If you really are Christian why do you celebrate Pagan traditions such as Christmas, Easter, Halloween?

Question

If you look into it those traditions you are celebrating are actually Pagan traditions. the church changed the name but all details are still pagan doing.

you look into it those traditions you are celebrating are actually Pagan traditions. the church changed the name but all details are still pagan doing.

Changing the name does not make it right, A pine tree would not become a palm tree just because we named it so. God once said that we should not walk wth the other nations (what they are doing that are detestable/dirty in his eyes). These traditions are still dirty in his eyes right?

I believe celebrating these stuff is still pagan, you don't pick a dirty candy from the gutter and eat it do you?

particularly for yellow_taxi: you should! December 25 is originally Saturnalia, the Roman summer solstice! Jesus would not have been born on a cold night like that.

Easter is a feast for the goddess Ashtare so's the name....Jesus did not have bunnies and eggs when he rose from the dead, those were fertility symbol offered for the goddess.

Answer 1

This is for the last answerer that bashed the questioner. He admits that Jesus said to keep the Lord's evening meal in remembrance of him.

The bible also says at 1 Corinthians 10;20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.

21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.

So we should all be well aware of where and how the traditions we celebrate came from. I hate to have to explain this , but Michael jackson disassociated himself from the witnesses a long time ago. His mother is one , but not his father. His actions are his own and perhaps the problem has been that he became so famous and the public turned him into a god , just like they did to elvis and other famous celebrities. You can bash any religion for what their members do, but as a whole the witnesses are law abiding , peaceful citizens who try to show a good example, not just for their preaching but for their actions too.

Answer 2

God knows that people need to celebrate. He set up a system of feasts for his people that really have a double meaning. In some cases they looked to the past. In other cases they allowed His people to express joy or thanksgiving. However, all of them were Messianic in nature as well. They celebrated the Messiah even before he came.

The Torah are the books of Moses. Right in the center of the Torah is the book of Leviticus. To us it is a strange book, containing many different laws and rites and feasts that are rather foreign to us. Almost in the middle of Leviticus there are what the Israelites called “The Feasts of the Lord”. The Jews of the first century knew and practiced these Feasts. Many Jews still practice them today. They were and are at the heart of Jewish observances. I suspect that even though they are called in Scripture, “The Feasts of the Lord”, (Not the feasts of the Jews), and even though the Lord commanded that all His people, (not just the Israelites) should keep them forever, more that 95% of today’s Christians cannot name those feasts.

What is the reason for this?

Jews made up both a substantial section of the early church as well as a major part of the leadership of the church. Early in the fourth century, after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, there were a lot of problems with Jewish-Christians. In order to appease the common populous, the “political” church adopted many of their pagan feasts such as “The Festival of the Winter Solstice” (A festival once dedicated to the worship of the Sun god, now known as Christmas) and the “Feast of Easter” (She was a pagan fertility goddess, whose feast included the sacrifice of infants and prostitution. Christians have not even changed the name of the feast.) The Jewish-Christians could not go along with this. They continued to celebrate the “Feasts of the Lord”. Constantine’s solution was to ban those celebrations under pain of death. The Jewish-Christians fled from Rome and any other place where they might have been persecuted. With much of the Church’s true leadership gone, those in political power in Rome could mold the Church almost any way they wanted. That is why I believe that the Church unwittingly celebrates many pagan feasts, but none of the Feasts of the Lord as God outlined them to Moses.

The “Feasts of the Lord” played an extremely important part in the birth of Messiah. However the Christian Church as a whole has not kept these Feasts. Most Christians do not know the significance of the Feasts or how God used them. Most believe that celebrating Christmas and Easter is enough, but both of these are pagan feasts that the Church has adopted. If you want to see what God thinks of celebrating pagan feasts and saying that they are really accomplishing the same thing as maintaining “His Feasts”, look at Exodus 32:1-9. (Please don’t skip over reading this text! It is important!) Does God still grieve when we celebrate a pagan feast and call it “A feast to the Lord”? Does He grieve when we neglect the “Feasts” that He commanded us to maintain?I think so!

The comments above are part of an essay that I completed about a year ago called "The Magi - A Non-traditional Explanation".

If you would like a copy e-mail me at "free2bme55"

Answer 3

The catholic religion was the very first religion. It adopted a lot of pagan traditions and false doctrines to gain more members, to collect more money. To this day, some to choose to hold on to these traditions for "fun" and their own personal enjoyment. However, true Christians want to follow God as closely and accurately as possible, and that would not include Pagan Holidays or False Doctrines.

