June 5, 2018
When June comes rolling in, our minds instantly think, “summer, vacation, and Father’s Day.” What if I told you that Father’s Day and summer have much more in common than we think? And what if I told you that Father’s Day is not an innocent holiday? Would you want to find out why or would you dismiss this claim without so much as a by your leave? Either way, that Father’s Day has a history steeped in darkness and paganism, well, no one can deny it.
Before jumping into the post, I would like to advise you to read without prejudice and throw away all your preconceived notions about the holiday. As Christians who want to please God completely, we need to rid ourselves of manmade tradition and allow the Truth into our minds and hearts. Only then can we commence to grasp what it means to walk in obedience to God.
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How Did Father’s Day Come About?
Fathers have been celebrated long before Christ was even born. And no, I’m not referring to earthly fathers. You see, Father’s day is closely related to pagan celebrations in honor of the sky fathers, summer solstice, and sun gods.
We’ll get into those in a bit.
During these pagan rituals, whenever goats were sacrificed, they tied ribbons around the goats’ necks. This was done to set them apart from the rest of the herd. Ever wondered where we got the tradition of gifting our fathers ties on this holiday?
I’m telling you friend, everything in these holidays have pagan symbolism. Nothing is new under the sun said, King Solomon.
Sky Father
Who or what is a sky father you may be asking? Good question, I must admit, I hadn’t heard of this term until I did research on this holiday. So I will start here.
According to ancient cultures, sky fathers were (are) refer to sky gods who were looked upon as “fathers.” And I state this in plural because there are so many sky fathers, in fact, most cultures have one.
However, “sky father” is a translation of the Vedic pantheon Dyaus Pita. This Indian god is the equivalent of the Roman god, Jupiter and the Greek god, Zeus.
I will only mention these gods for the sake of time and space. But there are many sky fathers and I encourage you to do your own research.
Dyaus Pita
Jupiter
Mesopotamian Sky Father “Anu”
Summer Solstice
As I mentioned earlier, father’s day is closely related to the summer solstice pagan practices. You will see what I mean in a minute.
The word solstice comes from the Latin word solstitum which means “sun stands still.” It is the longest day of the year and the shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It is known by different names throughout the world, in Europe for example, it is called Midsummer. Wiccans and Neopagans refer to it as Litha. And to the Catholic Church, it is St. John’s Day.
All are one and the same and can trace their roots all the way back to ancient times. Pagans celebrated the summer solstice by sacrificing to the sky fathers (sun gods) and women performed pagan rituals. The festivities lasted a whole week from June 19-25.
Many of these traditions remain to this day.
Midsummer (Summer Solstice) Ritual at Stone Hedge
St. John’s Day Celebration Rituals
Roman Festivals
Festivities in honor of several gods took place during the summer solstice pagan celebrations. One such example is the festival in honor of the goddess Juno (wife of Jupiter). Juno was the goddess of women and childbirth. The month of June was named in her honor. She was also the patroness of marriage and the reason why June remains the most popular month for weddings to this day.
The goddess Veta (goddess of the hearth) was also honored during this time. Women would go to her temple for 8 days to perform rituals and offered salted meat asking for blessings upon their homes.
Juno
Vesta
Vesta worship
Litha
Litha is an ancient pagan celebration that is still practiced today. In honor of the summer solstice and father sky, pagans and Wiccans light up bonfires on hilltops to signify the space between earth and sky. It was and is considered a time to find the balance between fire and water. In ancient times, Europeans set up large wheels on fire and rolled them down a hill into a body of water.
Bonfires also have pagan symbolism. The word “bonfire” comes from “bone fire” to refer to the ashes and bones left over from animal and human sacrifices.
Litha pagan celebration
In Modern Times
In 1909, Sonora Dodd, a woman from Spokane, Washington founded Father’s Day in the US. She wanted to her honor her father, William Smart, a civil war veteran who raised her and 5 siblings after his wife died giving birth to their last child. Sonora wanted to honor him during his birth month which happened to be in June.
Father’s Day was officially first celebrated on June 19, 1910. President Wilson supported the holiday in 1914. And President Johnson signed the proclamation to officially declare the holiday in the 3rd Sunday of June in 1966.
