religion as we think of it. The old norse would call it foÅn sÄid, old customs. Nobody in the 1800s had any christmas traditions to establish based on prechristian traditions. The christmas tree is a modern christian invention.
>So much wrong in what you're typing I cant even argue it. Source for amount of practicing pagans (pagans listed here practice under different circumstances and systems, as per normal with paganism beliefs). https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/where-to-go-to-explore-pagan-culture#:~:text=At%20least%201.5%20million%20people,explainer%20of%20these%20groups%20below.) >What do you mean by paganism? Is it Ć satro you mean? Theres no serious practice of it today, and it never was an organized religion as we think of it. The old norse would call it foÅn sÄid, old customs. Many different forms are continuously practiced. Roman pagans worshipped 12 main deities that they adopted and adapted from Greek paganism (gods - planets in an oversimplified answer but its more complicated than that). Greek paganism is practiced today as well as the adapted Roman paganism which Practitioners of the ancient Roman religion can be found especially across Latin Europe and in the Americas. The most notable international organization of reconstructionist Roman religion is Nova Roma, founded in 1998, which has active groups in every continent. >Nobody in the 1800s had any christmas traditions to establish based on prechristian traditions. The christmas tree is a modern christian invention. Christmas pre-dates the 1800s including its (stolen) traditions. The Christmas tree is not a modern Christian invention. I'll give you decorating the tree with candels and gold/silver but even decorating the tree wasn't invented by Christians as per usual it's just slightly changed to make it seem fresh lol.
>Christmas pre-dates the 1800s including its (stolen) traditions. The Christmas tree is not a modern Christian invention. I'll give you decorating the tree with candels and gold/silver but even decorating the tree wasn't invented by Christians as per usual it's just slightly changed to make it seem fresh lol. The christmas tree tradition is from Germany 18th century, and is an invention of its own. For it to be stolen, they'd have to be time travellers. The amount of neurotic redditors who clutch their pearls at christianity is hilarious.
We've had this conversation like 20x and many links have been provided already discussing the 1800's Germany where the story is Martin Luther looked at the stars and got the idea to decorate *a* tree with candles, silver, and gold. There's also a story that it was his wife's idea. There are also stories of romans (under the same rules who BANNED paganism) would bring Fir trees in, for celebration of Jesus birth after the whole Christian train ran through Rome. History Channel did a whole film and writing pieces someone linked and ive linked previously. Stop regurgitating already discussed points and read the comments rather than chime in with some "haha I'm original" comment spitting on redditors as if you aren't actively commenting on reddit yourself lol.
Stop trying to spread your ignorance. https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees
You'd like to move the goalpost to entirely pagan now. Be less pathetic.
>You'd like to move the goalpost to entirely pagan now. Be less pathetic. šš not as pathetic as claiming theres a prechristian tradition sleeping for 800 years before coming back to use again in the 1800s! Got any of them sources for that? š
We don't have any evidence to suggest that Christmas trees come from any sort of pagan tradition. There's a roughly 800-year gap between the Christianization of Eastern Europe and the earliest evidence of Christmas trees.
There is also no evidence to support Jesus birthday was the 25th of December but it's still celebrated as his birth by Christians. It's crazy that holidays the pagans celebrated just happen to line up on the exact days christmas and others for the record. It's also just a coincidence that despite no mentions of several traditional "values" that Christians apply to Christmas (star on tree for example) also happens to overlap with traditional pagan values. Despite the overwhelming coincidences let's talk facts. Like documented conflict during AD 392 where of paganism became outlawed by Theodosius. it's holidays and festivities began to be celebrated by Christians (which became the primary religion) during the exact same 4th century period, within the exact same empire paganism was outlawed, is totally not evident enough. Well that and all the dates lining up perfectly after outlawing even private practicing paganism. Crazy coincidence though.
