So which one is it?

The celebration on Jesus' birth was to coincide with the pagans celebration of the winter solsitce. The traditions we have, like decorating the live tree were pagan soltise traditions.

The same goes with easter. Easter is the pagan god of fertility. In the spring the pagans decorate eggs for their god in hopes of renewing their own fertility.

It's my belief, that since Rome was a pagan city...and since Christianity was birthed there...there are lots of common things. And, early Christians probably wanted to win more converts so they adopted certain things to entice the pagans.

I see nothing wrong with practicing these traditions. If you do a google search and use some key words like; pagan christian; pagan christmas...etc you can find a lot more information that I can give you. Its important too that you understand the origins of Christianity. That will help you the most.

First the Da Vinci Code is """"FFICTION""""

Birthdays didn't have the significance we give them so most birth records basically show year only, and Jesus birth happened while the stable was empty so likely the sheep that were normally wintered there were in the fields with the shepherds who saw the angels. The date was settled on by the leadership of the Catholic church to coincide with a pagan holiday to overshadow it. It worked, hardly anybody remembers what that pagan thing was. The resurrection day floats but that has more to do with the fact that the Bible states that Jesus died on Friday and rose on Sunday. Since the Roman calendar and the Jewish calendar don't even have the same number of months it kind of works out. But the time of year that the event occurred is kept very close to the Roman calendar date that it should be. Don't sweat the details, the point is for your heart to be toward God, that's all.

The Easter date we know because of Passover. One of the reasons they had to take Jesus down from the cross and not just leave him there a few days (the normal method) was because of Passover. The Jews did not want people hanging on crosses during their Passover. So we know the date of resurrection.

The birth is definately celebrated right on a pagan time of worship, mainly because we don't really know when the real birthday is. And yes, it was done so by the Church for the reasons other answerers have given, but also because of Chanukeh.

One reason they think it was spring was because of other things going on during His birth, like the census, and the fact that the shepherds had their flocks in the field all night (couldn't do that in winter, it'd be too cold). There was also some astrological thing about the star that pointed to early summer, but sorry, don't remember much more than that about it lol (I saw it on Discovery Channel lol)

Most god-men were born of virgins on 25 December. Many of the Christian doctrines are pagan mythology. Do some research into early Christianity and ancient religions and you'll find more disturbing things than the pagan Christmas. There is a real christianity but only for those who can accept a Jesus who was human and taught wisdom, not mythology as in much of the popular bible.

In the earliest beginnings of the catholic church. Which was the only church at the time. Christmas and Easter were pagan holidays. Christmas was candlemas and Easter was the celebration of ishtar, the goddess of fertility. The church said the converted pagans could keep their holiday if they replaced the main focus of candlemas to christmas and celebrated the birth of christ. The candlemas celebration was when the pagans invoked blessings for their winter survival by hanging silver and gold on trees to multiply their wealth and exchanged gifts as an act of wishing each other bounty from the gods. Ishtar was changed to Easter celebrated at the equinox in the spring. Replacing ishtar with the resurrection of christ. They then became christian holidays. The worship of ishtar is why we still have bunnies and chicks and eggs as symbols for easter. The statue of ishtar is a woman with many breasts surrounded by and holding the newly born of spring. I hope this helps.

It is around that time, because at about that time the Pagans were already celebrating the rebirth of the Sun (just after the shortest day of the year, the Solstice). So why not just adapt it to the birth/rebirth of their God?

Jesus, I believe (it's been a while since I looked it up) was born probably around March, 5 A.D.

I don't really care and i think you shouldn't too, there is no where in the word of God where God said knowing the time of the birth of Jesus was a requirement of being saved or entering the kingdom.

All that is important is that there is a day i chose to remember my saviors birth, death and resurrection, what can be wrong about that? What is the relevance of the time of the year when he was born?

It was decided to celebrate Jesus's birthday on the 25th in order to overshadow the pagan celebrations around that time when Christianity was very aggressivly trying to wipe out all other religions. Isn't it really sometime January.....

The truth is.. there are a lot of contradiction between bible, christian believes and church teaching. thats what christian is..

u can see from the above questions and other christians questions.. most of them has troubled tounderstand christians teaching and many would gives differents kind of answers even if it is about God.

ask urself, why the religion that are so called inspired by God through disciples can have many contradictions and discrepancies?

the only reason is.. bible is a man made scriptures thats why there is a lot of contradictions.. and they were translated by human so called priest and again alot of different view of thinking and translation from them that obviously and apparently different from Jesus saying and bible itself..

my advice.. read the bible carefully and literally and compare it with what church teaching.. way out of context!!

if you want to follow a true christian calendar then find the ethiopian one. they are in the correct year (currently 1998), they celebrate the birth of christ at the right time, their new year is in september the 11th and the celebrations are not corrupted by the greed of receiving as they are in the west.

many western celebrations are compromises between pre existing pagan celebrations and the adopted form of christian celebrations.