Hello,
It is a common saying this days that Christmas is a pagan celebration and this and that. And I must admit, I’ve been there, but since I’m not a huge Christmas fan, I never gave it much taught. Cut to Christmas 2021 and I’ve looked a bit into. And I’m about to share it with you.
Let's get something out of the way. What we now do in most of the world at Christmas, is quite different from the original Christmas. It has received, many alterations and additions in the last 2000 years, like the figure of Santa Claus. I’m going to focus on the genesis of the Holiday.
Granted we live in a predominately atheist society, but Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. And that’s what we’ll be looking into.
There are two main “versions” of "Christmas is pagan.” The first: Jesus was not born on that day. The second: It comes from the Roman “Saturnelia” festival. (There is a third strong version, that says it comes from other pagan cultures, mainly northern European. We won’t get to this third version, right now. I’ll just say, most pagan cultures had a sun worship in some capacity)
Jesus was not born on that day. - Well, the correct sentence would be: “ We are not sure when Jesus was born” - So honestly, this topic is over. heheheh Not trying to be funny, but if we don’t know the birthday it does not mean, it wasn’t on the one we think. The Bibe does not make it clear, that’s true. There is no concrete birthday stated. And the main argument for this point of view is because there is a description of the animals being outside and that usually happens in spring.
I think I’m being fair when I say the argument does not hold to the level of the claim An extraordinary claim, backed but a weak argument. And if you consider that we are dealing with a miracle birth… the mundane nature of the argument, becomes even more obvious.
I’ll repeat, the Bible does not tell us, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th and the Bible was not written during the life of Jesus and no one had books, even a piece of paper was a luxury back then, there were other means of passing information. Like oral, like the Christ himself did.
There is also a school of taught which states, that according to Jewish tradition the Messiah, would die on his birthday. And the birthday includes the nine months in his mother’s womb (Like many cultures still do today). Putting it, on December 25.
Going to end it for now, trying o make this an easy read. But I’ll be back tomorrow, forepart 2, when things start getting really interesting, with the Roman feast.
All photos from Pexels.com
Look at planetary alignment scheduling.
I have. I've been into the Mayans and ancient Egyptians. Don't see the relevance to be honest. That's usually for eclipses and so. Planetery alignemnt, like the name suggests. Saw some people, trying to link it, again based on the "we know the date is wrong"... and was really not conviced.
Your point has been that people should not link them. My point would simply be that people link them. I'm not saying they should or should not. I'm simply putting it out there. People are affected by perception even if it's faulty. Those perceptions has impact on culture which influences how people choose to live within their take, right or wrong, on morality, be it subjective or objective or variations therein, or lack thereof to various degrees. So, it goes back to the debate of what paganism means or what it may not mean.
Yeah, I agree. But what I'm saying is that we should be very carefull when linking, because ie: pagans had meals with their families...
And that, this really has a bad effect on people and on Christianity. And it's like we're told that people took a ritual that had nothing do to with Jesus Christ and changed the date for "political power" and so on. This opens the gate to think that Christmas has a "dark origin", so people can't even celebrate in peace.
And all of this is fully based on fake assumptions. All. Starting with "we know the date is wrong"
Paganism is the religions outside the three main monotheistic. And they would always lead to acts of extreme violence.
The goal is to let people go off those perceptions.
Did they change the date for Christmas? I will tell you I don't know the answer to that question.
Guess no one can be sure. But all the evidence, says the date was not changed.
Different evidences say different things. So it comes down to which you choose to take and not take.