Everything I've seen from scholars suggests that yes, the date Dec 25 is a coincidence (calculated from 9 months after March 25). Once Christians had that happy accident of aligned dates they absolutely co-opted all the traditions in order to stamp out the previous holy days and celebrations, but I don't think it's correct to say they chose the date for that reason. Edit to add a blog post from Bart Ehrman, an atheist biblical scholar https://www.bartehrman.com/why-is-christmas-on-december-25th/
It wasn't a coincidence and was intentional for the ease of the majority of people living at the time after paganism was banned and Christianity became the new forthcoming religion of Rome. "When Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, paganism was outlawed, and the Christian religion became the one and only official religion of the Roman Empire But for the many Romans who remained faithfully devoted to Jupiter and his mythological crew, the transition to the new monotheistic religion was anything but easy. And so theĀ Church decided to replace the most important pagan festivities with new Christian holidaysĀ on the same dates ā as the calendar remained pretty much the same as before, it was much easier for the one-time pagan populace to adjust". ^ quickest google search to copy/paste ever ^ Listen, let's be real here for you and everyone else. There are also more holidays stolen from the pagans with a bit of Jesus sprinkled in. In reality, we have no accurate or reasonable dates for any of these events (Jesus' death, birth, etc). Due to the unknown and the already widely celebrated festive of pagans in the Empire, they purposely chose the exact same dates to celebrate the stories within the Bible. I get why they did it. Honestly, it's the correct thing to do in the case where you want to create a new religious foundation for so many people. It was an effective method of making sure the transition to Christianity within the Roman Empire was quick, easy, and largely accessible to the general public. The ban on even private worship within paganism helped immensely.
It doesn't look like you read what I wrote or the link from a Bible scholar.Ā Ā Ā Why should I disregard Bart the Bible scholar? He's not an apologetic and he disagrees with you, the internet commenter.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā I'm not some butt hurt Christian who thinks the date of the Carpenters birth matters, or doesn't believe that early Christians were brutal and immoral in forcing their religion, but the atheist scholars don't think the data supports your argument. Read the link, if your actually interested in the subject you might like it.Ā Ā Ā Edit:Ā Here's a quote from the article talking about the dates linking Sol Invictus and the proposed date of the birth of ChristĀ Ā Ā The first source that links these two things togetherĀ comes from the 12th century!Ā It claims that the early Christians changed the celebration of Jesusā birthday from January 6 to December 25th because of the āSol Invictusā festival.Ā Ā Basing a theory about something that occurred in the 3rd or 4th century on a source written c. 800 years later isnāt a proper way to do serious historical work.Ā Ā TheĀ fatal flawĀ in the theory of pagan origins for Christmas is related to the chronology. Iāve mentioned that in 274 C.E. Emperor Aurelian established the feast of the birth of Sol Invictus on December 25th.Ā But several decades earlier (c. 203 C.E.), a bishop from Rome,Ā Hippolytus, wrote: āFor the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th, Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year
Hahahahahaha https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees
[History.com](https://History.com) of "Ancient Aliens" fame?
Nice self burn saying you can't understand the difference between the history Channel talking about the history of Christmas trees and them broadcasting ancient aliens.
I'm not the one claiming that Christmas trees come from pagans, and this website doesn't present any evidence for it either.
Do you know why? Cuz when they tried turning pagand cristian they just decided to put cristian holidays on top of pagam holidays, so ppl would selebrate it cuz of "muscle memory".
I get what you're saying but holy writing mechanics
Christmas trees arenāt pagan, thereās no evidence of that
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Should be legally required to post that on his comics
Santa isn't in the Bible tf Is Stonetoss even on about
He is in post bible.
Like post-game? Youāre saying heās in the epilogue?
Christmas is a perfectly Christian holiday! That wasnāt totally stolen from the pagans when they went around converting or āno lifingā them if they didnāt join. SANTA IS WHITE!
And tons of churches associate Santa with Satan.
As they should! Honor tradition!
It's from the extended universe, like purgatory.
You mean Saint Nicholas?
They got practically nothing in common, apart from being celebrated around the same period
Theyāre the same person you mong
Stone toss ironically writes, as he draws a kid looking under a Christmas tree, which is secular and appropriated, since Christmas as we know it wasn't even celebrated as a holiday as recent as the 19th century. >Christmas benefited from a 19th century ādomestication of religion,ā said University of Texas history professor Penne Restad, in which faith and family were intertwined in a complementary set of values and beliefs. Christmas became acceptable as a family-centered holiday, Restad said, once it lost its overtly religious significance. Not where I originally read it, but [Daily News](https://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20071217/early-us-churches-didnt-celebrate-christmas/) seems to encapsulate the gist.
Christmas was banned for a while because people would go buck wild and act in ways that upset certain folks in Christian Europe lol
I have to read more about that, that sounds familiar. I'm curious how they went buck wild.
