DUNDEE University has been accused of “antagonising Christians” with a forthcoming Christmas lecture that challenges one of the central tenets of the faith.
Second-year dental student Emily Mackie said the university’s decision to call its inaugural Dundee Christmas Lecture “Why Evolution is Right … and Creationism is Wrong” is badly timed and insensitive to Christians.
I call on the university to take a moral stand and choose a new title which better reflects the celebration of the birth of Christ.
Let’s get this right, Christmas was a beautiful, uplifting Pagan celebration that Christianity purloined and perverted for its own dubious ends.
No-one put it better than Robert G Ingersoll, an American freethinker of earlier days, who expressed his fury over this shameless theft in his “Christmas sermon”, printed in the Evening Telegram newspaper, New York City, on December 19, 1891.
The good part of Christmas is not always Christian, it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human and natural. Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition thereafter … as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled the future with fear and flame …
Miss Mackie, a member of Dundee University’s Christian Union, told the Dundee Courier that while the Genesis tale that God created the world in six days has been disregarded by many Christians, it is still a central tenet of the faith that God created the world and is in control of human destiny.
If that were remotely true, we reckon God should be instantly sacked for gross incompetence!
The lecture is being given by Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College, London, who claims that all biologists support the theory of evolution and that “intelligent design” – the belief that life was created as part of a divine plan – is just plain wrong.
The full facts concerning Christianity’s theft of Christmas are detailed in Robert Stovold’s illustrated 32-page booklet Did Christians Steal Christmas?, published by the National Secular Society.
The booklet contains a foreword by Terry Sanderson, President of the NSS, and can be purchased securely online from the National Secular Society’s website.
You can also read a fascinating account of how Christians hijacked the midwinter pagan festival here.
19 Comments
Another Christian offended? Shocking!
if facts and evidence ‘offend’ her she is wasting her time at Dundee University.
What is she doing at that university?
Insensitive to christmas? I hope she’ll get some sense for christmas.
Or she should ask it at http://www.godscustomercarecenter.com
Arie
Even Wikipedia states that “Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus”. Embarrassing.
Christmas is a Scandinavian tradition to celebrate the returning of the sun and the longer days. In Scandinavia we still call it “Jul” or Yule, although a few Christian symbols have snuck in, like the star on top of the tree. But I even have to inform a few fellow Danes that Jul has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus (who was born in september according to the Bible, if he even existed). The power and influence of this ridiculous religion is really scary.
I went to that very same lecture for a Dawin Memorial lecture last week. It was brilliant, but hardly test’s your faith. It’s about the facts of evolution, not really linked to how creationism is wrong.
Steve Jones is a great lecturer and I think as many people as possible should go.
The pagans were not the first to celebrate this time of year. It goes back at minimum to Egypt in 1500 BCE. Regardless of the claims to “ownership” of the holiday, it is, in fact, a celestial celebration based on the fact that the sun is no longer going lower in the sky. After three days, it in fact begins to rise in the sky which has been perverted into the “resurrection of Christ”. It’s all about the ancients and their knowledge of the stars and our place among them. Christians didn’t steal Christmas, they simply adapted it to suit their needs. What did they take from you or I? Nothing. The earth still reaches that same place in it’s orbit and the short days of the northern hemisphere begin to slowly, surely, grow longer. The assertion that Christians stole something implies that someone else had ownership of the event. The sun belongs to everyone and everything, even the Christians who erroneously started anthropomorphizing the worship of the Sun into worship of the Son.
I agree with Craig, except that I don’t think we mean that Christians stole christmas in that sense that one group owned it to begin with. Rather, they “stole” it in the sense that they claim that celebrating at that time of the year is an original idea based on the literal time of the birth of Jesus. I think that it is understandable to be frustrated by this mischaracterization of the holiay.
Christians, get over it. The universe is not about you and your mythology
Anyone who has studied the early history of Christianity is aware that the date of Christmas was set by the Council of Nicea (320-325 CE). This council was set up by Emperor Constantine to create a syncretic amalgam of Christianity and Mithraism. Thus, Dec 25th (Mithras’ birthday) was said to be Christ’s birthday, too.
Incidentally, there is one other Mithraic relic which derives from this council… Mithras’ “solar crown” became the Christian “halo”.
Another blow to xianity. When the light of real truth is shone on any aspect of xianity it tends to unravel at an alarming pace. Maybe she needs to transfer to Oral Roberts University, where her “education” won’t be cluttered with so many facts.