Sonora Dodd and William Smart
What It Means to Celebrate Father’s Day
As I have stated over and over throughout this holidays post series, everything and anything that does not worship God worships something or someone else. All the holidays I have covered the past couple months have pagan roots. And although you may not celebrate them with the conscious intention of worshipping the enemy, we do so when these holidays were created to worship other gods.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (Hosea 4:6).
This is the type of thing that God repeatedly punished Israel for doing. It is spiritual adultery and no matter how you may look at it, it will remain pagan. You can change the name, change the traditions…they were never ordained by God.
And please, whatever you do, do not say that you’re honoring this holiday to honor God who is our Heavenly Father…I don’t believe there can be a bigger blasphemy. All the holidays held by the world are manmade traditions that are deeply rooted in paganism.
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” (Matthew 15:8).
Final Word
As I said in my mother’s day post, if you want to honor your earthly father do it any other day, it doesn’t have to be on the 3rd Sunday of June. As sons and daughters, we can show our love to our fathers every day not just on one day.
If you don’t believe anything I say it doesn’t affect me, do your own research and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. But we must first want to obey God no matter what. We must want to know and follow Truth more than we love our human-made festivals. And if there is something I am convinced about it’s that God is not honored by any of these holidays, no matter how many times we say His name.
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Achot Gayil
Praise YAH for His Truth and for the gifting of writers like you, Evelyn. Although this article was written a few years ago, the information is prevalent for TODAY. Interestingly, to this VERY DAY, the Torah is sadly neglected; yet, the warning is very clear: Deuteronomy 12:1-4 (NKJV) 1 “These [are] the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the YHWH ELOHIM (LORD God) of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 “You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 “And you shall destroy their altars, break their [sacred] pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. 4 “You shall not worship YHWH (the LORD) your ELOHIM (God) [with] such [things.]. And the SAME WARNING is repeated in The Brit Chadasha ( Renewed Covenant): 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (NKJV), “ 14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Messiah/Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among [them]. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” 17 Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says YHWH (the Lord). Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.” 18 “I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the YHWH (LORD Almighty).”
And I commend you, Evelyn, for your obedience: Ephesians 5:8-11 (NKJV) “8 For you were once darkness, but now [you are] light in the MASTER (Lord). Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the MASTER (Lord). 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose [them.]. I end by saying, let us continue to blow the shofar warnings (article writings) and pray without ceasing, giving thanks to The Father through Messiah Y’HUSHUA (YESHUA). HALLELUYAH! BARUK HASHEM!
Rhonda Heim
Ģreetings in the True Father!
I Appreciate Your diligence to the research of Truth. I’ve been doing much of the same since I became a disable nurse in 2012, WoW, what Golden Nuggets Abba has shown me, all bc I took the Time! Also, in these Last Days I have foreseen WE Are Being Called to SHED all that is Not of HIM! The more I shed, the closer I feel to Abba. I have seen some folks stripped of Everything! WE may All be there before it’s over. Once I began to study for history of the Real Christianity — I was So Convicted to Forever Walk/ (halacha) in Truth; it is challenging! I would love to tell You all of it, but we each much “STUDY TO SHOW OURSELVES APPROVED UNTO ABBA …”
To cut it short, Messiah had taught us that “He is “THE WAY …” AND, to “FOLLOW HIM” as He followed Abba.
This requires us to give up all our preconceived ways, much of which we grew up with … As “OUR PARENTS HAD INHERITED LIES…”
Be careful of making any vows if You aren’t ready to GIVE UP ALL OF SELF for Abba and His Kingdom! You will find Yourself on Your knees (in Prayer) more and more, Repenting & changing til self is burned away!
In His Service,
For Expanding the Kingdom, I send Blessings to you, Blessings of Shalom!
Evelyn Fonseca
Thank you Rhonda, I completely agree with you on everything you said. We need to search the Scriptures for the Truth instead of believing everything we were taught in Sunday School. We need to stop being lazy and study His Word for ourselves. The Truth sets free indeed! Abba Father gives knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to those who ask of Him.
