Quotulatiousness

December 23, 2018

Repost – “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” versus “Happy Midwinter Break”

Filed under: Business, Government, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

L. Neil Smith on the joy-sucking use of terms like “Happy Midwinter Break” to avoid antagonizing the non-religious among us at this time of year:

Conservatives have long whimpered about corporate and government policies forbidding employees who make contact with the public to wish said members “Merry Christmas!” at the appropriate time of the year, out of a moronic and purely irrational fear of offending members of the public who don’t happen to be Christian, but are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Rastafarian, Ba’hai, Cthuluites, Wiccans, worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or None of the Above. The politically correct benediction, these employees are instructed, is “Happy Holidays”.

Feh.

As a lifelong atheist, I never take “Merry Christmas” as anything but a cheerful and sincere desire to share the spirit of the happiest time of the year. I enjoy Christmas as the ultimate capitalist celebration. It’s a multiple-usage occasion and has been so since the dawn of history. I wish them “Merry Christmas” right back, and I mean it.

Unless I wish them a “Happy Zagmuk”, sharing the oldest midwinter festival in our culture I can find any trace of. It’s Babylonian, and celebrates the victory of the god-king Marduk over the forces of Chaos.

But as anybody with the merest understanding of history and human nature could have predicted, if you give the Political Correctness Zombies (Good King Marduk needs to get back to work again) an Angstrom unit, they’ll demand a parsec. It now appears that for the past couple of years, as soon as the Merry Christmases and Happy Holidayses start getting slung around, a certain professor (not of Liberal Arts, so he should know better) at a nearby university (to remain unnamed) sends out what he hopes are intimidating e-mails, scolding careless well-wishers, and asserting that these are not holidays (“holy days”) to everyone, and that the only politically acceptable greeting is “Happy Midwinter Break”. He signs this exercise in stupidity “A Jewish Faculty Member”.

Double feh.

Two responses come immediately to mind, both of them derived from good, basic Anglo-Saxon, which is not originally a Christian language. As soon as the almost overwhelming temptation to use them has been successfully resisted, there are some other matters for profound consideration…

December 21, 2018

Why do we celebrate Christmas in December?

Filed under: Europe, Food, History, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The obvious answer is quite wrong: December 25th isn’t actually the birth date of Jesus … we don’t know when he was born (rather like the Queen’s Official Birthday, it’s been set to a particular date rather than tracking the actual natal day of the current monarch). So why did we end up with a fixed date in December? Tim Worstall explains:

… if you’re sitting in the middle of a culture that has a religious holiday that sends all children into a frenzy, you’re not part of that dominant religion, then you’d better come up with something quick. Don’t and you’ll find your hold on the minds – thus future religion of – the children loosening. Thus Hanukkah’s elevation in the holiday, if not liturgical, calendar. Thus, also, obviously the invention of Kwanzaa by those who would very much prefer not to be part of that dominant culture but were rather geographically stuck with it.

But then that’s why Jesus wasn’t born at Christmas too. We have absolutely no evidence at all that he turned up even one winter night let alone on Dec 25. What the Catholic Church in Europe did have – and at the relevant time there really only was the Catholic Church – was this inconvenient fact of a massive winter feast, what we might call Yuletide. This was very definitely pre-Christian and was sorta determined by climate.

You’re in Europe, you’re doing subsistence or at least peasant farming, this means you’ve not got enough fodder to keep all the animals going until the spring. Thus you slaughter near all – pigs not so much as they eat scraps, can forage for themselves etc – except your breeding stock. This gives you lots and lots of fresh meat and few good methods of meat preservation. This is also the last fresh meat you’re going to get until those spring lambs are ready in, say, April. So, you gorge on all that fresh meat.

Also, it’s cold outside, the days are short, why the heck not stay in by the fire while you burp through it all? Hey, bring the family ’round! And Pops, didn’t you get that beer going earlier in the year? OK, no hops, so ale. But mead maybe. Wine in many areas would be just about drinkable by now from that autumn crop.

This had been going on perhaps 6,000 years by the time those Christians turned up. The Church really needed to impose its views and authority on all of this, seriously, we can’t have the peasants continuing to celebrate the Old Gods, can we? Thus the invention of Christmas, a time for celebration, that called for lots of feasting of a happy event just about the time when everyone would be feasting anyway.

This is also the explanation for Halloween, All Hallows Eve. Or, All Souls Day followed By All Saints Day to replace the Celtic Samhaim. Hell, the oiks are going to be celebrating anyway, better make it a Church celebration.

Thus Hanukkah, thus Kwanzaa and thus whatever the next religion will come up with assuming that it’s one that initially grows in a European influenced culture. Even, perhaps any Northern Hemisphere, or northerly part of it, influenced one. Islam’s going to have a problem as it uses the lunar calendar and so no fixed feast will work, it’ll precess though the calendar and miss the yearly meeting with midwinter.

Hanukkah’s a big thing for the same reason Jesus wasn’t born at Christmas. At which point you’re expecting me to say Happy Holidays, aren’t you? Bah, Humbug!

