Thanks to Edwin Kagin of Blasphemous Blogging, who has compiled a list of the many deities who were alleged to have been born on December 25th:
- Horus c. 3000 BCE
- Osiris c. 3000 BCE
- Attis of Phrygia c.1400 BCE
- Krishna c. 1400 BCE (possibly as early as 5771 BCE)
- Zoroaster/Zarathustra c. 1000 BCE or earlier
- Mithra of Persia c. 600 BCE
- Buddha (Siddartha Gautama) c. 563 BCE
- Heracles c. 800 BCE
- Dionysus c. 186 BCE
- Tammuz c. 400 BCE
- Adonis c. 200 BCE
- Hermes
- Prometheus
Hmmm, that list looks fairly complete. Did he leave one out? I can’t tell.
Be sure to click through to Kagin’s list; he lists a bunch of facts regarding each of these deities that might sound familiar to a modern American theist.
…but to a scientist, even an amateur one like myself, the most important birthday today is Sir Isaac Newton, father of classical physics.
At least he was born on 25 December in the Julian, or Old Style, calendar. Dates are such fuzzy things sometimes.
Update:
I removed Bacchus because that’s the Roman name for Dionysus, and shouldn’t be confused with Saint Bacchus, a Christian martyr; Dionysus predates Christianity by a couple of centuries at least. I also fixed the link to Tammuz. – 12/25/2008 12:10 PM bam