Almost all religious holidays originating in the Northern Hemisphere can be connected to astrological events, or bi-products thereof. Christmas occurs at the winter solctice, Easter in conjunction with the Vernal Equinox.

So my question is this, does understanding the astrotheological origins behind religious holidays have the capacity to unite more people as they see the common bonds or is it more divisive because people want to believe in the specialness of their particular ethnic story about it?

To me, this is a prime example of the pre/trans fallacy. These festivals began in a prerational setting bound in ethnic specialness. But today, they could be seen as transrational unifying themes if the stories are only seen as metaphores. Heck, even strict rationalists can appreciate the patterns of the heavens devoid of pre or trans associations.

I like saying "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Easter", but I get put off when people tell me "I've forgotten the true meaning" of these holidays when I don't include the Christian references to them. It seems to me it would be better to call the holidays by their astrological names and say "The Christians celebrate the Vernal Equinox as Easter" or "the Winter Solctice as Christmas". That way we can all join the festival in our own way.

Thoughts?

-TC

Only trouble with that is that folk in the Southern Hemisphere are celebrating the Autumnal Equinox for Easter and the Summer Solstice for Christmas.

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Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and women and love God above all else. Instead of hating all the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and disorders in your own soul which are the causes of war. - Thomas Merton

In the western hemisphere, when would Christmas and Easter be celebrated in relation to the equinox's ?

There was another posting on this board
http://www.interfaithforums.com/show...0477#post50477
that spoke of DEc. 25, and the sun dying for 3 days and resurection, which to me sounded like Easter, but it had it linked with Christmas.

So I am curious as to how that relates to the hemisphere they were in .

~Peace123

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Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do ~Rumi

Because the movement of the stars will look different depending upon what side of the equator you are on. Your view of which stars appear "over the horizon" will differ as well as which stars are "overhead".

As far as the "three days", it is not uncommon to mix different traditions together. For example, some accounts say Jesus rose 3 days later, others say he dwelt 40 days in Hell before acending. There were many different accounts of the life of Jesus before the official version was voted on. Likewise, a tradition that had a resurrecting godman after three days may have also forgotten/ignored/was ignorant of the allusion from which it was taken. Major themes in mythology don't always mean the same story.

-TC

That's part of the problem with claiming "historicity" with ethnic stories in conjunction with these events. If it were an historical fact Christ was crucified, we would mark it with a specific date. Instead, it is calculated as the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal equinox (from a Northern Hemisphere perspective of course).

Without the religious tag, you could celebrate the Winter and Spring festivals when they occur. If you retain the Christian tradition, you could continue to mark the event when the Northern Hemisphereans do.

-TC

Hmmm...interesting thought, Travis. I think that if it was that simple, someone would have done this already. I think the emotional attachment to these holidays will supercede any logical common thread.

Hi Travis - Are there any correlations between the religious stories of birth/death/rebirth and the celebrations of the Winter and Spring festivals? Thanks!

http://www.truthbeknown.com/easter.htm

Easter: Christian or Pagan?


Contrary to popular belief, Easter does not represent the "historical" crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In reality, the gospel tale reflects the annual "crossification" of the sun through the vernal equinox (Spring), at which time the sun is "resurrected," as the day begins to become longer than the night.

Rather than being a "Christian" holiday, Easter celebrations date back into remotest antiquity and are found around the world, as the blossoming of spring did not escape the notice of the ancients, who revered this life-renewing time of the year, when winter had passed and the sun was "born again." The "Pagan" Easter is also the Passover, and Jesus Christ represents not only the sun but also the Passover Lamb ritually sacrificed every year by a number of cultures, including the Egyptians, possibly as early as 4,000 years ago and continuing to this day in some places.

Easter is "Pessach" in Hebrew, "Pascha" in Greek, "Pachons" in Latin and "Pa-Khonsu" in Egyptian, "Khonsu" being an epithet for the sun god Horus. In Anglo-Saxon, Easter or Eostre is goddess of the dawn, corresponding to Ishtar, Astarte, Astoreth and Isis. The word "Easter" shares the same root with "east" and "eastern," the direction of the rising sun.

The principal Mexican solar festival was held at the vernal equinox, i.e., Easter, when sacrifices were made to sustain the sun. In India, the vernal equinox festival is called "Holi" and is especially sacred to the god Krishna. The Syrian sun and fertility god Attis was annually hung on a tree, dying and rising on March 24th and 25th, an "Easter celebration" that occurred at Rome as well. The March dates were later applied to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ: "Thus," says Sir Frazer, "the tradition which placed the death of Christ on the twenty-fifth of March was ancient and deeply rooted. It is all the more remarkable because astronomical considerations prove that it can have had no historical foundation…." This "coincidence" between the deaths and resurrections of Christ and the older Attis was not lost on early Christians, whom it distressed and caused to use the "devil got there first" excuse for the motif's presence in pre-Christian paganism.

