Based Camp - Christmas Was Not a Pagan Holiday： How To Shut Down Family Idiot Arguing Otherwise

00:00:00.000 the earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as Jesus's birthday

00:00:04.640 predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.

00:00:10.020 And keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on that

00:00:16.100 date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities

00:00:20.800 that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.

00:00:26.040 Wow. Yeah. It was to say that, yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas.

00:00:30.680 My life has been a lie. God is dead. The government's lame. Thanksgiving is about 0.94

00:00:34.880 killing Indians. Jesus wasn't born on Christmas. They moved the date. It was a pagan holiday. 1.00

00:00:39.400 Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with Jesus's birthday.

00:00:47.360 It was not that Jesus's birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.

00:00:52.880 It was an already totally Christian saints festival was moved to correspond with a totally 0.57

00:00:59.160 Christian Jesus's birthday as calculated by early church leaders.

00:01:04.020 Right. And it's just some religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.

00:01:07.440 Would you like to know more?

00:01:08.800 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing

00:01:13.880 the pernicious myth that many Christian celebrations around Christmas came or are descended from pagan

00:01:24.620 celebrations. What? Oh, they are not? I thought they always were. Yeah, you must have heard this

00:01:32.220 growing up where people are like, oh, this came from a pagan celebration. This came from a pagan

00:01:37.580 celebration. And in almost every case, there not only is literally zero strong evidence that they

00:01:46.560 are, there is very strong evidence they did not. And there is actually also evidence in a number of

00:01:52.720 cases that some celebrations that they're like, yeah, but pagans did practice this. And you're like,

00:01:58.580 yeah. And they started about 200 years after Christians did. 0.94

00:02:02.020 Are you kidding me? Not the other way around.

00:02:06.680 What? This is crazy. Every year I get in the Christmas spirit and I watch a ton of videos

00:02:10.760 on the history of Christmas and the pagan origins of Christmas. And you're subverting that all right

00:02:16.280 now? Yeah, hold on. I couldn't subvert this on so many levels. So the specific ones that we're

00:02:21.420 going to be addressing are, is Christmas copied from Sol Invictus celebration or did it get its date

00:02:28.280 from a Sol Invictus celebration or Saturnalia or Saturnalia? We're also going to be discussing

00:02:33.360 Saturnalia separately. Okay. And is the Christmas tree pagan? Specifically, we'll be arguing in the

00:02:39.100 case of Christmas tree that the tradition of the Christmas tree is not ancient. It's not derived

00:02:43.140 from Saturnalia, Yule or Norse mythology. And then finally, we will touch briefly on Santa Claus

00:02:50.940 being Christian. But we're going to hit this from a really weird angle because what may surprise you

00:02:58.720 is I thought that all of this propaganda about this stuff not being Christian in origin came from

00:03:06.100 the modern new age pagan like counterculture movement. Oh yeah. Like I'm a Wiccan or I like my

00:03:11.940 Druid ceremony and I want to feel like I'm being, I'm doing the real Christmas. Yeah. I'm doing the real

00:03:17.640 Christmas. Turned out it didn't come from me. What? So, well, but, well, hold on, hold on.

00:03:25.560 Simone, obviously, can you guess who it came from? This whole Christmas. I'll give you a clue.

00:03:31.740 They're one of our ancestral groups. Oh, the, not the Puritan. Yeah. The Puritans in the 16th and 17th

00:03:40.060 century. Because they were trying to be like, well, you don't want to celebrate Christmas because that's

00:03:43.440 some like pure, that's some like a pagan nonsense. That's actually Massachusetts outlawed the

00:03:48.640 celebration of Christian for 22 years. Yeah. Yeah. That, that I understood. I knew that,

00:03:53.300 that Puritans were all, we don't do Christmas. What I would say is they were not crazy not to,

00:03:59.960 to see it as pagan either. So think about it from a Puritan perspective. Okay. You have like many

00:04:06.040 people today where they're like, wait, like when, when COVID happened and everything like that,

00:04:09.760 they were like, wait, the government's been gaslighting me for a long time. Like they're

00:04:13.680 just been lying to me about stuff. Like I doubt everything. And then they went into like QAnon's

00:04:19.020 viral conspiracy theory mode. Yeah. With the Puritans, you know, the, the, the Bible was being 0.97

00:04:24.260 printed. They were like, Hey, this doesn't align with what the Catholic church says, you know,

00:04:28.820 let's look to the Bible for what is Christian. And you look in the Bible and they're like,

00:04:33.740 this Christmas stuff is not in here. The tree's not here. The Santa Claus guy is not here. This

00:04:40.320 and so they're then like, okay, where did it all come from? It must be pagan. And I'd also put this

00:04:47.820 in the context of some line in the Bible that would make them especially suspicious. So if you look at

00:04:53.660 something like Jeremiah 10, one through five, it says, hear what the Lord says to you, people of

00:05:00.320 Israel. This is what the Lord says. Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs 1.00

00:05:06.840 in the heavens. So the nations are terrified by them for the practice of that. The people are

00:05:11.740 worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest and a craftsman shapes. It was this chisel. They adorn 0.99

00:05:17.220 it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails. So it will not totter like a scarecrow in

00:05:23.700 a cucumber field. Sorry. They must be carried because they cannot walk. They do not fear them.

00:05:36.620 They do not harm them, nor can they do any good. Now, note here, people often shorten this. So if

00:05:42.940 you just hear it like that, you're like, that doesn't sound too much like a Christmas tree.

00:05:46.260 Well, let's take out about half the words. Yeah. Okay. Especially the way that the nations.

00:05:51.160 All right. Yeah. For the practices of the people are worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest.

00:05:57.160 They adorn it with silver and gold. And then people are like, that sounds like a Christmas tree.

00:06:03.840 Yeah. Okay. But if that's your context, you're like, okay, clearly this isn't a Christmas tree.

00:06:08.220 They're talking about the creation of idols that people used to assign special powers to. Nobody really

00:06:13.680 assigns powers to a Christmas tree. Like nobody thinks like the Christmas tree is generating the

00:06:17.580 presence. So largely what we're going to find in this explanation as I go through things is that

00:06:24.120 every one of these practices around Christmas is something that likely developed after the time

00:06:32.320 of Christ, but within the Christian communities without much external pagan influence. And where it

00:06:40.480 does look like there's pagan influence. That's just a convergent adoption of an important time,

00:06:47.480 i.e. the winter solstice. There would be a reason for pagans to have celebrations around the winter

00:06:53.480 solstice. And there would be a separate reason for Christians to have celebrations around the winter

00:06:58.200 solstice. Yeah. But let's go into this. All right. Anything you want to get into before I go further?

00:07:02.140 No, I'm intrigued. Because you had always heard and you believe that this is pagan stuff because it

00:07:07.860 makes it, it like looks pagan, right? Like, yep. I don't know. All right. It's all sort of,

00:07:15.220 you know, nature and darkness and bringing light. And there's nothing inherently about Jesus being

00:07:22.620 born in there. So it seems intuitive. The argument that Christians chose to celebrate Christmas on 0.96

00:07:28.560 December 25th to compete with or co-opt the popular pagan festival of Sol Invictus is not supported by

00:07:34.740 strong evidence. Sol Invictus was a relatively minor deity until the 3rd century CE. Unlike major Roman

00:07:41.680 deities like Jupiter or Apollo, Sol Invictus lacked the widespread recognition and dedicated cultic practices

00:07:48.160 that would usually accompany a popular deity. This lack of widespread importance calls into question

00:07:54.360 the theory that Christians felt particularly threatened by Sol Invictus. December 25th was

00:07:59.700 not a longstanding or particularly important festival day for Sol Invictus. The earliest evidence of a

00:08:06.300 December 25th festival dedicated to Sol Invictus is found in the Calendar of 354, a Christian document

00:08:13.660 composed 80 years after Emperor Arulean, who is often credited with popularizing the sun god, instituted a

00:08:20.440 festival in honor of Sol Invictus. The Calendar of 354 is also our only source mentioning December 25th

00:08:27.820 as the birthday of Sol Invictus. The problem here being is that the Calendar of 355 also mentions

00:08:32.900 two other Sol Invictus festivals that were likely, given the evidence we have, more important than the

00:08:39.900 December 25th festival. Specifically, a multi-day festival celebrated from October 19th to 22nd

00:08:46.320 and a festival for the sun and moon on August 28th. The Luddite Solus festival even involved a greater

00:08:54.540 number of chariot races than the December 25th festival, 36 compared to 30. This makes it look

00:09:01.160 very unlikely with the... So, just a little bit of background for people who don't know. There was this

00:09:07.240 Roman emperor who really liked to cross-dress, and he came up with the idea of combining all of the gods

00:09:12.780 into one god, and he called this god Sol Invictus. This happened after Christ, but still pretty early

00:09:19.880 in the Christian tradition, in a way that it really paved the way for the Roman Empire to accept

00:09:28.720 Christianity and a singular god, but it was still very Roman-y in nature, and this is the Sol Invictus. 0.89

00:09:36.080 And one of our daughters actually has a name that was partially inspired by this, her child,

00:09:42.660 Lincoln-Fix Collins. But to go further here, and so some people are like, oh, well, Rome had this god

00:09:48.620 that was a one god that was a sun god, and so we'll say that Christians just borrowed that date.

