Thanks. This is a very helpful critique!
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Here’s another YT in the same vein, from Christian Orthodox perspective(8 min) it explains one by one various theories and why they’re not true
Also from the same channel(which I can recommend) 6 min
I remember that almost everyone (everyone being devout Roman Catholic!) believed it was stolen from paganism celebrating solstice. It never quite made sense to me, because it’s 4 days off, and we used to celebrate Christmas Eve more, so makes even less sense. Explanation was that ‘ancient people’ were stupid and got dates wrong 
But that’s not all! Here’s yet another ‘explanation’ for Christmas I stumbled upon on social media, claiming that the Sun stands still for 3 days, hence explaining why it’s not on 21 December (and people do believe what they see there, despite everything)
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That’s kind of lame. We have MLK day, but no one thinks MLK was a myth. President’s Day is another example.
Christians just wanted to have a winter celebration like the other groups around them. There’s nothing wrong with that. Easter is slightly different, but it is also understandable that Christians would want a spring celebration like others around them.
For us atheists, Festivus (for the rest of us) is probably a good example. We have invented holidays so that we have something to celebrate in the winter like everyone else.
If some pagan symbolism sneaks in through the shared culture door, who cares. It’s a normal human thing to do. We still use Thor’s Day and Woden’s Day, and no one seems to bat an eye.
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All based on the same nearest astronomical objects. All our major festivals are seasonal, orbital; solar or lunisolar, or lunar if you’re Muslim. Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim all follow nature.
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That would make sense for cultures that depend on agriculture. Knowing when to plant and harvest is pretty important. Also, if you are looking for non-arbitrary dates those are certainly it.
It is interesting that as we became industrialized countries we kind of lost touch with nature a bit. When I was a young man I worked for a bee keeper, and I had to mark the new moons on my calendar because those were the nights we could move bees. The bees can actually use the moon as a navigation tool which they use to attack whomever is moving their hive. Accidently flipping on the headlights on the machinery was also a big mistake. The Harvest Moon also used to be a thing before artificial lighting came about. I don’t think it is accidental that indigenous people across the Americas also devised ways of marking the seasons.
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Not really. Why not watch the zeitgeist video. What I’ve been trying to say (for 3 years now!) is that Christians didn’t get the date of Christmas from paganism/Saturnalia/winter solstice. There is no documentary evidence for this. The winter solstice isn’t even December 25. What the church did was assume a date for the annunciation and count forward 9 months. Please see the History for Atheists channel for information.
Actually Easter is about the resurrection, not about a Christian desire for a spring celebration in imitation of paganism. The crucifixion/resurrection took place in the Spring, about the time the Passover was celebrated.
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It’s kind of immaterial where they got the date from. The point is that they made the birth of Jesus into a winter celebration in a region where winter celebrations were popular.
That’s why I said Easter was slightly different because there is a much more solid date in the biblical text. There is also nothing in the Bible that says the date should be turned into something special, complete with extra-biblical traditions. Christian sects through the centuries have even spoken against these types of celebrations, such as the Puritans.
So I would say inspired by is a fair judgment, if used loosely.
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For many Christmas is simply a winter celebration, and that’s fine by me.
“They for whom all days are holy can have no holiday.”–Puritan maxim
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For every holiday is secular. I celebrate every holiday basically the same way. Vegan versions of the traditional meal and holiday themed horror movies.
I think another big part of the issue though is that Christianity is not actually a culture. It’s a religion. By that I mean a Viking that becomes a Christian will still have his Icelandic / Norwegian culture just like a Hindu that becomes a Christian sill have his Indian culture and so on. Or even something like a goth kid and a redneck kid that becomes Christian will still have their subculture blended with it. So a wiener Romans who worshipped Saturn that then became Christian would still have their Roman culture , just presumably influenced by Christian thought. Their festivals, holidays and so on will still all be a part of their life because it’s a sort of their culture, their friends and their families lives.
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Thanks Beaglelady…The belief was (for some reason) that Jesus was crucified on the same date that He was conceived on. That is, He was conceived on a Passover (so they thought) and crucified on a Passover. The question was the exact date for Passover. Those who believed that Passover had been March 25 at the time of conception, then noted that since He was conceived on that date, then He was born exactly nine months later —babies always come on time of course!..And that was December 25. .Others believed in a different date for Passover and thus He was crucified on that date and born nine months later on January 6…Whatever floats your boat…
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Yes, the date of the annunciation/crucifixion was assumed. A good a guess as any, I suppose.
*** The following is something I posted back in December 2017, when we were first discussing the date of Christmas ***
So with the date of Christmas established, Christians wanted to know the exact hour of Christ’s birth! And St. John Chrysostom thought he had found the answer in the apocryphal book “Wisdom of Solomon.”According to the Rev. Joel Daniels, PhD,
John Chrysostom noticed that in the Wisdom of Solomon, Solomon says, “For while all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne.” (here) He took “midst of her swift course” to mean midnight and “thine Almighty word” to mean, well, the Word of God.
Once the BC/AD demarcation came about, popular piety liked the idea that Christ was born at exactly the moment the BC era became the AD era.
And that is why we sing, “It came upon a midnight clear”
What about Christmas Eve Midnight Mass?
It was in the mid-fifth century that the Church in Rome began to celebrate a Mass at midnight, informed by pilgrims who had visited Jerusalem.
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That’s wild!! Interesting…thanks for the info
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What is a wiener Roman? Is that like a schmuck?
I don’t even remember what I was writing. Make it whatever you want it to be. My phone, without reason, constantly changes words. Changes correct words to incorrect words, changes correct words to completely different correct words and wrong words to a wide range of things that just make absolutely no sense. Sometimes it just erases half a word.
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Before Christianity became legal, the Christians understood that they were not to worship other gods. Many were willing to die rather than offer incense to Caesar at the altar, as Rome required.
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The pagan origins thing was first taught as propragandia against Historical Churches and by Atheists. They use very poor logic known as the Copy-Cat Thesis. Tektonics.org Bible apologetics and education
Shattering the Christ Mythbooks.google.com › books
James Patrick Holding · 2008
The Babylon Connection?
Ralph Woodrow
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True, and now it seems to be coming mostly from anti-theists in the USA. There’s a guy in the UK who has a History for Atheists channel on YouTube. He’s an atheist himself but he tries to correct all the misconceptions that some atheists like to bat around.
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The Puritans certainly took a swing at Christmas, and they also made connections to pagan celebrations.
That is true, but it wasn’t because of any association with paganism. They were just killjoys.