Atheist christians come quick!?

Question

Why do atheist celebrate christmas? If Christmas represnts Jesus birthday?

Answer 1

It's called being a hypocrite. They are just in it for the stupid gifts.I am a Born again Chrisitan, and I celebrate Jesus every day of my life. Praise the Lord!!

Answer 2

To most people Christmas is just another holiday off work. Put up the tree and decorate the house, have a big dinner with all the relatives you don't care to see at any other time of the year. Watch some football and drink a couple beers and think with a sense of melancholy that your vacation is almost over. I don't think that Christs first birthday after the Resurrection was spent this way but what is a poor soul lost in a world of commercialism to do? Maybe sit quietly in your room and offer a pray for the needy and maybe if you remember a happy birthday to Jesus. Amen and peace to you all!

Answer 3

Christmas has become as much of a cultural celebration as a religious one. Most of the world celebrates during the holiday season. Gift giving is a tradition of this time. Just because someone has a party or exchanges gifts doesn't necessarily mean they are celebrating Christmas.

Some facts about Christmas:
• Jesus was not actually born on Dec. 25th
• Dec. 25th is an important date to pagans for a number of reasons.
• Christmas is an amalgam of christian and pagan rituals, many of the traditions of Christmas are actually pagan in origin (Christmas Tree and yule are 2 examples)

Answer 4

For the same reason that Christians celebrate Christmas, even though it's a pagan celebration of the winter solstice.

From Wikipedia:
"In 274, Emperor Aurelian designated December 25 as the festival of Sol Invictus (the "unconquered sun"). Aurelian may have chosen this date because the solstice was considered the birthday of Mithras, a syncretic god of Persian origin. Mithras is often identified with Sol Invictus, although Sol was originally a separate Syrian god.

[Mural painting of Jesus from the catacombs of Rome, late 4th century.] Mithras was a god of light and a child of the earth who sprang up next to a sacred stream. He was born bearing a torch and armed with a knife. Some later Mithratic beliefs were derived from Christianity, such as the belief that Mithras' birth was attended by shepherds. Sundays were dedicated to Mithras and caves were often used for his worship. A series of emperors promoted Mithraism beginning with Commodus. The cult emphasized loyalty to the emperor and Roman soldiers were expected to participate. Mithraism collapsed rapidly after Constantine I withdrew imperial favor (312), despite being at the peak of its popularity only a few years earlier.

As Constantine ended persecution, Christians began to debate the nature of Christ. The Alexandrian school argued that he was the divine word made flesh (see John 1:14), while the Antioch school held that he was born human and infused with the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism (see Mark 1:9-11). A feast celebrating Christ's birth gave the church an opportunity to promote the intermediate view that Christ was divine from the time of his incarnation.[6] Mary, a minor figure for early Christians, gained prominence as the theotokos, or god-bearer. There were Christmas celebrations in Rome as early as 336. December 25 was added to the calendar as a feast day in 350.[6]"

Answer 5

Hi Giggles:

Good question!

Christmas season was originally a conversion of a popular Roman pagan holiday called Saturnalia. Saturnalia was the feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week long party, up to 23 December.The Saturnalia was a large and important public festival in Rome. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents just as today. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. Saturnalia became one of the most popular Roman festivals. There is a theory that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25th (the Winter Solstice on the Julian calendar) as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. This sidesteps the problem of eliminating an already popular holiday while Christianizing the population.

December 25 was made popular by Pope Liberius in 354CE and became the rule in the West in 435 when the first "Christ mass" was officiated by Pope Sixtus III. This coincided with the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day. The Roman Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, "to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the 'Invincible Sun' Mithras, the conqueror of darkness" (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, p. 67).

A summary of the debate on the dates of Christ's birth appears in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: "Though speculation as to the time of year of Christ's birth dates from the early 3rd century, Clement of Alexandria suggesting the 20th of May, the celebration of the anniversary does not appear to have been general till the later 4th century. The earliest mention of the observance on Dec. 25th is in the Philocalian Calendar, representing Roman practice of the year 336. This date was probably chosen to oppose the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti [nativity of the unconquerable sun] by the celebration of the birth of the 'Sun of Righteousness' and its observance in the West, seems to have spread from Rome" (1983 edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983, p. 280, "Christmas").

I celebrate Christmas for what it is, a traditional season of festival that predates by centuries the first mention of Jesus' birthday by the church fathers. It's a cultural celebration, today far more commercial than religious, with a focus on gifts and Santa Claus far more than Jesus, whose actual birth date is unknown.

Answer 6

Christmas is very well known not to be Christ's birthdate. The winter feast, held around the Winter solstice (21 December, when the day and night are both of equal length) was appropriated by early Christians because they thought it was the best way of getting new believers to mark Christ's birth. It's a Pagan festival first and foremost; Christ was reckoned to have been born in October 4BC.

The question then is, why do Christians celebrate Christmas? It's actually got nothing to do with Christ.

Answer 7

Because it doesn't represent Jesus's birthday. It's a celebration of the roman goddess Saturnia, and equivalently, a celebration of the winter solstice passing. Christians didn't even bother changing the traditions, they just changed what god it supposedly worshipped. It is a pagan holiday.

Besides, any excuse to celebrate my family and share time and love with them is a good thing.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

If you can steal it from the pagans, we can steal it from the Christians.

Why do Christians celebrate a pagan holiday if they do not believe in the religion? Christmas was co-opted from the pagans to attempt to make the pagans convert to Christianity. How is this hard to grasp? Please, all Christians, read this and learn that Christmas is just a pagan holiday that was stolen to con people into converting. Christ was not born anywhere near Christmas (if at all). You celebrate a pagan tradition. Get over yourselves with the "atheists celebrating Christmas" thing. You know it is also now a holiday of Santa Claus. GET OVER IT.

Thanks.

Answer 10

Because it's a national holiday and isn't celebrated religiously anymore. Christmas is a Pagan holiday and has nothing to do Jesus at all. Jesus wasn't even born on December 25th.

Answer 11

Wassup! oh that!
Well 25th of December is Yule and it 's Winter Holiday for some of us atheists...just because Christians tried to hijack the occasion it doesn't erase the much older celebrations that have always happened at this time of year. Santa has little to do with Christianity.