Answer 4

Yes, halloween is pagan, and true christians do not celebrate it. Easter is the celebration of Jesus rising from the dead after 3 days as quoted by scripture- our king is alive, hence the celebration; I understand that some confuse that with the Ancient celtic practice of celebrating beltane, or crop festival- They are different regardless of how close during the year they fall. Christmas is a celebration of Christs birth- and since there is confusion about when that happened in the year we celebrate it at the end because society has had many years to screw this up- Jewish celebrations of Hannukah are thought to be closer to the actual dates......Plus Christians are called such because of their belief in Christ- if we were another religion that believed in cats (for example) being the saviours of mankind, we'd be Felinians or something...I think I got off track again....sorry..

Answer 5

I don't celebrate Halloween anymore but for the others I feel it is a good thing for friends and family to get together occassionally even if it is on a pagan holiday. It's better to have a holiday as an excuse to get together than not. I know that sounds very "after-school special."

Answer 6

Its Tradition. Why do we go from Monday to Friday? They are Pagan Gods? Everything comes from the Greek, (more or less) Even though we are Christian, we all celebrate God. I mean, Yule is practiced on Deceber 16 or round about, while christians celebrate Christmas on the 25th. Yule, is usually where you put a log on the fire, to burn the ashes of the dead trees. So that in the spring, everything will live again. Same thing. We bow our heads in grace to HIM who died for us. Even with Easter. We celebrate new birth. With the Spring Equinox we celebrate new birth. God lives again. We celebrate Halloween, or Samhain, to recognise death. Its not to be all controlling with Wizardry, we are not Harry Potter. Why should christians celebrate Memorial day? Same thing, we are celebrating the loss of our loved ones.
Which in the end, just goes to show that, its just fun, and thats why we celebrate it.

Answer 7

In the South, here in US, it was also said, if you put a "knife" under the bed of a mother in labor, it would "cut the pain in half!" Traditions are just that...traditions. Like the old wives tales, they come and go, and carry little or no meaning in today's world. You assume all Christians celebrate these holidays as a religious festival, when in fact they do not. Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are secular and cultural events taken from our forefathers and changed to traditions which exemplify our current needs. Less than 50 years ago, Christmas eve looked more like cabbage night than it does today. Down in the country, folks would go from house to house and if they did not get invited in for a cookie or treat, they would turn the outhouse upside down, or put it on the roof of the home. For fun, for mischief. That sure sounds like cabbage night to me. Also, Halloween was unheard of in most places until TV made it popular..and then it was about scaring people. Today, no one is scared because you cannot scare children, it is bad for them. WE have little princesses, Batman, Robin, and a boatload of power rangers or those puffy people.

These holidays will continue to morph into whatever our culture demands at the time. To say they come from Pagan religion is true, but that carrys NO weight today.

Answer 8

Forget the history, the reason that we're celebrating the holiday is more important. Christmas is to celebrate the First Coming of Christ, Easter His conquering of Death and Sin, and Halloween is the eve of the celebration (All Saints) to honor all the martyrs throughout history.

Answer 9

If you are fully convinced in your own mind that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas and Easter because of the infusion of pagan symbols into the holidays then don't celebrate them. Another Christian may put an evergreen tree in their house and see it as a symbol of the new and eternal life that comes from Christ. They may put a star on top of the tree and consider it a symbol of the star that guided the wise men who came to give gifts to the baby Jesus.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians and the Romans about eating meat sacrificed to an idol. Pagan symbols and/or traditions associated with Christmas and Easter fall into the same category.

1 Corinthians 8:4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "an idol has no real existence," and that "there is no God but one." 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"-- 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. 7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

The pagans and the Devil don't own anything. God owns everything. As a son of the living God I can celebrate the birth and ressurection of Jesus any and every day that I want to. I can use a tree or a yule log or candy or anything else I want to because God knows and I know that I'm not engagin in pagan worship in my heart.

Romans 14:2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

If you don't feel it's right to celebrate those two holidays, then don't celebrate them. As for Halloween, that is a straight up pagan holiday. But if Christian parents want to dress their children up as a princess or a pirate and let them go and get some candy then that's one of those decisions that is between them and God.

Romans 14:22 The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

Answer 10

If you are christian you do not neccessarily celebrate halloween, Easter and Christmas for thier pagan purposes. To christians Christmas is the birth of Christ, Easter is the day Jesus rose from the dead and halloween is called all souls day or all saints day and that is truly what we celebrate.