Can you name even one thing about Christmas that did not come from from pagan worship?

Christmas is nothing to do with either Christianity or Islam but it does have it's origins in the midwinter festival and many other basically pagan rites but since much of it is a celebration of nature rather than religion everyone should be able to enjoy it and be happy together despite religion!

The ancient European pagans celebrated the midwinter festival and a number of other festivals long before Christianity ever existed!

Babylonians celebrated the feast of the Son of Isis with gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift giving and the goddess of fertility, love, and war.

The Romans held a festival on 25 December called “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, celebrating their own god Sol Invictas – PAGAN!

The Persian god Mithras, the Syrian sun god Elah Gabal, the German Sol, the Greek Helios and the Mesopotamian Shamash. But also Saturnalia, honouring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. The law courts and schools were closed. No public business could be transacted an this is where the holidays originated - ALL PAGAN!

Wax tapers were given by the more humble to their superiors. The origin of the Christmas candle - PAGAN!

In Rome groups of costumed went from house to house entertaining their people. And this was where the carolling Christmas tradition originated PAGAN!

Statues of the Mother and lover or Mother and son were paraded through the streets not only in Italy but also in Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Bulgaria. Thus, the symbolism of the Heavenly Virgin and the infant child paraded on a yearly basis are not of Christian origin. They stem from the Mother-goddess religion, which is very ancient ENTIRELY PAGAN!

Scandinavian countries celebrated Yule honouring Thor – PAGAN!

In Germania (not Germany) they celebrated midwinter night followed by 12 wild nights of eating and drinking. The 12 days of Christmas PAGAN!

The church under Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25 in 350 AD in order to try to hijack the PAGAN festivals but it was largely ignored. Christians did not really celebrate Christmas until 378 but it was then dropped in 381 and not resurrected until 400.

The Christmas tree stems from pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of holly boughs ivy and other foliage as an adaptation of pagan tree worship. Holly and ivy represented male and female. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual - all PAGAN!

Santa Claus came from the Dutch “Sinterklaas” and was a tall figure riding a white horse through the air and usually accompanied by Black Peter, an elf who punished disobedient children. Also the origin of the reindeer, sleigh and the elves ALL PAGAN!

The modern red coated Santa was brought about by coca cola!

AMERICA ACTUALLY BANNED CHRISTMAS several times and is the originator of the expression “Happy Holidays” which came about because of the pagan origins of Christmas to include all religions and traditions!

The Venerable Bede, an early Christian writer pointed out that the Christian church absorbed Pagan practices when it found the population unwilling to give up the festivals. Thus a lot of what Christians now see as Christians practices are in fact pagan!

Christmas is the time of year christians strive to prove just how pagan they have become

How about Jesus Christ and the Mass (Christ + Mass = Christmas)?

If your birthday fell on a Thursday this year but were not going to celebrate it until Saturday then would everyone at your party be upset that your birthday party was not on your exact birthday? Of course, not. A birthday party on Saturday would be more convenient for almost everybody.

If no one knew when your birthday was then what day would you choose to celebrate it? Suppose most of the people you wanted to invite were farmers who had to work all spring, summer, and fall just to make enough to survive. You might pick the middle of the winter for a convenient time for your party.

No one knows the exact day when Jesus was born. If a date close to the winter solstice was chosen for Christmas to make conversion of pagans to Christianity easier then what is the harm of that? You find a pagan holiday close to any date on the calendar.

Christmas (the Mass of Christ) is (and always has been) the Eucharistic celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, God the Son.

The angel said to them,

"Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

"Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

(Luke 2:10-14)

====

Just because a Christian Holy Day lands close to or on the same day of the year as a Pagan holiday does not mean that that Christian Holy Day is "based on Paganism" or is "worshiping Satan."

With the thousands of Pagan religions all over the world which have been practiced for thousands of years, there is probably at least one (if not more than one) Pagan holiday for everyday of the year.

Using that logic:

+ Christians could never celebrate anything on any day of the year.

+ Anyone celebrating a loved one's birthday on April 20 is really celebrating Hitler's birthday because, coincidentally, Hitler was born on the same day.

With love in Christ.

Practically everything.

As many people have said: Jesus. Jesus is pretty specifically Christian. (Most comparisons between him and figures like Mithra and Horus are quite simply unsubstantiated. Just because random ranters on the Internet say so doesn't make it true)

Giving gifts (I have no idea if pagans gave gifts during this time, but it certainly has nothing to do with worship. if you want to count everything that pagans have ever done as pagan, then apparently eating food, sleeping and wearing clothes are also pagan and Christians should be chastised for it, which is ridiculous.)

Christmas trees. The first known use of one was in 16th century Germany, many, many centuries after paganism had been extinguished there.

Christmas carols. The songs are obviously Christian in meaning, and the practice of caroling comes from wassailing, of which we only have records of for a couple hundred years - again, long after paganism had been extinguished.

Holly and mistletoe. I don't care if the ancient druids thought mistletoe was holy or not. That has nothing to do with its connections to Christmas. Holly and mistletoe, like evergreen trees, are two of the very few plants that are still provide color in winter. As such, they made logical festive decoration for a winter holiday in northern Europe.

If you want to claim something has been borrowed from pagan worship, first you have to establish that pagans were actually using it and using it in a religious context, and then you have to establish that the Christians would have had knowledge of the pagan use before making it their own.

Christmas and definitely all the Christian trip journeys are certainly a mixture of Christian custom and pagan custom. Christmas is widely known on December twenty 5th to coincide with yuletide and different pagan trip journeys. This became into completed to take the pagan's faraway from their trip journeys and to celebrate the Christian ones. lots of the symbols are certainly pagan. This befell with the aid of fact as pagan peoples have been switched over to Christianity, they introduced their traditions with them. that's certainly positive and definitely a mixing of the two might have been super - together with Celtic Chrisitianity, yet then the church deemed it heretical and banned maximum of it. lots of the traditions nonetheless made it nevertheless. As a be conscious, those pagan traditions weren't wicca. Wicca became into certainly a created faith. It does use symbology and practice from Druids, gnostics, and so on. Now, i'm not asserting Wicca is a foul ingredient, basically that Wicca did not exist as is lower back whilst Christianity became into based. reward!

The celebration of the birth of Christ ... and it is fine w/ me for that to take the place, on that day, of the worship of pagan people of false idols. Now if we could just make Oct 31 official Fall Festival Day, that would be great!

God bless

The fact that Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ--regardless of when the actual birth was, that's what Christmas celebrates. Regardless of whether or not certain Pagan beliefs celebrated a birth on the same day, it still wasn't celebrating the birth of Christ. Christmas itself is a Christian holiday regardless of where the traditions came from. We don't own the day or traditions, but do appreciate people acknowledging the shared traditions.

So calm down.

A Nativity Scene

Pagans did not worship a jew named Jesus. I win, I win.

Otherwise, it is mostly pagan, Roman and other mythologies/religions mixed together.

I think it is very important to have a Holiday that makes winter more livable. Call it whatever you want. Without Jesus, we would still have something to celebrate together.

Let's see...

Yeah, that would be Jesus and the nativity. You know, the reason that Christians celebrate Christmas and the reason that pagans aren't all that interested in your Christian Christmas.

We pagans have our own holiday. It's not Christmas and no one stole it from us.

Merry Christmas and Blessed Solstice!

-Scarlet

Hello, I'm a practicing Wiccan, even though the date of the celebration did first come from pagans, the tradition itself did not. There's no need to be offended by it, everyone celebrates Christmas, weather you call it Christmas, a holiday or Yule. It is a day that is shared to bring us all together.