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How to Make Yourself Very, Very Popular (at an X-Mess Gathering)

As a sometimes militant atheist, I get myself into trouble now and then, and especially at X-Mess time, when I bring the gospel of atheism to social settings. I haven't done it yet, but I am always tempted to point out that the most likely story, sub rosa, about the so-called "virgin birth" is really simple: At the time, adultery was punishable by death. Mary would have been stoned to death if no one "bought" the virgin birth. So they made it up to keep her out of trouble. Tell that one and you'll be about as welcome as the proverbial turd in a punch bowl. You can go on, of course, informing the gathered believers that nobody knows the date of Jebus' birth: Constantine had his bishops declare it as December 25th because this was the nativity of the previous deity of choice: Father Mithras. Ask them if they've noted that Easter pretty much corresponds to the Spring Equinox each year. All of the Christian feasts are pagan in origin. The biggest blurt is that there never was anyone called Jesus Christ; there was a legendary Reb Yeshua (Rabbi Joshua), but the Christ part was another invention of Constantine and his bishops. They may have borrowed it from another pagan deity: Krishna. Tell the Jebus Crusters they're actually worshipping a Hindu god. Here endeth my X-Mess epistle.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Nicole on December 25, 2010 at 1:00am

I'm upsetting some young girl on a forum by explaining that "almah" means young woman, not virgin, and was a mistranslation that set up her religion. >.> And yeah, most people know that Christmas isn't correlated with anyone's birth, since a lamb in a stable in the dead of winter?

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Permalink Reply by Michigan Mike on January 19, 2011 at 6:05am

The virgin birth is only mentioned in two of the four gospels anyway.

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on January 19, 2011 at 7:46am

It's been suggested that the "holy family" was covering up Mary's dilemma: unwed pregnancy. Remember, this was a stoning offense at the time. If they claimed it was a "virgin birth" they could avoid public execution. It seems to have worked far beyond their expectations. Jebus is a bastard.

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Permalink Reply by Jonel Burge on February 5, 2011 at 12:04am

I've tried to bring it up once or twice, but people still think the tree and the presents, and then the eggs and the chocolate rabbits, are for Jesus.

You cannot tell them otherwise.

Although I do wonder how the churches "justify" having "Fall Festivals" where they carve pumpkins and go bobbing for apples and dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating.

Edit:

Forgot to add, that when I tried to say I was going to SERAM(South East Region Atheist Meetup) in Huntsville, right before christmas, my father exploded, and one of the things he was upset about was the fact that my mother didn't put up a christmas tree or wrap up presents, as if the lack of a tree and gifts was why I was going....

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on February 5, 2011 at 9:21am

Janet, the biggest celebration of Hallowe'en around here is the Catholic fall festival the weekend prior to the holiday. They do the apple bobbing and so forth. They don't see any contradiction to it because it brings in money for the church. Recall that Emperor Constantine, as much the Father of Christeranity as Saul/Paul of Tarsus, knew that he could never impose a new religion opon pagan Rome unless he made of it a syncretism, so he simply swiped all of the pagan holidays to serve as the major festivals of the new religion. Christmas is Father Mithras' feast, becoming the best known of these borrowings. The early church knew that it could more subtly shift worship of one deity to worship of another if their feast days were superimposed with Jebus.

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Post on February 7, 2011 at 8:25am

"Mary would have been stoned to death if no one "bought" the virgin birth. So they made it up to keep her out of trouble."

Why would they have believed their lie of virgin birth?

Surly these people were primitive by our standards, but they were not stupid.

Would not they have considered the story was made up for the reason of escapping punishment?

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Post on February 7, 2011 at 9:01am

Constantine's reign as Roman emperor
(A.D. 306-337) dramatically changed
the direction of Christianity. This
grew out of his strategy for unifying
his empire by creating a "catholic"—
meaning universal —church that would
blend elements from many religions
into one.
The "Christianity" Constantine endorsed
was different from that practiced by Christ
and the apostles. The emperor accelerated
the change by his own hatred of Jews.
Constantine himself said, "Let us then have
nothing in common with the detestable Jewish
crowd."
-(Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3, 18-19,
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1979,
second series, Vol. 1, pp. 524-525).
For example, at the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325),
church authorities essentially replaced the
biblical Passover with Easter, a popular holiday
rooted in ancient springtime fertility celebrations.
British historian Paul Johnson summarizes
how Constantine's approach of merging religious
practices produced a corrupted Christianity
that meshed paganism with biblical elements.
When we consider the vast differences between
the mainstream Christianity of today and the
original Christianity of Jesus Christ and the
apostles, we can trace much of that change to
Constantine and the religious system he put
into power.

"Constantine corrupted and perverted Christianity
more than he aided it. He was an ambitious and
superstitious Emperor who murdered his own
kindred (his wife and son) while promoting
Christianity. He paganized Christianity while
using it as a political tool to solidify his Empire."
-Paganism Surviving in Christianity
by Abram Herbert Lewis
"The Control of Christianity by the State
under Constantine and his Successors"
Chapter X; pg. 203

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Permalink Reply by David D Crutcher on March 4, 2011 at 6:15am

Better to celebrate christmas in the winter I'd say because there's not much else to do. You can't really spend much time preparing and celebrating in the warmer months when there's crops to be tended. I'm not sure what the Amish belief is on this, but i know around here they don't plan weddings until after the fall harvest.

There is an interesting video i found not long ago, which explains the origins of christianity and other religions. I havent researched all its claims, but it sounds right to me. I cant put a link here but its on youtube and its called "real proof that jesus was not real"

And James it mentions Mithra, and several other earlier deities with the same story as jesus.

Enjoy. Cheers, Dave

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on March 7, 2011 at 7:56pm

Thanks, Ms. Quinn. Strangely, I always manage to watch "A Christmas Carol" a.k.a. "Scrooge" each Crustmas. One does not have to be a Crustian to appreciate a spirit that informs one that there are two children of whom he should "beware": Ignorance and Want. If the Crustians would think about such things they would spend less time making life miserable for women and homosexuals and more time giving away the Poop's riches, e.g. sell off that billion dollar pornography collection.

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Permalink Reply by Aggiememenon on March 8, 2011 at 12:45am

I remember comedian Dennis Leary saying that while he believed in Jesus Christ, he also believed that Joseph, not God, had sex with Mary to bring him into the world.

Of course, some of the early sects of Christians, the "adoptionists", if I remember my Bart Ehrman correctly, also believed this, i.e. that Jesus became the *adopted* son of God after growing up into manhood. These Christians were a minority view and were stamped out as heretics.

Others have speculated Mary was raped by a Roman soldier (Monty Python's Life of Brian hints at this). But all of that assumes these are real historical persons and not wholly fictional characters, which is a mighty big assumption that's hard to justify.

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Permalink Reply by Monica S. on March 10, 2011 at 11:01pm

Wow, now I can say that is something that wasn't touched on in my church(the later about roman rape) but I asked my mom at one time about the fact that there aren't any historical things outside of some random guy saying that there was a man named Jesus. Her response "His name is pretty special"(not really...)...

But that kinda reminds me of the whole easter thing..why is that adopted by christians when it is really a fertility celebration??

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on March 11, 2011 at 7:35am

Tell her that his name is not special at all. At least, not historically. Jesus is a corruption of Yeshua, and as he was generally thought to be a rabbi, his name would have been Reb Yeshua. Yeshua is Hebrew for Joshua. That was a rather common name at the time, especially as it was the name of an earlier prophet, the guy who "fit" the Battle of Jericho. Duh! Nothing special about it.