• A reminder that Forum Moderator applications are currently still open! If you're interested in joining an active team of moderators for one of the biggest Pokémon forums on the internet, click here for info.
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Christmas and Easter

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

The Big Al

Meteorologist
Joined
Mar 5, 2005
Messages
3,799
Reaction score
10
After reading some posts on another thread I decided to make this discussion.

I believe Christmas should be moved. According to the Bible Jesus was born during lambing season which would be in the mid to late Spring. I don't know why the early Christians moved it to the beginning of Saturna (sp?) but they did.

I would suggest Christmas land on either the last Sunday of April or the first Sunday of May and it be a high holy in Christianity. Then the secular part of the Holiday could be tied with the Winter Soltice or New Years (New Years would give a whole week of extra shopping).

I would also suggest the eggs and bunnies part of Easter be moved to the Spring Equinox where it was meant to be and Easter simply be a high holy day for Christians.

Though I also believe America should go metric, the year should begin on the Winter Soltice, daylight savings time should be abolished, the electoral college should be abolished and other things that would help the world but never get done. Oh well.
 
So you want to celebrate the death and birth of Jesus within a month of each other?
 
If they happened within a month of each other.
 
I'm pretty sure the reason the Christians put Christmas around the time of winter solstice was just to copy off of the pagans and try to overtake their holiday; that's why so many Christmas traditions actually originally come from pagan traditions of the time.

I actually agree with you about everything except the metric system. I also think we should have 13 months instead of 12.
 
But Christmas is so commercialized and...like...at this point in the game, you can't have Christmas if it's not winter. I mean, the christmas songs! Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bells, Sleigh Ride...

The entire holiday would have to change...

I don't like the metric system at all, but I'm all for getting rid of daylight savings time.
 
Evil Azurill said:
But Christmas is so commercialized and...like...at this point in the game, you can't have Christmas if it's not winter. I mean, the christmas songs! Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bells, Sleigh Ride...

The entire holiday would have to change...
Click to expand...
Krismas, dudes!


Doesn't sound bad to me. Those who are used to Christmas can do Krismas, and those who want to can do Yule, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or Saturnalia. Or this Festivus thing I keep hearing about.

Also, I saw a planetarium show that said that Jesus could have been born in fall (I think), and that the "Star of Bethlehem" could have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in Leo. It would have been bright, in the East, and very astrologically significant to the three "wisemen" (who were into astrology). I'll have look it up again.



Edit: Heh, I just checked stuff on Starry Night Pro (*plugplugawesomenessplug*), and found that:

1. the above conjunction happened in the West on 6-17-2 BC

2. unless Jesus was born in the wee hours (between 3:30 and 5 am) of the mornings of August 12 or 13, 3 BC, or

3. the wisemen could see the two in broad daylight (6:40 am) on August 21 (they're in the west by evening, and are in Virgo either way), and

3. there was a comet (Wirtanen) in the East. It appeared in Lepus in the SE on 11-5-1 BC and about 7:40 pm, crossed Canis Major, Monoceros, Hydra, the corner of Cancer, the Leos, and Ursa Major before disappearing into the Canes Venatici on 2-1-1 AD at about 12:55 am. It was in the two Leos from December 11th to the 24th. It was at its eastmost on Dec. 10, 1 BC, and its tail would have been "pointing" exactly west (nucleus was in the east, tail was more west) at ~10 pm.
 
Last edited:
Really? I always assumed it was a supernova.

And what's wrong with the metric system? It makes logical sense, unlike the British system, and it would put us in league (<--that isn't the right word) with the rest of the world.
 
ChaosRocket said:
I'm pretty sure the reason the Christians put Christmas around the time of winter solstice was just to copy off of the pagans and try to overtake their holiday; that's why so many Christmas traditions actually originally come from pagan traditions of the time.

I actually agree with you about everything except the metric system. I also think we should have 13 months instead of 12.
Click to expand...

You're, more or less, right on why Christmas is when it is. It's all about trying to get the Pagans turned into Christians by making the transition as easy as possible (basically, they took pre-established holidays and traditions and put a little Christ into them).

And we'd never have 13 months. Too many people are superstitious about that number. Because...numbers are evil.
 
And also because converting to 13 months would be the largest undertaking in modern history. Or 13 is an evil number. Or both.
 
What would be the benefit of having 13 months? 365 isn't divisible by 13.
 
