What are some pagan traditions that have been stolen by others? (eg christmas trees and easter eggs)?

Answer 1

all christian holidays have ties with paganism

Answer 2

Yes you never heard of a fir tree being out in the desert with Jesus. Also you never heard of rabbits being out there either,. These symbols are also not in the bible. The pagans used the Christmas tree. The christmas or Yule tree was first used by the Germans and the Brittish. It is symbolic of the male phallus and the container is the woman.The Easter egg was also used by the pagans. Eggs represent new beginnings. We write on the eggs or draw symbols to represent what we want to invoke into our lives. The maypole is also a phallus symbol and the rituals of it are sexual in nature to promote growth of the crops so we can have to eat. It also effects man that way so he can bring children to the tribe so that they may be mighty. It was mostly abolished. It seems as if anything that Christianity agrees with becomes adopted as their own and what they don't agree with becomes abolished.

Answer 3

I don't think there is enough room for everything. Hell comes from the Norse, Hel, who is the Goddess of Hel where the souls of those that did not die in battle went to. Santa was taken from Odin who would travel out on the Winter Solstice to bring presents to his devout followers. Christmas based off of Winter Solstice/Yule. The maypole is from Pagan origin, St. Bridget is taken from the Celtic Goddess Brid (several spellings of Her name). Mistletoe from the Druids and probably the Greeks. Easter eggs from Ostara. Halloween from Samhain. The Christmas tree from the Celtic. The names of the days of the week are all pagan based.

Answer 4

Pagan traditions...

Samhain, now called Halloween.
Winter Solstice/Yule, now called Christmas.
Spring Solstice/ Vernal Equinox, now called Easter.
The Pagan Cross, now considered the Jesus symbol.
The Pentacle, inverted and called Satanic by the Christians.
That's all I can think of.

Answer 5

Hell is derived from the mythological Hadas of pagan mystery religions. I wouldn't be too surprise if many of the older translations read as hadas rather than hell.

Answer 6

Crosses, christmas trees, christmas, easter eggs,easter bunnies, easter, yule logs, dying and resurrecting gods, infant baptism,holy water,halloween, trick-or-treating,halloween costumes, I'm sure there are more but I can't think of any right now. EDIT: Yes,Hades is a pagan idea. But if you read Greek mythology much, you'll realize Hades was not a place of torment for most, and actually DOUBLED as heaven for people, Olympus the closest thing to "heaven" in Greek mythological stories was reserved for gods and demi-gods. But if you think Hades was "hell" I suggest you look up "the Elysian fields" which was a section of Hades for those who had lived good lives. Nevermind, I've done it for you: In Greek mythology, Elysium (Greek: Ἠλύσια πεδία) was a section of the Underworld (the spelling Elysium is a Latinization of the Greek word Elysion). Elysium is an obscure and mysterious name that evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios.[1] Alternately, scholars have also suggested that Greek Elysion may instead derive from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity. Biblical scholars have suggested that Elysion may derive from Elisha, who was, according to Genesis, a son of Yawan (Iouan, forefather of the Ionians) and one of the ancestors of the Greeks. Elisha may have been worshipped as a god by his earliest descendents.

The Elysian fields, or sometimes Elysian plains, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. Two Homeric passages in particular established for Greeks the nature of the Afterlife: the dreamed apparition of the dead Patroclus in the Iliad and the more daring boundary-breaking visit in Book 11 of the Odyssey. Greek traditions concerning funerary ritual were reticent, but the Homeric examples encouraged other heroic visits, in the myth cycles centered around Theseus and Heracles.[2]

The Elysian Fields lay on the western margin of the earth, by the encircling stream of Oceanus, and there the mortal relatives of the king of the gods were transported, without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss (Odyssey 4.563). Lesser spirits were less fortunate: an eerie passage describes the twittering bat-like ghosts of Penelope's slain suitors, led by Hermes:

"down the dank
moldering paths and past the Ocean's streams they went
and past the White Rock and the Sun's Western Gates and past
the Land of Dreams, and soon they reached the fields of asphodel
where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home"
(Odyssey 24.5-9, translation by Robert Fagles).

Hesiod refers to the Isles of the Blessed (makarôn nêsoi) in the Western Ocean (Works and Days). Pindar makes it a single island. Walter Burkert notes the connection with the motif of far-off Dilmun: "Thus Achilles is transported to the White Isle and becomes the Ruler of the Black Sea, and Diomedes becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island."[3]

In Elysium were fields of the pale liliaceous asphodel, and poplars grew. There stood the gates that led to the house of Ais (in Attic dialect "Hades").

In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas, like Heracles and Odysseus before him, travels to the underworld. Virgil describes an encounter in Elysium between Aeneas and his father Anchises. Virgil's Elysium knows perpetual spring and shady groves, with its own sun and lit by its own stars: solemque suum, sua sidera norunt (Aeneid, 6.541).

Answer 7

Revelation 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
Revelation 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.


The Roman Catholic church the Bible discribes as a whore, a whore will sell herself by any means.

Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

The roman catholic church will convert a man, lets say Mexico, and give him the Virgin Mary, Pope, saints, etc, while still allowing him to keep his old religion gods.

Answer 8

the idea of hell was made famous by pagans. funny how christians hated them so much but still use their old b.s. stories in their faith.... i guess it's a way to increase popularity?

Answer 9

I believe the gay communities "lubricated fist and forearm up the anal canal" carries over from early pagan rites.

Answer 10

the whole concept of death and ressurection, and the great flood