With many thanks to Eric Erickson for “Kwanzaa: The Scientology of Holidays.”
DATELINE: Jerusalem, 66 C.E.
What do you get when you take an anti-Roman felon and add a desire for Jewish nationalism? Christianity. What does the success of Christianity so far say about our modern Common Era? It is a reflection of Common Era nihilism given legitimacy by scribes hell bent on diminishing the Pagan heritage of Rome.
Over the last few decades, scribes have profiled his “disciples” and family members close to Jesus Christ. Apparently, our Roman gods and goddesses are too powerful and numerous for these Christ-lovers.
Christianity has absolutely nothing to do with Judea and everything to do with hating the Roman Empire. Christianity is the brain child of Jesus, who you will not be surprised to learn claimed from early childhood that he was the son of YHWH, the Jewish God. Some time after that, he took the name Christ, ran afoul of imperial officials, and proclaimed that belief in his divinity was required for entry into the afterlife.
Jesus “Christ,” as he came to be known, was famous for restoring sight to the blind, returning the dead to life, turning water into wine, telling mysterious parables, overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, hosting dinners with his “disciples,” and permitting women to wash and anoint his feet. A few years after his execution, Jesus’s disciple Paul outlined the principles of Christmas and later noted, “People think it’s a variant of paganism, but it’s not. I came up with Christmas because Jewish people wouldn’t celebrate it if they thought it was Roman. Also, I put it around Solstice because I knew that’s when a lot of pagans were partying.” Paul went on to call YHWH in the Torah “psychotic” and declared Christianity “monotheistic.” Apparently, the scribes approved.
There is no part of Christianity that is not fraudulent. Christmas actually is the perfect holiday for the Common Era. Every other holiday celebrates a pagan god or goddess or Rome itself. Every other holiday celebrates something greater than the self. Christianity was made up by an executed Jewish radical whose followers established his birthday as a holiday whereby people can celebrate him. The self-absorbed mainstream scribes have been looking for a self-absorbing holiday. Now they have it in Christmas.
In short, Christmas is the perfect Common Era politically correct holiday.
At Salon, Joan Walsh has a good overview of “2013: The Year in Whiteness,” in which she notes that “the imagined war on Christmas has become an equally farcical war on whiteness in the minds of those sad right-wing warriors.” Erickson’s article appears to be a perfect example of this. (N.B.: last I checked, Erickson was getting some pushback on his attack on Kwanzaa, although much of it came from aggrieved Scientologists, who clearly are much more numerous and much more vigilant about attacks on their religion than are Kwanzaa observers.)
Historiann 
“…although much of it came from aggrieved Scientologists”
That’s because very few of his readers are black, while plenty, I’m willing to bet, are neckbeards, and neckbeards love them some L. Ron Hubbard.
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Although it is beside your point, I cannot pass up noting that there is no evidence that Christmas was celebrated until the 4th century (the word “Christmas” itself dates to the eleventh century) and that the message of the “Historical Jesus” was in stark contrast to the anti-Roman zealotry, and for some Zealotry, that characterized 1st century Judea.
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What the heck are neckbeards? (Guys with beards growing down their necks? Eeew, but I’m not familiar with that term as a type.)
And Profane: I knew some of you ancient and antique historians would set me right! Feel free to rewrite any particular section that offends. (But, I was trying to time my comments to the Judeo-Roman wars, FWIW.)
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The self-absorbed mainstream scribes
Ha! The recent arguments amongst education elites about their relative oppression (or something like that–go ask my blue collar relatives what they think of an argument like this) has caused me to repeatedly resist the urge to reference the Woes of the Scribes and Pharisees. I resist because I think it is easy to misconstrue where you might stand in that scene.
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Let me summarize: A Zionist created Christianity. The solution is simple, with full support from TR, boycott Israel.
As we say in my neck of the woods: QED.
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I periodically wonder whether the “war on Christmas” folks are aware that the European settlers of North America with whom they would presumably most closely identify — the Puritans — considered Christmas a holiday with no Biblical precedent/justification, pagan roots, and an entirely secular, and dangerously unruly, present manifestation, and completely forbade its celebration. Also, that the Puritans were pretty much correct on all counts (one could argue either way about the value of the English celebration, with its elements of misrule; the lack of any Biblical precedent/mandate for celebrating Christ’s birth as a holiday is absolutely correct, as is the business about pagan roots, especially when it comes to the present timing of the hoiday). I’m comfortable with the pagan/Christian syncretism of the holiday, and with the fact that the present liturgical year is based on tradition as much as on anything in the Bible, but I sometimes wonder why they are. Unfortunately, I haven’t found somebody who both believes in the “war on Christmas” and is willing to have a civil conversation about the subject.
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Neckbeards: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/neckbeard
It’s a term we use commonly in the SF community to mean guys who are time-anchored (like Erik the son of Erik)and spend most of their energy yelling at these damn kids to get off their SF lawns (SEE ALSO: Jerry Pournelle, OS Card, John C. Wright, Dave Trusedale, etc, etc, etc).
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Although I agree with everything else in the comment, I have to disagree with Cassandra on the notion that Bill O’Reilly et al would identify most closely with “the Puritans” among North America’s European colonists. Puritan colonists were far too learned, too committed to the use of reason and intellectual discrimination, and to the notion that Jesus really meant what he said about the mutual obligation that members of a community had to take care of one another, to get much admiration from the FOX News set. Puritans weren’t angels, and they often failed to live up to their ideals, but they had ideals that were antithetical to the modern FOXites.
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The phrase used in 17th century star chamber cases is “the memory of man runneth not to the contrary”. But,since we’re scholars, we know that all traditions, in every culture, are invented at some point. As I write this, I wonder if one of my tasks over my sabbatical next year would be to create a comparative course that studies this… If all students who graduated from college understood this one fact, it would be a great blow to all sorts of fundamentalists.
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Mark’s right: modern-day right-wingers would be very uncomfortable in 17th C New England, and John Winthrop would be very disturbed by the no-holds-barred Mammonism on display at the FOX news channel. Right-wingers by design don’t care to know much about American history (or any other histories), because if they did they’d realize how very modern and innovative their views and values are.
And thanks to Delagar for that explanation of neckbeards. (Reminds me to ask my husband to clean up his beard before work on Friday. Some of those photos are horrifying!!!)
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Just a reminder that, whatever you think of his politics (or his scholarship), that Newt Gingrich started his professional life as a historian – this obviously informed his response to the Mandela flap last month:
https://www.gingrichproductions.com/2013/12/what-would-you-have-done-nelson-mandela-and-american-conservatives/
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Agreed on the Puritans; “identify with” probably means something closer to “project their ideas of Christianity onto” than “understand” in this case.
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