The bare bones of this system are based around calendars and time keeping and it probably started about 8000 to 6000 years ago.
Its development might have looked like this–
Some chap notices that he can keep track of time by watching the stars and the sun, this info is valuable because it lets people know when to plant crops or gather winter fuel, it’s this knowledge that allows for agriculture and the creation of civilization.
So our chap:
Charges people 10% of what they produce for his services.
He finds he requires some kind of observatory to make his calculations (some kind of Stonehenge type thingy).
Our chap decides to hide how it’s done behind some kind of mumbo jumbo to keep his source of income secure but he makes the “mumbo jumbo” such that a smart person can work out how it’s done, its then possible to re-discovery it, if our chap dies before he has a chance to pass on his knowledge.
(This allows for the start of a “hierarchy of knowledge”, there are believers with no understanding of what they are following e.g. the usual suspects who are easily distracted with bright shine objects or who can be made fearful that a sky pixy will “get um” if they think to much about what’s going on, then there are initiates into “the mysteries” who have worked out what’s going on and the priests who know for sure what’s going)
Religions based on calendars are easy to spot, they:
Have a priesthood who claim to be are a conduit to some higher knowledge or force
This priesthood likes to get paid -a lot- and so they encourage their followers to
make get other people to
submit see the error of their ways and
force encourage them to join the “one true religion”™
They have holy-days (especially holidays around solstices and equinoxes)
The place of worship has some kind of sun dial functions and they use symbolism based on the sun or time, for example the cross, circle or box
(draw a circle, at the top of the circle write “summer solstice” and the bottom write “winter solstice”, to the right of the circle write “spring equinox” and on the left side write “autumn equinox”, draw a line connecting the solstices and another for the equinoxes and you get a cross then stick a symbol of the sun on the cross and bingo you have a religion)
Another giveaway is numbers, such as 4 (as in seasons), 12 (moon-ths or 12 constellations of the zodiac) 360, 30 or 33 (days/degrees)
the number 30 is based on 360(days)/12(constellations) to define what constellation (house) the sun is in and the extra 3 (as in 33) degrees is for when the sun has fully entered in its new constellation(house) from the previous one
3 is another biggy, probably based on the 3 days the sun takes for it to start the gradual lengthening of daylight after the winter solstice dec 21 to dec 25
More on this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolsticeThe name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, the apparent movement of the Sun's path north or south comes to a stop before reversing direction.
Or here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solsticeAs we would expect there are “signals” to the initiates that this story is about the sun/calendars ect.
And in this case we have "Three Kings", or "Three Wise Men" or “the Magi” see Matthew 2
This refers to the 3 belt stars in the constellation of Orion
Job 38:31 ("Can you loosen Orion’s belt?")
Look east on Christmas morning, find Orion and draw a line through the 3 belt stars down, you will come to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, if you continue on through Sirius to the horizon it points to where the
saviour of the world sun will appear that morning.
Topic: Christmas and all that