Why Are People So Convinced Easter & Christmas Have Pagan Origins?

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.

Perhaps you missed the quote?

Mather could be completely wrong, don’t get me wrong. Nonetheless, it isn’t as if this is something dreamt up by atheists in the last 100 years. Increase Mather, the Puritan minister responsible for that quote, lived from the late 1600’s to early 1700’s.

Well, the Saturnalia wasn’t celebrated on Dec 25, and there is no documentary evidence that the date of Christmas was co-opted from paganism. I think it’s only American atheists who bat around the b.s. that Christmas came from paganism.

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Increase Mather was not an American atheist. He was a Puritan minister from the 17th century.

I know. I never claimed he was an American atheist. What an idea.

"The noted Puritan minister Increase Mather wrote that Christmas occurred on December 25 not because “Christ was born in that month, but because the heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those pagan holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones].”
When Massachusetts Banned Christmas - HISTORY

So it isn’t just American atheists batting this around. In Mather’s case, it was probably meant more as an insult hurled at Catholicism than anything else, hence the links to Rome. While the Puritans were not busy turning their noses up at anything fun, they were also fervently disgusted by what they considered idolatry within Catholicism, not to mention the whole RCC hierarchy and papacy.

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I meant American atheists today. History for atheists is run by an atheist from the UK

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Been there and answered that one somewhere.

Christians celebrate Christmas to the glory of God.

The claim is based on the copycat thesis which Historians have laughed at when they hear such claims.

“Saturnalia began with a public sacrifice in the temple of Saturn… The first difference between Christmas and Saturnalia is clearly the divinity which is being worshipped. Saturnalia celebrated the rule of Saturn, the father of Jupiter, who was imagined to have reigned in a mythic time of infinite pleasure, peace, and harmony for mankind: ‘The Golden Age’. This mythical period had an incredible influence on Latin Literature; authors such as Vergil and Ovid included descriptions in their works envisioning the legendary kingdom of Saturn. This leads us to the major difference between Saturnalia and Christmas.”

" Instead of working, Romans spent Saturnalia gambling, singing, playing music, feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts. Wax taper candles called cerei were common gifts during Saturnalia, to signify light returning after the solstice.

On the last day of Saturnalia celebrations, known as the Sigillaria , many Romans gave their friends and loved ones small terracotta figurines known as signillaria , which may have referred back to older celebrations involving human sacrifice.

Saturnalia was by far the jolliest Roman holiday; the Roman poet Catullus famously described it as “the best of times.” So riotous were the festivities that the Roman author Pliny reportedly built a soundproof room so that he could work during the raucous celebrations."

The fact is that Christians did not get the date of Christmas from the Saturnalia, which wasn’t December 25 anyway. I’ve been saying this for about 5 years. But it’s a very common misperception.

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Then they will laugh at Increase Mather from the 17th century. All I was saying is that it isn’t only atheists who are saying this.

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I’ve never understood why they would have to be on the same day in order to be a source of inspiration. Thanksgiving is celebrated on different days in the US and Canada, and they are obviously pulling from the same inspiration. I’m not saying that Christmas was directly inspired by Saturnalia, only that being on different days does not disqualify Saturnalia as a source of inspiration.

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Christmas day marks the birth of Christ. The date of December 25 was calculated from an assumed date of the Annunciation. The EO church celebrates Christmas at a later date.

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