English Histree
- Thread starter oman0115
- Start date
All of it.
you're consistent i'll give you that mate
but i'll let @Psychedelic Casual answer you back seeing as he made all these erroneous statements
i'll just leave this here though...... Saturnalia
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These dates in the Christian calendar are long standing traditional pre-Christian festivals. These are traditions of the British Isles stretching back thousands of years, they are an important part of the history of these islands we live on. As a Brit, Christianity doesn’t resonate with me at all, it just all seems like some localised Middle Eastern cult stories about some Aramaic speaking bloke from Judaea and the god they worshipped. It only took a foothold here because of Constantine I and the size and success of the Roman Empire. If Rome had collapsed centuries earlier, I doubt Christianity would ever have been more than just another cult religion of the Middle East and Mediterranean at a specific moment in time like so many other cult religions in the region in the centuries around then. The cult of Christ at that time wasn’t anything to do with Britain, the Middle East was miles away, in another part and culture of the world; at least these pagan festivals and gods/goddesses have their history here in the British Isles.
Not that the Celtic and Germanic gods and goddesses of Northern Europe resonate with me either, but I see past them and relate all these festivals to their relation to astronomy and the seasons. Which is what they are really about. To me wanting to keep the tradition of Easter isn’t about celebrating the goddess Ēostre and her fertility, it’s about the Proto-Indo-European root of the word Hausos going back to ~4,500 years BCE and what it means and relates to - where the Sun rises at dawn in the East at the Vernal Equinox, and the coming of Summer.
The Coligny and Villards d'Herias calendar tablets show the Celtic months over five years and what festivals were celebrated in them. With Germanic runic calendars having dates for festivals at exactly the same time, with similar celebrations but with different names. Pliny the Elder wrote about the Celtic and Germanic festivals in his book Natural History from the 1st century CE. They’re all there in the pre-Christian record.
There’s no way that, after Christianity set its dates for its festival calendar, it was a pure coincidence that they ran almost identically to the pre-Christian festivals which also just happened to be at the astronomical and phenological major points of the year. The Christian church appropriated these festivals, and adapted them to suit the Christian church and even moved some to the pagan dates to make it easier to get the pagans to convert to Christianity - the Puritans banned Christmas in Britain because they said it was a pagan festival and that the of the birth of Jesus wasn’t around the Winter Solstice, it was moved there to coincide with the major Northern European festival that that time of year.
It’s why pre-Christian symbolism lives on through a lot of them despite the festivals being taken over by Christianity - evergreens at Christmas and Cupid at Valentine’s, for example. It’s also why the etymology of the festival names derive from very ancient Northern European languages (far pre-dating Christianity’s move Northwards) which relate to phenology - Lent and Easter, for example. And why the names and stories of many Saints are actually taken from pre-Christian gods/goddesses that were celebrated on these festivals - take Brigid/St Brigid and Mars/St Martin, for example.
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These theories have been debunked many times. There are thousands of religions across the world all with different events and festivals and even if Christianity did have some that fall on the same week as others, it is entirely and in fact likely to be a coincidence.
Take Christmas for example. I don’t actually know if Christmas Day is the birthday of Jesus, I just choose to celebrate it on that day. It’s not in the Gospels what day it is, neither is the calendar day of the resurrection.
The early church was founded by the people that knew Jesus and had followed him in person and then St Paul.
Again, The Puritans, alongside many other sects of Christianity, have been debunked by people who know scripture but it is possible 25th of December isn’t the birth of Christ, it’s just the day we celebrate it.
Regarding the Pagan gods and goddesses, what seems to happen, as happened with Mithras, is people repeat online and in public that they have the same attributes to the story of Christ and it’s often not true. We have been over this before.
Bill Maher, on his own documentary against Christianity, went to the Jerusalem and told a Christian that Mithras was born of a virgin, born on Christmas Day, killed and resurrected after three days etc. and he said it as if it was out and out fact.
Now, it turns out Mithras was 400 years after Christ, and several of those things are totally false.
It’s claims like that this that need to be backed up to take them seriously and often they aren’t.
Nobody is forcing you to take Christianity seriously or resonate with it, I in fact will defend your right to reject it. I will however just state that even if claims of pagan gods and goddesses sharing festivals with Christianity, it A) doesn’t mean Christianity isn’t true B) doesn’t mean that the pagans didn’t copy the Christians and c) is likely to always happen with there being so many gods and goddesses in the world, over the millennia.