00:09:55.120 But in a second, we'll get to some really major problems for this.

00:09:58.140 So, now you might be asking, okay, well, if they weren't choosing the date because of,

00:10:05.400 you know, the Sol Invictus celebration, why might they have been choosing the date, right?

00:10:10.800 It's more likely that Christians selected December 25th as a date for Christmas because early Christian

00:10:16.120 chronographers were attempting to calculate the key moments of Jesus' life. This is known as

00:10:20.820 calculation theory. These chronographers were likely motivated by a desire to align dates of

00:10:25.700 important events in Jesus' life with dates of the winter solstice, December 25th, and the

00:10:30.580 vernal equinox, March 25th, because of their poetic and cosmic symbolism. However, now you could say,

00:10:38.360 am I saying that they just completely got these dates wrong? Probably not, because December 25th was

00:10:44.500 not the only widely accepted date for Jesus' birth. Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire celebrated

00:10:50.040 Christmas on January 6th, a date that did not correspond with either the winter solstice

00:10:55.500 or a pagan holiday. So, what is my guess? My guess is that the correct date for Jesus' birth is likely

00:11:03.760 January 6th, because there is no other reason to have chosen that date, and it is very close to the

00:11:10.120 December 25th date. So, what likely happened is when they were trying to calculate things, because they

00:11:16.800 knew it happened around this time, and the winter solstice was also around this time, it was just easier to

00:11:24.220 synchronize them. Right, because everyone kind of was running on slightly different calendars, and the

00:11:28.980 calendars kept changing, so it's easier to go by either lunar cycles, which more Jewish traditions seem

00:11:35.240 to be based around, or around just, how long are the days? And then that seems a lot easier. Yeah, so

00:11:42.740 it's not, what about all this conjecture that Jesus was probably born around the spring, because there

00:11:48.040 were shepherds out, and all these other things. The problem here being that sheep are, in fact, grazed

00:11:54.120 in the winter, especially in temperate climates like Bethlehem would have been at that time. As you can see

00:12:00.680 on midi-modern shepherding websites, like the ones I have in the background here, this is an argument

00:12:06.880 made up by people who simply do not have experience shepherding, and so they, you know, create conjecture.

00:12:13.900 When do I think sheep would most likely be grazing? But it gets worse from there. Remember how she

00:12:19.740 said, oh, and the other evidence? Well, if you look at the other evidence for a spring birth, it is

00:12:25.220 really, really bad. Specifically, it is John the Baptist's birth. The Gospel of Luke provides

00:12:31.940 information about the conception of John the Baptist, which can be used to estimate Jesus' birth by

00:12:36.660 calculating from the time of Zacharias' temple service around June, and adding nine months for

00:12:41.500 Elizabeth's pregnancy. John's births would be around March, since Jesus was conceived when Elizabeth

00:12:45.740 was six months pregnant. This would place Jesus' births in the fall or possibly early spring. Oh, but also

00:12:51.400 possibly in December. So, what? No, that's terrible evidence. Passover symbolism? I do not think that

00:12:57.420 that's good evidence. That's just symbolic evidence. Astronomical evidence? Some researchers have suggested

00:13:02.900 that the star that guided the Magi might have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which occurred in

00:13:08.840 7 BC, which could be used to argue for a spring birth. Again, very bad evidence. So, there just is

00:13:16.100 really no strong evidence here, and this is something that's pretty much made up whole cloth by individuals

00:13:21.260 who want to find ways to smear traditional Christian beliefs. Okay. But I can say, to me, it's suspicious

00:13:28.440 that the date that had no backing and no reason to choose it was so close to the 25th date.

00:13:34.820 That just seems really weird to me. It's only, like, a couple weeks apart. Now, I'd also note spring

00:13:41.700 doesn't seem likely to me for another reason. Okay. They were desperately looking for shelter.

00:13:46.700 Why would they be desperately looking for shelter in spring when you could just camp outside?

00:13:51.100 That's fair. Yeah. Especially if shelter meant slumming it with a very crowded family or with

00:14:03.680 animals. Yeah. Because that leads to disease risk. Yeah. It probably means that you're cold.

00:14:09.800 And also, it would make more sense if there was a census taking place that, especially if it was over a

00:14:15.780 shorter term period of time, you'd probably do it around the winter when people are less mobile.

00:14:19.300 Although, all right. So, to continue here. Although the census is denied by historic Christian 1.00

00:14:26.180 scholars. Oh, really? Or the historic Jesus scholars. Okay. Now, this is, I don't know what

00:14:32.360 to believe on this. I'll go deeper into it when we go into that in one of our tracks. I would need to

00:14:37.060 see what the Bible actually says. I need to see the different ways it can be interpreted. I need to see

00:14:41.760 where they're getting things wrong. But generally, I find that the Bible seems to be more logical than I

00:14:46.980 thought it was every time I go back and read it, which is like the core thing of our reading of the

00:14:51.800 Bible stuff. This is another one of those times where I decided to check the Bible to see if the

00:14:57.160 Bible said the crazy thing that everyone believes that the Bible says or it says something else. And

00:15:02.580 surprise, surprise, the Bible says something else. The only book in the entire Bible that is even

00:15:09.760 purported to argue that there was a census that required people to return to their ancestral homes

00:15:14.620 is Luke. The problem is, is Luke doesn't actually say that. What Luke does say is,

00:15:22.800 and everyone went to their own town to register, so Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in

00:15:28.380 Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem to the town of David because he belonged to the house and line of David.

00:15:33.920 It doesn't state that they had to go to their ancestral homes. It states that they had to go to

00:15:38.740 their own town. This could be thought of more like, you have to go to the town where you have your

00:15:45.420 state ID. Like he hadn't gotten a new ID for his new town. I don't think it's exactly like that,

00:15:52.340 but what I mean is it's more implied that you had to go to the town where you were personally registered,

00:15:59.300 not the town of your ancestors, which makes so much more sense. And it makes a case for a Christmas birth

00:16:08.100 way more likely. A census that required everyone in the Roman kingdom to go back to their ancestral homes 0.94

00:16:15.340 would be incredibly disruptive to have implemented, and it's something we should see mentioned in other

00:16:21.640 sources because it's an absolutely zany thing to do. To say everyone who has ever moved in their life

00:16:27.600 has to go back to wherever their ancestors are from? Like, why would you even do that, right?

00:16:32.080 Now, that this zany idea for how the census was carried out is the way the census was actually

00:16:38.880 carried out is a core part of the argument that Jesus wasn't born in December. Because if everyone

00:16:45.600 was required to return to their ancestral homes, well then, you wouldn't want to do that during the

00:16:51.000 cold months. That would be even crazier to do. So they say, oh, this was done during warm, easy-to-travel

00:16:57.340 months. However, if the census was not issued in this way, and if the census was issued in a way

00:17:04.140 where it was just a normal census, you would absolutely want to do it in December because

00:17:08.840 that's when people would be in their homes and less likely to be traveling, which would make it

00:17:12.460 much more easy to get accurate statistics. So just to give a bit more on how they likely got to this

00:17:18.320 date, some early Christians believed that Jesus was conceived and died on the same day, March 25th.

