Is Christmas Pagan?

[Jayhawker Soule]

yeah that's probably not a good spot to be in.. especially since I probably have to work ten nights in a row

Been there, done that (in a steel plant no less), and relish retirement.

 

[1213]

.... In some of these secret religions "celebrants shared a communal meal in which they symbolically ate the flesh and drank the blood of their god."[90]
...Totem-sacraments and Eucharistic rites all over the world."[94]"

And is there some good reason to believe those are from before Jesus era?

But, I think many have also misunderstood what Jesus did when he too the bread and wine.

Then he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it in pieces, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Keep on doing this in memory of me.” He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you.
Luke 22:19-20

In earlier covenant that God made through Moses, it was used real blood and body of animals to make the deal (covenant). In this new covenant, it was sealed with the bread and wine. Bread and wine are the blood and body of the new covenant. When person takes it, he takes part of that new covenant. I don’t think those others had that idea, or have I misunderstood?

I don’t think it was really about drinking the actual blood of Jesus or his actual body.

 

[rational experiences]

Humans gave thanks by superstition to the balances in life. To harvest food and hoard and be enabled to eat and own an abundance of food when it snowed. What a celebration is in human reality, to be grateful and thankful.

So if a human can think, and knows self, and quotes, once we obliterated our human life and it ended sacrificed. Memory. We returned and reincarnated after the giant life was obliterated by ICE....what a celebration, the evil beast and evil heavenly attack was overcome.

The realization that the rebirth of life on Earth owned 4 sea of the son. The story of sacrifice about a male choice, the scientist inventor creator. Our human Father, and how he told the story of Father Earth once, which then was changed to the Mother Nature theme.

Ice and snow a balance was rejoiced, for we knew that our life and health would continue in a stable small life, the life given back to the human baby and animals as a stable state by the re birth process of the sea of the son. Seasons. What was being celebrated, the balances of life.

If you ask were the seasonal balances and the body O Earth changed in human sciences so that life was sacrificed in a sea son imbalance? Yes, it was witnessed and documented, so it was scientific forecast before it occurred.

 

[Bear Wild]

I don't celebrate Christmas. In Heathenry, it's called Yule and lasts about 2 weeks. We have trees, wreaths and such but just apply the original pre-Christian meanings to them and focus a lot on fire and rebirth of light. It doesn't start on the 25th, either. Christians can have Christmas.

Yule - Wikipedia

Well when father woden and his wife Frau Wode fly over your house pulled by two ravens. I hope the Woden with his two wolves delivery the presents you want for you and your family. Merry Yule. I still call it Christmas but there is nothing Christian left in my celebrations. My wife grew up Catholic so I honor her and the name remains. You can call it what you want but its ancient symbolism remains the same long before Christianity existed.

 

[Bear Wild]

You rang? Oh, you used the word "it"-- false alarm.

BTW, my reindeer has a stick shift, but ya can't believe where it's placed!

Well I just thought that reindeer seem so in tune with the Lapland tradition that is all. And I am not sure i need to know where you stick your shift (nothing bad intended) but thanks for the warning of it.

 

[Bear Wild]

OMG, are you seriously whining about St. Brigit and her adopted pagan symbiology [sic]? I can't wait to hear you rail against the dreidel.

I don't need to I proved my point. Just as all of the previous sacred springs if Ireland were renamed with Christian symbols. Must admit it was effective though. Now it is time to rename Christian things with pagan names and claim them. Oh we can start with Christ was really Odin .Now we just need to rewrite the story with the substitutions and we have a new mythology. I do give credit for Christians being so resourceful.

 

[Bear Wild]

They are still practiced because they were adopted as practices that generally expressed mirth and celebration, and that's what they continue to mean today.

No one knows the date on the Calendar when Jesus was born, and to be very honest, Jesus himself would not have used the Gregorian calendar, but would have used the Lunar Jewish Calendar, which does not line up the same dates each year.

