Since starting to write these ‘Sunday Sermons’ I’ve been told that I do a great job of ‘disagreeing respectfully’. In this post I would like you to focus more on the respect than the disagreement. I was raised Christian and find that the teachings of Jesus Christ can do a lot for a person.

It’s everything that came after I like to question…

*Actual quote I saw outside a church once...

For the Non-Trekkie, I would like to briefly explain the Borg. The Borg are a cyborg race that travel the Universe assimilating races into themselves, acquiring their knowledge but what was the individual is replaced by the Hive Mind. A truly terrifying prospect for the free thinker. The Christian religion has behaved much like the Borg.

Religion is not the same as belief. Religions are the rituals that people choose to outwardly display their beliefs. Christianity seems to be the most muddled of them all. In efforts to convert non-believers, Christianity has ‘assimilated’ a lot of it’s symbolism from other beliefs. Let’s look at the big two celebrations:

Christmas

No one is sure what the date was when Jesus Christ was born. Many biblical scholars believe that he was born in September, six months after Passover. It is unlikely that he was born in December, since we’re told tales of shepherds tending their fields at night. In the middle of winter? There was a celebration on December 25, however, even before the birth of Jesus Christ. The Pagans of ancient Babylon celebrated the Feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) on December 25. It was a time of partying and feasting and gift-giving.

The Winter Solstice was celebrated in Rome long before the birth of Christ, bringing forth the tradition of the Mummers. The Mummers would travel from house to house, dressed in costumes, entertaining their neighbors. Today, Christians enjoy Caroling.

Pagans of Northern Europe celebrated their own Winter Solstice, which they called Yule. Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the tradition of kissing under it was a fertility ritual. Brings a whole new meaning to seeing Mommy kissing Santa Claus, doesn’t it?

The one unifying pagan symbol of Northern Europe is the evergreen tree, which was brought in to their homes to remind them that their crops would soon be returning. Druids worshiped around evergreen trees for fertility.

Easter

The Spring Solstice was celebrated in pagan rituals just like the Winter Solstice. The overall symbolism: the son (sun) dying on the cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, were celebrated in ancient times.

From a recent article in The Guardian:

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.

There is no mention of Easter celebrations in the New Testament, but many churches hold ‘Sunrise Services’, a throwback to pagan celebrations of the sun. The date of Easter itself is not fixed, but changes with the phases of the moon.

The bunnies that confuse us every year at Easter are actually left over from the pagan goddess Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Easter eggs? Across many cultures, brightly decorated eggs were given as gifts. In some areas, ‘egg rolling’ events are still held, which has now come to symbolize the rolling away of the stone at Jesus’ tomb.

All of this ‘assimilation’ is assumed to be to serve the purpose of making the conversion from pagan to Christian easier. ‘Sure, I’ll incorporate Jesus in to my belief structure, as long as you don’t take my Solstice celebrations away!’

Conclusion

I remember, many years ago now, seeing my wife’s grandmother days before she passed away. She looked at us both and told us to make sure we were following God’s rules, and beware Man’s rules. A woman on her death bed was not afraid to stand up to the status quo. It’s easy to get swept up in the way you were raised or told to believe. But  I don’t think questioning is bad. In fact, I think that’s what Jesus intended. We should constantly be searching for ways to live right, treating others as we would like to be treated. The way you worship? Whatever speaks to you is where you should go.

Just don’t stop thinking. Otherwise, what’s your worship worth?

Sources

Christmas’ Pagan Origins

The Pagan Roots of Easter

The Origins of Easter Celebrations

Imagine for a moment that we are from  another planet. Our society has evolved to one of peace and science. Through our progress, however, we have all but destroyed our home planet, reducing it to a mechanized desert wasteland with hardly any organic life.

As part of an interstellar crew in search of a new home, we are sent to a primitive planet in a far off galaxy known as Earth. Well, we think of them as primitive because they’re still far from developing faster than light speed travel. On the other hand, they do have the iPad, of which we are very jealous…

Landing in the United States, we assume that this country represents the whole of the Planet. We quickly learn that the intelligent beings here have many different faiths, but they are predominantly Christian. In fact, it is curious to us thast some of the Christian celebrations bleed over to people that are not Christian. Two of these celebrations are Christmas and Easter.

