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Have a Happy and Joyous Winter Solstice

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  • Have a Happy and Joyous Winter Solstice

    Have a Happy and Joyous Winter Solstice and longer days to follow.

    Today is the beginning of the New Year, and the days will be getting longer. The celebration of the equinoxes and solstices is the oldest and most consistent celebration world wide since humans became human. Of course, the celebrations of Christmas and New Year in the world today is the result of bad math and distorted Roman God calendars.

    More on the winter Solstice to follow. . .
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 12-22-2015, 06:36 AM.
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

  • #2
    Merry Christmas.

    Comment


    • #3
      Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151221-winter-solstice-explained-pagans/


      The Northern Hemisphere's procession of dwindling days is about to reach its nadir. The winter solstice is the year's shortest day, but the start of winter also launches the sun's steady climb towards the long, warm days of summer.

      The solstice occurs on Tuesday, December 22 at 4:48 UTC—that's late Monday night across most of North America. It happens at the same moment no matter where you live, but because we've divided Earth into 24 times zones people around the world observe it at 24 different times of day.

      Why does the solstice occur anyway, and how have people observed it through history? Read on for everything you need to know about the December solstice.

      The Solstice From Space

      Earth's tilt is the reason for the season. Our planet orbits the sun while tilted at an average of 23.5 degrees, so the Northern and Southern Hemispheres receive unequal amounts of sunlight. This causes both the solstices and the seasons.

      Each hemisphere's cooler half of the year happens when it's tilted away from the sun, and its winter solstice (December in the north, June in the south) marks the point when that half of the globe is tilted away from the sun at its most extreme angle.

      Lack of exposure to the sun's rays makes the winter solstice the darkest day of the year but it's not the coldest. That's still a month or more away, depending on your location, because oceans and landmasses are slow to lose the heat energy they absorbed during the warmer months.

      Earliest Sunset? Not on the Solstice

      Still, most of us actually see the year's earliest sunset a week or two before the solstice. Why? Because the sun and our human clocks don't keep exactly the same time.

      We've organized our days into precise 24-hour segments but the Earth doesn't spin on its axis so precisely. So while the time from noon to noon is always exactly 24 hours the time between solar noons, the moment each day when the sun reaches its highest peak, varies. So as we move through the year the chronological time of the solar noon shifts seasonally—and so do each day's sunrises and sunsets.


      During December, solar noons can be some 30 seconds longer than 24 hours apart. That means while the shortest amount of total daylight falls on the solstice the day's sunset is actually a few minutes later on our clocks than it had been earlier in the month—because both sunrise and solar noon have also occurred later in that chronological day than they had in days earlier in December. To see the earliest sunset coincide more closely with the solstice simply head towards the Arctic, where the difference between the two dwindles.

      © Copyright Original Source

      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #4
        Merry Christmas!
        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

        Comment


        • #5
          Solstice no one cares


          MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Mikeenders View Post
            Solstice no one cares


            MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
            I care and everyone who will join me tonight for the party.

            Happy Holidays and Peace on Earth to you in the name of all religions and beliefs, including Winter Solstice.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
              Have a Happy and Joyous Winter Solstice and longer days to follow.

              Today is the beginning of the New Year, and the days will be getting longer. The celebration of the equinoxes and solstices is the oldest and most consistent celebration world wide since humans became human. Of course, the celebrations of Christmas and New Year in the world today is the result of bad math and distorted Roman God calendars.

              More on the winter Solstice to follow. . .
              The pagans have re-hijacked Christmas, don’t ya think? Have a jolly one.
              “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
              “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
              “not all there” - you know who you are

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                The pagans have re-hijacked Christmas, don’t ya think? Have a jolly one.
                There is still the remnant. There will always be a remnant.

                Merry Christmas, FF.
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                  The pagans have re-hijacked Christmas, don’t ya think? Have a jolly one.
                  No, it is the original holiday later celebrated by Rome as the Winter Solstice in commemoration of the Sun God. It was coopted by Christianity as the celebrating the birth of Christ, and screwed up by bad math and a screwed up calendar of Roman Gods.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Merry Christmas.
                    Watch your links! http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/fa...corumetiquette

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                      No, it is the original holiday later celebrated by Rome as the Winter Solstice in commemoration of the Sun God. It was coopted by Christianity as the celebrating the birth of Christ, and screwed up by bad math and a screwed up calendar of Roman Gods.
                      The Romans did not even commemorate the Sun god on the solstice until AD 274 by the anti-Christian emperor Aurelian. The borrowing is more likely in the other direction.
                      Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                      Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                      sigpic
                      I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        And this doesn't apply to the Southern Hemisphere....does it?
                        Watch your links! http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/fa...corumetiquette

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by DesertBerean View Post
                          And this doesn't apply to the Southern Hemisphere....does it?
                          Well, the tradition wasn't established in the Southern Hemisphere.

                          And some ancient cultures doubtless celebrated the summer solstice as well.
                          Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                          Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                          sigpic
                          I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                            The Romans did not even commemorate the Sun god on the solstice until AD 274 by the anti-Christian emperor Aurelian. The borrowing is more likely in the other direction.
                            My error, but the observance was part of the whole history of Rome under different Gods, such as the earlier celebration for Saturnalia.