Yolanda
Hello Evelyn Fonseca
I’d like to thank you for your thorough research and analysis upon the terminology “fathers day” as well as any other man-made traditional holidays! You are a brilliant woman of God who speaks the truth as it is in references to this topic that so many fail to understand! I want to thank you for your observations in this topic because I too am against such traditions! I have one Heavenly Father and HIS Name is JESUS! Its stated in the LORD’S PRAYER that we all should reverence HIM as FATHER “only” and that its not to be taken lightly! Therefore by obedience and showing respect to my parents every day, I honor GOD! No one has to tell me when to honor my parents, so you’re right! There’s no specific day to do so! Each day is a command to me from God to do so! Thank you very much for your thorough, detailed and informative diagnosis on this most misunderstood topic!
Evelyn Fonseca
Thank you so much Yolanda for your encouraging comment! All honor and glory to God the Father.
Hazel
Hi there
Thank you for this article. I’m relatively new to my religion and still studying but did make the decision to stop celebrating Christmas and Birthday’s a few years ago as they were clearly from pagan origins along with Easter etc however, I struggled to find a valid reason not to celebrate my parents on Mother and Fathers day. From what i can gather, Mother and fathers day was created in the 1900’s to show thanks and honour to our parents and not to celebrate and worship false Gods. I’m trying to see the connection between these holidays and worship of false Gods. From reading your article i have learnt they call some of these false Gods ‘Sky Fathers’ but other than the title father, i dont see the connection with these false God celebrations and our celebrations of our parents. Hoping you can clarify things for me. I’ll pray for holy spirit to give me a better understanding. Thanks in advance!
Elaine
Something was brought to my mind as I was sitting here reading this good article, by Yah no doubt, that He told us to call no man father on earth , as we have One Father .
I could be wrong, but I thought “If we are saying Happy Fathers Day to all these men, we are actually calling them father.”🤷♀️ We can call our own father that of course, but not a priest or any. YahWah just shows people things in different ways. Praise Yah!
Evelyn Fonseca
Yes! Only YAH is our Father. Like you said, we can call our earthly fathers that but no one else!
Joyann
Thank you for this insightful article. It is so true . Many of the world’s holidays and festivals are pagan but yet still mentions Jesus’ name to trap many into worshipping idols. Over the past few months God has been revealing to me that the holidays we ‘love’ to celebrate do not glorify God. Many Christians are indirectly worshipping idols.
Again, thank you for sharing. I love this post!
Evelyn Fonseca
Amen! Thank God for His revelation! Thank you for your comment, be blessed!
Randy Goodwin
Hello Miss Evelyn and i appreciate this article. Few know how these ancient practices from the Gods and Goddesses still carry over in todays world as you have described. I am a Deliverance Minister and these Gods and Goddesses still can carry Generational Curses in people today and they may not even know it. God Bless
Evelyn Fonseca
Amen!
Rhesa
Thank you very much for your wonderful article.
We were born and all of these already existed and we just followed it because it is what we grew up with.
Evelyn Fonseca
Thank you for your kind comment!
Senam
Interesting read, great history. However, I do not see a clear link between the pagan rituals and Father’s Day. Sure, the rituals existed/exist. However, as you pointed out yourself; Father’s Day as we know it, was founded” by Sonora Dodd, to honor her father, William Smart, a civil war veteran who raised her and 5 siblings after his wife died giving birth to their last child.” And she chose June because it was his birth month.
Which is great. You did not demonstrate a link between Sonora’s decision/celebration to any pre-existing ritual. So I really do not see a link.
Yes, it’s a man-made tradition, but so many other things are. Cars, planes, pens, pencils, paper etc….the list is endless. So shoukd we abhor all these things? God gave us the intellect to invent, because we were made in His image; a creator. And He did tell us to honour our parents, not only on one day; always. However Sonora’s decision created a special day, to enhance our honouring of our fathers, and if it is dobe with a sincere heart, I don’t see anything wrong with this.
We gift our fathers with neck ties all the time, not just on Father’s Day.
Evelyn Fonseca
Senam,
Thank you for your respectful comment. I will reply here as well as on the other article for those who might not see it here and for the benefit of anyone else who might have the same doubts.