Roses Ablaze said:
Really? I always assumed it was a supernova.

And what's wrong with the metric system? It makes logical sense, unlike the British system, and it would put us in league (<--that isn't the right word) with the rest of the world.
Click to expand...

There's not necessarily anything *wrong* with it, it's just that I've been using the standard system all my life and it's a little too late to change. I wouldn't want to change, anyways, just because I'm so used to using inches and all that jazz.
 
There's no point to moving the holiday to spring, since it wouldn't make it any more "biblical" (there's nothing about celebrating Christmas anyways). It's been over a thousand years this way, so there's no reason to change.
 
This is a really good essay explaining why the metric system sucks and isn't practical for normal daily use.

http://www.metricsucks.org/metric_land.html


Roses Ablaze said:
What would be the benefit of having 13 months? 365 isn't divisible by 13.
Click to expand...

Yeah but it ALMOST is. 364 is divisible by 13. If we had 13 months, then 12 of the months could all have 28 days, only one month would have to have one extra day. It would just make a lot more sense. Almost all the months would have the same number of days, so you wouldn't have to always be trying to remember the number of days that month had. And we always think of months as being four weeks long- well now all months would be exactly 4 weeks long, except for the one with one extra day. Plus it just makes more sense because months are supposed to be based on moon cycles anyways.
 
You're all just so opposed to the metric system because you were born and raised in the lap of the imperial system and learning a new system scares the hell out of you. The metric system isn't that hard to figure out. I've been using it since I was a kid and I never had problems with it. To me, the imperial system is a Measuring For Dummies sort of thing.

Moving Christmas would be completely stupid. Maybe it will be holier or whatever, but then what do you do about the secular part of Christmas, which nowadays is pretty much the most important part of it? You can't sing "Jingle Bells" in the spring, it doesn't make any sense.
 
I already said attach it to the Soltice like the secular part was before.
 
Demon of Light said:
Moving Christmas would be completely stupid. Maybe it will be holier or whatever, but then what do you do about the secular part of Christmas, which nowadays is pretty much the most important part of it? You can't sing "Jingle Bells" in the spring, it doesn't make any sense.
Click to expand...
Leave Christmas to the Christians; everyone else can take Krismas. As the name suggests, it's like Christmas (uses common myths and traditions), but without all the Christ stuff.
Last I checked, it wasn't Jesus riding around in that sleigh or making snowmen come alive....
 
The advantage of the metric system is that it's much easier to go from a smaller to larger measurement and vice versa. It's just powers of 10. For our units, they involve numbers that may take more effort to multiply or divide (at least if you attempt to do it the old-fashioned way). I think that essay is highly unfair to the metric system, but who is to say that one system is more accurate than the other? A measurement is a measurement. It doesn't matter if you say 0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it stands for the same thing. At this point however, I will agree, people are just too used to using the units they have now.

As for the calendar thing, the Earth makes one complete orbit in 365.25 days (approximately). You failed to compensate for this. Many people have attempted to make a more accurate calendar than the one we have, but it is often a fruitless endeavor. Again, people are too used to the calendar, and there is little we can do to make it more accurate. Besides, in some fashion, your idea has already been thought of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Calendar

I will agree with doing away with the electoral college, though.
 
The Big Al said:
I already said attach it to the Soltice like the secular part was before.
Click to expand...

But why? Does it matter what day Christmas is on? The season is the most insignificant part of it anyway. Christmas should be about celebrating the birth of Jesus, and you can do that in the winter even if it didn't happen then.
 
What do you mean "failed to compensate for this"? I figured it would just be assumed that we wouldn't stop having leap years. Why would changing to 13 months mean we wouldn't have leap years anymore? o_O


Demon of Light said:
You're all just so opposed to the metric system because you were born and raised in the lap of the imperial system and learning a new system scares the hell out of you. The metric system isn't that hard to figure out. I've been using it since I was a kid and I never had problems with it. To me, the imperial system is a Measuring For Dummies sort of thing.
Click to expand...

Did you even read the essay? The metric system is good for scientific stuff, but it's really bad for everyday use, so bad that people tend to just drift back to non-metric measurements on thier own. I don't get how the imperial system would be measuring for dummies, the metric system is the one that is all simple and everything is just multiples of 10, the imperial system is the one you have to actually memorize the different measurements.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom