[HN Gopher] A Christmas Tautology (2020)
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A Christmas Tautology (2020)
Author : nickdrozd
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-12-25 06:14 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nickdrozd.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (nickdrozd.github.io)
| sanghi_mama wrote:
| Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the Protestant
| Christian world. Catholic and Orthodox Christians make up the
| majority of Christianity by numbers.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Well, this banning thing is true for only parts of the
| Protestant Christian world
|
| Unsurprisingly, the same part where the carol in question was
| invented.
| iamthepieman wrote:
| I assumed that anuone who knows more about Christmas than the
| tune to "jingle bells" knew christ was not born on Christmas day.
| It's not even a 1/365 chance either since there's some evidence
| it was during the fall months.
|
| The census decree by Caesar that Jesus parents traveled to their
| city of birth for was probably not issued when it would have been
| difficult to travel in Winter. Shepherd keep their sheep out in
| open fields in that region from early spring to late fall. Pretty
| light evidence but should still shifts your priors a bit.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Was Christmas day invented on the very same day Jesus was born
| then?
| andypitech wrote:
| It's far from tautologous that Christ was born on Christmas day
| (25th December) for a number of reasons:
|
| 1. There are no historical references to the date in the Gospels.
| We can have a good guess at the year, since Luke the evangelist
| writes that the taxation survey bringing Mary and Joseph to
| Bethlehem was instigated by Caesar Augustus whilst Quirinius was
| governed of Syria. We could make some guesses of the season due
| to the shepherds looking after sheep in the open country. There
| is nothing in the New Testament to suggest a specific cause to
| celebrate the birth of Christ, unlike his death commemoration in
| Luke chapter 22 for example, for which we have a much better idea
| of the time of year, since it was at the time of Passover, a
| Jewish festival which had a regular occasion based on the lunar
| cycle.
|
| 2. There are some suggestions that the Christmas festival was
| instigated by replacing Roman pagan festivals around that time,
| after the Roman Empire accepted Christianity as the state
| religion.
|
| 3. In modern times there are millions of people around the world
| who know very little about the story of the birth of Jesus
| Christ, or his significance. You'll find many places filled with
| pictures of Santa, reindeer, elves and other winter festival
| stuff... So many people could be forgiven for thinking Christmas
| is about Santa, not Jesus Christ.
|
| As to the OP question 9, there is ample historical evidence for
| the existence and birth of Jesus Christ, for his death by
| crucifixion, and even for his resurrection from the dead (unless
| of course you take a priori leap of faith to believe that the
| material world is all that exists).
|
| The significance of the birth of Jesus Christ is far more
| important than the date:
|
| 'but the angel reassured them. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "I
| bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The
| Savior--yes, the Messiah, the Lord--has been born today in
| Bethlehem, the city of David!' Luke 2:10-11 NLT
| https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.2.10-11.NLT
|
| Merry Christmas HN!
| yeellow wrote:
| Can you give some examples of this "ample historical evidence"?
| I saw quite convincing video recently where a guy goes through
| all, known to him, sources and debunks them
| (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI72JNz0IC8 - warning: might be
| offensive for a diehard believer).
| mannykannot wrote:
| The list starts with things that may well have considerable
| historical evidence, but ends by proposing an argument that
| would not even be logically valid: one could rationally hold
| that the material world is not all that exists, without
| accepting that Christ's resurrection occurred.
|
| As for calling materialism an a priori leap of faith, well,
| that hardly distinguishes it from the alternatives, though
| maybe that's the point.
|
| Nevertheless, a merry Christmas to one and all!
| [deleted]
| amets wrote:
| For 1, this is doubtful as a historical source from a non-
| Christian perspective. The Gospels accounts are surprisingly
| consistent, except for specific portions that all conveniently
| bolster support for the idea that Christ is the Jewish messiah.
| The story about his birth is Bethlehem is a prime example (it's
| more likely Jesus was born in Nazareth). I would question the
| ability to pinpoint a birth year through likely made up
| details.
| Severian wrote:
| For point #2, it's not exactly established, but we can probably
| be accurate to say the early church chose this day to convert
| followers of pagan traditions regarding the Winter Solstice.
| Whether it's Yule, Saturnalia, Natatlis Invicti, etc. It's
| easier to say one god is born around the same time as another
| and you can push towards Christianity's ideas of a
| Son/Father/Spirit deity.
|
| For point #3, heck, most Western Christians for the most part
| unknowingly incorporate a hell of a lot of Yule traditions.
| Christmas Trees, wreaths, the Yule log, Mistletoe.. you get the
| idea.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| The only historical evidenence for the ressurection of Jesus is
| second-hand testimony about people who allegedly saw him. And
| even in this testimony it is emphasised the witnesses did not
| recognize the person as Jesus. So outside of the question of
| faith, it seems very weak evidence.
|
| From a historians perspective, there is better evidence for the
| ressurection of the Emperor Nero.
| isitmadeofglass wrote:
| > These lyrics always bothered me for their apparent vacuousness.
| Christ was born on Christmas Day - well, yeah. Christmas just is
| the day that Christ was born, right?
|
| Isn't the reason that the church makes such a big deal of
| repeating this whole "Christmas day is when Jesus was born" and
| "Jesus was born on Christmas Day" due to exactly the point that
| it wasn't the day he was born.
|
| The church moved the celebration to better match the pagan
| celebrations, so they needed to push this lie a lot to get people
| on board with the fact that they moved the birthday to make the
| sales pitch for Christianity better match the pagan traditions.
