That would be incorrect... The first advertisment featuring the 'Coke' Santa showed up in the 'Sears Catalog' of 1922. Night Before Chirstmas was Published in 1931...

Heh, i've got no gathering actually on the 25th, so i'll be around in front of the air con doing nothing
and blah blah blah to consumer Xmas and religious Christmas, lets just enjoy it in our own way, or

Regarding the origins of June, every reference I can find all draw the link to Juno rather than Junius including several with extensive references (I don't have access to a university's library at the moment to verify them with primary sources currently).

http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_...ancalendar.html
http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/aegsa/rome/jun01.htm
http://web.utk.edu/~cpcraig/ogilvie2.html
amongst others.

Alpha just means first, or first in importance. No male connotation beyond its most usage in "alpha male".

A lot of Roman 'knowledge' changes about as often as any field of science. First thing, are you using the most accurate and recent information. Second, where did they site their information from?

My information comes directly from Livy, a Roman Scholar living at the time of Agustus. Furthermore, it is backed up by 'A Dictionary of the Roman Empire, Published 1995, and once more in The Romans, From Village to Empire, A history of Ancient Rome from Earliest Times to Constantine,' Publish 2004. Finally, it is supporeted once more by 'A Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome.' 1998. Those are just the three books that don't involve me walking to a shelf... but I know more are up there.

Now, one of them does offer an explination to this misconception, and that was that Juno's festivel is on June 1st... many historians assume that Juno, because she was around before Junius, was the reason for this. In truth Junius was a devout follower of Juno (Hence the fact he has a name routed from Juno) and chose her festivel for the first day of his month.

I'm Buddhist - actually, this will be my first winter holiday spent as a practicing Buddhist. Before that, I was eclectic pagan (mostly practicing Celtic Goddess spirituality). I grew up in a southern Baptist home (where I still live, though my parents are far more laid back in terms of religion than they were way back when I believed in Santa) and I went to Catholic school for 9 years.

I have a lot of respect for Christian beliefs, but if you're celebrating the birth of Christ, you're not celebrating it anywhere near to Christ's birthdate, and you ripped it off of pagan holidays, so don't get your feathers ruffled if other people would prefer to celebrate it differently. Personally, I'll be exchanging gifts because everyone else in my family does it and because my birthday is two days before.

I think Christmas is a lovely holiday in secular terms because it encourages generosity, particularly towards the poor and needy, which is where it's needed most. And if it somehow is of benefit spiritually, that's great, too.

Edited to add: I'll be calling Shiri on Christmas and exchanging gifts with the fam and eating lots of yummy food and leftover birthday cake, then disappearing to the computer room to hide from everyone else while they fight with each other and my spoiled nieces complain about not getting enough presents. I foresee at least a couple hours spent on Lusternia, if I'm not spending oodles of time getting caught up on college applications so I can mail them off by New Years. And I'll be Lusternia-less the week afterwards cause I'll be spending lots of time at my dad's, where things are slightly more...civilized...than here.

Hehe, I have heard that a million times and have yet to see real proof... how did Christainity rip off Pagen Holidays, and when was Christ born since you seem to know?

As already mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the only reason Christmas is on the 25th is because the pre-Christian pagans celebrated the Winter Solstice and, like many other pagan holidays, this one was absorbed into a Christian holiday to make conversion easier.

No one knows when, exactly, Christ was born, but it's been speculated that the spring would have been a much more likely time than December 25th. Either way, Christmas isn't on December 25th because it was Christ's birthdate. It's on December 25th because the early Christians wanted to convert pagans.

Early Christians wern't out to convert anyone... Christians were persercuted by Romans, Jewish, and anyone else you could name. Further more, at the time of Christ's birth records for fairly accurate, like I said earlier, the calendar we use now had been in effect for 50 years.

Also, looking at archeological evidance, everything points to around Dec. It may not be exactly the 25th, but the month is fairly well known.

And finally, not to be insulting, but why is it that just because a holiday falls close to another it is automatically stolen? Perhaps the Jewish stole from the Pagan's to?

I am going to give you a quick story:

A professor at UCSD decided to run a quick experiment. She went out and bought two large, orante decorations. One was a Star of David, the other a Crescent Moon of Islam. She then buys a small wooden cross. Now, she hangs the star and moon at the front of her lecture hall, over her blackboard, then hangs the cross in the back of the room, in a little notch in the wall, letting only about 1/8th of the class see it.

For about a week, no one sees the cross, star or moon, then one day, a young woman walks up to her, and says, "Prof. Mercedes, would you mind taking down the cross in the back of the room, I think my friends would be offended by it."

So, the prof replies, "Are you offended by it?"

"Well no, well a little, I think it is rude of you to push your religion on the class."

"Do you know what the symbols above the blackboard are?"

"Yes the Star of David, and I don't know what the moon is."

"The Moon is a symbol of the Muslim religion, why are those not offending?"

"Well, they are minorities, so thats ok."

"May I ask what religion you are?"

"Oh I am christan."