Upon closer inspection, we find that both of these holidays center around a man named Jesus Christ who was the embodiment of the humans‘ creator coupled with Humanity. This man suffered and was brutally murdered as a human, and then resurrected three days later to save all of humanity from their sins.

What we find curious is that the bigger of the two celebrations, the one that creates the most fervor (and retail sales), the one that the humans claim to want to ‘keep all the year’ is Christmas.

Christmas is exciting, because it represents a promise to people of the Christian faith. Christmas promises that this baby in swaddling clothes lying in a manger will grow up to fulfill the prophecies that say there will be a man that walks among us that is God personified. This man will be our savior, and will eventually die at the hands of Man to save us from our sins.

Easter is the fulfillment of that promise. Easter is the day Christ arose from the dead, went down to Hell and took the keys, leaving the gate swinging open, (What was he, born in a barn? Heh.) and then ascended into Heaven to take his place at God’s side.

So why is Christ’s birth our biggest celebration? The miracle of the immaculate conception, the star guiding the Wise Men, the Angel singing to the shepherds is wonderful, but it’s just a precursor to the true miracle: his death and resurrection.

But it’s not just those events that are left behind for even non-Christians to celebrate, it’s his teachings. Even with prayer in school all but eradicated, I bet you can still find the Golden Rule there. (And probably without credit to the author…)

Easter itself is confusing to me. People wear crucifixes around their necks: images of an almost naked man bleeding on a cross. Is that really a symbol of faith and hope? Wouldn’t a tomb with the stone rolled away be more appropriate? Could we not figure out how to cut that in to gold and diamonds?

On the flipside, could Easter’s lack of commercialism show that we do hold it as the Holiest of holidays, and we don’t want it marred as some people feel Christmas has become?

What do you think? Are we all mixed up when it comes to these holidays?

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Easter stubbornly resists commercialism. (slate.com)
• The pagan roots of Easter | Heather McDougall (guardian.co.uk)
• The Confused Meaning of Easter (aimosi.blogspot.com)

I’m calling this feature ‘Sunday Sermon’, but it’s anything but a sermon. To me, a sermon implies someone will stand at a pulpit and relay his or her interpretation of a religious document as if their interpretation were the complete truth. Furthermore, they would expect you to buy  in to their interpretation and take it on as your own.

My Sunday Sermons are anything but that. I will explore different questions of faith that I am having and look for thought provoking discussion in return. What I would like to do is present topics for discussion or thought that you may or may not have thought of yourself.

Let me start my discussion of the Mormons with this clarification: I believe that faith and spirituality is a cornerstone of family life. I was raised as a Christian (Methodist to be exact) and I do believe it made our family stronger and gave us support when we needed it most. But, my own personal beliefs I now feel are a very internal choice. I want to give my children that choice. I want to introduce them to ideas that I have been introduced to, and allow them to decide which way they want to go. Kat, the teenager, has gone the way of science. She embraces Quantum Physics and String Theory. I do as well, but those ideas don’t lend much to the human experience. So matters of religious faith are still important to me as well. So Sunday Sermons are about exploring all aspects of faith. Any discussion is completely welcomed here!

So, back to the current topic: Why did I let missionaries, or door-to-door Jesus salesmen in to my home? I was simply curious! Beyond the random mention in an Orson Scott Card book or blog post, I really didn’t have a clue what the Mormons were all about. The day they knocked, I had recently watched Bill Maher‘s ‘Religulous‘, where he claims that Mormons believe God, Jesus, and Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormons, all live on a planet by the sun. Really? They’re that crazy? I thought as I watched. So when they knocked on the door, I had to see for myself…

The first visit was an introduction. I admitted that I had been curious about the Mormon faith, and they gave me a small copy of the Book of Mormon and asked me to read through it and pray about it. I would receive an answer if it was absolute truth. I admit that I didn’t read the entire book, which is essentially a new Gospel written by an American, Joseph Smith, during the late 1800′s. I did read the part that was most interesting to me, however, the story of Joseph Smith.