Christians offended?
*monocle falls off*
I would like to point out that Emily Mackie did not take offence at the proposed lecture at all, she states in the newspaper article that she thinks the job of a university is to provide balanced and controversial debates. The problem Miss Mackie had was that the lecture was called a Christmas lecture. Celebrations in December may not have originated from Christians, but Christmas is the day that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, which is central to their religion, and as this lecture is quite clearly being given by non-Christians, supporting non-Christian beliefs it is obviously going to be offensive to Christians that this is the way the University chooses to celebrate Christmas. If you care to pay attention to the title of the lecture also, there is no scope in the title for a balanced argument; the lecturer is quite clearly only going to give his opinion. I am an atheist myself, but I agree completely with Miss Mackie. Christmas is a Christian holiday, and we live in a historically Christian country. Even if many people now do not believe or follow the religion, we should still be respective of it. Dundee in particular has a large Christian community, and the University and council are giving the wrong message by celebrating Christmas in such a way. It is great that the University has booked such an interesting and well-respected lecturer, but I just feel it should not have been called their Christmas lecture.
I think it is high time people began to realise what christmas is REALLY all about - the presents!
I would say the article strives to be something it should not be. Everything that is not what you hate is not necessarily good and beautiful. To say that the pre-christian celebration of Christmas was ‘beautiful’ and ‘natural’ and ‘uplifting’ which Christianity stole sort of denies a couple things about humans in general . Because a holiday is adopted and adapted does not mean it was ’stolen’ or perverted, and just because the pagan holiday was distinctly ‘not christian’ does not mean it some beautiful thing you are lamenting the loss of, you really don’t give a damn. Also, holidays are about manifold emotions. The pagan celebration recognizes the short cold days gone, and the bright long days to come. The Christian holiday of Christmas does the same thing in a spiritual ‘once dead in sin’ to ‘now alive in Christ’ sense. Its all a fairly human thing. The rolling over of one tradition to be ’stolen’ by another is not something inherently evil just because you want it to be. Think of how the (now fairly Christian) Christmas holiday has been ‘purloined’, if you will, by modern atheists who celebrate neither the pagan nor Christian meanings, but still use symbols and trappings of both.
Anyway, this waxes long, sorry. I just don’t see a reason to complain on either side. Thanks all, Later.
First, Christmas has nothing to do with creation. The girl from Dundee is drawing a conclusion based on association, clumping one creationism with the nativity story. This is obviously just a misunderstanding of her own faith. This is evidenced by the fact that a xian can practice xmas as christ’s birth, and not believe in creationism(which plenty do).
However, the title “Why Evolution is Right … and Creationism is Wrong” is a grossly inaccurate title in itself. It should be more along the lines of why creationism is not science, and evolution is a supported theory, because simply clumping them together, two radically different ideas, causes a misrepresentation of what we’re actually trying to achieve with these debates.
These are two cases of separate ideas being over-generalized. Both parties are in the wrong in my opinion.
wow this is just too good. i always love to see Christians knocked down with facts. ahahahahahaha.
I am a pagan and I celebrate the rebirth of the sun at Yule. To reply to criag, paganism has roots expanding to eqypt with the Goddess originating from Isis and the sun god Horus as well as Roman adaptions. The reason why we think christians have hijack our yule is because Emprorer Constantine stole Mithras’s birthday and the pagan winter soltice to intince pagans to become christians. Those who did not where killed, tortured, cast outside society and treated as scum. The christians treated any “non-believers” terribly so we had to celebrate in secret. The Church then posted a slander campaign and used our deities to claim we were satan worshippers. So I am sorry if someone is offended with the truth but its about time the truth was revealed and pagans given their dues
I’d still bang her.
There are only so many days in the year, and there are crossover celebrations of different faiths, let Christians celebrate when and what they please and let all others do likewise. But why would anyone but a Christian call their celebration Christmas? Dec.25th has roots more ancient then the Christian world but the name “Christmas” is purely and wholly Christian.
The week of Saturnalian celebrations fits nicely into the Christmas-New Year week, with the Saturnalia falling on Christmas day. A variant of this is: Consualia (Dec 21/solstice), Saturnalia (Dec 24/Xmas Eve - so gifts come after ritual), Opalia (Dec 26 or 27); Saturnalia celebrations (Dec 25- 31); Lesser Dionysia (Dec 31/New Year’s Eve); then Roman New Year celebrations.
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