|
| You would have though that the god of all existence could have
| timed the birth of his divine child a bit better, but I guess we
| all know that it's easy to sometimes miss deadlines and be off by
| a month or so. Also the biology of virgin pregnancies, though
| unexplored scientifically likely followed the biology of regular
| pregnancies, so there might be a bit of uncertainty on the exact
| time of arrival even if god did impregnate Mary with the
| intention that she'd give birth around what is today Christmas
| Day.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| The church didn't _move_ the celebration as such, since nobody
| knew when Jesus was born in the first place. The bible does not
| give any date (not even a year).
|
| We dont really know how the church came up with december 25.
| The theory it was selected to coincide with a pagan holiday is
| just speculation. Probably not a coincidence it is so close to
| winter solstice, but there is no evidence.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis suggests virgin
| pregnancies have been explored scientifically (but a quick skim
| shows no indication of any noted difference in gestation)
|
| Anyone who has ever wondered what the 'H.' stands for should
| consider: _Haploid_.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Another relevant scientific source is [1], which I highly
| recommend
|
| >Of 7870 eligible women, 5340 reported a pregnancy, of whom
| 45 (0.8% of pregnant women) reported a virgin pregnancy
| (table 1|). Perceived importance of religion was associated
| with virginity but not with virgin pregnancy. The prevalence
| of abstinence pledges was 15.5%. The virgins who reported
| pregnancies were more likely to have pledged chastity (30.5%)
| than the non-virgins who reported pregnancies (15.0%, P=0.01)
| or the other virgins (21.2%, P=0.007).
|
| [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7102
| googlryas wrote:
| Even if virgin pregnancies we're possible, where would Jesus'
| Y chromosome come from?
| [deleted]
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| cosmic ray induced mutation
| gumby wrote:
| Should have set easter at the winter solstice, as that's the
| traditional spot for rebirth festival (think Sol Invictus) and
| leave the regular birth in the spring with all the other
| fertility festivals. I don't know what they were thinking, but
| we're stuck with it now, unless someone wants to engineer
| another fork over this issue.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| That Christmas is the day of Christ's birth itself was a sore
| subject after the Gregorian leap.
|
| From Hervey's Book of Christmas (
| https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42622/pg42622-images.ht...
| ):
|
| > In various parts of England, bees are popularly said to express
| their veneration for the Nativity by "singing," as it is called,
| in their hives at midnight, upon Christmas Eve: and in some
| places, particularly in Derbyshire, it is asserted that the
| watcher may hear the ringing of subterranean bells....
|
| > We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural
| testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places
| used as means of divination on a very curious question. _The
| change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century
| ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient
| position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts,
| and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient
| festival._ The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be
| observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil;
| and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the
| ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for
| authentications on this subject.
| kuhewa wrote:
| Can someone help me with how the words are pronounced for DEER
| and CHOIR to rhyme
| shaftoe wrote:
| Both rhymed with the modern word TIER.
|
| Choir would have sounded similar to queer.
|
| Remember this is from middle English before the vowel shift.
| darkwater wrote:
| Blood and good rhymed at some point! Holy shit, maybe English
| pronunciation wasn't always so broken, then!
| alfl wrote:
| Christmas is celebrated as Christ's birthday because 8 days later
| is New Year's. This was set so that each year starts with a
| spiritual circumcision to consecrate it in Jewish law, and to
| "embrace and extend" existing pagan festivals. Source: Butler's
| Lives of Saints, summarizing the commentaries of the Church
| Fathers.
|
| This is not a tautology.
| yucky wrote:
| And the reason for this is because Vitamin K (a major clotting
| agent) is at its highest levels in humans around the 8th day of
| their life. Ancient societies didn't know what Vitamin K was,
| but through trial and error they no doubt discovered that the
| best day to circumcise a child was therefore on the 8th day of
| their life.
|
| Since circumcision represents "a new beginning, a new covenant"
| it made sense for this to begin the New Year. Or conversely,
| counting back from January 1st it would make sense to have
| Jesus being born on December 25th.
| fsckboy wrote:
| He's just parsing the whole thing wrong.
|
| It's a pretty standard rhetorical device in everyday speech.
| Consider Passover, "why is this night different?" The answer is
| not "because it's Passover". Your attention is being directed to
| why the night is different, why is it remembered, what does it
| commemorate, or why is it commemorated?
|
| The birth of Jesus, death, and resurrection are meaningful events
| at the core of Christianity, that's why they get holidays. Let me
| direct your attention to what happened on Christmas and why we
| celebrate it, Jesus was born. It's just not a strange
| construction in English or any language. Even if it was called
| Jesus's Birthday, what happened on that day? The Son of God was
| born.
|
| What happend on your birthday? Well, N years ago, you came out of
| mommy's tummy. I'm sure virtually every parent has said that to
| their child at some point. Only the autistic kids said "that's a
| tautology" (I can say that, I'm autistic)
| vlunkr wrote:
| Yeah maybe the point of the post is to be snarky and pedantic,
| but it seems like it's deliberately missing the point.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The criticism of the rhymes sounds off to me. I don't
| particularly like perfect rhymes. Author suggests that these
| rhymes might have been "perfect" in Middle English; I have no
| idea. But I like rhymes that are a bit wonky, because they
| reflect ancient pronunciations or local dialects or whatever.
|
| Wonky rhymes feel more "real" to me.
| tragomaskhalos wrote:
| I'm charmed by the suggestion that these lyricists of yore would
| have rejected any words that were trite and obvious; after all,
| these are hardly constraints on their fellows today, as listening
| to much modern music for five minutes will confirm.
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