Quote of the Month 10
The quote for January:
I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough—I call it mankind’s single immortal blemish…. And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose—following Christianity’s first day!
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Antichrist, part 62
Quite the quote for January, eh? I chose it because of its reference to “dies nefastus.” (The Latin expression dies nefastus (“inauspicious day”) is an allusion to the dies nefasti in the Roman calendar on which it was forbidden to transact legal or public business – Sunday in other words.) {Source}
Now, you may be asking yourself what that has to do with January. – Nothing. But, it just reminded me of one of the many hidden impacts that religion has on our lives – the calendar. Ever wonder why the new year starts on January 1st? It’s really quite disgusting.
Ever heard of the “Feast of the Circumcision“? Well, to make a long story short, it’s a celebration of the day that they did the ole chop-chop on Jesus. A little more detail on this site: “Various Christian feast dates were used for the New Year in Europe during the Middle Ages, including March 25 and December 25. However, medieval calendars were still displayed in the Roman fashion of twelve columns from January to December. Beginning in the sixteenth century, European countries began officially making January 1 the start of the New Year once again — sometimes called Circumcision Style because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day from December 25.”
Which is crap anyway, because it is pretty commonly known that by the early fourth century, Church leaders decided they needed a Christian alternative to rival popular solstice celebrations. They chose December 25th as the date of Christ’s birth and held the first recorded Feast of the Nativity in Rome in A.D. 336. Whether they did so intentionally or not, Church leaders directly challenged a fellow up-start religion by placing the nativity on December 25th. The Cult of Mithras celebrated the birth of their infant god of light on the very same day. {Source} There is so much crap out there about his supposed actual date of birth that it just isn’t worth going into.
I begin to lose track of the purpose of the thread – religion infects/informs all. But to be honest, Nietzsche’s vehemence kind of shocked me. I wasn’t aware that he was so strongly opposed to the single great curse. I think now I may have to do a bit more reading about him.
Hope everyone had a good holiday season, and I hope your year started better than Jesus’!!