The rites of the "crucified Adonis," another dying and rising savior god, were also celebrated in Syria at Easter time. As Frazer states:



The salvific death and resurrection at Easter of the god, the initiation as remover of sin, and the notion of becoming "born again," are all ages-old Pagan motifs or mysteries rehashed in the later Christianity. The all-important death-and-resurrection motif is exemplified in the "Parisian magical papyrus," a Pagan text ostensibly unaffected by Christianity:


In the gospel tale, there are two dates for the crucifixion: the 14th and the 15th of the month of Nisan, and within Christianity the date for Easter was debated for centuries. There continue to be two dates for Easter: the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, thus demonstrating that this holiday is not the historical date of the actual crucifixion of a particular man. The dates are, in fact, astronomical, astrological and astrotheological.

In explaining this roving date, one "distinguished churchman," as Catholic Church historian Eusebius called him, Anatolius, revealed the meaning of Easter and of Christ, as well as the fact that astrology was a known and respected science used in Christianity. Said Anatolius:



In establishing the "Paschal festival," Church father Anatolius thus based his calculations on the positions of the sun and moon during the vernal equinox.

The need to time the Easter celebration - or resurrection - to coincide with the vernal equinox demonstrates that "Christ" is not an historical personage but the sun. This fact of Easter being the resurrection of the Sun has been well known for centuries, just as "the Savior's" birth at the winter solstice has been recognized as another solar motif. Another obvious clue as to Christ's nature is the fact that the "Lord's Day" is Sunday.

Concerning Easter, in his "Letter I. for 329" Bishop of Alexandria Athanasius (c. 293-373) remarks, "Again, 'the Sun of Righteousness,' causing His divine beams to rise upon us, proclaims beforehand the time of the feast, in which, obeying Him, we ought to celebrate it…" Christ is thus the Sun of Righteousness, with "divine beams."

The Easter calculations were recomputed in the seventh century by the Christian author(s) of the Paschal Chronicle or Alexandria Chronicle, which seeks to establish a Christian chronology from "creation" to the year 628. The Paschal Chronicle determines the proper date for Easter as March 21st and the date of Christ's resurrection as March 25th (or, midnight, March 24, three days after the beginning of the equinox). In his various calculations, the Chronicle author discusses solar and lunar cycles, including the 19-year lunar cycle, by which he reckons the crucifixion and resurrection, concluding: "This is consistent with the prior determinations of reputable men in the calculation of the heavenly bodies." To wit, Christ's death and resurrection are based on astrotheology.

The Chronicle author further confirms that Christianity is a continuation of the ancient "Pagan" astrotheological religion when he states that the "Annunciation of our Lady," i.e., the conception of Christ by the Virgin Mary, likewise occurred on March 25th, the vernal equinox, exactly nine months prior to the December 25th birthdate, the annual rebirth of the sun.

Wow... that's alot of information! Thanks, Travis. What interpretation do you give to all this? Do you feel Jesus' life was made to fit in with the pagan traditions/astrology? That he never lived? Or that these themes are all a part of a collective dream? It would be interesting to hear your take on this.

Quote easter christian what?

Contrary to major secular practices such as astrology, when one can see astrology as a secular practice, religious holidays that are a part of some pan human event historically represent something peculiar. The interpretation of Christmas, easter, the ceremonies galore, etc. signal a common type or human endeavor - that is relationship. TC and Wilber are right in that pre/trans awareness is important, if not critical. I think (my "view" is that) It would likely be the case that an optimistic turn of events would result in a unifyer. But that doesn't sit well to my reflective mind. Disenchantment, apathy, cynycism, and lazyness do bring a pull from the religious right.

To answer the question Travis: Understanding astro-theological origins does have the capacity to both unite and divide. As long as they (and religious holidays) remain behind the scenes of common understanding both chaos and unification will occur. Maybe we have even ended up with quite painted, chaotic, and somewhat turbulent times as these we commonly refer to and remember because both attachment and letting go manifest in such a form in the current trend. (So, did the earth shake for Buddha? and how important are mudras! ((and really, it is said, the truth is out there... for those who are balanced, loving, light...))

True but there are consequences and drawbacks; the pre slash trans fallacy being one. You see though, the distinctive thing about festivals is that, in christian (or Christian) terms, and in myth-making experience, among other phenomena for study, they are something to which everyone ought to be invited...Hence the push from oriental festivals, pagan rituals, (hush) martyrdom, and so on.




Rev. Kelly - also true, yet, the emotional attachment doesn't seem to always hold things together. Sometimes religious belief, astro-charts, news t.v. appear like common logical threads. The importance of festivals, this to dying end, is the dance and the music...

Consider current films themes like greek war, against current media hype like maladie Islamic jihad. The weight of relfective interpretation moves with the same grace as political parties do, but not nations. The reason myth is important is something religions tend to block when they are being understood. Unification and division are as elemental as absolving ego, transcendence, and a big ol' party - kingdom of heaven - where happiness and kindness rule...