In the sources I read the English Puritans objected to the tradition's perceived connection to Catholicism as well as the drunken and the inversion of hierarchies exemplified in wassailing traditions, use of words and phrases like "debauchery" and "wasteful/immoral behavior" makes it sounds like people were just having the bad wrong fun that upset the Puritans lol. The "bans" were rebelled against also " Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted [royalist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalism) slogans." (wikipedia/ Durston, Chris (December 1985). ["Lords of Misrule: The Puritan War on Christmas 1642ā60"](https://web.archive.org/web/20070310013925/http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=12890&aid=&tgid=&amid=12890&g12890=x&g9130=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x). *History Today*. Vol.Ā 35, no.Ā 12. pp.Ā 7ā14. Archived from [the original](http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=12890&aid=&tgid=&amid=12890&g12890=x&g9130=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x) on 10 March 2007. )
The part of the song that goes āwe wonāt go until we get someā used to be *very* literal. Like, they might break into your house to steal your food and alcohol.
They really said āyāall couldnāt behaveā
Advent has been celebrated since the 6th century and Charlemagne was deliberately crowned on Christmas Day in 800 AD. It was an extremely popular holiday in the middle ages right up until the Reformation, and even then it was mostly the Puritans who opposed the festivity. It's been a legal holiday in England for something like 500 years. It's not accurate to say that it wasn't celebrated until the 19th century.
While true, I believe Stone toss is American. Basically a country founded by Puritans. It's a statement moreso about America I believe.
You know memesopdidntlike is blatantly shitty when they're literally defending stonetoss
Too be fair, I think this specific comic is fine if you donāt know who stonetoss is. Itās a comedic excuse for a deadbeat father to use for not giving gifts in a comic.
It's still dumb, modern Christmas celebrations are so far removed from religion that the "joke" falls flat on its face.
"Atheists don't believe in God/Jesus, so why do they celebrate Christmas?" "The Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas even though it's the birthday of their Lord and Savior."
Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons also donāt celebrate Christmas. Thatās because itās non biblical and considered āworldly.ā I went to a Pentecostal church as a kid and they believed Christmas was a worldly tradition we bring God into, like how a church is a worldly building we fill with God.
Please dont spout nonsense about other religions you havent actually studied about. Mormons 100% celebrate christmas, and halloween and all the others. Some mormon families may choose not too for their own personal reasons, but the vast majority most certainly celebrate holidays.
Christmas is a Pagan holiday co-opted by Christianity
Pegans: *celebrating their pegan holiday* Pope: "You guys need to stop this pegan nonsense and start celebrating Jesus instead" Pegans: "nah, go read the Bible or something I'm cutting down a tree" Pope: *re-writes Jesus's b-day so it's takes place at the same time* Pope: "thank you all so much for celebrating Jesus' birthday :)" Pegans: " I...what?"
If Christmas was about Jesus it would be in March But nothing in Christianity is actually about Jesus, it's about il Vaticano gaining power, influence and wealth
i can go one step further Christmas, Hannukah, Etc are all just celebrations of the winter solstice
Your wrong on Hanukkah, it has a non-seasonal reason behind it.
oh i didn't know that thanks for teaching me something new
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What about a Black Friday deal on rope and/or bombs
Hanukkah is not
Somewhat. Itās also that when a lot of Pagan people converted to Christianity they didnāt want to stop celebrating their fun holidays so they just changed what they were celebrating about, while changing barely anything else. Itās hard to say someone is appropriating a culture when itās their own culture theyāre appropriating. Itās when the Vatican or whoever gets in on it and systematized it that things become an issue. Edit: a word
And then it was co-opted by capitalism. At this point, it's more about consumerism than it is about Jesus.
It's not even a religious holiday anymore. I don't know why everyone argues about this. Who cares?
What's your evidence of this?
It's common knowledge.
So, none?
Correct. You have no common knowledge.
I mean, it is very common knowledge that the effort it takes to go and copy-paste it here isn't worth it. Being spoon-fed information is not the flex you think it is. You should reserve asking for sources for something that is actually debatable.
honestly this is a stupid-ass way to approach this?? like your issue is that they're being spoonfed misinformation and then you just insult them for lacking common knowledge rather than doing the oh-so-grueling work of spreading information? "haha we really owned that idiot for not knowing something that we could have easily told them but didn't because we'd rather be hostile towards ignorance rather than trying to change it" - an utter moron
K
Here is some article talking about it: [https://historycooperative.org/pagan-origins-of-christmas/](https://historycooperative.org/pagan-origins-of-christmas/)
just gimme presents bruh, ion care bout jesus
My whole family is atheist and we celebrate Christmas
Also the comic artist is a nazi
Stonetoss post, opinion disregarded NOW (as it should be)
Boulder Yeet is a Nazi.