                            Source: http://www.historytoday.com/matt-salusbury/did-romans-invent-christmas



                            It was a public holiday celebrated around December 25th in the family home. A time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees. But it wasn’t Christmas. This was Saturnalia, the pagan Roman winter solstice festival. But was Christmas, Western Christianity’s most popular festival, derived from the pagan Saturnalia? The first-century AD poet Gaius Valerius Catullus described Saturnalia as ‘the best of times’: dress codes were relaxed, small gifts such as dolls, candles and caged birds were exchanged. Saturnalia saw the inversion of social roles. The wealthy were expected to pay the month’s rent for those who couldn’t afford it, masters and slaves to swap clothes. Family households threw dice to determine who would become the temporary Saturnalian monarch. The poet Lucian of Samosata (AD 120-180) has the god Cronos (Saturn) say in his poem, Saturnalia: ‘During my week the serious is barred: no business allowed. Drinking and being drunk, noise and games of dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping … an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water – such are the functions over which I preside.’ Saturnalia originated as a farmer’s festival to mark the end of the autumn planting season in honour of Saturn (satus means sowing). Numerous archaeological sites from the Roman coastal province of Constantine, now in Algeria, demonstrate that the cult of Saturn survived there until the early third century AD. Saturnalia grew in duration and moved to progressively later dates under the Roman period. During the reign of the Emperor Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), it was a two-day affair starting on December 17th. By the time Lucian described the festivities, it was a seven-day event. Changes to the Roman calendar moved the climax of Saturnalia to December 25th, around the time of the date of the winter solstice. From as early as 217 BC there were public Saturnalia banquets. The Roman state cancelled executions and refrained from declaring war during the festival. Pagan Roman authorities tried to curtail Saturnalia; Emperor Caligula (AD 12-41) sought to restrict it to five days, with little success. Emperor Domitian (AD 51-96) may have changed Saturnalia’s date to December 25th in an attempt to assert his authority. He curbed Saturnalia’s subversive tendencies by marking it with public events under his control. The poet Statius (AD 45- 95), in his poem Silvae, describes the lavish banquet and entertainments Domitian presided over, including games which opened with sweets, fruit and nuts showered on the crowd and featuring flights of flamingos released over Rome. Shows with fighting dwarves and female gladiators were illuminated, for the first time, into the night. The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in AD 312 ended Roman persecution of Christians and began imperial patronage of the Christian churches. But Christianity did not become the Roman Empire’s official religion overnight. Dr David Gwynn, lecturer in ancient and late antique history at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that, alongside Christian and other pagan festivals, ‘the Saturnalia continued to be celebrated in the century afterward’. The poet Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius wrote another Saturnalia, describing a banquet of pagan literary celebrities in Rome during the festival. Classicists date the work to between AD 383 and 430, so it describes a Saturnalia alive and well under Christian emperors. The Christian calendar of Polemius Silvus, written around AD 449, mentions Saturnalia, recording that ‘it used to honour the god Saturn’. This suggests it had by then become just another popular carnival. Christmas apparently started – like Saturnalia – in Rome, and spread to the eastern Mediterranean. The earliest known reference to it commemorating the birth of Christ on December 25th is in the Roman Philocalian calendar of AD 354. Provincial schisms soon resulted in different Christian calendars. The Orthodox Church in the Eastern (Byzantine) half of the Roman Empire fixed the date of Christmas at January 6th, commemorating simultaneously Christ’s birth, baptism and first miracle. Saturnalia has a rival contender as the forerunner of Christmas: the festival of dies natalis solis invicti, ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’. The Philocalian calendar also states that December 25th was a Roman civil holiday honouring the cult of sol invicta. With its origins in Syria and the monotheistic cult of Mithras, sol invicta certainly has similarities to the worship of Jesus. The cult was introduced into the empire in AD 274 by Emperor Aurelian (214-275), who effectively made it a state religion, putting its emblem on Roman coins. Sol invicta succeeded because of its ability to assimilate aspects of Jupiter and other deities into its figure of the Sun King, reflecting the absolute power of ‘divine’emperors. But despite efforts by later pagan emperors to control Saturnalia and absorb the festival into the official cult, the sol invicta ended up looking very much like the old Saturnalia. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was brought up in the sol invicta cult, in what was by then already a predominantly monotheist empire: ‘It is therefore possible,’ says Dr Gwynn, ‘that Christmas was intended to replace this festival rather than Saturnalia.’ Gwynn concludes: ‘The majority of modern scholars would be reluctant to accept any close connection between the Saturnalia and the emergence of the Christian Christmas.’ Devout Christians will be reassured to learn that the date of Christmas may derive from concepts in Judaism that link the time of the deaths of prophets being linked to their conception or birth. From this, early ecclesiastical number-crunchers extrapolated that the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy following the Annunciation on March 25th would produce a December 25th date for the birth of Christ.

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            - See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/matt-sal....3V3aTqom.dpuf
                            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                            go with the flow the river knows . . .

                            Frank

                            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I do believe based by the stories in the Bible concerning tax collection, the shepherds and there flocks, and relationship to Passover, indicate that Jesus was born in the spring closer to the Spring Equinox to the beginning of June.
                              Last edited by shunyadragon; 12-22-2015, 12:08 PM.
                              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                              go with the flow the river knows . . .

                              Frank

                              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                              Comment

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