Christmas a PAGAN holiday ..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Memento_Mori
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I think y’all ought to be paying us pagans royalties for the use of our holiday!👍
But, in the spirit of soltice, all we ask is that you cite our work properly, maybe a little “special thanks to…” at the end of the rolling credits as you finish Mass!😃
happy solstice to you my friend. you are very much a mis understood people. my daughter has been living with pagans for the last year and a half. and honestly, shes better for it. not one herself, and she was not raised Catholic. i converted at a very late date. but they have been a positive influence on her, and for that i am greatful. so thank you for the holiday, and thanks to your kind, for having a positive impact on my daughter. Peace 🙂
 
…they already think that Catholicism is pagan…
If we’re so pagan, where are the fertility orgies and drug festivals? All we get is a Mothers’ Day brunch and a Knights-sponsored Oktoberfest.
 
A thousand years from now they will be saying that the feast of St Joseph the Worker was originally a communist holiday and therefore the Catholic religion is nothing more than a Marxist-Leninist ploy.
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
 
I just sat through about an hour long lecture given to me by one of my JW family members about how Christmas is pagan. Of course, they already think that Catholicism is pagan and me putting up a tree and other Christmas decorations is only confirming for them that I am a pagan. I decided to play into it. I told them that I am going to seek out as many Germanic pagan winter things that I can and incorporate them into my celebration this year, I usually only put up a tree. But this year, I am doing all the pagan things. I am gonna get a Yule log, mistletoe, a wreath, drink mead, etc. I am even thinking about going “a wasailing” this year.
Lol 😃
 
Well, if Pope Julius I is credited for stealing a holiday away from the pagans and claiming it for Christ…then I say GOD BLESS HIM! 🙂

The pagan theme of Yule, as you have stated, centred around the return of the sun - the light of the physical world. It is VERY FITTING then, that the Church enriched it with a meaning which multiplies this theme a million times over, namely EMMANUEL. 👍
The thing is, many Skeptics and Pagans try to use the “Dec 25 was a Pagan Holiday Originally” to deny and criticize Christianity. Because a lot of Deities and Prophets (Horus, Mithras, etc.) were born on Dec 25, they say that proves Christianity is just another Patchwork Religion. They forget most Christians have never denied that Dec 25 was originally a Pagan Holiday that was deliberately Co-Opted by Christianity. :rolleyes:
 
People forget…they can’t tell the difference between what makes us human and what is a pagan religion.

I spent an entire evening listening to a woman who is pagan and she told me that conjecture of a witch is not at all what she practices…hers is honoring the Creator and having respect for all creation.
 
happy solstice to you my friend. you are very much a mis understood people. my daughter has been living with pagans for the last year and a half. and honestly, shes better for it. not one herself, and she was not raised Catholic. i converted at a very late date. but they have been a positive influence on her, and for that i am greatful. so thank you for the holiday, and thanks to your kind, for having a positive impact on my daughter. Peace 🙂
I appreciate that more than you know. More often than not, when somebody extends a hand around here, it’s wrapped around some brass knuckles!🙂
And Merry Christmas!
 
If we’re so pagan, where are the fertility orgies and drug festivals? All we get is a Mothers’ Day brunch and a Knights-sponsored Oktoberfest.
Don’t forget about the Turkey bingo for us here in the US. 👍
 
I appreciate that more than you know. More often than not, when somebody extends a hand around here, it’s wrapped around some brass knuckles!🙂
And Merry Christmas!
yes. you are soooo right. im sure ive sent our fundamentalist friends into a fit of gnashing teeth, 😉 oh well. they are young in the scheme of things. they shall get over it…i hope…nahhh! probably not 😛 peace to you and yours 🙂
 
If we’re so pagan, where are the fertility orgies and drug festivals? All we get is a Mothers’ Day brunch and a Knights-sponsored Oktoberfest.
It’s like anything else, you have to work at it! Left to inertia, any holiday festival gets stale after a millenia or two! (FYI, the fertility orgies are best left for Beltane in May. Drug festivals are best left off altogether unless you’re a highly trained shaman)
 
Check this out :

No one knows what day Jesus Christ was born on. From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. So why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday as Christmas, on December the 25th?

The answer lies in the pagan origins of Christmas. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.

In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.

In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.

Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means “wheel,” the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods.

The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees.

In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them.

Christmas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most historians agree, began in Germany, though Catholics and Lutherans still disagree about which church celebrated it first. The earliest record of an evergreen being decorated in a Christian celebration was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Germany. A prominent Lutheran minister of the day cried blasphemy: “Better that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ.”

The controversy continues even today in some fundamentalist sects.

What do you think ?
Have you read anything of Church history or of the reason Dec. 25 was chosen? Dec. 25 was NOT originally a pagan holiday. Christians celebrated Christ’s birthaday on Dec. 25 long before the pagans appropriated it as their own. It was a Roman Emperor ( I can’t remember his name ) in 275A.D. who decided to designate the day of “Sol Invictus” ( Invincible Sun ) on Dec. 25 in opposition to the Christian celebration.

There are many Christian days that pagans appropriated as their official holidays. Also, since many of the new converts to Christianity were pagans, many of the pagan days were changed to Christian holidays so that these ex-pagans would no longer celebrate them as pagan holidays but as days to remind them of their new faith.

PAX DOMINI :signofcross:

Shalom haMeshiach
 
Celebrating the birth of Jesus is not pagan.

A rose to those Christians who fought paganism by replacing it with something better.
 
Don’t forget about the Turkey bingo for us here in the US. 👍
Ah yes, the Great Bird Sacrifice and Gladiatorial Games of the harvest season when we pour out fermented libations to Kegga, ancient Germanic goddess of grain, and give thanks to the Indians for teaching us how to grow food.
 
TO ALL:

I would like to answer the accusation that many Catholic Christiam Holidays are of pagan origin:

Holy Mother Church exists to make us all saints. Sometimes she uses pagan metaphors ( read also holidays ) to teach the Gospel in ways that they understand. Sometimes she uses metaphors that pagans use/used for very different purposes. Sometimes she uses metaphors that many pagans later adopted. And sometimes she uses metaphors that have/had no pagan origins but that someone later claimed as pagan.

Whatever the case, the Catholic Church stands on the solid evidence of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and on the continuous teaching of her core doctrines over two thousand years, not on whether some pagan once used or did not use a similar metaphor.
Whatever the Church does, she does for the Greater Glory of God.

As for December 25, it was the emperor Aurelian who in 274 AD appropriated that date for the celebration of the Pagan holiday of Sol Invictus ( Dies Natalis Solis Invctii – Nativity of the Invincible Sun )

PAX DOMINI :signofcross:

Shalom haMeshiach
 
Personally, I would not worship a God who was so puny that He could not pry anything loose from some blue-painted pagan to give to His children.

The beer is schwarze (black) Weisse (wheat). Good luck on finding it. Beer Advocate gives it pretty high marks.
 
Anyone who is Anti Catholic thinks everything we do is pagan so what’s new. 🙂
 
Check this out :

No one knows what day Jesus Christ was born on. From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. So why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday as Christmas, on December the 25th?

The answer lies in the pagan origins of Christmas. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.

In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.

In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.

Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means “wheel,” the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods.

The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees.

In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them.

Christmas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most historians agree, began in Germany, though Catholics and Lutherans still disagree about which church celebrated it first. The earliest record of an evergreen being decorated in a Christian celebration was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Germany. A prominent Lutheran minister of the day cried blasphemy: “Better that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ.”

The controversy continues even today in some fundamentalist sects.

What do you think ?
I for one do not get to caught up with this issue or topic. My JW’s friend is always saying Christmas is pagan and so on. My reply: Oh yeah? I can point out many things you do,follow and obey have pagan origins…your point? Does that make you a pagan? Our own government is modeled off the Roman Republic. Does it make us pagans?

Nonsense!
 
The annual Santa lie is Pagan, sinfull, and needs to be confessed before communion(and not repeated). Christmas trees are Pagan and not sinfull. God deserves worship every single day. I hope that helped.

I hate Christmas trees!
 
Personally, I would not worship a God who was so puny that He could not pry anything loose from some blue-painted pagan to give to His children.

The beer is schwarze (black) Weisse (wheat). Good luck on finding it. Beer Advocate gives it pretty high marks.
thats it! yes we have it in hawaii! i just have to get back there. its amazing. remember. drink at room temperature. its the best. 👍
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top