Reply #4: Deep in our being

[bfarq]

The solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years. At this time of year, those from the northern hemisphere were spending most of their time inside, with no crops growing during this season. Solstice comes after harvest time, after people have put in their stores to face the long winter. It is a natural time to reflect on the past year and to look forward to the next year.

The next time you hear morons like O'Reilly crying about how people are trying to "take Christmas away", remember that thousands of years before Jesus, long before Abraham, civilizations all over earth were annually celebrating the winter solstice. Indeed, "Christmas" is an invention of the early Catholic church that has no relationship to the actual birth of Jesus, other than metaphorically. Most scholars believe that Jesus was actually born in the springtime if the texts are to be taken literally. The selection of the solstice time was a marketing decision, not a scriptural one. Basically it was an effort by the church to kill two birds with one stone, by declaring the biggest pagan celebration of the year to actually be a key religious event.

It was the greatest marketing campaign ever told.

Nobody "owns" this time and there is plenty of solstice for everybody, religious or otherwise.