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Faith, festivals and calendars

Why Christmas is when it is, why Ramadan moves, and other things worth knowing about how religions shape time and daily life.

Religions shape calendars, meals and life’s milestones, even for people who don’t think of themselves as religious. This trail sticks to well-documented history and practice, and marks what is debated.

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I
Start with a date the Bible never gives.
No. 026FactReligion & Belief
Why Christmas is on 25 December The Bible never gives a date for Jesus’s birth. Historians have two main explanations for 25 December, and many Orthodox Christians celebrate on 7 January.
II
Even the year was calculated centuries later, and probably slightly wrong.
No. 005FactReligion & Belief
Jesus was probably born “Before Christ” The AD system was invented in 525 by a monk who got the date slightly wrong. Most historians place Jesus’s birth around 6–4 BC.
III
A calendar that follows the moon sends a holy month through every season.
No. 101FactReligion & Belief
Why Ramadan moves about 11 days earlier every year The Islamic calendar follows the moon, not the sun, so Ramadan travels through every season in about 33 years.
IV
Some faiths are known for what they share: a free meal for everyone, every day.
No. 049FactReligion & Belief
The temple kitchen that feeds tens of thousands every day, free At the Golden Temple in Amritsar, anyone, of any religion, can sit on the floor and eat a free meal, cooked and served mostly by volunteers.
V
One of the oldest religions, now one of the smallest.
No. 131ConceptReligion & Belief
One of the oldest faiths, and Freddie Mercury’s Zoroastrianism was once the state religion of Persian empires. Today it has perhaps 100,000–200,000 followers, among them the Parsi community into which Freddie Mercury was born.
VI
A statue the world misidentifies.
No. 075FactReligion & Belief
The “Laughing Buddha” isn’t the Buddha The cheerful, round-bellied figure in restaurants and gift shops is Budai, a Chinese monk from about a thousand years ago, not Siddhartha Gautama.
VII
And a country where most people practise more than one religion, while saying they have none.
No. 065FactReligion & Belief
Born Shinto, married Christian, buried Buddhist Japan has more religious adherents than people. Most of the population is counted as both Shinto and Buddhist, yet most say they have no personal faith.