Christmas is not a stolen holiday.

[freelance lover]

rmcdra

freelance lover

He said this much better than I could have. It's also worth mentioning Easter has a lot of remnants of paganism in it as well (the egg being a sign of fertility and the seasons changing to a time when food can be grown.) I've also heard that Christmas was designed to align with the winter solstice, which 2000 years ago would have possibly fallen on the 25th rather than the 21st. Or it's also possible celebrations would have lasted several days or that the date has some how changed through the course of history.

Paganized version of passover would be more accurate description of Easter. I'll be doing a guide in the future to show how Easter has more in common with passover than pagan fertility rituals. Yes it is syncretic with such rituals but it still far from stolen. Yeah Dec 25 was the solstice date. What does this change in date have to do with my argument.

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I honestly don't really care if Christian holidays did or didn't get their dates picked based off of a pagan calendar. That doesn't change the personal meaning these holidays have to me since the date is arbitrary. It's the meaning that's important, not the date.

Yes the meaning is the big thing that makes Christmas a Christian holiday.

You mentioned that many festivals fell before Christmas, but if they're celebrating the solstice, wouldn't that still tie in?

Like I said, I find the way Christmas was created to kind of be a moot point because in the end it's the contemporary meaning that really affects us. zz makes some good points that it's much more secular than anything. I don't think the date is a coincidence, but I also don't think it really matter that much anymore either.  

[rmcdra]

freelance lover

You mentioned that many festivals fell before Christmas, but if they're celebrating the solstice, wouldn't that still tie in?

I don't know what festivals celebrated the solstice. I think Sol Invictus is such a celebration but there's evidence to suggest that Dec 25 was speculated for reasons independent of Sol Invictus.

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Like I said, I find the way Christmas was created to kind of be a moot point because in the end it's the contemporary meaning that really affects us. zz makes some good points that it's much more secular than anything. I don't think the date is a coincidence, but I also don't think it really matter that much anymore either.

Yeah it is moot but that's what these loons are arguing when they say Christmas is a stolen holiday. I am countering or at least weakening these claims.

Not really. E's mixing the cultural traditions of how a group celebrates Christmas with what the religious meaning of Christmas is celebrating, the nativity of Christ. Now with us being Germanic peoples and Christianity, both of them being open cultures, the way Christmas is celebrated is open to anyone to participate in, even if they aren't celebrating the nativity of Christ or even non-Christians. There's no guidelines for how Christmas is supposed to be celebrated outside of how the Mass of Christ is run. Any other cultural traditions can be added to this celebration to localize the holiday.  

[zz1000zz]

freelance lover

Like I said, I find the way Christmas was created to kind of be a moot point because in the end it's the contemporary meaning that really affects us. zz makes some good points that it's much more secular than anything. I don't think the date is a coincidence, but I also don't think it really matter that much anymore either.

The way it was created matters in that it still affects how Christmas is now, but other than that, I agree it is mostly moot. The here and now is what is mostly important.

In any event, I mostly am just amazed at how easily Christians accept, and even promote, traditions which were intentionally designed to be anti-church.  

[freelance lover]

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Like I said, I find the way Christmas was created to kind of be a moot point because in the end it's the contemporary meaning that really affects us. zz makes some good points that it's much more secular than anything. I don't think the date is a coincidence, but I also don't think it really matter that much anymore either.

Yeah it is moot but that's what these loons are arguing when they say Christmas is a stolen holiday. I am countering or at least weakening these claims.

I guess the thing is I've never encountered anyone claiming that, so to me it is a moot point. In my experience most people don't even know the fact the dates coincide. Maybe that's because I live in the Bible belt though xD  

[Galad Aglaron]

Elements of Christmas and Easter celebrations filtered through from pagan faiths, particularly in the placement of such festivals on the wheel of the year and traditions and trappings of the same. Does it matter? If you would convert the masses and have them accept your ways, then you must accept them bringing some of their ways to the table. Saint Brigid of Kildare is a Christianised version of the goddess Brigid. Their patronages are similar and their holy days are on the same day. Does this stop Irish Catholics from adoring her? Not at all. In the same way, if mistletoe and holly and evergreen trees are remnants of pre-Christian pagan traditions, and rabbits and eggs and the very name Easter are the same, does it matter? Not at all. What matters is that it is a celebration of Christ, of mercy and miracles.