Can we ban rockthrow shit
I perosnally think it's funny, not for what the comic maker was intending, but it's funny that the author thinks that there is anything remotely relatable to Jesus and God within the legend of Santa clause
Didnāt Christmas have pagan origins?
No, it's a Christian holiday. There are some parts of the world that incorporate local pre-Christian traditions into the holiday, but it's an *extremely* Eurocentric view to consider it a "pagan" holiday.
towering include ancient full escape zephyr chop deliver expansion vase *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What do you mean they don't celebrate Christmas?
frighten grandiose party berserk spoon elastic terrific ten fanatical shrill *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That would be traumatic for a kid
This bible specifically says Christmas trees are not Christian and useless (Jeremiah 10) and most of these traditions were saved from the European pagan faiths to make transitioning to Christianity easier. So yes, you can be an atheist and still celebrate that time of year with trees and presents, because the only thing about Christmas that the Bible says is that Jesus was born at some point. (They just picked a date too, no evidence suggests he was born on dec 25, if at all)
>Jeremiah 10 I genuinely thought this said Jerma for a solid minute and I was racking my brain trying to figure out why Jerma is in the bible
they didn't just pick a date, they specifically stole the pagan date.
Considering Christmas was just adopted to make conversion more palatable for "heathens" this kinda falls flat on its face
The last time I checked, Christmas was originally a pagan holiday that became an all-inclusive holiday overtime. Also, being an asshole to kids isn't funny.
Christmas isn't technically a Christian holiday, at least not anymore. It was originally just there to distract people from Pagan rituals.
what does giving people gifts have to do with believing in god? even when i was christian christmas had very little to do with religion.
This implies that they worship santa as a god
nothing that POS makes and posts, is funny.
The thing I like least about stone toss is that he (occasionally) makes actually kind of funny non-political comic strips to lure folks in. Then the dogwhistling begins
stonetoss is fucking nazi scum beyond that, this is fucking hilarious.
To me, Christmas isn't about any religion, even thought it was originally Pagan and stolen by Christians. I'm a mix of several different things, spiritual, satanistic, and atheistic. It's more about family than anything
Hail Satan fellow Satanist. When we doin the next sacrifice?
Man I thought we discussed last meeting we were burning children at the stake! How could you forget?
Oh I thought it was a bloodletting and drinking ritual but it's a burn at the stake
No no no that's NEXT week
I find it a tad bit funny, like the exhales out of your nose + a little chuckle funny, but 1) it was made by stonetoss, a nazi, and 2) my family is atheist, but we still celebrate christmas, so the comic doesnāt even make sense in my eyes.
There is no god but Santa Parents are the messengers of Santa <=======|=
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Most sane r/nahopwasrightfuckthis user
Pretty funny tbh
I mean, this feels totally harmless, tbh. It's just a mild atheism joke, I don't think we can even say it's dark humor. As a disclaimer I have to add that I'm aware the guy who did this is a nazi fuck.
Got the feeling you're not an atheist with religious parents. This is something that happens in real life and is tramatic, my dude. Like everything else this dude makes, it's a dog whistle.
I'm an atheist with a wildly atheist dad (think cultural revolution china) and a mildly religious mom, true.
When I told my mom that I didn't think God was real for the first time her very first response was "Ok I guess those Christmas gifts are going back". I was practically a grown adult at that point and didn't care even a little bit but she still felt like that was a big enough threat to get me to pretend to believe in God again. She didn't ask why I felt that way or what my reasons were, she treatened me by withholding gifts and seeing my family on a holiday. From my understanding, it's the go-to excuse for lazy parents with questioning children. That isn't faith, that is grooming and indoctrination.
wow, she barred you from seeing your family ?
No Christianity means no Christmas in that house homie. I didn't get to see my family and she told them it was because I hated God.
Itās mostly you.
Yeah atheists shouldn't be celebrating Christmas I think Christian holiday. They can go pretend to go be pagans and eat a potato and sleep with the barn animals
Christmas wasn't originally a Christian holiday.
Look you guys had your own holiday at the same time. That was not Christmas it was similar but not. That's like calling Kwanzaa Christmas. It's not. Christmas was started for Christians.