00:17:23.080 Evidence for this can be found in the statue base of the Christian priest Hippolotius dating from

00:17:29.940 222 and 235 CE. Hippolotius's quote-unquote spreadsheet shows his calculations for the

00:17:37.400 date of Jesus's crucifixion, which he believed occurred on March 25th. This belief in a combination

00:17:43.640 with a traditional nine-month gestation period led them to calculate December 25th as Jesus's

00:17:49.020 birthday. Now, here you may know something like, none of this is anti-biblical. The Bible doesn't

00:17:54.260 say explicitly the day that Jesus was born. No, the Bible's surprisingly vague on so many things

00:18:00.240 that culturally are implied to be so explicit, which really annoys me. Right, and we have early

00:18:06.860 Christians, like right here in this document, attempting to calculate it. They're giving us, 0.98

00:18:11.880 in something, you know, 200 years after Jesus died, so fairly early in Christian tradition,

00:18:15.840 we can see Christian scholars going down and trying to do the math to determine when Christ was born and

00:18:22.600 when he died. So they're not like even lying to us. They're not even saying like, oh, this was passed

00:18:27.900 down in oral tradition or something like that. They're like, okay, here we are trying to run the

00:18:32.760 math and we're giving that math to you so you know how we got these dates. These are not sacred dates.

00:18:38.780 Now, here is where it gets really, really bad for the pagan argument, and it basically to be

00:18:45.480 completely blows it out of the water. The earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as 0.87

00:18:51.520 Jesus's birthday actually predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.

00:18:58.280 Again, and keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on

00:19:04.920 that date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities

00:19:09.780 that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.

00:19:15.680 Oh, wow. Yeah, who's to say that? Yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas, not the other way around.

00:19:23.480 The evidence can be found at the statue base of Hippolytus, which dates back to the early third

00:19:28.080 century, decades before Emperor Arulyan inaugurated a Sol Invictus festival on December 25th.

00:19:36.400 December 25th was Jesus's birthday before Sol Invictus existed as an important deity. They might

00:19:44.380 have existed as like a weird cult deity, but he was not really important until Emperor Agabala and then

00:19:49.920 later Emperor Arulyan brought him into the spotlight and like adopted him as like his personal fault.

00:19:55.260 So that completely blows, like any possibility of that out of the water for me.

00:20:01.760 Wow. Interesting. Okay.

00:20:05.820 Just to lay this all out, so there's no doubt, Sol Invictus was not really enshrined as a Roman deity

00:20:13.740 until Elagabalus enshrined him as a Roman deity in 219 CE. So 200 years after Jesus and the Christian

00:20:24.500 community had started to be established. Sol Invictus is a much younger deity than Christ and a much

00:20:32.940 younger religion than Christianity. But it gets worse because you could be like, yes, but when Elagabalus 1.00

00:20:39.860 was creating the Sol Invictus deity, didn't he combine a Syrian deity named Elagabala with the Roman

00:20:49.840 deities Jupiter and Sol? And I would say yes. And then they'd be like, okay, but did this Syrian 1.00

00:20:56.240 deity have any celebrations surrounding it in winter? No, it didn't. In fact, the primary celebration of

00:21:04.080 Elagabala, the predecessor to Sol Invictus was a summer festival, not a winter festival, a summer festival.

00:21:12.000 But no, here people will be like, oh, but what about the solar imagery around Sol Invictus?

00:21:19.280 Okay.

00:21:20.640 Really bad argument, again, if you look at convergent evolution, because nobody says the solar energy

00:21:25.280 around Christian gods and Jesus and stuff like that came from...

00:21:30.400 Oh, Akhenaten.

00:21:32.100 Akhenaten, yeah.

00:21:33.020 Sorry, wasn't that... The pharaoh was Akhenaten. I can't remember the name of the...

00:21:38.160 Oh, yeah. The solo god in Egypt, when that one pharaoh was like very similar to the Sol Invictus 0.84

00:21:45.940 thing, when he's like, hey, new god, everyone, we're going for monotheism.

00:21:49.720 Yeah. And we're going to change the style of all the statues, which I don't imagine Egyptians 1.00

00:21:54.480 are cool with because they're like, no, no, no, everything's going to be the same forever

00:21:57.840 in design.

00:21:59.180 Yeah.

00:21:59.940 So interestingly, it seems that most monotheistic traditions, even Zoroastrians, for example,

00:22:06.880 associated with fire. Associate God with heat warps in the sun. As to why this would happen?

00:22:14.680 Well, the sun's sort of the biggest thing in the sky. It's a source of light for all humans

00:22:21.000 and all things on earth. Everything dies without it. It's not a bad metaphor. And also here you have

00:22:28.000 a problem, which is that Christians were using the sun as a metaphor for Jesus before Sol Invictus

00:22:35.000 existed or was made popular by this emperor. So again, very difficult argument to make.

00:22:41.740 I think here, before we go further, a lot of the confusion around this stuff that people

00:22:46.000 get to is they hear Christianity came after paganism. What they don't keep in mind is that

00:22:52.280 paganism was ever evolving. So whenever they see a correlation in pagan traditions and Christian

00:22:58.160 traditions, they assume it went from pagan to Christian instead of from Christian to pagan

00:23:02.840 because they forget how old Christianity was and how much the pagan traditions evolved.

00:23:08.660 Well, yeah. And your point that all these, for example, druidic traditions that people

00:23:13.000 like to practice now.

00:23:15.460 Really?

00:23:16.360 They're mostly made up.

00:23:17.700 Yeah.

00:23:18.080 And made up.

00:23:18.680 We got to do a whole episode on just how fictional Wiccanism is. And it's a completely fictional,

00:23:25.360 made up religion. It was made up by a few crazy people in like the, what was it like 0.58

00:23:29.460 late 1920s? And all the receipts are there. It is, it is entirely fictional. And what they're

00:23:35.380 actually worshiping is a bunch of people who practice this child sacrifice. And we can also

00:23:39.440 get into that because the, the pagans, like the druids and stuff like that, they sacrificed,

00:23:44.700 human sacrifice was called.

00:23:45.960 Well, then isn't it kind of nice that they're remaking it?

00:23:48.520 I'm glad. Well, we don't know. I mean, look at the, uh, look, look, but yes, there have

00:23:58.220 been taking place among modern anyway, Saturnalia.

00:24:05.300 Yes. Saturnalia.

00:24:07.440 Saturnalia, the Roman festival of the God Saturn took place between December 17th and 23rd.

00:24:12.400 The exact lengths of the festival varied throughout its history. So first of all, it was not long

00:24:17.060 December 25th. So, okay. Saturnalia was known for its characteristic feasting, gambling, drinking,

00:24:24.860 and perhaps most notably the role reversal between slaves and their owners. This role reversal

00:24:29.080 involved enslaved people dining with their owners, being waited on by them, and even being allowed to

00:24:34.620 speak freely to them without fear of punishment. The origins of Saturnalia are unknown, but some

00:24:39.980 Romans believed it hearkened back to a mythological golden age when Saturn ruled Italy and slavery was

00:24:45.860 non-existent. Roman authors such as Justin and Markobius described this period as a time of great

00:24:51.580 equality where social hierarchies did not exist. Historians have proposed that Saturnalia may have

00:24:57.980 ironically served to reinforce the institution of slavery rather than challenge it by offering a

00:25:03.080 temporary and controlled outlet for social tension. Saturnalia may have helped to maintain the

00:25:08.060 existing power structure of Roman society. There is no evidence that the Romans decorated evergreen

00:25:13.380 branches or trees as part of their Saturnalia celebrations. This argument is based on a lack

00:25:18.540 of evidence. No Roman sources make any mention of such decorations in the context of Saturnalia. This

00:25:23.240 counts date on the popular claim. Now, basically, there is literally no evidence, no suggestion of

00:25:31.640 evidence that Saturnalia in any way was influential in why Christians chose this date for the Christmas

00:25:40.880 celebrations. And the celebrations themselves are almost completely unrelated to each other in form,

00:25:47.540 in structure, in practice, and they're not even on the same dates. It's reaching in the extreme.

00:25:57.040 Wow. Yeah, that's, they make it seem so close, but yeah, okay, wow. Like maybe there was like a gift

00:26:05.580 exchange celebration, or maybe there was a, no, none of that stuff. And not the same dates. So yeah,

00:26:14.900 it's just an incredibly weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak. And I also note here that these, a lot of the

00:26:22.120 research I've done for this, why I had added to it, came from a series of videos by Religion for

00:26:27.240 Breakfast. I think one of the best YouTubers, religious YouTubers out there, if you are interested 1.00

00:26:33.280 in watching more of his videos, I would strongly recommend it. He's a great guy. I think we

00:26:37.320 actually had planned on doing like a collab project with him at one point until he maybe looked us up

00:26:41.480 and found out how controversial we are. Because he's very non-controversial, very Townsendby. But

00:26:46.180 he's also very not pro-traditional Christian. So if you watch his videos, he is a historical Jesus type 0.98

00:26:54.020 guy in terms of like scholarship, which means that if he is arguing for these things, he's not arguing

00:27:00.260 for them to make Christianity look better. He's arguing for them because he believes them. 0.99

00:27:06.720 He doesn't like, I just think that that's important to know. Like this is coming from a source that would

00:27:10.960 have every reason if there was any lacking evidence to say, yeah, the pagans did it first. And he

00:27:17.160 doesn't. I love that. No. Any thoughts before I go further? No. Keep going. This is so interesting.