December 19, 2018

Krampus – Christmas Demon – Extra Mythology

Filed under: Germany, History, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 17 Dec 2018

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Krampus’s name is growing popular in the United States, but most of us don’t really know what he does OR that he is partners with St. Nicholas himself. He is in fact just one of many Christmas demons…

December 12, 2018

QotD: G.K. Chesterton’s political Catholicism

Filed under: Books, History, Politics, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Ten or twenty years ago, the form of nationalism most closely corresponding to Communism today was political Catholicism. Its most outstanding exponent — though he was perhaps an extreme case rather than a typical one — was G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was a writer of considerable talent who whose to suppress both his sensibilities and his intellectual honesty in the cause of Roman Catholic propaganda. During the last twenty years or so of his life, his entire output was in reality an endless repetition of the same thing, under its laboured cleverness as simple and boring as ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’ Every book that he wrote, every scrap of dialogue, had to demonstrate beyond the possibility of mistake the superiority of the Catholic over the Protestant or the pagan. But Chesterton was not content to think of this superiority as merely intellectual or spiritual: it had to be translated into terms of national prestige and military power, which entailed an ignorant idealisation of the Latin countries, especially France. Chesterton had not lived long in France, and his picture of it — as a land of Catholic peasants incessantly singing the Marseillaise over glasses of red wine — had about as much relation to reality as Chu Chin Chow has to everyday life in Baghdad. And with this went not only an enormous overestimation of French military power (both before and after 1914-18 he maintained that France, by itself, was stronger than Germany), but a silly and vulgar glorification of the actual process of war. Chesterton’s battle poems, such as Lepanto or The Ballad of Saint Barbara, make The Charge of the Light Brigade read like a pacifist tract: they are perhaps the most tawdry bits of bombast to be found in our language. The interesting thing is that had the romantic rubbish which he habitually wrote about France and the French army been written by somebody else about Britain and the British army, he would have been the first to jeer. In home politics he was a Little Englander, a true hater of jingoism and imperialism, and according to his lights a true friend of democracy. Yet when he looked outwards into the international field, he could forsake his principles without even noticing he was doing so. Thus, his almost mystical belief in the virtues of democracy did not prevent him from admiring Mussolini. Mussolini had destroyed the representative government and the freedom of the press for which Chesterton had struggled so hard at home, but Mussolini was an Italian and had made Italy strong, and that settled the matter. Nor did Chesterton ever find a word to say about imperialism and the conquest of coloured races when they were practised by Italians or Frenchmen. His hold on reality, his literary taste, and even to some extent his moral sense, were dislocated as soon as his nationalistic loyalties were involved.

Obviously there are considerable resemblances between political Catholicism, as exemplified by Chesterton, and Communism. So there are between either of these and for instance Scottish nationalism, Zionism, Antisemitism or Trotskyism. It would be an oversimplification to say that all forms of nationalism are the same, even in their mental atmosphere, but there are certain rules that hold good in all cases.

George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism”, Polemic, 1945-05.

December 11, 2018

Why the Byzantine Empire Never Existed

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

KhAnubis
Published on 12 Aug 2018

We frequently talk about the Eastern Roman Empire as if it were some separate empire from the Roman Empire, when in fact, in a lot of ways, the Roman and Byzantine Empires were really the same empire.

December 3, 2018

Viking Expansion – Wine Land – Extra History – #6

Filed under: Americas, Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 1 Dec 2018

From Greenland, explorers like Bjarni, Freydis, and Leif Erikson — aka “Leif the Lucky” — ventured into Vinland, the very first bit of North America sighted by Europeans. It was rich in natural resources, including the grapes (and thus wine) for which it received its title, but this set of expeditions would be very, very short-lived…

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November 19, 2018

Viking Expansion – The Lands of the Rus – Extra History – #4

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Religion, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 17 Nov 2018

The Rus Vikings headed further inland into eastern Europe, raiding Constantinople (unsuccessfully) at first, and then eventually falling into negotiations with the Byzantines and changing their own culture over time. One of their most famous descending rulers was Olga of Kiev, who was also the grandmother of Vladimir.

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November 13, 2018

General Sir Charles Napier lived in vain

Filed under: Asia, Britain, Law, Liberty, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Douglas Murray on the Asia Bibi case:

All of this is to say that the latest news from the U.K. is both thoroughly predictable and deeply disturbing. Readers of National Review will be familiar with the case of Asia Bibi. She is the Christian woman from Pakistan who has been in prison on death row for the last eight years. Her “crime” is that a neighbor accused her of “blasphemy.” […]

Her case has had ramifications throughout Pakistani society in the years since. For instance, it provoked the statement by the brave governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, which led to his own murder by one of his own bodyguards. In the days since her release from jail, there have been mass protests in Pakistan where thousands of enraged fanatics have called, literally, for Asia Bibi’s head. The case has amply demonstrated the type of country that Pakistan is these days. But who would have guessed that her case would also throw so much light on the type of country Britain now is?

There are clearly international efforts underway to get Bibi out of Pakistan. If anybody in the world deserves asylum it is her. And any civilized country should be queuing up to give asylum to her and her family. Among those reported to have done so is the Netherlands.