"Why is the cross offending?"

"Because, your like forcing your beliefs on the class."

"Is the cross the only way I do it?"

"That I notice."

Now she did take all three symbols down after this.

Now before you cry 'Oh what stuff.' This is a true story, as retold by her husband, as Mercedes-O'Connely died last August. He revealed this story to me when he saw how frustrated I was because of the recent trend of furhter de-christanizing Christmas. His point was, that it is just part of the PC trend, and will fade someday.

Alls I am going to say, is more of a request to the world out there. Stop demonizing God, and Jesus. Yes, there are some over zealous christans out there who would rather you die then not follow Christ, but every single religion has those.

And for those who hate how Christans are always trying to 'save' you, shut up. That means they care enough about you to try, you can still say no, and while you say no, say no with the knowledge that you are free to believe what you want to believe, and be thankful that someone cares enough to try and save you, even if it is a way you don't want to be saved in.

Merry Christmas, and I hope I have given some of you something to think about.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is an excellent (and fun to read!) exploration of lots of this Christ debate. There's a chapter or so on the way the Church accomodated a lot of Pagan superstition etc so that their conversion would be much easier.

It's a great story too, and amazingly based nearly completely on fact.

De Vinci code is in the end an editorial though... for each book like it, there is an equal amount that say something different.

The Da Vinci Code is awful writing, a good read for plot, and mostly historically crap.

"And finally, not to be insulting, but why is it that just because a holiday falls close to another it is automatically stolen? Perhaps the Jewish stole from the Pagan's to?"

Another example: Ostara and Easter fall around the same time. Easter is named after the Saxon Goddess Eostre. Christmas was not the only holiday, and the holidays were not the only things absorbed into Christianity - many pagan Divinities became saints. Brigid, for instance.

I won't bother citing all the things about Christmas that were originally pagan...do a search of "origins of Christmas" and you'll come up with a ton of sites that list them for me. This one, for example: http://de.essortment.com/christmaspagan_rece.htm

A quote: "In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them."

"Alls I am going to say, is more of a request to the world out there. Stop demonizing God, and Jesus. Yes, there are some over zealous christans out there who would rather you die then not follow Christ, but every single religion has those."

I'm not trying to demonize anything. As I said, I have a lot of respect for Christianity - if I do get a little irked with its followers occasionally. I just think that people could stand to at least be honest about the origins of their religion and their religious practices. *shrugs*

Edited to add: I'm fairly ignorant of any concrete influences of paganism on Judaism, and as Judaism was established a couple thousand years before Christianity, it would have been the early pagan cultures in the Persian area that would have affected it. Certainly the Jewish Qabala had pagan mystic origins in Persian Zoroastrianism, Babylonian religion, and other early sources.

'scuse me. I won't shut up because someone is trying to force their religion on me and I politely object. If I don't force people to abandon all their symbols of God and whatever else, I reserve the right to respectfully decline people trying to do the same to me. Regardless of whether you're right or not, telling people to "shut up" doesn't help your argument.

Shut up was a bad choice of words, I will give you that. The point of that paragraph was trying to get across that when someone tries and 'save' you, they are not forcing a religion on you, they are practicing their own, and in that beleif, it is a good neighbor to try and bring someone to God and Jesus. Most people will stop if you say you are not interested, its only a few sects that persist. (Even Jehovah Witness' will not come to your door if you ask them not to.)

So I apoligize for my choice of words, they draw the focus off the message to two stupid little words. Although that is societies problem, they look at two words, instead of the whole picture. All you saw were those two words and you posted on it, do you remember the rest of the post?

The Cathlic Saints days are much more likely to be derived from pagan holidays, but modern archeologists have been studing the birthdate of Christ quite extensivly. All their studies lead to suspect a december birth. Are we going to ever know for 100% sure? No, but there is such a doubt. And we DO know for a fact when Christ was killed as Romans took damned good records, this conincides with our celebration of Easter perfectly.

The Romans, and Pagan religions had so many holidays and feasts that no Christan holiday could land anywhere with out being near to them... perhaps the large amount of Pagan connections are over reaching? Perhaps they are wrong? You want me to admit that my religions origins came from somewhere else on non-complete proof, but you do not except the fact that nothing out there proves either of our points 100%, and in the end Faith takes over here.

You will never convince me, unless you can build a time machine and go to Christ's birth as it happens, that he was not born in December. Every bit of a proof of his birth leads him there.

I am not asking you to beleive me, merely except the fact that what you are saying is no more concrete, set in stone, or infailable as what I am saying.

Yeah. I did remember the rest of the post, and that's what I was referring to. Those two words really did change the...well, the tone of your post, though. I understand your argument to an extent, although I disagree with it, but it helps nothing that you sound angry about it, because it just SEEMS like your post's made more out of anger than reason. I understand that you're not like that though, so no worries I guess. Least you know where your mistake was. *hum*

EDIT: Was responding to the first post. Distracted talking about psycho Bleach teddybears, and what episode they show up in, 'cause I REALLY wanna see that.