Here is the Cliff Note version: Around the age of 18, Joseph Smith was questioning his faith. With the United States of America having religious freedom, there were certainly a lot of voices to listen to! So he began asking what the true answer was. Which church was right? He went out into the woods to go to the direct source. He prayed to God, who came down with Jesus and told Joseph Smith that there was a manuscript of golden plates buried in the woods. Joseph must find that tome, and everything would be made clear.

The Angel Moroni visits Joseph Smith

With the help of the angel Moroni, who was a resurrected indigenous American, Joseph found it, which was written in ‘Reformed Egyptian’. Joseph Smith was given the power to translate it. There was a lot of drama surrounding the translation of the text, but I won’t get in to that here.

The angel Moroni claimed that he was a member of a people that were brought to the Americas from Jerusalem 600 years before the birth of Christ. He was the last prophet of those people, and had buried the book in order for it to resurface in latter times.

Given this information, I told the Mormons when they returned that I had given it a chance, and I was not receiving the call to that faith. I told them that I did find it interesting that The Church of Latter Day Saints kind of made Christianity more modern. That The Book of Mormon makes Christianity something an American can relate to was very interesting to me. However, I just didn’t hear the call.

They read a few passages and we prayed, then they left. I kept thinking about it, and read a bit more of the Book of Mormon, and they came back the next week with a DVD about Joseph Smith, which detailed the account of finding the Book of Mormon that I briefly relayed to you above. We prayed again, and I told them I’d call them if God answered and told me it was the truth.

Unless I’m just blocking Him out, He hasn’t.

RLDS church in Independence, Mo

I didn’t lie, it is interesting to me, but I certainly do not feel that the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints is the One True Church. Especially given that I grew up near Independence, MO, home of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, which I believe is now a ‘Church of Christ’. If this is the One Answer that I’m looking for, why did it have to be reorganized? When a band releases a second Greatest Hits album, which one is truly the greatest? It all comes back to personal preference. Which ever belief speaks to you at any given moment, that’s what you’re going to choose.

The Mormons didn’t speak to me, perhaps, because I’m too analytical. I didn’t want to hear the stories, and the lessons behind the stories, because I’m too caught up in where the stories come from. A book written in ‘reformed Egyptian’? What does that mean? According to what I’ve read online (reliable, right?!) reformed Egyptian is not mentioned anywhere else but the Mormon faith. Joseph Smith sat behind a curtain and translated aloud for one of his followers to transcribe it. There were 12 witnesses that held the golden plates, but where are they now? That we can’t find the stone tablets of Moses makes perfect sense to me, that was a very long time ago. But sacred plates made of gold from the late 1800′s? They’ve got to be around here somewhere.

One final demonstration of my overall thought process on faith:

I recently discovered a ‘Goth’ musical artist (and animator!) that goes by Voltaire. He wrote a song that I love called ‘God Thinks‘. The overall message of the song is that no one can know what God thinks, and don’t trust anyone that says they do. The final verses hit hard:

God thinks puppies need to drown and

God thinks babies need to die ’cause

God is neither good nor bad

God is you and me

God is everything.

I played that for Kat, who enjoys thinking about this kind of thing too. When the song was over she asked, ‘I don’t get it. Aren’t you a Christian?’

I was a little taken aback. We actually haven’t gone to church in a long time. I’m certainly not as devout as her statement made it sound.

‘Well, I’m Christian as far as I believe a man that went by Jesus Christ walked the Earth and did a lot of amazing things and got a lot of followers. But I also believe in Siddhartha Buddha and Muhammad.’

‘I didn’t want a discussion.’ She replied. I think I interrupted a phone call with a boy. My bad. I’ll give her some more time.

So, what are the thoughts out there? If you are a Mormon, I’d love to hear from you. What draws you to that faith? If you’re not, are you a little bit curious? Do you think I’m crazy for inviting them in?

If you do want to know more, I’ve sprinkled the links in this blog with various sources, but I suggest you start with Mormon.org. Get it straight from the Mormons themselves.

Thanks in advance for the discussion!