Christmas; Christian or Pagan?
 

December 25th
The Bible does not tell us the precise date of Christ's birth or even the time of year when He was born. It was, however, unlikely to have been winter, as the shepherds of Bethlehem "were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields." The cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October.

December 25th was, among the pagans, a day of celebration in honor of various gods. For the Babylonians, it was a celebration of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven. For the Egyptians, it was a celebration of the birth of the son of Isis. For the Romans, it was the Winter solstice, the celebration of the birthday of the sun (Constantine was a member of the sun-cult before "converting" to Christianity). Just a day earlier, on the 24th of December, the Arabs celebrated "The Birthday of the Lord," which was, for them, the moon.The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves - Yuleday - proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. "Yule" is the Chaldee name for an "infant" or "little child;" and the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors,"Yule-day," or the "Child's day," and the night that preceded it, "Mother-night," long before they came in contact with Christianity Far and wide, in the realms of paganism, was this birth-day observed.

Pagans for centuries had been celebrating December 25th as the birthday of some son or sun. The Christian holiday was not always celebrated on December 25th, however. For the first three hundred years of the current era, there was no festivity of the birth of Jesus. Some churches celebrated Jesus' birthday in the spring time and some celebrated it on January 6 (Epiphany). Early in the fourth century, the Roman church decreed that December 25 would henceforth be recognized as the birthday of Christ. The Eastern churches refused to accept Christmas until 375 C.E., and the churches in Jerusalem rejected the December 25 date until the seventh century. There are still some Eastern Rite churches that continue to celebrate the Epiphany date. The festival of Christmas has always been a controversial one in Christianity. The Puritans banned Christmas altogether and during the Cromwellian period in England, anyone celebrating Christmas was jailed for heresy. Probably the most hated of all Puritan laws was the one abolishing Christmas and probably led to popular acceptance of royalty (nb: the Restoration) -- at least the King allowed the masses to celebrate Yule!

In America, Christmas was generally outlawed until the end of the last century. In Boston, up to 1870, anyone missing work on Christmas Day would be fired. Factory owners customarily required employees to come to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas -- to insure they wouldn't have time to go to church that day. And any student who failed to go to school on December 25 would be expelled. Only the arrival of large numbers of Irish and northern European immigrants brought acceptance of Christmas in this country. Christmas did not even begin to be a legal holiday anywhere in the United States until very late in the nineteenth century CE, with Alabama being the first state to make it so.

Holly
Holly has been used in Christmas tradition for almost two thousand years. It’s older, pagan origins began at least as early as ancient Rome, when holly was associated with Saturn, the sun god. In Druidic and other related pagan traditions, holly leaves were placed around homes in the winter in the belief that the fairies would use it as a shelter against the cold. Early Christians in the British Isles adopted this tradition at first to avoid persecution, but holly was eventually reinterpreted with Christian symbolism. Danielle Wagner tells us that she heard about the Christian symbolism of holly during a sermon. The pointy edges represent the crown of thorns which Christ wore during his crucifixion. The red berries represent Christ's blood which he shed during His torture and death.

Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognized as "Man of the branch."

Mistletoe
In Druid tradition, "the mistletoe was regarded as a divine branch - a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprang out of the earth. Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation."
Interestingly, even earlier in history, the winter solstice was also celebrated by the followers of Mithra as the "nativity" or "birth" of the sun. Mithra was the Persian sun-god, and his worship was widespread throughout the Roman Empire in the days of the early believers. When the feast was celebrated in Rome, it was called the festival of Saturn and lasted for five days. In both ancient Rome and more ancient Babylon, this festival was characterized by bouts of drunkenness, wild merrymaking, and lascivious orgies which would begin with an "innocent kiss" underneath the mistletoe and would then lead to justification of all sorts of sexual excesses, perversions and abominations.

The Three Wise Men
In Christian tradition, we place the three wise men and the star they followed at the manger scene. We have even given the wise men traditional names--Melchior, Kaspar, and Baltazar. However, the Bible does not tell us the names of the wise men; it does not even tell us how many there were. The presence of the star does serve to announce Christ's birth, but when the wise men finally complete their journey and offer their gifts to Jesus, he is no longer a baby in the manger, but a young child in a house. The biblical account, found only in Matthew 2:9-12

The rest of this informative thread will continue in the following reply because the maximum number of charaters has been used

Santa Claus
Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of storm-tossed sailors. He also defended young children and gave generous gifts to the poor. He was even said to have delivered a bag of gold to a poor family by throwing it through a window. When the legend spread throughout Europe, his role as a gift-giver was emphasized.
The feast day of Saint Nicholas was observed on December 6 and gifts were given. After the Reformation, German Protestants encouraged instead the veneration of the Christkindl (Christ child) as a gift giver on the traditional nativity date, December 25. Yet the Nicholas tradition endured and became attached to Christmas. The term Christkindl evolved to Kriss Kringle, a popular nickname for Santa Claus.