00:27:22.940 The very recent origins of the Christmas tree.

00:27:25.300 The earliest evidence for decorating an evergreen tree for Christmas is found in the upper

00:27:32.100 Rhine regions of Ascalance and Balden during the 14th century. Forestry regulations-

00:27:37.620 You mean Alsace?

00:27:39.300 Yeah, Alsace. 1.00

00:27:41.720 Fuck. I'm sorry. That is amazing. Okay. Carry on. 1.00

00:27:45.840 Regulations from this period and region, specifically from cities like Sunfin and Behem,

00:27:51.040 indicate that peasants were collecting wood from evergreen forests around Christmas time.

00:27:56.220 Okay.

00:27:56.440 Now, here I would note, he actually goes into this a lot more in his video where he's going

00:28:01.020 over this. Basically, you get these regulations where they're like complaining that peasants are

00:28:05.040 going out and collecting trees around this time. 0.98

00:28:07.120 Oh, look at these darned. The peasant menace is at it again. 1.00

00:28:11.420 Why are we collecting trees?

00:28:13.720 We need regulations. You're going to get fined if you go take trees.

00:28:20.160 What the hell is that?

00:28:22.980 A Christmas tree.

00:28:24.580 A Christmas tree?

00:28:26.020 Buddy dropped it down in the park.

00:28:29.380 Yeah, this is great.

00:28:30.960 So, this is in the 14th century.

00:28:35.600 That means 1300s. Wow, that is.

00:28:37.440 That's a thousand-

00:28:38.180 Early.

00:28:39.140 300 years after Christ, first of all, right?

00:28:42.100 Yeah.

00:28:42.340 So, clearly, this is not tied to the writing of the Bible or the time of Christ or anything

00:28:46.940 like that. But this is also a solidly Christian region at that point.

00:28:51.820 Yeah.

00:28:52.760 There was not like a big lingering pagan population in these parts of the Rhine in the 14th century.

00:29:01.840 This was a 100% Christian population. There was no pagan oral tradition in the background

00:29:09.880 for them to be getting these ideas from.

00:29:12.060 Right. Yeah.

00:29:13.220 Their prior was just Christianity. 0.70

00:29:17.340 For more color here, the Frisians, which were the last pagan tribe in the Rhine Delta,

00:29:23.140 were converted to Christianity around 800 CE.

00:29:26.940 So, that means that this area had been 100% Christian for around 500 years when the Christmas

00:29:35.840 tree entered the population. There was not a lingering pagan sentiment in this region,

00:29:42.040 and there hadn't been for hundreds of years.

00:29:44.880 And if this was a pagan tradition in the region, then why don't we see it practiced in any pagan

00:29:50.020 writings or any mention of it? And why did they only start complaining about this in terms of the

00:29:55.620 laws in the 14th century? That doesn't make sense.

00:29:59.240 Well, yeah. And since when did, like, pagan traditions own all floral arrangements and tree

00:30:05.440 arrangements? Like, these are the decoration materials we have at hand. You know, why do

00:30:10.660 pagans get to, like, own anything that is organic in nature from a decorative standpoint?

00:30:17.740 Well, yeah. And keep in mind, they cut the trees down. Like, they were not, like...

00:30:21.020 Yeah. Yeah. Like...

00:30:22.020 The trees died in the end, okay?

00:30:24.900 One of the things I've heard about Christmas is you put a tree corpse in your house.

00:30:28.420 This is not a pagan celebration, okay? It doesn't... There's just no... Like,

00:30:32.740 this is just, like, insane to me. Like, that anyone could argue this with this evidence on hand.

00:30:37.720 But we'll get into the development of it really quickly here.

00:30:40.640 Okay.

00:30:40.960 Well, direct evidence for a decorated Christmas tree appears in the 15th century,

00:30:45.780 with the earliest reference dating back to 1419 in the city of Breitberg.

00:30:50.180 Oh, that's further back than I thought.

00:30:53.140 What?

00:30:53.740 That's further back than I thought.

00:30:55.800 Yeah. They reported a tree decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel in a local hospital.

00:31:02.560 This is the earliest documented instance of a decorated tree,

00:31:06.640 though the German word used to describe it could also be used to describe a decorated pole.

00:31:13.100 Oh, I mean...

00:31:16.300 Here, I guess you could argue some sort of maypole continuity, but that doesn't really check for me,

00:31:23.180 because there wasn't a contiguous...

00:31:26.000 This is just very different from maypolling.

00:31:28.220 And I'd also note here that tinsel, interestingly,

00:31:31.460 Wikipedia says it wasn't documented to be invented until 1610,

00:31:36.060 when it was originally made of shredded silver to look like icicles.

00:31:38.800 Well, that's expensive. What on earth?

00:31:41.880 200 years before that.

00:31:42.920 Well, everything about this is expensive.

00:31:44.680 You as a modern person, you know, you hear in the 1419s,

00:31:47.720 a tree at a local hospital decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel.

00:31:52.920 Oh, shoot, yeah.

00:31:53.360 The tinsel might not have been that much more expensive than, like, the apples, for example.

00:31:57.600 Keep in mind, this is in the middle of winter.

00:31:59.600 Like, fruit, and especially leaving it in a place where it could potentially decompose.

00:32:03.320 Yeah, not hidden under a frozen lake or something.

00:32:06.400 That's wild.

00:32:07.660 Yeah, actually.

00:32:08.360 Ooh, who's that for the money? 0.99

00:32:11.160 Also, that's kind of mean.

00:32:12.440 Everyone's sick in this hospital.

00:32:14.600 Like, look at this food.

00:32:16.260 Don't eat.

00:32:16.800 Don't eat it, by the way.

00:32:17.820 This is decoration only.

00:32:19.180 Well, I think it's a sign of abundance is what it was meant to.

00:32:21.440 Well, I hope they were eating it, too.

00:32:23.060 It's just, I don't know, it seems a little mean.

00:32:24.960 But whatever.

00:32:25.800 Go ahead.

00:32:26.580 Maybe they felt too sick.

00:32:27.780 Getting popularity with decorations for public spaces, often sponsored by guilds, before becoming a tradition in private homes.

00:32:34.360 Evidence for this can be found in the records from Tallinn, Estonia, and Latvia, where Christmas trees were set up in public spaces and sponsored by merchant guilds.

00:32:43.440 Private Christmas trees don't appear in the historical record until the 16th century.

00:32:48.820 Wait, hold on, hold on then.

00:32:49.820 So, like, this whole issue of, for example, gay pride parades going to corporate, you know, the gay pride parade brought to you by Bank of America.

00:32:57.580 I mean, that is traditional.

00:33:00.280 If the guilds were sponsoring Christmas trees.

00:33:03.180 Well, I don't know, because keep in mind, the very first thing was about peasants taking these and putting them in their houses.

00:33:08.340 We don't have any records.

00:33:09.560 We just know that they needed laws to stop peasants from cutting down trees.

00:33:12.800 Oh, yeah, okay.

00:33:13.980 All right, all right, all right.

00:33:14.920 But at least the tradition of things going corporate eventually is.

00:33:19.540 Well, when they went corporate, they immediately started decorating them.

00:33:22.460 And keep in mind that it was in the same region.

00:33:25.020 And this is really important to know.

00:33:26.940 If people are like, oh, this regulation around cutting down trees and putting it in your house, like, what evidence do you have that that's in any way tied to Christmas, right?

00:33:36.340 Here's the problem.

00:33:37.840 The first evidence we have of public Christmas trees happens in the exact same region 200 years later.

00:33:43.620 So, very likely that it was a related ceremony.

00:33:50.460 Yeah.

00:33:51.580 The Christmas tree spread in popularity from the Upper Rhine region to other parts of Europe and eventually made its way to the United States.

00:33:58.120 This spread can be partially attributed to royal patronage, such as Queen Charlotte's decoration of Windsor Castle with a Christmas tree in 1800 and the publication of an image of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with a Christmas tree in 1848.

00:34:12.940 And as you put out, Prince Albert would have used from Germany, right?

