What themes did chrisitanity steal from paganism?

Question

*christianity

Answer 1

The mother goddess (Mary). Images of Isis and Horus look a lot like the Madonna/Child images. Queen of Heaven was one of her titles.

The dying and resurrected god. In Pre-Christian religions, he was the symbol for agriculture, and for the solar year. The Sun "died" every year in the winter and was "reborn" on the winter solstice. This was the shortest day of the year. Ancient people were scared when they saw the sun set lower in the sky every day, and when it stopped on the solstice, it was cause for celebration.

As a god of agriculture, he "died" when he was harvested in the fall, and was resurrected from the dead when the crops sprouted in the spring. Some of these gods even descended to the underworld for three days (seeds were planted in the soil) before resurrection.

The god was often the son of the great mother (the seed growing from the earth) in the spring, and was her consort when he was planted again. This may be why early Christians thought Mary Magdelene was the wife of Jesus. She had the same name as his mother Mary.

Answer 2

Well, mostly Catholicism "stole" from pagans, and mostly the Roman Catholic Church. Back in the day when they wanted pagans to join their religion they would make it as easy as possible by taking things here and there from the pagan beliefs so the pagans wouldn't feel like they were betraying their own beliefs so much. LIke Easter, where do you think they got the colored eggs from, i have never heard of anything about Jesus carrying easter eggs from his tomb. And Halloween aka Samhain, it was a holiday to worship the dead, and is still believed to be the day when the viel between world is thinnest, so we wear disguises to try and trick the Spirits into think that we are not what we seem so they will leave us alone. And Chirstmas, oh boy am i going to get dirty looks for this one. Supposedly (don't take my word for it because i wasn't around 2000 years ago, but) Christ was born earlier then the bible says. Yule was originally on that day, i find it very convenient that the "son of God" was born on the exact same day as a pagan holiday. Also, certain saints, like St Brigit, formerly known as Brighid (pronounced Breet or just Bree) the triple goddes of art, smithy, and healing. This is the main one that i know of, but the Celtic goddess Morrighan was turned into a demon by the catholic, she was a goddess of war and lust, and as we all know women can never have power above men in most mainstream religions. Almost everything that the Christian and Catholic church has done was done by someone else before them and more then likely someone else before them. It's just a big cycle with people saying "hmm, this looks good i'll keep this, but ohh, this is bad, it has to go." Hope this helped.

Answer 3

It was the catholic church who took these. They were pagans and wanted to deceive Christians into following them. They took their original holidays and traditions and renamed them in order to get weak minded Christians to follow them.

For example they worshiped on the first day of the week. They are sun worshipers, they worship on SUNday. They deceived the Christians with this and said we do this because of Jesus rising on the first day of the week. But until then the day the Lord had risen had been known as the Lords day, it was never to take place of the sabbath day. Christmas was another, they believed the "sun" was born on the shortest day of the year. December 25th at the time. (it's now around Dec. 21) Easter is another.

If you research all about catholics and their holidays and even symbols you will find they are all pagan and you will trace them back to the Babylonian Empire.

Christians have no reson to worship holidays, especially to take the ones that were those of another religion.

Answer 4

Many of the Christian themes were adopted from pagan religions. Look at Christmas... it is a form of tree worship. We decorate a tree we sit around it and on Christmas it gives us presents. Holly and a wreathe protects the doorway from evil spirits, same with mistletoe. Easter, it is a fertility festival. Think about it rabbits and eggs and the eggs are hidden in the bushes. We take most of our major holidays from the pagan religions as a way to adopt pagans into Christianity.

Answer 5

"Stealing" and "Paganism" are really a pejorative and an overly broad umbrella term to start with. Late antique religions - particularly those created to support specific agendas - as Western Christianity was - were and are, regardless of their denails, highly syncretic in their approach.
Western Christianity's entire core mythos takes two brothers, one of whom was executed by Roman Authorities for sedition, who were Zadokite Jewish mystics and applies to them the Lightbringer Mythos that formed the core of most late antique Mystery Traditions, ranging from the Pythagoreans and Orphics to the Neo-Platonists and the Cultus of Diana and Lucifer. In fact, were you to compare the major key images and sequencing, the Birth and Crucifixion of the Christos is essentially the Tale of Lucifer, although Pythagorean elements - notably the Tau Cross (as opposed to the Chi) the Ichthys (actually the Pythagorean Vesica Piscis) and the Rose, and mythic elements from the Cults of Attis, Osiris, and Mithras (whence comes the Festival of Christmas on 25 Dec instead of the latter half of March) are just some elements of Chritian syncretism.
Actually, if you throw out the absurd and stupid Protestant literalism, the core of the original Zadokite Mystery Tradition is more or less intact, although it bore no resemblance to any form of Christianity practiced today.

Answer 6

I would call it "assimilation" not "stealing." Ideologies do not happen in a vacuum; they evolve over time because of certain cultural and ideological conditions.

The concept of a virgin birth and of a sacrificed and resurrecting god were common metaphorical and mystical concepts within "pagan" religions of the time. The myth of the flood is found in very many other religious mythologies as is the Garden of Eden motif.

It is thought that some icons known as "Black Madonnas" and perhaps some icons of the Madonna and child were not originally Christian icons but were statues of Greek and Roman goddesses. Also, some of the early saints originally may have been gods and goddesses within cultures that the early Church were trying to convert. But this is less about "stealing" than about cultural evolution and re-invention.

Answer 7

Lets go for the short list:

What themes did Christianity NOT steal from paganism?


I suspect that is is a VERY short list.

Answer 8

The evergreen tree, mistletoe, the whole idea of celebrating the return of light at the winter solstice . The Spring flowers, baby chicks, baby bunnies, from the pagan Rebirth ( Easter ).

Answer 9

The only one I can think of right off is Christmas. Like, the Yuletide carols or whatever. I believe there's something like a Yule festival for pagans. I'm not sure though, I heard it quite a while ago, so the details are a little sketchy.

Answer 10

I think a better question is what themes did paganism steal from the original faith of God, which Christianity represents?
If God revealed himself to Adam and Eve, then they would have taught their children the truth about God. Those who became distanced from the first parents likely carried on an imitation of what was originally taught. This is why pagan religions are so close to what is taught in Christianity. These themes have been around since the beginning and originated from God, who has taught the plan of salvation and the coming of the Christ since the beginning.