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Roman Mithra was more recent. However, the Persian Mithra, which Romans adopted their Mithraic worship from, is much older. Inscriptions of Persian Mithra have been found written by Artaxerxes II (404-358 BCE), during the Archaemenid Empire.
According to wiki it says-
I am not saying you’re wrong on Mithra here specifically.
I just see it happen time and again when a Pagan God is produced from some prominent atheists backside (not you), with the exact same story as the Gospel, only for it to turn out to be false.
Anyway, this is about England specifically and our local history and Mithra obviously has no place here.
I’ll change the subject. If anyone hasn’t seen Peter Jackson’s WW1 film, which is real footage he’s brought to stunning modern colour and picture, watch it.
It’s fascinating stuff, but tragic for the obvious reasons, at the same time.
Prior to the reign of Pope Julius I, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth had been ascribed to several different dates of the calendar, including in December, January, March, and June. The biblical description of the event indicated that it was likely not in winter – shepherds would not be tending their flocks in the fields in December or January – and the description of the census being conducted indicated that it was likely in summer, when travel would be easier for all citizens to return to the towns of their birth to be counted. Nonetheless Julius I selected December 25 as the date of the birth of Jesus, which corresponded not with a Roman census, but with the Roman festival of Saturnalia
Saturnalia was a pagan festival which covered roughly the fourth week of December. The Roman god Saturn celebrated by the festival was the god of the harvest, and Saturnalia was about conspicuous consumption of food and drink. During its celebration no prisoners were executed, and some were granted release. Masters served their slaves at table during one point of the festival, and a slave was elected to serve as the King of the celebrations. Public feasts were held, and gifts were exchanged, some of them to public associates as jokes, while gifts given privately to family and friends were often of a more substantive nature.
Public business was suspended during the festival, which expanded from the original one day celebration to one of a week over time. Schools were closed. Gambling was allowed, and slaves were allowed to gamble with their masters, often for stakes which included fruits and nuts. While many Roman festivals required access to the public sites of Rome, such as the Forum, the Colosseum, or the Palatine Hill, much of Saturnalia could be celebrated in the home, and it was thus celebrated throughout the Empire, with the official ceremonies only taking place in Rome, at the Temple of Saturn. Candles were lit to mark the days of the festival as it transpired.
When Julius I declared December 25 to be the birth date of Jesus he tied it in with the pagan festival, perhaps accidentally, and perhaps with the hope that it would provide an alternative holiday for Roman Christians, rather than celebrating the pagan god Saturn. Regardless the celebration of Christmas for the next few centuries coincided with the celebration of the winter solstice, which gained momentum as it coincided with several other pagan celebrations of the solstice in Europe. Christmas in Europe during the Middle Ages was celebrated with overeating, heavy drinking, gambling, and the exchange of gifts, as well as religious ceremonies.
Not until the Protestant Reformation would attempts be made to eliminate the pagan influences during the celebration of what was by then the Christmas holidays, including the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the Feast of the Circumcision, Epiphany, also known as Twelfth Night, and Candlemas. The Puritans banned many of the practices dating to Saturnalia, and throughout Europe some of the old traditions died out. Some later returned. The practices of exchanging gifts, lighting candles (Advent wreaths) and other activities enjoyed during Saturnalia, a pagan festival of the winter solstice, remain part of Christmas today.
Two Gun Bob
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Good afternoon Rascal and hope you are well. A little unsure how you have separated Lee's memory from the ownership of slaves, he used them in abundance throughout the Civil war. His family, his in-laws, his dear wife and himself all actually owned and traded the slave. By espousing the above you become in danger of diluting the substance matter that could cause an alternate distortion of the past. (aka did Britain stand alone)
Its like a finely tuned jigsaw puzzle that has to be put slowly back into place with the evidence available. You have spoken of this yourself in the past and we can only ever draw conclusion with the evidence we have to hand and it's a painful process for sure. But we put our trust in the articulate ones that collate the auntie on our behalf.
Lee kept slaves, Lee owned slaves and Lee was barbaric in the treatment of his slaves. Robert E. Lee’s interaction with the institution of slavery is one that it is extremely well documented and even the generals own papers show he owned slaves well into the 1850s. As mentioned he also used his wife’s slaves as personal servants throughout the Civil War. Lee also had a dismal opinion of the black man, eloquently mused throughout his ramblings.
He considered them an asset to be subjugated until the ordnance of a wise and merciful providence, with painful discipline necessary for their instruction as a race. I am sure the slaves would disagree.