00:34:15.620 And so, he brought this from his region to England.

00:34:19.440 And then it spread from there because the Queen, you know, big trend sweater.

00:34:22.800 That's sort of the big, that's what most people talk about when they talk about Christmas trees going mainstream is when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who were the ultimate family influencers at the time, did it.

00:34:34.420 They made it cool.

00:34:35.340 Now, where did the idea that Christmas trees had a pagan influence come from?

00:34:39.760 So, again here, you're going to be like, no, obviously you can see where the Puritans got this from, but there's actually another source it came from, and it wasn't wickets.

00:34:48.760 Okay, um, another influence, trees.

00:34:53.920 German nationalism, think.

00:34:55.640 What?

00:34:56.080 Making up German traditions.

00:34:58.660 Oh, no.

00:35:01.320 Yes, okay.

00:35:02.420 Christmas trees are in, what?

00:35:04.800 Hold on, hold on, hold on, I'll get to this.

00:35:06.340 Claims that the Christmas tree originated from pre-Christian Germanic paganism were rooted in 19th century German nationalist ideology.

00:35:14.300 Okay, so claiming that Christmas trees are pagan is a Nazi thing.

00:35:20.760 Yes.

00:35:21.320 Okay, okay.

00:35:22.200 Claiming that it's pagan is a Nazi. 1.00

00:35:24.400 So, the next time somebody knows Christmas trees are pagan, you can go, shut up, Nazi, and punch them. 1.00

00:35:28.860 They're like, they're okay with punching Nazis. 1.00

00:35:31.140 Yes, there you go. 0.99

00:35:32.220 We should be able to punch them for claiming that Christmas trees are pagan. 0.99

00:35:35.000 That's a Nazi position. 0.77

00:35:36.340 So, writers such as Johannes Marbach and Alexander Tilley promoted the idea of the Christmas tree as an ancient symbol of German identity.

00:35:45.400 The nationalistic agenda promoted the idea of the Christmas tree as uniquely German tradition, despite the lack of evidence supporting a connection to pre-Christian practices.

00:35:53.380 Okay, so not a lot of evidence there.

00:35:55.940 But, yeah, that also makes sense.

00:35:59.800 And this is something that we've talked about in other videos, right?

00:36:01.760 But, ultimately, Nazis were, like, the Wee West Kang, the white people. 0.83

00:36:05.320 They make up a bunch of old traditions, and they make up a bunch of, like, oh, Buddha was a white guy.

00:36:10.840 Like, Socrates was, like, a northern European guy.

00:36:14.320 It's like, oh, gosh. 0.97

00:36:15.380 Like, this is ridiculous.

00:36:16.080 No, what I am getting from this is that, especially when it comes to Christmas trees, there were, we have a category of traditions that eventually worked the way into Christmas that started out as just random stuff people like to do in the winter.

00:36:30.140 Which, you know, it's not pagan, per se.

00:36:33.000 It's just stuff people like to do when it was dark and cold outside.

00:36:35.560 No, it was stuff Christians like to do in winter. 0.99

00:36:38.580 Okay.

00:36:39.600 But it wasn't about Jesus.

00:36:41.880 That wasn't about Jesus.

00:36:44.880 What?

00:36:45.980 It wasn't about Jesus specifically.

00:36:48.260 No, we, there's a reason to believe it is about Jesus specifically.

00:36:52.040 So, hold on.

00:36:52.860 Come on, this was before the Reformation, so the only ones who got to say what was and was not about Jesus was the church.

00:36:59.740 But what you are forgetting, Simone, is that the date of Jesus' birth was established within Christian communities by 300 CE.

00:37:11.060 Sure, sure.

00:37:12.320 Okay, so that being the case, that meant that there had likely been celebrations around Jesus' birthday for a very long time before this.

00:37:21.700 This is just, how do you celebrate Jesus' birth?

00:37:24.980 Because we're not told in the Bible how we're supposed to celebrate Jesus' birth, right?

00:37:29.900 Yeah, but during the time of the heyday of the Catholic Church, they told you how to do everything that was related to religion.

00:37:36.420 The point being is that you could argue that this is like a non-Catholic emergent phenomenon of celebrating Jesus' birth.

00:37:45.860 And a lot of Christian traditions that we see, like, okay, for example, take the cross as like a symbol, right?

00:37:50.700 Like, that's not a biblical symbol.

00:37:53.260 That is something that developed after the Bible, okay?

00:37:57.820 After Jesus' lifetime.

00:37:59.140 That doesn't mean it's not, like, a good symbol for Christians.

00:38:02.640 I don't think it is.

00:38:03.500 No, it's a doll tree.

00:38:04.020 But that doesn't mean that it's not, you know, that's not a good argument as to why it's not.

00:38:08.360 Okay, that's a fair point.

00:38:09.480 Yeah, so, yeah, Christmas trees are arguably as Christian as the cross, except the cross was taken on a little bit more, like, informally endorsed, because you see it in churches everywhere.

00:38:19.080 Well, you see Christmas trees in churches.

00:38:20.880 Never mind.

00:38:21.340 What am I saying?

00:38:22.180 They put Christmas trees up?

00:38:23.340 Okay.

00:38:24.520 Wow.

00:38:24.880 It's a good, it's a good thing.

00:38:27.200 I like it.

00:38:27.880 Christmas trees are way more positive than cross.

00:38:31.440 Christmas is a great season, and it abues people with a good feeling, and Christmas trees are part of that.

00:38:38.080 They're a very good decoration and tradition in terms of sending this sort of feeling that we get as a family every year that gets you so excited.

00:38:48.200 Well, and Christmas is so good of a holiday to focus on, like, focusing on...

00:38:54.880 On Christmas, over, for example, Easter, it's pronatalist.

00:39:00.260 It gets people excited about babies.

00:39:02.100 You know, there's all these songs about a child is born, and oh my gosh, this is so great, and babies are amazing, and, like, makes mothers want to have babies, and, you know, things like that.

00:39:09.800 You know, it's a very family-friendly holiday, and then, of course, you know, all the other ancillary traditions make it extra fun for kids.

00:39:18.000 So, yeah, you're right.

00:39:19.440 Let's get to Santa Claus.

00:39:20.600 Let's.

00:39:21.480 So, this actually isn't coming from Religion for Breakfast.

00:39:24.180 This is coming from another YouTuber's infographic.

00:39:27.220 So, Father Christmas.

00:39:28.560 Father Christmas, surprisingly, predates Santa Claus, but he is not a pagan deity.

00:39:33.240 Instead, he was a medieval personification of Christmas.

00:39:36.540 Richard Smart of Plymtree is the first to write about him, referring to him as Sir Christmas, and his task is to announce the birth of Christ.

00:39:45.180 So, the earliest writings we have about Father Christmas is the guy who was tasked with announcing the birth of Christ.

00:39:51.960 Now, this is not in the Bible, not biblical, but also not pagan.

00:39:56.200 Like, this is a purely Christian idea that you would have a guy tasked with announcing the birth of Christ.

00:40:02.080 Now, Santa Claus can only be traced back to Dutch immigrants in New York City in the early 1800s.

00:40:08.980 He came from the Dutch Sinterklaas, also known as Sir Nicholas.

00:40:12.940 His feast day was on 12-6 and was moved to 12-25 around this time to help make Christmas a family holiday.

00:40:22.580 Newspapers promoted it and encouraged to give gifts on Christmas instead of New Year's like it traditionally was before this.

00:40:30.880 So, a few things to note here.

00:40:32.520 Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with Jesus' birthday.

00:40:40.000 It was not that Jesus' birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.

00:40:46.520 It was an already totally Christian saint's festival was moved to correspond with a totally Christian Jesus' birthday as calculated by early church leaders.

00:40:57.800 Right.

00:40:58.000 It was just some religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.

00:41:01.300 That's okay.

00:41:02.400 Yeah, that's a very fair point.

00:41:03.700 And then the gift-giving, which was apparently traditionally done on New Year's, was then moved to this time.

00:41:10.320 This does not appear to be a pagan gift-giving celebration.

00:41:12.840 It was just a New Year's gift-giving celebration.

00:41:15.340 Sinterklaas was rebranded from a Catholic priest to look like a traditional Dutchman from this time period, which included a big red suit.

00:41:24.540 Oh, so he's just like a stereotyped-looking Dutchman from this time period.

00:41:28.420 Like, if he was like a Chinese immigrant from this time period, they would have given him like a really racist-looking outfit. 1.00

00:41:34.860 I don't know, like big eyes or something.