Every country, every society for thousands of years have had a mother’s and a father’s day, they just get celebrated differently and during different dates( although during the same seasons). However, the root of these festivities originates from paganism. Of course, the way they were celebrated then and how they are celebrated now is different. People may even give it another meaning or reason but the origins remain unchanged. We don’t perform rituals or bow down to idols-at least, not neo-pagans. The fact that these holidays don’t resemble the ancient celebrations in practice, does not remove the fact that it’s pagan.
Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday commemorating the Mexican victory against the French in Puebla. But it’s not even celebrated in Mexico, people go about their normal day, Americans however, “celebrate” it(or rather use it as an excuse to drink and party). Most Americans are ignorant of the history behind it, to them, it’s just a day to party. Some may even say that there’s no link between the history and the way Americans celebrate it. Does the history of Cinco de Mayo change simply because Americans adopted it and changed the whole meaning of the holiday? No, it doesn’t. In the same way, the pagan origins of celebrating fathers does not change simply because society gave a different meaning, it’s still pagan.
You mention that many things are manmade, that’s true but we don’t honor objects (e.g. pencils, cars, paper, etc). Hoildays and objects are not the same.
You mention that I make no connection or link between modern-day Father’s day and ancient father’s day. I was merely including the American version to show how an age-old practice came to be established in the US. Each country has its own story. Sonora Dodd may or may not have been aware of its pagan origin but I believe that the enemy took advantage of the opportunity to reintroduce an old practice- he is the great deceiver after all. And this shouldn’t surprise us, as “nothing is new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9). American Father’s day is not new.
It’s important that we don’t rationalize history, scriptures, behavior, or anything really. If we rationalize everything nothing will ever be evil.
Oscar Pellicier
Thank You for the excellent article and accompanying historical data. Deep down inside of me it has always been felt that all man made holidays were not designed to honor God. I don’t attend any church service (Just read the bible and obey what it says). There’s an interesting story behind it as it involves a play I was writing and working on. I have come to love God and the truth by which He wants us to live by. John 4:24 ” God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and TRUTH.”
Evelyn Fonseca
Amen! You can’t beat the Scriptures over manmade doctrines. I’m glad the article was helpful!
Yadawn Yasharal
This is a public service announcement: the term and usage of the word (god) is entirely of European origin, more specifically it is Germanic. God/god/gat/are all spelling variables of their (God) idol.
So on your effort to educate about paganism, you left this one out. The Maker of Heaven and earth and all that is upon and within the earth, his name is not God. Neither is it yahweh, jahovah either.
The Most High’s name is “I AM” in the English and AHAYAH in the Original African Ibry Tongue…
Evelyn Fonseca
Although I agree that “God” is of pagan origin I beg to differ that YAHWEH, YHWH, YAH, or Jehovah aren’t either. Ancient manuscripts of the Scriptures found contain the Tetragrammaton thus all variations of it are 100% accurate forms to refer to YAH.
Fay
Hi Evelyn,
Thank you for the information you presented which was clear, simple and yet profound!
I was able to share your link with my family, relatives and friends.
By the way, do you know that keeping Sunday as a Holy Day/Day of Worship is also Pagan?
Have you written about it or researched Sunday Sacredness?
Blessings to you.
Evelyn Fonseca
I’m glad to hear that the information has been helpful! Yes, I’m aware that Sunday worship is pagan, thank you for the post idea, I’ll definitely write it down for a future article. Blessings!
sharmaine Hill
Most excellent article, the truth, and definitely scriptural! Matt 15:, and Mk 7:
Lauryn Johnson
Thank you for the specific, clarifying information that you provided in this article. I was aware that fathers day was of pagan origin, amongst many others but in the midst of lashback from my family for not partaking in their celebrations I was strugling to find factual evidence that I could use paired with the bible and was beginning to doubt my decision. There is a lot of information about mothers day origin but very little on fathers day origin. your article was exactly what I needed to hear and organized perfectly so that I can share it with friends and family with little understanding. I have never felt the need to leave a comment on a blog posting before but I would like to sincerely thank you for your words of truth and may god bless you.
Evelyn Fonseca
Thank you so much for your comment! I’m happy to hear that this post has been helpful. God bless you too!