Why don't Xians realize that their holidays are based on ancient Pagan rituals?

Question

Ask yourself: What do trees have to do with the birth of Jesus? What is the significance of decorative eggs at easter? etc.

Answer 1

I know. I realize that there is some ritual in the ritual of CHRISTmas. And just as you did in spelling it, some leave Christ out of the picture. I believe that it is the family and the church's job to teach children that Chirstmas is not about gifts and a tree, and that Easter has nothing to do with some creepy rabbit. (Is it just me or is the Easter Bunny borderline pedophile?) My parents always taught what the true meaning of Chirstmas was. I never believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, or any of that foolishness because my parents told me it was foolishness from jump street. If we do that, then children are capable of seperating the two.

Answer 2

The problem is that they aren't really so much based on pagan holidays as they are set to coincide with pagan holidays,and over time picked up some trappings of certain pagan holidays. This occured because the early Christians wanted to obscure those previous holidays and destroy their significance,and because Constantine was a pagan. That's why Christians also celebrate the sabbath on sunday rather than it's proper place on saturday. Of course the people with the least knowledge of Christian history are the Christians themselves. Most of them don't even know they were given their status as a legitimate religion in large part by a reformed pagan,Constantine.

Answer 3

A) Symbolism is important to human beings. And anything can become a symbol if enough people agree to accept it as such.

B) All those pagan symbols were used by the early church to catch people's interest in the Christian faith and help them feel more at home when they converted.

C) Most Christians KNOW that many of our religious symbols were used by prior faiths.

D) So what!?

E) Did it ever occur to you that maybe that was God's plan all along? To allow symbols for pagans which could be easily changed to Christian symbols?

Answer 4

You have a good point - half way....Christmas is actually based on the birth of Jesus. not pagan rituals...

The other things are incorporated, not because they are pagan, but because pagans do not have a monopoly on celebrations and nature and practices. It is not best to copy, but if copied, it is given a new meaning.....a christian one, instead of a pagan one.. For example, trees are beautiful things of nature..why should just the pagans be allowed to use them....?

Answer 5

You are right, the Christmas and Easter holidays have pagan influences, but I don't know of any Christians who worship the tree or praise the rabbit. Truthfully those things have nothing to do with Christianity, but neither are they worked into actual Christian devotions (i.e. worship). However I would flip the question - why do non-Christians use the term X-mas thinking they are taking Christ-out-of-Christmas, and why do Christians get upset when they see X-mas? Christ in Greek is Χριστος, and the abbreviated form is simply X. Just like Robert is abbreviated as Rob, in Greek, Christ is abbreviated as X, so X-mas is NOT taking Christ out of Christmas.

Answer 6

Evergreen trees are symbolic of life "everlasting" while Easter Eggs are symbolic of birth, or rebirth. There are many types of Christians, and many know that pagan rituals were assimilated into their religion, just as they were in every other religion.

Answer 7

Most of us do realize that, and those of us that do observe Christmas do so to celebrate the birth of our Lord. We know He wasn't born on Dec 25th. Dec. 25th was not bought and claimed by the pagans. We can observe the birth of Jesus and incorporate tradition at the same time.

Answer 8

while the Christian church replaced into attempting to earnings potential and grow to be the biggest faith interior the international, they observed that they could ought to do some thing to capture people to stick to their teachings. The pagan trip trips have been around for hundreds of years till now the Church existed, so so as to capture people removed from the ideals that they had observed for generations upon generations they created Christian variations of all of them. it extremely is why Christians rejoice the beginning of Christ as being on around an identical time as Pagan yuletide, and Easter is widely known around an identical time as Eostra or Ostara. via the way, the belief of a bunny handing over eggs is in elementary terms a artwork of advertising, it has no foundation in any theory.

Answer 9

Christians don't realize that their holidays are based on pagan rituals because nothing existed before Christianity I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Answer 10

Concerning the Christmas celebration as it is generally known all over the world, The Encyclopedia Americana says: "Most of the customs now associated with Christmas were not originally Christmas customs but rather were pre-Christian and non-Christian customs taken up by the Christian church. Saturnalia, a Roman feast celebrated in mid-December, provided the model for many of the merry-making customs of Christmas. From this celebration, for example, were derived the elaborate feasting, the giving of gifts, and the burning of candles.

Many people who celebrate Christmas and Easter already know they are pagan in origin but will celebrate them anyway. They are deceiving themselves into thinking they are worshiping God with "spirit and truth." John 4:24