The war on Christmas

What's with so many Christians, over the past couple of months, talking about a "War on Christmas"? Aside from the way, way over-the-top metaphor, Christmas isn't even a Christian holiday. It celebrates the Roman god Saturn and the Germanic god Wotan/Odinn. Sure, the name refers to the crowned king of the kingdom of Israel, but the date and customs have nothing to do with Christianity.

Crowned king of Israel? Yes, Christ is from the Greek christos, "annointed with oil". It refers to the ceremony by which a man became king of Israel, in which olive oil was poured over his head. Of course, there's no evidence that Joshua even spoke Greek.

Joshua? Well, yes, or maybe "Yeshua". "Jesus" is a Greek distortion of the man's real name. After all, he was a Judean, what we now call a Jew, why would he have a made-up Greek sounding name? Thing is, the Gospels were translated into Greek, and those versions were what most Christian bibles are based on. Greeks thought a man's name should end in "-us".

Spoke no Greek? Well, no. Joshua was a dissident, anti-Roman rabbi, a very common type in Judea in that era. He despised Gentiles (non-Jews, for all you Gentiles reading this), as is clear in the story of the Greek woman, who had to plead and beg for her children to be healed, while Josh compared her and them to dogs. No Gentiles were permitted to be Christian until after Joshua's death, when Saul "Saint Paul" of Tarsus, a Roman citizen of Jewish descent, totally reinvented the movement, abandoning its Jewish nature and founding a new religion.

So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. "Christmas" is an invented holiday, since history doesn't record when Joshua was born, except that it was definitely the Fall, not any time in December. It was scheduled to prevent Christians from attending the Saturnalia, the Roman solstice festival. Later it absorbed the "decorated tree" idea from Odin worshippers. Many of the stricter Christians have always refused to celebrate, or banned the celebration of, Christmas, notably the Puritans and Pilgrims. Maybe Fox News would like to declare "war" on them?