The Santa Claus figure, though a Christian saint in origin, replaced (if it did not actually incorporate) various pagan gift-giving figures such as the Roman Befana and the Germanic Berchta and Knecht Ruprecht.

In countries such as Holland and Germany, the Santa Claus figure was sometimes said to ride through the sky on a horse. He was depicted wearing a bishop's robes and was accompanied at times by Black Peter, an elf whose job was to whip the naughty children.

Santa Claus traces his lineage directly to St. Nicholas, a 4th century bishop in Myra, a region in present-day Turkey. Born into a wealthy family, both of Nicholas´ parents died of the plague when he was still young, but Nicholas decided to forsake his fortune and dedicate his life to charity. As the legend goes, the teen-age Nicholas saved the three daughters of a poor man from prostitution by throwing bags of gold through his window. Renowned for his generosity, especially to children,

Here is where our tradition of the Christmas stocking was born. According to legend it was claimed that once while trying to help a man who needed a dowry for his daughter, Nicholas threw a bag of gold through the man's window. The bag of gold landed in one of the girl's stockings that had been hung up to dry.

Nicholas suffered through Emperor Diocletian's persecution of the Christians. After his death, Nicholas´ legend and popularity grew, and December 6th was eventually adopted as the pageant of St. Nicholas, with Nicholas himself delivering presents to the children the night before.

This tradition continued throughout Europe until the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther argued against the worship of saints, and St. Nicholas was phased out of many Christmas celebrations. Martin Luther, instead, substituted the baby Jesus as the deliverer of presents during Christmas. The people, especially sailors, were not ready to give up a popular and patron saint. Drawings from this time show the baby Jesus delivering presents, being giving a lift by St. Nicholas riding on a raindeer.

Ironically, instead of St. Nicholas, England adopted a Father Christmas figure who was not related to the church. They came up with Father Christmas, a character evolved out of the Roman god Saturn, who was worshipped in England after the Romans invaded in A.D. 43. Father Christmas was portrayed as a large man who wore a scarlet robe lined with fur and a crown of holly, ivy, or mistletoe. Today, Father Christmas visits all the houses on Christmas Eve and fills each child's stocking with presents.

The American Santa Claus is actually a combination of St. Nicholas and Father Christmas, and also includes elements from Norse mythology. He was brought to the United States under the guise of Sinter Klass when the Dutch settled New Amsterdam in 1624. When the British seized the city in 1664, renaming it New York, they brought the character of Father Christmas with them. The two figures merged into Santa Claus, who was then popularized throughout the United States during the 19th century by the writings of Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore, and the drawings of Thomas Nast. He created the image of Santa as a white-bearded, pot-bellied, jolly man.

And what's wrong with pagans?

-J

she never said there was anything wrong with them

oh. ok. :)

-J

lol...i dont think she did...i didnt really read the whole thing..most of it though

the christian religions borrowed a lot from pagans even though christians in the old days claimed they hated them. Also pagans created the idea of hell and well the christian religions adopted them. christianity is kind of a copy cat and a theif

i might be a bit naive, but arent the pagens a motorcycle gang...?

lol not that i know of

really?

I thought it wsa Matin Luther who created the christmas tree... when he was on an open field and saw the stars above the trees...

the thing is we just have to celebrate its meaning: Jesus! Of course I don´t believe Dec 25th is the right date...

I posted this thread for merely informational purposes. I visit a lot of message boards... most are Christian... and I post this even at the Christian ones. It is for mere informational purposes. You'd be surprised at how many Christians are oblivious as to how modern day American Christmas came about.

I don't know of any motorcycle gangs called The Pagan... but there may very well be one.

Some pagans do not even believe in a devil or a hell. I used to be a Wiccan... that particular path that I led din't belive in a devil or hell. Some pagans do... not many though.

my friend is a pagan and he said they believe in reincarnation :confused:

Many of my friends are wiccan. I respect that.. it's a good religion, the basic ideals i agree with.. respect yourself and your planet, etc. Much like buddhism in a way.. but they are very different.

-J

Yes, there is a motorcycle gang called the Pagans and they are notoriously rough and very big into dealing drugs.

Wicca is a lot like Chrisianity. In fact I used to be a Christian Wiccan. I used to follow the ancient Celtic Ways... then I became a Christian Wiccan. No it's not an oxymoron... I could explain the specifics if you wanted me to. Even though I do not say this around other Christians I feel safe enough here to say that to this day I still hold to a lot of the Wiccan philosophies. However I am not a Wiccan any longer ... I am a born again Christian... a pure Jesus Freak as many on here would describe me... I just don't close the door to other religions that may have some good principles that I feel I should adopt without it actually compromising my belief in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.