ATHEISTS' CELEBRATION OF CHRISTMAS

How do atheists celebrate Christmas? The long nights and short days of the Christmas season can be quite depressing. It would be an even bleaker time of year if those of us who do not believe in the myth of Jesus were unable to celebrate the happy Christmas season. I certainly do not believe that the eternal and almighty God who created the universe came down to earth and allowed himself to be born as a human being. That is a myth of many religions, not just Christianity, and it speaks to man’s inner needs rather than to any historical happening. It is possible for the nonbeliever to celebrate Christmas, however. Christmas as a holiday has a long and ancient history that goes back long before Jesus.

For thousands of years before Jesus, people celebrated the Winter Solstice. This was the period around December 23-25. It is obvious that ancient people began celebrating the winter solstice because that was the time when nights were longest and days were shortest. The long nights made people depressed and sad and no doubt motivated the need for some kind of celebration to rouse people’s spirits.

The history of Christmas dates back over 4000 years. Many of our Christmas traditions were celebrated centuries before Jesus was born. The 12 days of Christmas, the bright fires, the Yule log, the giving of gifts, carolers who sing while going from house to house, the holiday feasts, and the church processions, can all be traced back to the early Mesopotamians. Many of these traditions began with the Mesopotamian celebration of New Years. The Mesopotamians believed in many gods, and their chief god was Marduk. Each year as winter arrived it was believed that Marduk would do battle with the monsters of chaos. To assist Marduk in his struggle, the Mesopotamians held a festival for the New Year. This was called Zagmuk, the New Year's festival that lasted for 12 days.

In ancient Germany people honored the pagan god Oden during the mid-winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Oden. They believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his people, and then decide who would prosper or perish. Because of his presence, many people chose to stay inside. The Germans brought trees inside the house at the winter solstice and hung gifts on the trees to placate the gods and in hopes of keeping green things alive for the coming Spring.

There were mid-winter festivals in ancient Babylon and Egypt, and Germanic fertility festivals also took place at this time. The birth of the ancient sun-god Attis was celebrated on December 25th. Attis was the son of the goddess Cybele. The worship of Cybele, known as “The Great Mother,” was introduced into Rome from Phrygia (in today’s Turkey) around 204 BC. She was worshipped in Greece in the 5th century BC. The adherents of this religion celebrated the death and resurrection of Attis, who was Cybele’s, lover, eunuch attendant, and driver of her lion-driven chariot. Attis was killed by being castrated. After fasting on the “Day of Blood,” on which Attis was mourned, sorrow was turned into joy with the Hilaria celebrating his resurrection on March 25. The celebration included a sacred meal of thanksgiving, or, in Greek, “eucherista."

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a festival dedicated to Saturn, the god of peace and plenty, that ran from the 17th to 24th of December. Public gathering places were decorated with flowers, gifts and candles were exchanged and the population, slaves and masters alike, celebrated the occasion with great enthusiasm.

One of the the myths which closely resembles the story of Jesus was that of the God Mithras (or Mithra). Many aspects of Mithraism parallel Christianity. It is not known exactly when Mithraism began, but it preceeded Christianity by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Although some scholars claim that it goes back to the Persian empire fourteen centuries before Christ, when the Persians worshipped a god “Mithra,” others claim that the worship by Romans of Mithras originated much later in Tarsus of Cilicia (today’s Turkey). Mithras was the god of light, or the Sun, and was born of a virgin. He was identified with a bull who had to die as a sacrifice for all humanity. His worshippers believed that Mithras promised resurrection from the dead and that he ascended into heaven. The worship of Mithras included forgiveness of sin by baptism of initiates and a communion of bread and wine to commemorate Mithras’ last meal on earth.
Evidence of Mithraism can be found in the ruins of Pompeii. It was popular among the Roman soldiers.

The early fathers of the Christian Church did not know the date when Jesus had been born, so up until the fourth century AD there was no celebration of Christmas. The worship of Mithras presented a real problem for the Church fathers because of the similarities to the worship of Jesus. In around 353 AD, the church fathers decided to combat Mithraism and other pagan holidays by celebrating the birth of Jesus on Mithras’ birthday, December 25. Merry Mithramas!

Biblical scholars agree that the Christian story of the Nativity is fictitious. In the first place, the story says that Caesar ordered a census to levy taxes and that Joseph, as a descendent of David, had to travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, to register (Luke 2:1-5). This was supposed to fulfill the prophecy that the “Messiah” would be “from the house of David.” The story is inherently preposterous!

There is no evidence that Augustus Caesar ordered a worldwide census at the time of Jesus’ birth. There was a census under Quirinius, the Governor of Syria (Luke 2:2), but that occurred after the death of Caesar and years after the birth of Jesus. The late Raymond E. Brown, S.S., a Catholic priest, internationally regarded as the dean of New Testament scholars, and former Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said in his magisterial The Birth of the Messiah, “Luke’s reference to a general census of the Empire under Augustus which affected Palestine before the death of Herod the Great is almost certainly wrong.” Said Brown, “Luke begins his story with a reference to a census of the whole world ordered by Augustus, conducted by Quirinius, and affecting Joseph, a Galilean inhabitant of Nazareth, so that he had to go to his ancestral city. This supplied the occasion for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem....this information is dubious on every score...We have no evidence of one census under Augustus that covered the whole Empire, nor of a census requirement that people be registered in their ancestral cities.” In a census, they counted people at their place of domicile, not where they were born. They would not have required Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. The Romans cared nothing for genealogies. They would have wanted him to stay in Nazareth and be counted where he lived

The distinguished biblical scholar, E.P. Sanders, points out that David lived 42 generations before Jesus. He asks, why would the Romans require Joseph to register for a tax in the town (Bethlehem) of an ancestor who lived 42 generations earlier? He describes Luke’s story of the Nativity as “Fantastic!” Bart D. Ehrman, another renowned biblical scholar, asks: “Can it be possible that everyone in the empire was to return to the place their ancestors lived a thousand years earlier?”

Another mistake by the authors of the Gospels is that they place the census of Quirinius and the birth of Jesus during the Reign of Herod. Scholars know that Herod was already dead at the time of Quirinius’ census. Raymond E. Brown says, “...the one and only census conducted while Quirinius was legate in Syria affected only Judea, not Galilee, and took place in A.D. 6-7, a good ten years after the death of Herod the Great.” Moreover, Caesar would not have taxed Judea while Herod was king. And, at the time of Jesus’ birth, Bethlehem would have been in an area that was exempt from taxation.

The world renowned biblical scholar and Catholic priest, John P. Meier, notes that it would have been impossible for Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem in an advanced state of pregnancy. Meier says, “Somewhere around 7-6 B.C. a Jew named Yeshua, a shortened form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (Joshua), was born in the hillside town of Nazareth in lower Galilee. The Infancy Narritive traditions that locate his birth in Bethlehem of Judea (traditions isolated in chap. 2 of Matthew and Luke respectively) are probably later Chriustian theological dramatizations of the belief that Jesus was the royal Davidic Messiah.”

There are many reasons to disbelieve in the Christmas story as recounted in the Christian Bible. The whole story is absurd. Nevertheless, it has given us the modern holiday of Christmas, a joyous celebration of the winter solstice. I may not buy into the Christian story, but I happily join in the celebration of the season.