The Christian Church chose December 25 because it was nine months after the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, when Jesus is supposed to have been conceived.

Basically, any date the Christian church wants to celebrate the Nativity is as good as any other.

Yes a fabrication of the church to cover the oldest and most celebrated time of the year for those pagans. So methodical so calculating but so not based on facts. It worked however. Amazing how you can justify anything with a made up logic.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well when father woden and his wife Frau Wode fly over your house pulled by two ravens. I hope the Woden with his two wolves delivery the presents you want for you and your family. Merry Yule. I still call it Christmas but there is nothing Christian left in my celebrations. My wife grew up Catholic so I honor her and the name remains. You can call it what you want but its ancient symbolism remains the same long before Christianity existed.

Merry Yule/Christmas to you and yours, as well.

 

[Bear Wild]

Why would it be 'petty and shallow' for "Irish" people to create yet another iteration of an Irish myth that had been through probably hundreds if not thousands of iterations before (and that the Irish probably "stole" from some other culture)?

Do you see "pagans" adapting the myths of different "pagans" as being 'petty and shallow'? "Pagans" were countless different cultures after all.

Myth is neither fixed nor owned 'intellectual property', it is a fluid medium that adapts and evolves to its environment, and is repurposed accordingly.

The idea that everyone can do this as a valid means of cultural expression except Christians seems to very much miss the point of how cultures evolve.

Pagans from what we know were open to adapting from other cultures. By the very literary story of the Milesians of course written by Christians states they gave up their gods and goddesses when they entered Ireland and Named the new land after the goddess Eire. So in that respect you are correct the rituals were the most important. Christiantity learned how to rename everything into Christian terms where they could not effectively eliminate the rituals from the people. So Christianity absorbed many pagan aspects converting them to Christian rituals. That was one of the contentions between the ruling Catholic power and the developing Protestant power. Now pagan religions are returning.

No matter what one can celebrate this holiday as Christian, Pagan or Secular and find meaning and symbolism from the myths generated in time. Even Jewish can overlap with their own celebration.

To me we should come together with the symbols of love life and caring for each other so symbolic of the holiday no matter how you celebrate it. It is good for all of us from atheist to pagan to Christian to anyone else willing to find the joy in the season.

 

[Bear Wild]

Merry Yule/Christmas to you and yours, as well.

Thanks my friend. I will set out an offering for you and your love ones this Yule to Hertha as we celebrate the love, joy and mystery of this season.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Yes a fabrication of the church to cover the oldest and most celebrated time of the year for those pagans. So methodical so calculating but so not based on facts. It worked however. Amazing how you can justify anything with a made up logic.

December 25 was chosen for one reason and one reason only: it was because March 25 was already chosen for the Feast of the Annunciation (Jesus conception). December 25 is simply 9 months later.

 

[joelr]

Rather, 'so-called Christianity' had many pagan elements especially since the time of Constantine.
We were forewarned that an apostasy would set in after the end of the first century - Acts of the Apostles 20:29-30
Remember: we are also informed that genuine ' wheat' Christians would grow together with the fake 'weed/tares' Christians until the Harvest Time.
A harvest comes at the end of a growing season, Not earlier.
So, we are nearing this Harvest Time or the soon coming Time of Separation on Earth as found at Matthew 25:31-33,37.
God's promise was Not to any non-biblical peoples, but to father Abraham such as found at Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:18
ALL families of Earth will be blessed through Abraham, and ALL nations of Earth will be blessed through Abraham.
Blessed with the benefit of ' healing ' for earth's nations as mentioned at Revelation 22:2

That's a rather vague prophecy. The prophecy where all nations will bow down to Israel was less vague. Didn't happen.
The dying/rising demigods who get members into the afterlife is also pagan.
Why does every generation of Christians, each decade of every single century,have those who think some sort of big event is happening soon? Yet they have all been wrong. And each new person thinks they are the ones who will see it while thousands of past Christians were wrong? Such arrogance?

 

[joelr]

And is there some good reason to believe those are from before Jesus era?

