Why do christians steal pagan holidays?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule#Connection_to_modern_Christmas

Answer 1

Boy, you must have nothing better then to sit down and moan about something that happened centuries ago. Get with the program. Chrisitans now have Dec 25, but pagans do have Yule on the Winter Solstice. Quite moaning and just take your day. YOu'll never get us to stop celebrating Christmas, no matter what you say.

Answer 2

I don't think it is fair to say that Christians "steal" pagan holidays. Rather it is a case where people who use to practice the holidays became Christians. Rather then give up some of the holidays and memories that had from childhood, they carried those old cutomes over into their new religion.

Kind of like Halloween today. Many Christian churches do not celebrate Halloween, so they offer alternatives (like Harvest Parties) instead. If you want to keep your kids from celebrating Halloween, then you have to have your Harvest Party on the same day. (That is how Christmas ended up being celebrated on Dec 25. No one knows the date of Jesus' birth. So they started to celebrate it on the same day as the biggest Roman holiday so the Christians would have an alternative to the "pagen" holiday).

Ok, so now you have a Harvest Party on Halloween. What do you do at the party? While as there is nothing wrong with handing out candy and bobbing for apples, you do that at the Harvest Party. You keep the good things of the other traditions, but eliminate the objectionable parts of witches, ghost, fear and the occult. You have brought some of the old customes into the new religion. But you have not compromised the new religion. There is no law against bobbing for apples. And over time, bobbing for apples may become so much a part of the new religion that people begin to find religious analogues in it.

Christianity has allowed these people to hold the Christian faith without having to abandon fun and enjoyable traditions that may have begun elsewhere.

Answer 3

Why not? No one has a patent on days of the year. IF having a celebration of Christ Birth in Dec instead of Sept or Oct helps people remember Christ better, what difference does it make. It's been this way so long now I wouldn't want to have the real date celebrated. I like Christmas in Dec... Jim

Answer 4

The Catholic church stole them, not protestants.

Catholics are catholic

and Protestants are Christian

I call Easter, Ressurection sunday, not easter after the pagan god estes.

Christmas, I dont care how it started, probably a lame attempt by the catholic church to gain converts. But I observe it as the birthday of my Savior(not that he was born on dec 25)

Answer 5

The Christians took certain pagan traditions and baptized them so the pagan converts could be familiar with them. This was all done 100+ years ago, why can't the pagans get over it? When you are trying to teach any group of people anything, you have to make it familiar to them. They were just trying to make the transition easier on new Christians. What's wrong with that?

Answer 6

Because Pagans really didn't know about Mistletoe and the Christians wanted to kiss them.

Answer 7

because they were once Pagans themselves. And they still valued the meaning of the pagan holidays, which are very rich and full of meaning.

Answer 8

Poor moral upbringing.

Answer 9

History-things back then make the future look bleak at times!

Answer 10

Because people have deceived themselves into thinking certain things are OK as long as you Incorporate God into it