I will extract a few snippets that show Lee to not only be a slave trader, but to be one of the cruelest around. He not only had them lashed and beaten, but subjected them to the greatest cruelty of all, that of separation from their families at Arlington with the strong males being sold on to other plantations.
If you listen hard, through the matriarchal folds of time Rascal you may still be able to hear their silent screams. Separation of the slave was something his counterpart took great pain not to do. Washington and Custisis families never separated the slave as it was considered ill mannered and quite frankly base.
There are innumerable documentation and letters with 1st hand testimony confirming his slave ownership, purchase and also acquisition of slaves via probate from his father in laws estate but what did those slaves actually think of their master?
One called him “the meanest man I ever saw.” “He was a hard taskmaster,” confided another. “He tried to keep us slaves, when we was as free as he,” was another comment. In addition, the slaves showed their feelings by their actions. During the time Lee was master at Arlington he had a chronic problem with runaways. They also frequently refused to recognize his authority, ignoring his orders or trying to undermine his plans. On one occasion they even physically threatened Lee. “Only the merciful hand of Kind Providence and their own ineptness prevented a general outbreak,” wrote Lee’s wife.
Already mentioned the dreadful whippings at Arlington corroborated by five witness accounts that followed the actions above in 1859.
I have read and imbibed a lot of information on General lee over the past few days to gain a better insight of the man and far too much for my own governance that I fear I am commencing to speak in their manner.
When we initially engaged in debate I mentioned that that society behaved very differently than what now do now in our evolved world. Robert E. Lee was indeed an immoral man, a slaver who was quite happy for it's continuance ( see the Critendon Compromise) but again equally representative of a man of his his era.
Other contributors have said that is how it was back in day . This is why I do not understand the criminality that pervades our country in the wanton destruction of monuments and removal of street names. I am quite surprised of your tolerance to Lees statue considering your open view of Churchill. I will not and shall not believe you think him a **** because of his affiliation to the conservative party alone so would like to here your detailed opinion on why Churchill is considered to be more the villain than a keeper of African slaves.
What do I think of General Lee. He was a mighty fine Confederate General and a mighty fine field commander and a man of his time. One piece of literature I have read that stands out from the rest appears to offer a more balanced approach than others documents I have read and is from Elizabeth Pryors award winning book espousing ..
If you want to do Robert E. Lee justice, embrace the fine qualities that he truly has to offer us and they are considerable, but also recognize his limitations and the injustices perpetrated at his hands. Then lend him your respect. It is the greatest compliment you can give him.
Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters won both the Lincoln Prize and the Jefferson Davis Award.
Robert E. Lee and Slavery
The general’s own words plainly state his view of the Peculiar Institution. As a biographer I am often asked which part of my subject’s story has been
www.historynet.com
You say they were both the right man at the right time and yet single out only your disdain for Churchill. What about your disdain for when Lee was not that man. Do you consider General Lee a Racist for his subjugation of the black man and his writings and if so why then do you see him different from Churchill. If we had such a thing as a rascist-ometer then surely Lee's would pop the mercury.
Agreed
See above. One man commands your "Great Admiration" yet one man does not. One man was a rabid slaver and one man was not.
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For those interested in Medieval
History, Marc Morris is bringing out a book about the Anglo-Saxons in May this year. Really looking forward to it as it will focus on the early Anglo-Saxon period, an era where there is little popular history on. His book on Edward I is a great read as is his on the Norman Conquest, although the latter is abit of a slog in parts. He’s also got a book on King John but I haven’t read that.
Another great book for those interested in Medieval History is The Greatest Knight by Thomas Asbridge. It’s about about my favourite historical
figure, William Marshall, a second born son who became a knight and served 4 kings of England, sort of like a Medieval Forest Gump. Asbridge has also done a great book ( and massive) book on the crusades which was a great read
History, Marc Morris is bringing out a book about the Anglo-Saxons in May this year. Really looking forward to it as it will focus on the early Anglo-Saxon period, an era where there is little popular history on. His book on Edward I is a great read as is his on the Norman Conquest, although the latter is abit of a slog in parts. He’s also got a book on King John but I haven’t read that.
Another great book for those interested in Medieval History is The Greatest Knight by Thomas Asbridge. It’s about about my favourite historical
figure, William Marshall, a second born son who became a knight and served 4 kings of England, sort of like a Medieval Forest Gump. Asbridge has also done a great book ( and massive) book on the crusades which was a great read
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