00:41:36.960 A so-called offensive mascot.

00:41:39.560 My beloved character, Ching Chong Ding Dong.

00:41:43.240 Ooh, ooh, I love tea.

00:41:46.200 It's so good for you.

00:41:48.220 Mm, you're so pretty, American girl.

00:41:51.360 You come here, you kiss my tea, make all sweet.

00:41:53.520 I don't need no sugar when you're around.

00:41:56.560 Come on, my rickshaw, I give you a ride to Bangkok.

00:42:02.380 Yeah, that is, uh, that's something interesting.

00:42:06.900 After this, Sinterklaas was exported around the world in different countries, added new spins.

00:42:12.620 Stockings were also promoted around this time period and traced back to Clement C. Moore's, a visit from St. Nicholas.

00:42:19.760 In 1927, in Finland, a radio broadcaster, Markus Ratio, morphed the old pagan deity, Jalupuki, into a Santa figure.

00:42:30.580 Santa changed the Jalupi figure, not the other way around.

00:42:33.740 So, essentially, the Jalupi figure that they're saying Santa came from, no, what actually happened is in 1927,

00:42:40.740 somebody was aware of this old figure and then wanted to make him more Santa-like, not Santa more Jalupi-like.

00:42:47.580 And that's where this confusion comes from.

00:42:49.960 And so then I was like, okay, well, I should at least ask perplexity.

00:42:52.760 Like, what's the strongest, like, counter-arguments to this, right?

00:42:56.120 Okay.

00:42:56.420 They're like, well, you could argue that he was Odin, right?

00:43:01.620 Like an Odin depiction.

00:43:02.940 Well, I've never heard that.

00:43:05.080 That seems tenuous.

00:43:06.720 And they're like, well, Odin was depicted as an old man with a long white beard, similar to the modern representation of Santa Claus.

00:43:14.080 Per emblem.

00:43:14.640 Modern representation of Santa Claus was not the original representation of Santa Claus or Sir Nicholas, which he is derived from.

00:43:23.140 They came from stereotypes of what Dutchman looks like.

00:43:26.800 Dutchman wears a long white beard.

00:43:28.760 You get nothing.

00:43:30.940 You lose.

00:43:32.500 Good day, sir.

00:43:34.480 That is a modern interpretation of Santa Claus, not the original interpretation.

00:43:38.660 Bigger problem here.

00:43:39.580 They go, okay, well, during you all, a pagan midwinter festival, Odin was said to lead the Wild Hunt, a ghostly progression through the sky, which bears some resemblance to Santa's Christmas Eve journey.

00:43:52.580 And I'm like, oh, that would be a compelling argument if you had never heard of the Wild Hunt before, which was a massacre.

00:44:00.720 What?

00:44:01.300 Wild Hunt was.

00:44:02.100 He went on a sky massacre.

00:44:05.060 A sky massacre.

00:44:06.120 How does a sky massacre work?

00:44:07.880 It's like firebombing, but God-style?

00:44:13.000 No, it's just...

00:44:14.260 Wild Hunt is basically a horrifying thing where, like, spirit forces go around killing innocent people or other things, depending on what you're talking about. 0.98

00:44:23.520 Look, if anyone who's played a lot of video games, when you hear the Wild Hunt, you know shit's about to go down.

00:44:28.800 Like, it's not, like, a positive thing. 0.66

00:44:30.680 The Wild Hunt manifests as a ghostly hunting party that whips across the winter night sky, bringing snow and storms with them.

00:44:38.540 Frightening and bacchic. 1.00

00:44:40.080 If you're out alone at night, you'd better hope you see them first and hide, because if they spot you, they will carry you away, never to return.

00:44:48.160 In medieval England, it was believed that witches could join the Wild Hunt voluntarily, sending their souls flying with the cavalcade while their bodies lay sleeping peacefully in bed.

00:44:58.900 There, the Hunt is known as the Terrifying Ride.

00:45:02.060 The Wild Hunt...

00:45:02.460 It's like the purge, but when gods do it only?

00:45:05.280 Yeah, it's like the purge.

00:45:06.780 Okay.

00:45:07.100 It's like, you're like, okay, the purge corresponded with that day in Norse mythology, so that's probably where Christians got Christmas from. 0.98

00:45:14.240 Yeah, well.

00:45:15.920 It's like, I don't, I don't know.

00:45:18.180 It wasn't even, like, the exact same day or anything.

00:45:20.160 I don't know if those things are...

00:45:20.840 Well, I've just, I've never heard that theory floated by anyone who's trying to point to it.

00:45:25.520 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:45:26.440 Here, it gets weirder.

00:45:28.140 Odin rode an eight-legged horse named Selipnir, which some scholars compared to Saturn as reindeer.

00:45:35.760 What?

00:45:38.000 An eight, okay, wow.

00:45:39.780 An eight-legged horse?

00:45:43.920 Just in case you're wondering where Santa's eight reindeer did come from, which also helps dismiss any doubt that it came from the eight-legged horse of Odin,

00:45:55.900 is reindeer was, the very first time they were mentioned as pulling Santa's sleigh,

00:46:00.440 was in 1821, when New York printer William Gilley published a booklet titled,

00:46:06.360 A New Year's Present to the Little Ones from 5 to 12, Number 3, The Children's Friend, by an anonymous author.

00:46:13.560 And then, where did eight reindeer come from?

00:46:16.100 Well, you will likely know the poem, Where Eight Reindeer Come From.

00:46:19.860 It came from the Twas the Night Before Christmas poem by Clement Clark.

00:46:23.040 This poem was written in 1823.

00:46:25.900 So, was Clement Clark, when he decided to name eight reindeer as pulling Santa's sleigh,

00:46:32.020 do you think he was sitting down and thinking of Odin's horse?

00:46:36.220 Of course not.

00:46:36.900 That's absolutely absurd.

00:46:39.760 It was just a rhyming convention of the various reindeer names that he wanted to put into the poem.

00:46:46.580 That's interesting.

00:46:47.720 That kind of reminds me of Jesus riding the two donkeys in.

00:46:51.300 Just as a note, if you are unfamiliar with this particular story,

00:46:56.800 there is a part in Matthew that can be misread if you don't understand the Greek

00:47:02.060 to be that Jesus was riding on two donkeys simultaneously as he went into Jerusalem.

00:47:07.780 To begin, the verse says,

00:47:09.480 They brought Jesus the donkey and the colt, and they put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 0.85

00:47:15.000 The verse is vague, because the Greek word for them can refer to the cloaks laid on the colt and the donkey,

00:47:20.120 or to the animals themselves.

00:47:22.880 But any charitable reading would take it as a reference to Jesus sitting on the garments laid on the animals.

00:47:28.540 And, instead of doing what I do whenever I see a part of the Bible,

00:47:32.380 and I'm like, hmm, this seems unreasonable.

00:47:34.720 I should probably just go back to the original language and try to understand it,

00:47:38.060 because very rarely does the Bible actually say unreasonable things.

00:47:41.320 Some Christian literalists try to argue that Jesus actually did ride on two donkeys at once into Jerusalem.

00:47:49.080 This is very similar to the Christians who will bend over backwards to argue that there actually was a census in Rome 1.00

00:47:53.920 that required all Roman citizens to return to the place that their ancestors lived, 0.68

00:47:59.180 instead of just going back and reading the verse again and being like,

00:48:02.260 is there a saner explanation of what this verse is trying to say?

00:48:05.380 Oh, it's saying go to the town that you're, like, registered as living in.

00:48:08.780 That makes sense.

00:48:09.900 And so, the way that some biblical literalists, like, deal with this,

00:48:14.160 is they go, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on two donkeys simultaneously.

00:48:19.140 You better imagine Jesus, like, a weird guy, like,

00:48:22.000 one leg on one side of a donkey and the other donkey, like, strapped to it, like, walking into the...

00:48:26.380 He had a wide stance.

00:48:27.380 Yeah, he had a wide stance.

00:48:31.600 But it's one of the things that's like, okay, you guys are really trying at this point.

00:48:34.580 But here, it's like the pagans trying too hard at this point.

00:48:37.560 It's like, come on, that puzzle piece doesn't fit in that hole.

00:48:41.740 Yeah, that's wild.

00:48:42.820 Anyway, I mean, I think that's important to get out there because, you know,

00:48:45.720 when I was told this stuff at school, I just believed it.

00:48:49.200 Because it's so easy to believe when you first hear it.

