Two things.
1.
<!--QuoteBegin-Shambhu+Dec 23 2008, 06:16 AM-->QUOTE(Shambhu @ Dec 23 2008, 06:16 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2008/12/mor...r-solstice.html
Rajeev's blog links to "christmas" day
Mitrotsavam 2008
dec 22nd, 2008
http://rajeev.posterous.com/mitrotsavam
however, christists annexed the winter-solstice festival of mitra and claimed their godman jesus was born on that day. <b>there is no evidence that jesus existed, so his so-called birthday is a pure artifice.</b>
strange, isn't it, that the 'aryan-invasion' hoax-worshippers of india do not tell the christists this little fact and demand that the so-called christmas should be celebrated as mitrotsava.[right][snapback]92119[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even the terrorist church of the catholics doesn't lie about this anymore (because it can't):
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1b.htm#Christmas
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The birth of Christ was assigned the date of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian calendar, January 6 in the Egyptian), because on this day, as the Sun began its return to northern skies, the pagan devotees of Mithras celebrated the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Invincible Sun). On December 25, 274, [Roman Emperor] Aurelian had proclaimed the Sun God the principal patron of the Empire and dedicated a temple to Him in the Campus Martius. Christmas originated at a time when the cult of the Sun was particularly strong at Rome.
<b>-- New Catholic Encyclopaedia (Vol. III, p.656, 1967 ed.)</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's because the early church had already admitted that they'd stolen the day from the Romans. Hardly any point in christoterrorists trying to now conceal what their terrorist predecessors had openly conceded:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->4th century Bishop [and Saint] John Chrysostom writes:
"On this day also the Birthday of Christ was <b>lately</b> fixed at Rome in order that while the heathen were busy with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their sacred rites undisturbed. They call this the Birthday of the Invincible One; but who is so invincible as the Lord? They call it the Birthday of the Solar Disk, but Christ is the Sun of Righteousness."
Link
http://altreligion.about.com/library/wee...52902a.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> (
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1b.htm#Christmas also shows some christian site admitting that jeebus' birthday was celebrated in Egypt on 6 January which was *another* stolen birthday: that of an Egyptian Goddess. The point was that jeebus did not exist, had no birthday and the local Gods were popular while jeebus' non-existent self wasn't, so the early christians had to steal other religions' Gods' birthdays in an attempt to transfer existing popularity onto jeebus.)
<b>ADDED:</b>
http://www.bookrags.com/research/sol-invictus-eorl-12/
Imperial religion of Sol Invictus' influence:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A vault mosaic of the third century in the tomb of the Julii under Saint Peter's portrays Christ as Sol, rising in his chariot. The words of the Christmas Mass in the Missale Gothicum hail Christ as Sol Iustitiae ("sun of justice"), <b>while the traditional date of Christmas, first attested in the fourth century, is hardly unrelated to the fact that December 25 was celebrated as the birthday of Sol Invictus Mithra.</b>
Sol Invictus from Encyclopedia of Religion. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2. <!--QuoteBegin-Shambhu+Dec 23 2008, 06:16 AM-->QUOTE(Shambhu @ Dec 23 2008, 06:16 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2008/12/mor...r-solstice.html
Rajeev's blog links to "christmas" day
Mitrotsavam 2008
dec 22nd, 2008
http://rajeev.posterous.com/mitrotsavam
the indo-european deity mitra (aka mithras, surya) was worshipped especially on the winter solstice,
[...]
this is why many ancient monuments (eg. stonehenge) in europe are focused on the winter solstice.
thus the 'aryan' deity surya/mitra forms a continuous link between western europe and india.[right][snapback]92119[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Hmmm. Indo-European cannot be used here. Mitra/Mithra was specifically an Indian and Iranian God that the Romans adopted - not in some unknown and therefore "negotiable" prehistory, but in *known* history (later, Julian naturally identified the Persian Sun God Mithra with the Roman Sol/Greek Helios; for instance, I think his hymn was to Helios but his baptism was into Mithraism) - because this God's popularity had made its way into Rome. Greece mostly passed on him because they didn't want anything Persian, their traditional enemy. Rome succumbed though.
Mithra came to Rome via many nations in the Empire - there are a vast number of mithraeums in the near East, particularly Syria and elsewhere in the Empire. Syria is not Indo-European last I checked.
Google for mithraeums in Syria and all through the path to Rome. Rome would later construct Mithraeums in the rest of the European part of its Empire (including the north, and also more mithraeums in Syria etcetera).
