case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2013-05-13 06:50 pm

[ SECRET POST #2323 ]


⌈ Secret Post #2323 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 069 secrets from Secret Submission Post #332.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

(Anonymous) 2013-05-13 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Sorry to say I'm pretty sure Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny already cheapens religions like Christianity.

So.

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
....but neither of those things actually has anything to do with Christianity? (Protip: Xmas and Easter are not actually Christian holidays.)

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
Eh? Christmas and Easter are pretty much the central Christian holidays, the birth and death of the saviour.

I mean, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, no. Chocolate and presents, no. And the dates for each one are tenuously connected to the original birth/death at best (being later Church decisions). But Christmas and Easter themselves are ... very, very Christian. What even?

da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
Just ignore her. She's one of those people who think that because Christmas/Easter celebrations were heavily influenced by pagan holidays, they should have zero significance. Because Christianity "stole" those holidays. Or something.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
(OP of subthread)

,,,,what? No, seriously, what?

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
How can you say with a straight face that "Xmas and Easter are not actually Christian holidays"? What do you think Christians celebrate? Not the solstice, I'll tell you that much.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
... Okay.

I mean, the dates and elements of the ceremonies, very much borrowing off multiple elements (namechecking Mithras, midwinter, may festivals, etc), but the specific events being celebrated are very concrete parts of the Christian religious canon (birth and death of the central figure of the religion, fairly concrete relevance to the faith, those).

The death and resurrection of a messiah figure, could be any number of faiths. The death and resurrection of this specific messiah figure, definitely part of this specific faith.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
ayrt

Um. But the specific events the festivals themselves revolve around are actual astrological events. That was my point. No deity/deities/deific representatives (Saint Nick and/or Easter Bunny/etc) involved at all.

Planting/harvest festivals around the solstices and equinoxes I mean. I don't see much "birth and death of the central figure of the religion" in any of them, personally. Diminishment and renewal of the *sun* yes. Birth and death of a god/gods/goddesses, or even the Christian god, not so much. JMO.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
Many faiths personified the sun as a god/goddess and I think some midwinter festivals celebrated specific myths of those figures as part of those ceremonies. Death and rebirth as concepts seem to be fairly attached to certain astrological events, particular midwinter, probably for obvious reasons, and many central or close to central mythological figures go through cycles of death/rebirth as part of their mythology.

Which isn't saying specific ceremonies are borrowing off that, no. I'll be honest, I don't have the knowledge or evidence of specific ceremonies to examine that. But there probably is some reason to think that death/rebirth figures in various mythologies have some form of connection to each other, and possibly originally to the astrological seasonal cycles.

Mind you, in Christianity that doesn't fit so well, if only because the death/rebirth festival (Easter) is tied to the spring equinox, while the birth festival (Christmas) is connected to midwinter.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
ayrt

"Mind you, in Christianity that doesn't fit so well, if only because the death/rebirth festival (Easter) is tied to the spring equinox, while the birth festival (Christmas) is connected to midwinter."

You are making my point for me, anon. More clearly than I did. :)

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
:) I get around to things eventually. I've just got to stumble around for a while first.

There's links there, though. You can see there are some connections, echoes of concepts. It's just direct correlations we're lacking.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
DA

Eh, YVMV on that. I thought that commenter meant that the way christmas and easter are largely celebrated (with far more focus on the commercialization of santa and the easter bunny et than the actual religious aspects and not just in secular families) is far more cheapening to the religion than a few atheistic kids writing fanfic.

Re: da

(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
I'm the first anon who responded to the commenter; you may be right, I totally missed that OP might be one of the "Put Christ back in Christmas!" people. (Maybe OP is not one of those people. IDK.)