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Christmas controversies AI simulator
(@Christmas controversies_simulator)
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Christmas controversies AI simulator
(@Christmas controversies_simulator)
Christmas controversies
Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, which, in Western Christian churches, is held annually on 25 December. For centuries, it has been the subject of several reformations, both religious and secular.
In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas, unlike the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, from the latter of which they separated. With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of the French Revolution, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies. Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, Christmas celebrations were propagandized so as to serve the ideology of the Nazi party.
Modern-day controversy, colloquially known as the "war on Christmas", occurs mainly in China, the United States and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom. Some opponents have denounced the generic term "holidays" and avoidance of using the term "Christmas" as being politically correct. This often involves objections to government or corporate efforts to acknowledge Christmas in a way that is multiculturally sensitive. In China, the government not only does not recognize Christmas as a statutory holiday, but local governments restrict Christmas celebrations in some places.
There are two competing theories on why 25 December was chosen as the date of Christmas, although theology professor Susan Roll writes that liturgical historians generally accept that it had some relation to "the winter solstice and the popularity of solar worship in the later Roman Empire". One theory is that the Church chose 25 December as the birthday of Jesus to appropriate the Roman festival of the "birthday of the Sun" at the winter solstice, which was on the same date; this is known as the "history of religions hypothesis". Another theory, the Calculation Hypothesis, posits that the birthdate of Jesus was calculated as nine months after a date chosen for Jesus's conception: 25 March, the Roman date of the spring equinox.
In Christian belief, the teaching that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than the exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose in celebrating Christmas; the exact date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is considered a non-issue.
The earliest document to place Jesus's birth on 25 December is the Chronograph of 354 (also called the Calendar of Filocalus), which also names it as the birthday of the Invincible Sun. Proponents of the "substitution theory" argue that pagan Romans were celebrating the winter solstice as the birthday of a Sun god before Christians began celebrating it as Jesus's birthday. The Calendar of Antiochus of Athens, c. second century AD, marks 25 December as the "birthday of the Sun". From AD 274, the Roman festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'Invincible Sun') was held on 25 December. Sol Invictus became the chief god of the Roman Empire under Aurelian. Gary Forsythe, Professor of Ancient History, says: "This celebration would have formed a welcome addition to the seven-day period of the Saturnalia (December 17–23), Rome's most joyous holiday season since Republican times, characterized by parties, banquets, and exchanges of gifts". The Christian treatise De solstitiis et aequinoctiis, from the late fourth century AD, associates Jesus's birth with the "birthday of the sun" and Sol Invictus:
Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eighth before the calends of January [25 December] ... But they [the pagans] call it the 'birthday of the invincible one' (Invictus). But who then is as invincible as our Lord who defeated the death he suffered? Or if they say that this is the birthday of the sun, well He Himself is the Sun of Justice.
In a mid fifth century Christmas sermon, Pope Leo I rebukes those "who hold the pernicious belief that our celebration today seems to derive ... from, as they say, the rising of the 'new sun'." The theory is mentioned in an annotation added to a manuscript by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe wrote:
Christmas controversies
Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, which, in Western Christian churches, is held annually on 25 December. For centuries, it has been the subject of several reformations, both religious and secular.
In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas, unlike the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, from the latter of which they separated. With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of the French Revolution, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies. Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, Christmas celebrations were propagandized so as to serve the ideology of the Nazi party.
Modern-day controversy, colloquially known as the "war on Christmas", occurs mainly in China, the United States and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom. Some opponents have denounced the generic term "holidays" and avoidance of using the term "Christmas" as being politically correct. This often involves objections to government or corporate efforts to acknowledge Christmas in a way that is multiculturally sensitive. In China, the government not only does not recognize Christmas as a statutory holiday, but local governments restrict Christmas celebrations in some places.
There are two competing theories on why 25 December was chosen as the date of Christmas, although theology professor Susan Roll writes that liturgical historians generally accept that it had some relation to "the winter solstice and the popularity of solar worship in the later Roman Empire". One theory is that the Church chose 25 December as the birthday of Jesus to appropriate the Roman festival of the "birthday of the Sun" at the winter solstice, which was on the same date; this is known as the "history of religions hypothesis". Another theory, the Calculation Hypothesis, posits that the birthdate of Jesus was calculated as nine months after a date chosen for Jesus's conception: 25 March, the Roman date of the spring equinox.
In Christian belief, the teaching that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than the exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose in celebrating Christmas; the exact date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is considered a non-issue.
The earliest document to place Jesus's birth on 25 December is the Chronograph of 354 (also called the Calendar of Filocalus), which also names it as the birthday of the Invincible Sun. Proponents of the "substitution theory" argue that pagan Romans were celebrating the winter solstice as the birthday of a Sun god before Christians began celebrating it as Jesus's birthday. The Calendar of Antiochus of Athens, c. second century AD, marks 25 December as the "birthday of the Sun". From AD 274, the Roman festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'Invincible Sun') was held on 25 December. Sol Invictus became the chief god of the Roman Empire under Aurelian. Gary Forsythe, Professor of Ancient History, says: "This celebration would have formed a welcome addition to the seven-day period of the Saturnalia (December 17–23), Rome's most joyous holiday season since Republican times, characterized by parties, banquets, and exchanges of gifts". The Christian treatise De solstitiis et aequinoctiis, from the late fourth century AD, associates Jesus's birth with the "birthday of the sun" and Sol Invictus:
Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eighth before the calends of January [25 December] ... But they [the pagans] call it the 'birthday of the invincible one' (Invictus). But who then is as invincible as our Lord who defeated the death he suffered? Or if they say that this is the birthday of the sun, well He Himself is the Sun of Justice.
In a mid fifth century Christmas sermon, Pope Leo I rebukes those "who hold the pernicious belief that our celebration today seems to derive ... from, as they say, the rising of the 'new sun'." The theory is mentioned in an annotation added to a manuscript by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe wrote:
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