Here's some support:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/Mithraism.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mithras Goes to Rome</b>
The cult of Mithras was actually of very ancient lineage, traceable in one form or another through at least two thousand years. In origin it was the primordial sun-worship â the father of all religion. Iconography showed Mithras, in Phrygian cap and cloak, riding his fiery chariot across the sky. But it was also an eastern religion, reaching the Roman world from India via Persia. Traditional hostility with Persia did not favour Rome adopting a religion of its enemies. <b>This changed however in the 60s BC when Pompeyâs legions first entered Syria.</b> Mithraism had so well established itself in the Commagene, Armenia and eastern Anatolia that whole dynasties of kings had called themselves âMithradatesâ (âjustice of Mithraâ). <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Northern Europe celebrated Yuletide at winter solstice.
It was in the second half of the 3rd century when Emperor Aurelian caused all of Rome to celebrate the birthday of Sol: 25 December became a holy-day. He elevated a religion that was already becoming rather popular into a religion with imperial patronage.
<b>ADDED:</b> Sol Invictus was merged with the existing Mithraism (because Romans identified the Sun with ... the Sun! Mind-boggling, I know.)
http://www.bookrags.com/research/sol-invictus-eorl-12/
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sol was equated with Mithra, and as Sol Invictus Mithra was regarded as the most powerful and most immediate divine mediator between humans and the invisible majesty of the supreme god.
Sol Invictus from Encyclopedia of Religion. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.christianism.com/articles/24.html - see the original page for formatting
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->from: Greek and Roman Religion, A Source Book, John Ferguson, Noyes, 1980.
["Political Religion"] 'One of the most telling indications of the political importance of Roman religion may be seen in the fact that Julius Caesar [100 or 102 - 44 B.C.E. ("Roman dictator (from 49)")], an avowed unbeliever, held the office of pontifex maximus, and Cicero [106 - 43 B.C.E.], an avowed sceptic, held the office of augur.
  So we may consider divination by means of dreams exploded with all other forms of divination. To tell the truth, superstition has spread throughout mankind and taken advantage of human weakness so that very few are not in its grip. Cicero On Divination 2, 72.
  Yet he publicly fostered that superstition.' [See: #23, 469]. [77-78].
PAGE 512
<b>["Greek and Roman Religion"] 'It was not really till the third century A.D. that the old political religion was wearing somewhat thin. Rome had suffered grievous defeat at the hands of Persia. There the religion of Zoroaster flourished, which spoke of the battle of light against darkness, with the Sun as one of the great generals. On the eastern fringes of the Roman empire itself in Syria, the Sun was worshipped. Perhaps he [Sun] would bring new vitality and power to Rome. So in A.D. 274 the soldier-emperor Aurelian established the Sun as the great god of Rome.</b>
  He enacted many laws, laws of considerable value at that. He reorganized the priesthoods, founded the Temple of the Sun and gave it a strong College of Priests; in addition he established a fund for repairs and for staff salaries.
    Scriptores Historiae Augustae [very problematic source! see Supplement I] The Deified Aurelian 35, 3.
The literary sources play this move down, but the coins show that Aurelian was not just establishing an additional god, but a new Divine Overlord.
  THE SUN, THE LORD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
  H. Mattingly and E.A. Sydenham The Roman Imperial Coinage
  Vi Aurelian 319-22.
  Coin inscriptions "To the Unconquered Sun" are common. One (like the above, from Cyzicus) shows the Sun handing the Emperor a globe; the inscription reads TO THE SUN OUR DEFENDER (conservatori) (353).' [88].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some more on all this:
http://www.christianism.com/articles/13.html
That religious observance on winter solstice was popular in ME and Europe is mirrored in the same popularity that another festival - now called Easter - had in the same regions (ME/Europe). Easter celebrated some Middle-Eastern Goddess (Astarte or Ishtareth or something). Okay, here, a Semitic Goddess:
http://atheism.about.com/od/ancientmytholo...ian-Goddess.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Astarte:</b> Phoenician, Canaanite, and <b>Semitic</b> Goddess
Astarte appears to have been the most popular and prominent of all Phoenician deities. Although the names of the head god often varied from city to city, Astarte as the name of his consort appears quite frequently. <b>Astarte also appears under other names in other religious systems of the region: Ishtar in Mesopotamia</b>, Ashtart in Egypt, Aphrodite in Greece, and Astartu among the Akkadians, to name just a few. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://altreligion.about.com/library/wee...52902a.htm
QUOTE: "the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar, and her consort Tammuz. It is from their legend that we get the name for the annual celebration of the resurrection of Christ- Easter, a name of the Goddess Ishtar."
And this Semitic and Mesopotamian/Babylonian Goddess <b>seems to have a counterpart in NW Europe</b>:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor191933 via
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B1b.htm#Easter
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom people dedicated a month corresponding to April. People celebrated her festival on the day of the vernal equinox. The tradition of Eastre survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts. Even the early Egyptians and Persians dyed eggs in spring colors and gave them to friends.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Easter festival can't be called "Indo-European" either since it has an ancient Semitic counterpart too.
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