Ive been told christmas is a pagan festival, How did it become associated with Christianity?

Answer 1

Yes, it's pagan. And this is why I get so mad when I hear christians saying that we are "losing the REAL meaning of CHRISTmas". They are a murderous steamrollering sect. I've finished now, thank you.

Answer 2

The Romans, who had converted to Christianity, wanted to stamp out the pagan religions. We know Jesus was born roundabout July, but Pagans celebrate the re-birth of the Sun God at the Winter Solstice as the days start to get longer. The Romans thought it would be easier to integrate Christianity with the peasants if the feast days and holy days were the same but re-named, so the pagan peasantry would still be celebrating when they were used to celebrating, but would be calling it a different name. The Romans fiddled with the calendar so that Jesus was now born on 25th December, 4 or 5 days after the Winter Solstice and told the peasants that Jesus was the god they were celebrating the birth of.

Answer 3

When corrupt men lusting after power, convinced Emperor Constantine that it was a good plan that he unit the crumbling Roman empires two religions Mithra and Christianity, the church in Rome became the church OF Rome. It was they that brought paganism into Christianity, it was they that adulterated the religion of Christ, murdered His people, and subverted His word. They took all of the pagan holy days (DEC 25 - the birthday of Tammuz, the 40 days of lent - the time of mourning for the death of Tammuz, Easter - the day Tammuz died, etc.), there are literally hundreds of these holy days and fests and festivals, and made them 'Christian' by giving them 'Christian' names. They took the gods of the pagans and made then saints (like Peter, Paul,etc.). They took the practices of the pagan and made them 'Christian', the took the "Venerable day of the Sun" and made it the lord's day, the Sunday that has become to be known as the 'Christian' sabbath.
The Seventh Day Sabbath of the Bible (GEN.to REV.) is the only Holy Day that God has set aside. There are no others. Anything else is making a lie, and an abomination out of your religion, that is called Apostasy! Apostolic is the only true religion, because it does not substitute mans traditions and laws for those of God.

Answer 4

The pagan festival of yule falls on Dec. 22nd this year. It's always around the Winter Solstice. It is a festival that was taken by the Catholic Church and converted to a Chrisitan holiday. There is absolutely no record of Christ being born on the 25th of December. It's silly to believe that actually.

Yule uses many of the symbols that we have for our Christian Christmas. Evergreens were used as a symbol of rebirth. There is the yule log, there are carols sung, and there are trees that are used as well. Everything that had a pagan symbol was converted to a Christian theme. It was done with Easter as well and Halloween or Samhein.

Answer 5

The Encyclopedia Americana informs us: “The reason for establishing December 25 as Christmas is somewhat obscure, but it is usually held that the day was chosen to correspond to pagan festivals that took place around the time of the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen, to celebrate the ‘rebirth of the sun.’ . . . The Roman Saturnalia (a festival dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture, and to the renewed power of the sun), also took place at this time, and some Christmas customs are thought to be rooted in this ancient pagan celebration.”—(1977), Vol. 6, p. 666.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges: “The date of Christ’s birth is not known. The Gospels indicate neither the day nor the month . . . According to the hypothesis suggested by H. Usener . . . and accepted by most scholars today, the birth of Christ was assigned the date of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian calendar, January 6 in the Egyptian), because on this day, as the sun began its return to northern skies, the pagan devotees of Mithra celebrated the dies natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of the invincible sun). On Dec. 25, 274, Aurelian had proclaimed the sun-god principal patron of the empire and dedicated a temple to him in the Campus Martius. Christmas originated at a time when the cult of the sun was particularly strong at Rome.”—(1967), Vol. III, p. 656.