But today there are reports that the British government has said that it will not offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The reason being “security concerns” — that weasel term now used by all officialdom whenever it needs one last reason to avoid doing the right thing. According to this report, the government is concerned that if the U.K. offered asylum to Bibi it could cause “unrest among certain sections of the community.” And which sections would that be? Would it be Anglicans or atheists who would be furious that an impoverished and severely traumatized woman should be given shelter in their country? Of course not. The “community” that the British government will be scared of is the community that comes from the same country that has tortured Asia Bibi for the last eight years.

So what’s the tie-in with General Sir Charles Napier? He was the governor of Sindh from 1843 to 1847. During his time in that office, he had opportunity to challenge certain long-established barbaric cultural practices:

Napier opposed suttee, or sati. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. Sati was rare in Sindh during the time Napier stayed in this region. Napier judged that the immolation was motivated by profits for the priests, and when told of an actual Sati about to take place, he informed those involved that he would stop the sacrifice. The priests complained to him that this was a customary religious rite, and that customs of a nation should be respected. As recounted by his brother William, he replied:

    “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

Britain could use another General Napier.

November 12, 2018

Viking Expansion – Ireland – Extra History – #3

Filed under: Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 10 Nov 2018

When Thorgest arrived on the coasts of Ireland with over a hundred long ships, he was ready to raid — and to establish cities like Dublin and many others that shaped the religion and culture of Ireland, much to the population’s excitement.

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November 6, 2018

Viking Expansion – Rollo the Walker – Extra History – #2

Filed under: Europe, France, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 3 Nov 2018

Rollo the Walker led the Great Heathen Army and had his sights set on sacking Paris, in a time when relations between the Vikings and the Franks had become, essentially, getting paid to raid. Eventually his sights would turn to stability — and he became the founder of Normandy.

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November 5, 2018

Who Was Guy Fawkes? – Anglophenia Ep 18

Filed under: Britain, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Anglophenia
Published on 5 Nov 2014

Remember, remember the 5th of November: Guy Fawkes is one of Britain’s most infamous figures. Who’s the man behind the mask made famous by V For Vendetta and the protest group Anonymous? Siobhan Thompson explains.

November 4, 2018

QotD: LEED indulgences

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Environment, Government, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I am not religious but am fascinated by the comparisons at times between religion and environmentalism. Here is the LEED process applied to religion:

  • 1 point: Buy indulgence for $25
  • 1 point: Say 10 Our Fathers
  • 1 point: Light candle in church
  • 3 points: Behave well all the time, act charitably, never lie, etc.

It takes 3 points to get to heaven. Which path do you chose?

Warren Meyer, “When Sustainability is not Sustainable”, Coyote Blog, 2013-07-30.

September 23, 2018

30 Years War | 3 Minute History

Filed under: Europe, France, Germany, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jabzy
Published on 28 Oct 2015

Thanks to Xios, Alan Haskayne, Lachlan Lindenmayer, William Crabb, Derpvic, Seth Reeves and all my other Patrons. If you want to help out – https://www.patreon.com/Jabzy?ty=h

September 13, 2018

QotD: “God is dead”

Filed under: Books, Europe, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The life and work of the maverick German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is associated with five interlinking ideas: the death of God; nihilism and the crisis in morality; the Superman; the will to power; and the eternal recurrence.

Nietzsche first announced that ‘God is dead’ in his 1883 work The Joyful Science. As with much that he wrote, this phrase of Nietzsche’s has subsequently been often misunderstood. Taken literally, it is obviously a nonsensical declaration, for either a Christian god is real and eternal, or else he never existed in the first place. What Nietzsche meant by the death of God was that European civilisation had lost its faith in Christianity, but was still living by values and a morality system based on it. For this reason he believed European civilisation was facing a crisis resulting from the approaching collapse in its morality system, and the dawn of the age of nihilism – hence the title of his 1886 work, Beyond Good and Evil, which was not the libertine manifesto it sounds like, but a contention that Christian values of good and evil have become redundant.

In this respect, Nietzsche was not a nihilist, another common misconception. He viewed the coming age of nihilism with much trepidation, fearing (rightly) that the result would be great wars in the 20th century. He believed that it was imperative that humanity create a new morality system for the coming post-Christian age. The solution, he believed, was a new individualistic morality system in which the strongest, bravest men would become their own masters and creators, and in turn would become philosopher kings and oligarchs of the spirit. This new man was to be embodied in his infamous, hypothetical Übermensch, or Superman (as Über means above and beyond in German, Nietzsche’s word used to be also translated as the Beyond-Man or Overman, but today is usually not translated at all. The Übermensch goes above and beyond.)

Patrick West, “Nietzsche and the struggle against nihilism”, Spiked, 2018-08-03.

September 9, 2018

Holy Roman Empire Explained

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

WonderWhy
Published on 9 Aug 2018

Looking at the origins and history of the Holy Roman Empire, assessing the claim by Voltaire that it was not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, and finally looking at the complex hierarchical political structure of the empire.

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if the Holy Roman Empire existed today? This video is a collaboration was RealLifeLore, who looked at that very question. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwNR…

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