But, I think many have also misunderstood what Jesus did when he too the bread and wine.

Then he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it in pieces, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Keep on doing this in memory of me.” He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you.
Luke 22:19-20

In earlier covenant that God made through Moses, it was used real blood and body of animals to make the deal (covenant). In this new covenant, it was sealed with the bread and wine. Bread and wine are the blood and body of the new covenant. When person takes it, he takes part of that new covenant. I don’t think those others had that idea, or have I misunderstood?

I don’t think it was really about drinking the actual blood of Jesus or his actual body.

Some of the religions sourced in the book mentioned are pre-Christian but many of the mystery religions in the region who were before the time of Jesus already had versions of the savior god. The concept was added to the OT in prophecies during the Persian period. The Persian religion also had the savior gods, apoctalyiptic concepts, world ends in fire, good people get resurrected, Satan vs God and others. In 5 BC these were written into the Judahite religion over decades by Jewish scribes who wanted their own version of the concepts.
The sacrifice concepts are variations on older concepts where a virgin or a demigod was consumed to gain their vitality or powers.
In Catholicism they have an old school belief that the bread and wine actually changes to body and blood:

Transubstantiation (Latin: transsubstantiatio; Greek: μετουσίωσις metousiosis) is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ."

This is nothing new. Joseph Campbell speaks about many similar rituals from ancient South American cultures where some form of this was done.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Which Christmas tradition can be traced back to pagan religions, other than the day/date being a holiday.

Just about everything except the name and the nativity scene.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Don't forget gluttony, drunkenness, crap TV and dreadful music. Ding bloody dong.

Yeah... I'm sick and tired of hearing Mariah Carey squal that song...

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Christ = Jesus Christ, king of Jews.
Mass = the celebration of the Eucharist.

Nothing pagan in that.

Don't forget Christ's sidekicks: Santa and his elves and reindeers.

 

[Augustus]

Don't forget Christ's sidekicks: Santa and his elves and reindeers.

That's mostly a 19th C American invention though, hardly a hotbed of paganism to be appropriated.

Yet another problem with the 'Christmas is pagan' narrative is that we look at modern Christmas practices and assume they have a long, unbroken tradition since late-antiquity, rather than being things people started doing 1000+ years after the decline of paganism.

 

[capumetu]

Is Christmas Pagan itś that time of the year again. Christmas looks different this year with the covid and all.I heard on the news Internet shoppping is way up,more going to the internet to buy then in person.

Yes maam it is. It is not celebrated by Jesus, nor any of his apostles. Being that Christians pattern their lives after Jesus we do not celebrate that holy day. It was not celebrated until the 4th century when the period of apostasy 2 Thes 2:3 was well established.

Jesus said we must worship God with spirit and truth, John 4:24 Most everyone knows Jesus was not born Dec 25, rather it was a celebration of the god. The sun god mithra was supposedly born on Dec 25, and many of the traditional observances of that holy day became what is not called christmas.

Great question

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's mostly a 19th C American invention though, hardly a hotbed of paganism to be appropriated.

Yet another problem with the 'Christmas is pagan' narrative is that we look at modern Christmas practices and assume they have a long, unbroken tradition since late-antiquity, rather than being things people started doing 1000+ years after the decline of paganism.

I was obviously poking fun at it.

Santa is actually a Dutch import derived from "Sinterklaas", which is celebrated on december 6.
Funnily enough, it got imported back to the benelux as Santa Claus who brings christmass presents.

So today, over here in Belgium / Netherlands, we first have Sinterklaas who comes with gifts on december 6 followed by his american clone who comes with gifts 3 weeks later on christmas, lol.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

December 25 was chosen for one reason and one reason only: it was because March 25 was already chosen for the Feast of the Annunciation (Jesus conception).

So, too, the crucifixion.

December 25 is simply 9 months later.

True.

Nevertheless, I find it mildly interesting that the early Christian movement did not settle on the March 25th as his birthday as well.