Answer 6

The feast of the light in the New Testament quoted in John chapter 10 Dedication feast, it means the dedication of the Temple because of the hasmoneans (Yehuda Maccabeus) liberation and cleansing of the Temple. Is Hanuka in the Hebrew tradition, the feast of the lights, was during the winter of the Nort near the 21 of December when the night comes to be then shorter than the days, this is the "triumph of the light upon darkness" for the pagans. For that was the demand to replace this Pagan feast with a Christian content

Answer 7

I asked a similar question 5 days ago and got a fabulous answer from Niguayona who researched and gave lots of info on Roman festivals like Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Yule and the origins of Christmas which are definately pagan. The question was: 'Was Jesus actually born on December 25?' Afraid I haven't got time to give more details. Even though Christians have got the wrong date for the birth of Jesus, it's what he did with his life and why he died for us that matters. Hey, that could be a good question to ask!

Answer 8

It's a Catholic stuff. They Christianized what was Pagan for example, Semiramis and her son Tamuz, they converted it to Mary and Baby Jesus, the popular Mother and Child picture. They change the names of pagan festivities. rituals, and practices and gave Christian names instead but kept the original pagan practices so you might call this as paganizing Christianity. But if they can do that we surely can Christianized what is pagan...ok, one example, converting the lyrics of a secular song into a Christian one. I hope you get it...in some other days I can explain this better. God bless.

Answer 9

Because christians stole it to keep the newly (read recently threatened and coerced) converted happy.The probability is that it was hi-jacked from the roman festival of Saturnalia.In the Northern Hemisphere wiser religions celebrated the "return" of the sun after the Winter Solstice ( shortest day )as the days grow steadily longer after that day.

Answer 10

Peoples of ancient European civilizations observed how the sun appeared to stand still in mid-winter near the southern horizon before slowly regaining height in the sky. This winter solstice (a word derived from Latin words for “sun” and “stand still”) was, according to the Julian calendar, originally dated December 25. These same people found it easy to draw an analogy between the sun and God as the Source and Sustainer of life. In 274 C.E., the Roman emperor declared Sol invictus (unconquered sun) the principal patron of the empire, and this on December 25, thus honoring Mithras, god of light.

About the emergence of Christendom as a new imperial religion, Alexander Murray of Oxford University writes in the magazine History Today: “After much uncertainty, victory would go to [Mithraism’s] main rival, Christianity. But around the year 300 this rival still had to be diplomatic. It was then that the church decided to create a feast for Christ’s birth (Latin: nativitas). (No such feast is included in lists of feasts from the third century, and the new feast is first recorded in a document of 336.)” What date was chosen for this celebration? December 25, the result of “a shrewd and practical decision on the part of the early church fathers,” according to the book Discovering Christmas Customs and Folklore. Why so?

Mid-winter was already well-established as a season of merrymaking with the seven-day Roman agricultural festival of fire and light, Saturnalia. Then there was Calends, a three-day feast to celebrate the appointment of Roman administrative officials who served for one year from the first, or calends, of January. Thus, with Saturnalia, Calends, and the Mithraic birthday of the unconquered sun falling within so short a period each year, December 25 became the chosen date for the celebration of “Christ’s Mass” in an appeal to pagan peoples to convert to the Roman Empire’s new state religion.

As time went by, the heathen Germanic mid-winter feast, Yule, reinforced the customs of banqueting and merrymaking, as well as the giving of gifts. Tapers (or, candles), logs, evergreen decorations, and trees became prominent in Christmas celebrations.

The Bible does not reveal the exact date of Jesus’ birth. More than that, “the early Christians did not celebrate His birth,” comments The World Book Encyclopedia. And why not? “Because they considered the celebration of anyone’s birth to be a pagan custom.” Augustus Neander, in The History of the Christian Religion and Church, During the Three First Centuries, agrees: “The notion of a birthday festival was far from the ideas of the Christians of this period in general.”

From this examination, you can see that Christmas celebrations find their roots in pagan customs. As The Economist explains, it was only later that religious “publicists appropriated ‘this festival of light [the birthday of the unconquered sun], for Christ is the world’s light’, and pretended (with a lack of evidence that would not be approved by Truth in Advertising campaigners) that baby Jesus was born in December. That is why Presbyterian Scotland long disdained Christmas, as did lingeringly puritan America until commercial interests recreated it.