Moral Decline

Most Americans think that December 25th became a holiday when Catholics decided to make that day the celebration of the birth of Christ. But that is just not true. Before Christmas was ever invented, December 25th was known as "the birthday of the unconquered sun" and it was celebrated as the birthday of pagan gods such as Mithras, Attis, Sol, Dionysus and others.

Most Americans also do not realize that Yule is the name of a major pagan holiday that is celebrated today by thousands upon thousands of people around the world.

In fact, a major U.K. newspaper recently had this headline: Ancient Yule festivals lie behind much of our British Christmas.

Yule was celebrated by the pagans of northern Europe from late December to early January for centuries. When you offer "yuletide" greetings you are acknowledging this celebration. Yule logs were traditionally lit to honor the god "Thor". The holiday would continue until the Yule log burned out, which could take as many as twelve days. Thus this is where we get the "12 days of Christmas". Even an early form of Santa Claus can all be traced back to ancient Yule celebrations.

Another one of the pagan pre-Christian festivals was called Saturnalia.

Saturnalia was a holiday when the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of their god Saturn, which was on the 17th of December and the festival would last for a whole week until the 23rd of December.

Later on, the Romans also started holding a festival on December 25 called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, which means "the birthday of the unconquered sun."

In the year 350 A.D., Pope Julius I declared that "Christ’s birth" would be celebrated on December 25th from then on.

Apparently his rationale was that he was trying to make it easier for pagan Romans to convert to Christianity.

But Jesus was not born on December 25th.

It would have been way too cold for shepherds to be out with their sheep at night during that time.

The truth is that is can be demonstrated that Jesus was most likely born during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Are you ready for more stuff you didn't know about Christmas?

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