00:48:51.100 You're like, yeah, I mean, I don't remember any Christmas trees in the Bible,

00:48:55.240 so it must be pagan.

00:48:57.200 Well, yeah, and paganism is very much...

00:49:00.060 It falls in that category that appeals to the same person who reads Sapiens and says,

00:49:06.000 oh, if only we could go back to pre-agricultural times.

00:49:09.400 That was how things were natural and how things were supposed to be.

00:49:12.940 And I think there's this intuition that paganism is this more natural.

00:49:17.280 It was pre-Christianity. 0.97

00:49:18.960 It was how things should be and it was good.

00:49:21.640 And it's the natural default of things and therefore it's better.

00:49:27.800 So then there's this intuition that, oh, well, that was the default.

00:49:30.680 That was how things should be.

00:49:33.000 Oh, hi, Stanley.

00:49:34.360 Look, I'm buying you some more all-natural toothpaste. 0.99

00:49:36.900 You mean the stuff that tastes like ass and doesn't fight cavities? 0.99

00:49:39.060 That's right. 0.98

00:49:40.040 I know that you all think the earth and its natural healing powers can cure Kyle,

00:49:43.020 but the doctor at the hospital told me it can't.

00:49:45.020 Well, of course the doctor told you that because he wants to make money.

00:49:48.640 Okay, holistic medicine is about nature.

00:49:52.200 $233.

00:49:53.420 We're bringing Kyle in tomorrow to see the Native Americans personally.

00:49:56.960 Isn't it possible that these Indians don't know what they're talking about? 1.00

00:49:59.600 You watch your mouth, Stanley. 1.00

00:50:00.900 The Native Americans were raped of their land and resources by white people like us. 0.99

00:50:04.660 Oh, look, everyone. 0.84

00:50:05.900 These are our two resident Native Americans.

00:50:08.120 Do you have any new holistic items for sale?

00:50:10.360 Yeah, these here are Cherokee hair tampons. 1.00

00:50:13.200 Ooh, a tampon made from Cherokee hair. 1.00

00:50:15.100 Now that sounds natural.

00:50:16.280 Native Americans are more in tune with the earth than we are.

00:50:19.340 Because now there's new all-natural Cherokee hair tampons. 1.00

00:50:23.840 A cotton tampon can only hold so much liquid.

00:50:26.800 Other tampons also come up short.

00:50:28.860 But Cherokee hair has been known for ages to be strong and powerful.

00:50:33.340 Besides, we're not actually Native Americans.

00:50:35.300 I mean, I'm more like a Mexican.

00:50:37.620 What?

00:50:38.600 Yeah, a Mexican. 0.99

00:50:40.320 Oh, my God. 0.96

00:50:42.940 And it's black.

00:50:45.700 Well, I want to put here the thing from South Park.

00:50:48.900 And then the women find out that they're like, well, don't you know that like they think 1.00

00:50:54.260 they're from Native Americans?

00:50:55.480 And then it's reframed as Mexican hair.

00:50:57.920 The Mexicans are Native Americans.

00:50:59.820 But all of a sudden, the women freak out because they have this different connotation around 1.00

00:51:04.720 Hispanic Native Americans and American Native American.

00:51:08.020 And they're like, oh, it's all natural.

00:51:10.140 Oh, they're one with the earth.

00:51:11.440 Oh, they're, you know.

00:51:13.540 But anyway, I think that's very true. 0.86

00:51:15.600 It's very, you know, crunchy nonsense.

00:51:18.100 And I think that you personally, like as you and your family goes and tries to reclaim Christianity,

00:51:25.740 because I think no matter where you're coming from, you are reclaiming Christianity to an 0.93

00:51:30.000 extent.

00:51:30.760 You need to ask yourself, how do you relate to stuff that's not explicitly in the Bible,

00:51:35.520 but that is explicitly Christian?

00:51:37.860 How do you handle that?

00:51:39.520 How do you handle those celebrations with your kid?

00:51:41.960 Does something like Christmas take away from focus on Christ?

00:51:46.780 Does it have elements that could be argued to be idolatry?

00:51:50.680 I mean, I don't think it's as clear as like using saints as intermittents or putting art

00:51:54.720 in your, you know, churches and stuff like that.

00:51:57.100 To me, that's like a strict no-no.

00:51:59.060 But like for me, a Christmas tree, because it is not an act of worship, it is a decoration.

00:52:03.660 I am not against all home decorations.

00:52:06.540 Well, that's what I like about Christmas trees is specifically the fact that they make you

00:52:13.580 lean into a holiday and get kids excited about it.

00:52:16.080 They're a conversation opener to Christmas and the birth of Christ and a lot of really

00:52:21.240 important things.

00:52:22.560 But you don't feel closer to God because you set up a Christmas tree.

00:52:28.980 Whereas if you, I don't know, pray using like a cross or a rosary or something, you can

00:52:35.660 be given this sense that you're closer to God.

00:52:38.120 Like, cause I'm wearing my cross necklace or I'm looking at this cross and then think that

00:52:42.220 that's idolatry.

00:52:43.680 That's idolatry.

00:52:44.740 Yeah.

00:52:45.120 But you're never going to, you're not, you're not tempted to do that or there, I don't feel

00:52:49.100 like there's that risk with Christmas trees.

00:52:51.440 There's that risk with saints and with idols and with crosses and with candles and, and

00:52:58.680 rosaries, but there's not that risk with Christmas trees.

00:53:01.780 So I think they are a wonderful decorative accessory that is fun.

00:53:06.320 And that's very strict on idolatry people.

00:53:10.160 Pro Christmas tree.

00:53:11.080 Pro Christmas tree.

00:53:11.880 I should say pro Christmas.

00:53:13.160 I don't love it.

00:53:14.100 Like, I don't think it's as good a future day.

00:53:15.340 I think it could teach them bad values.

00:53:17.120 It's just like everyone gets presents, et cetera.

00:53:20.060 Our kids aren't told that every night when they ask me for a spooky story, I tell them

00:53:24.260 about Krampus and.

00:53:26.160 You do?

00:53:27.240 Yeah, I do.

00:53:29.200 That's why, why do you think Octavian's constantly asking if he's on the naughty list, Malcolm?

00:53:34.560 Can I try to see Krampus and come into their room at night?

00:53:38.220 Only if you.

00:53:40.000 Only my favorite therapy?

00:53:41.500 Well, you need to have a really big bag and something to beat them with.

00:53:44.880 I'm doing it.

00:53:47.640 I'm doing, I'm getting Krampus costumes.

00:53:49.620 This is happening.

00:53:51.460 If one of the kids acts up, I could come the night before and warn them.

00:54:00.480 You're saying you think this is too much?

00:54:03.840 Well, look, I love people are going to be like, Malcolm, that's child abuse.

00:54:06.780 It's like people used to do this historically.

00:54:08.820 I know, I know.

00:54:10.160 Tradition.

00:54:10.560 Well, I do, I am curious to know how Krampus, I gotta look at the actual traditions.

00:54:21.140 I know there are some traditions in small villages where they still have people dressing Krampus

00:54:25.580 costumes, but I don't think that, you know, it's like, oh, it's Krampus, ha, ha, ha, instead

00:54:29.480 of people pretending to be Krampus and beating children and throwing them into sacks.

00:54:34.580 I'm not going to beat the children and throw them into a sack.

00:54:36.380 But what I will do is I will leave one of their windows unlocked and then come in through 1.00

00:54:40.120 the window in a very believable Krampus costume.

00:54:44.640 The question is, will they know?

00:54:47.080 I don't think they'll know.

00:54:47.940 I don't think they'll know.

00:54:50.640 I don't know.

00:54:51.740 I don't know.

00:54:52.240 I'll have to work that out.

00:54:54.120 But I'm excited for this.

00:54:56.760 Very.

00:54:57.760 I love you too, Malcolm.

00:55:00.780 I love you, Simone.

00:55:03.260 You're an amazing wife. 0.99

00:55:04.500 You're the perfect husband.

00:55:07.660 Yeah.

00:55:08.100 I mean, it's it takes one kind of husband to, like, set up Christmas decorations and dress

00:55:11.760 up at Santa.

00:55:12.540 But the real dads, they dress up as Krampus.

00:55:15.640 That's how you really know.

00:55:18.360 Have a good one.

00:55:19.480 I love you.

00:55:20.180 Bye.

00:55:21.460 Oh, OK.

00:55:22.280 So my birthday's tomorrow and we're going to be traveling.

00:55:26.580 So I thought I could open my birthday present from you now.

