Why do Pagans claim that Christmas is their holiday? When they have many God's?

Question

I never see them attack the Jews for Hanukkah, or Passover. These are close to Christmas and Easter. look Guys, you do not whorship Jesus Christ...Christ-Mas it is about Christ what is so hard to understand? With the Jewish it is their Hanukkah that is celabrated at the same time. And I just don't get why the remembrance of Christ's Resurrection your Hoilday? With the Jews their Holiday that is around the same time as our Easter is Passover.

My Children are grown and I did tell them the truth! No Santa no Easter Bunny! I told them the real reason for the season. My Grandchildren were also told the truth. I think the Christmas tree is pretty. I know that the tree has it's pagan roots I have known that for years. Why can't we give gifts? I do not hate Pagans!,I truly was not trying to be rude. I can say I am sorry. I know that the Pagan's have their own roots, I do not mean in any way to take away from you. I was wondering why you guys are so against us having our own celibrations. And for the person who told me to use spell check, I did use spell check! I always use spell check! Sometimes Spell check will let something slip.But there is no spell check here and if I have spelled a word wrong I am again truly sorry. Sometimes my spelling is off, no one hates that more than me. I didn't expect so much anger from this question. I am sorry.

Answer 1

This all boils down to lack of respect, no one respects anyone else these days! We don't all have to have the same Religion, we don't all have to worship the same God/Gods we don't all have to celebrate the same Holidays.What we do need to do is respect each other for our differences and stop the arguing! I am new to Yahoo! Answers, I am newly separated and I stumbled upon Yahoo! Answers after my husband and I parted ways because I got lonely and needed something to help me through the seperation. Boy, oh boy! I am learning how cruel people really are. I just was not raised this way!

Answer 2

It was the Catholic church, the first Christian church who created their calendar from everyone else. They were the newest religion. Yule is the pagan holiday that celebrated the rebirth of the sun (get it Birth, Son) It’s the shortest day of the year about Dec. 22-24. The evergreen tree, wreaths, bells, mistletoe, feasting and more I can’t think of now was all around and being used for Yule long before Christianity. Even the Catholic Church had a hard time deciding of Dec. 25th for Christmas. Some wanted a spring date, but Easter fit better with the Spring equinox another pagan holiday. Awakening of the earth (get it Resurrection of Life) . Anyhow, Christmas was set up to convert pagans. Come to our new party instead of the same old thing. Same thing with Easter (Spring), St. John the Baptist (Summer), St Matthew (Fall), Candlemas /Ground hog day (Imbolc), Halloween (All Hallows Eve). Well, you get the idea. They did everything they could think of to convert the pagans including believe or die. Also turning all the pagan gods into devils or demons probably helped too. Hope this answers your questions.

Answer 3

Then why have Christians adopted so much Pagan symbolism to celebrate these holidays? Christmas trees? Pagan. Easter Bunnies and eggs? Pagan. Even Santa Claus is a modern survival of a Pagan God! The Church deliberately created these holidays to replace older, Pagan celebrations, even adopting some of their symbolism. What Pagans are doing here is a process of reclaiming. We prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstice as the Winter Solstice, rather than as the birth of Christ, since you rightly pointed out that we do not worship Jesus Christ. It just so happens that some of our practices during that time are the same as yours -- giving gifts, decorating evergreen trees, lighting candles -- so why can't we celebrate together? Peace on Earth? Good will toward humankind? Who can't relate to that? Why can't we all get along, and just share the day?

Answer 4

It is widely known that the when the church started evangelizing in places like the British Isles in the dark ages that it was a place of pagans who had their own rites and rituals. In order to help bring these what the church saw as these poor lost souls into the fold they started incorporating holidays which the pagans already had to make the transition easier on them.

Yule, which is pagan, is celebrated at winter solstice which is usually four days before xmas. Easter was another holiday given to the goddess Eostre which the church incorporated.

Every religion borrows from older ones - they have to have a corner stone somewhere - yours didn't start in thin air.

Answer 5

The winter solstice was always at the time it is now. Jesus was not born anywhere near December 25th.

Ask anybody of the Jewish faith how high Hanukkah ranks when it comes to holidays - and it's not even that important. The Christians have made it important - because THEY are celebrating Christmas - and so they figured they would promote Hanukkah as well. One of my Jewish friends told me that when he was growing up that Hannakah was about as important as St. Patricks Day or something - if you were to compare it to the other bigger holidays.

Passover is sometimes near easter. Other times it's not. The Spring Equinox is always the same.

I don't know any Pagans who say Christmas is THEIR holiday. They don't really want much to do with CHRISTmas. But the time of year was their celebration time first. And the Christians just kind of latched onto it. I think it was when Constantine was ruling - and he wanted everybody happy - so he placed all of the Christian and Pagan holidays near each other. Since the Pagans had already been celebrating theirs for a LONG time when Christ came along - they stuck with the Pagan time frame.

If you celebrate Easter with any rabbits or eggs - and if you celebrate Christmas with any foods of the season or traditions - well - those are Pagan practices.

Hope that helps to explain it.

Namaste!

Answer 6

I think there is a whole lot of confusion here. Pagans celebrate solstice, the shortest day of the year, which is right around Christmas. Solstice celebrations have been around forever. Primitive people celebrated the solstice because it was so scary to see the days grow shorter and shorter and then so wonderful to see them start growing longer again. The birth of Christ is celebrated at the solstice because of the attempts of christian priests to graft the new religion onto the old. Historians tell us that it more likely Christ was born in (I believe, but am not sure) March. Many of our Christmas traditions, like burning a yule log, come from solstice traditions.

Hanukkah has nothing to do with either Christmas or solstice. It is a relatively unimportant Jewish holidays (major holidays are in the fall) that has become inflated because it is near Christmas. The only thing that two holidays have in common is the giving of gifts.

Passover is near Easter because the Last Supper was a Seder - that is, the meal during which Passover was celebrated. Jesus was a Jew, remember? His death occurred right after the Last Supper. That is why it is called the last supper.

This was kind of a convoluted, hostile question. It sounds as if you need to educate yourself. There is a lot of overlapping in major religions. And isn't the most important part of all of them the idea that we should treat one another with respect and kindness?

Answer 7

I agree lets all get along an just share the Day and observe the way we want to. Christians are not hurting Pagans. And Pagans can celebrate whatever they want, they are not hurting the Christians. To each his own!

Answer 8

I would like to see some kinder answers to your questions. I know several pagan's who could care less that Christians celebrate Christmas. I am not pagan but my brother is and most are kind people who aren't rude and hostile like the ones answering your question question here.

Answer 9

Don't let them get you down, I am not Pagan but I am surprised at the anger shown to you. I know a couple of Pagans and really they are fairly kind people.

Answer 10

The day Christmas is on used to be a "pagan" holiday, but when the christians were attempting to convert them, they moved Christmas to overlap with the Pagan holiday so they would celebrate Christmas. If I recall, this was done for the Norsemen, and this was also the same case with Easter. So yes, Christmas is the Christian name for the day, but the day is all Pagan.