00:55:31.520 On camera?

00:55:32.880 Yeah.

00:55:33.260 Go for it.

00:55:34.760 Yes.

00:55:35.760 OK.

00:55:36.600 All right.

00:55:37.860 So it is in an unwrapped box from Ukraine.

00:55:43.800 I was very surprised by this box.

00:55:45.660 I'm excited to see what it is.

00:55:47.000 Yeah.

00:55:47.220 So just for context, Malcolm's not his love language is not gift selection.

00:55:52.800 So I buy for everyone in the family all the gifts.

00:55:57.700 And I also keep a spreadsheet to make sure that no family member has more money spent

00:56:03.080 on gifts than anyone else.

00:56:04.240 So, like, even though Malcolm, like, uses his discretionary income technically to buy

00:56:09.220 my gifts, I use the same amount of my discretionary income to buy any gifts for him.

00:56:13.480 So he's not like, there's no adverse incentive.

00:56:16.460 And our kids will also know that none ever received any more in value monetarily and gifts

00:56:21.620 than anyone else, even though they get what they ask for.

00:56:24.240 I would let you know I do not like this system, but she manages our finances. 0.83

00:56:28.200 I just, you know, there have been members of families that we have been exposed to who

00:56:33.860 take it very personally that certain people received other things.

00:56:37.300 And anyway, this is, yeah, this is your unwrapped box from Ukraine that really scared you. 0.98

00:56:43.660 It's a surprise to me, not to her.

00:56:46.400 It's a surprise to me what I'm getting at the audience.

00:56:49.760 It's not an egg apron.

00:56:51.220 And if you get that joke, I applaud you.

00:56:54.580 I don't get it.

00:56:55.200 Was it from an old American? 1.00

00:56:55.860 It's an egg apron.

00:56:57.120 It's not an egg apron, but it's in an unwrapped box from Ukraine.

00:57:00.940 Yeah.

00:57:01.160 If you get that joke, you're cooler than Malcolm.

00:57:04.000 Oh, yes.

00:57:04.460 Comment below.

00:57:04.880 The things you wear around your neck.

00:57:06.000 No.

00:57:06.360 Well, no, you still don't get it.

00:57:08.660 Comment below if you get the Malcolm's joke or reference.

00:57:14.040 The reference.

00:57:16.960 And I'm your trad wife.

00:57:19.880 For shame.

00:57:21.380 I love it.

00:57:21.860 Like, some people see us as like trad, but like actual people who are like trad larping

00:57:26.960 are like, you guys are the furthest from trad thing possible.

00:57:29.960 You're like some other weird species.

00:57:32.200 It's like they recognize we're not their species.

00:57:34.700 So we're, we're obviously trad.

00:57:36.760 There's only trad in urban monoculture.

00:57:39.040 I'm so excited for the.

00:57:42.800 It's got a bow on it.

00:57:45.120 What could this be?

00:57:46.560 It's a basket.

00:57:47.380 Oh, it's.

00:57:48.840 You're an Indy.

00:57:51.040 Sorry, Indy.

00:57:54.680 Yay.

00:57:55.360 It's my Birkin basket.

00:57:57.540 What?

00:57:57.780 I don't understand.

00:57:58.500 What's the basket?

00:57:59.180 Oh, for carrying?

00:58:00.020 Oh my God.

00:58:00.620 Outside for your like.

00:58:01.880 As a replacement to my purse.

00:58:03.840 Because look, you can fit so freaking much in here.

00:58:07.180 That is.

00:58:07.960 You can throw in your phone.

00:58:09.400 I love it.

00:58:10.300 You can throw in some groceries.

00:58:11.720 You can, you just like all like everything you need.

00:58:13.360 Because normally I'm just, you know, you know my purse.

00:58:15.820 It is so overstuffed.

00:58:17.040 And I'm like, this is.

00:58:17.840 Well, so there's clashes with your outfit.

00:58:19.840 If you're walking around with a basket like this.

00:58:22.200 And we got the Handmaid's Tale visor.

00:58:24.000 She just doesn't wear them inside to freak out for aggressives and like stories. 0.97

00:58:28.360 No, this is, this is great.

00:58:29.700 And actually there is a story behind it.

00:58:31.740 So the most expensive, like at least famously expensive purse is the Birkin bag.

00:58:38.180 And it was designed for Jane Birkin, who was on a plane.

00:58:43.860 And she famously took everywhere this basket. 1.00

00:58:48.400 And as a mother, she was like, dude, this just is the best.

00:58:51.360 It's, you can throw everything in it.

00:58:52.920 I love it.

00:58:53.680 It's amazing.

00:58:54.260 And she was famous for carrying around this basket. 1.00

00:58:57.400 But then she was on a flight with a, I guess, like one of the major designers at Hermes.

00:59:03.500 And her basket like fell out of the overhead compartment and all the stuff fell out of it.

00:59:08.000 And he was like, I am inspired.

00:59:10.340 I must design the perfect large bag.

00:59:12.720 And that became the Birkin bag.

00:59:14.760 But as far as I know, Jane Birkin just continued to use her basket because it works better. 0.97

00:59:21.440 That ends up being in a taxi.

00:59:23.980 Yeah, I was like, I was thinking about it the other day.

00:59:26.380 The original OG Birkin bag.

00:59:28.880 Yeah, it's, it's the Birkin bag.

00:59:31.220 Where'd you get that from?

00:59:32.380 You said Ukraine?

00:59:33.120 Ukraine.

00:59:34.960 Very excited.

00:59:36.680 Yeah.

00:59:36.920 So thank you, Malcolm.

00:59:39.100 It's my birthday gift.

00:59:40.640 I think, I think one day it'd be really fun if we build like a trad clothing line.

00:59:44.960 I thought, well, if we do like a merch website, it should be actually probably on Etsy and actually stuff that we really like.

00:59:55.020 Yeah.

00:59:55.180 No, we'll just, we'll be like Townsend's, but like edgy.

00:59:58.660 Oh my gosh, Townsend's.

01:00:00.040 Yeah.

01:00:01.300 Everybody likes Townsend's.

01:00:02.220 Redirect to Townsend's stores.

01:00:04.020 Easy win.

01:00:05.240 Yeah.

01:00:05.980 Oh my gosh.

01:00:06.260 If you guys don't know who Townsend's is, you guys need to like go out.

01:00:10.520 This thing is capacious.

01:00:13.200 Look at this.

01:00:14.020 Oh my God.

01:00:15.100 That is so much room.

01:00:16.060 You can fit every, you can like, look at just compared to like my head.

01:00:19.480 Like it's giant.

01:00:20.320 But I wonder if like the small stuff falls to the bottom and there's like a way to improve upon this design.

01:00:25.580 Like maybe through your pouch.

01:00:27.580 Dividers.

01:00:28.100 Yeah.

01:00:28.340 You could, I mean some, yeah, there, there actually are.

01:00:30.740 This is on, I got this on Etsy.

01:00:33.540 But yeah, I'm super stoked for this.

01:00:36.600 Thank you, Mom.

01:00:37.500 I'm very excited.

01:00:38.100 I thank you for tolerating a husband who, you know, doesn't remember your birthdays, doesn't get you gifts, and you handle it for me in a way.

01:00:46.200 Yeah, you didn't.

01:00:46.860 When is my birthday, Malcolm?

01:00:48.720 Tomorrow.

01:00:49.500 Oh, well, because I just told you that.

01:00:51.160 The snake made out of gingerbread?

01:00:53.220 Yeah.

01:00:53.580 Yeah, Tim, you ready to, let's put it in the box.

01:00:56.320 And then you can roll it.

01:00:58.040 Yeah?

01:00:58.580 Let's just buy it.

01:01:01.780 This can do the trick.

01:01:03.920 That can do the trick?

01:01:05.060 Yeah.

01:01:05.320 Yeah.

01:01:06.120 Hold on, let's get this all the way.

01:01:08.100 What do you think, Titan?

01:01:09.560 We'll make you more stars?

01:01:10.440 It looks good.

01:01:11.400 You're my star girl.

01:01:13.160 Well, it's stuck into my hair.

01:01:15.500 Oh, it is.

01:01:17.060 Yeah.

01:01:18.400 You're helping.

01:01:19.440 Thanks for helping, Titan.

01:01:20.600 Thanks for helping, Titan.

01:01:20.760 No.

Based Camp - December 11, 2024

Christmas Was Not a Pagan Holiday： How To Shut Down Family Idiot Arguing Otherwise

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