Is This True About Hallow'een, Easter and Christmas? And Should We Celebrate Them?

Question

EASTER: The day celebrated of Jesus' death and ressurrection, also at this time of year the pagan festivals to their goddess were held. It was NOT stolen, it's just coincidence they are celebrated at the same time. But many pagan traditions, (bunnies, chocolate eggs, the name 'Easter'), were carried on to Christianity as the two festivals were blurred.

HALLOWEEN: Don't know much about it, but the day of All Saints' Day, a day set aside for all the Saints, was set as this time of year to cancel out the pagan festivals. MANY pagan traditions, (pumpkins, trick-o-treating, monsters, ghosts), were carried over.

CHRISTMAS: Same as Hallow'een, used to convert the early pagans from their own beliefs. Still, it is celebrated as the birthday of the Son of God when He entered this world in the flesh of a man.

So is this true? I gathered it myself. I personally believe as long as we're not going too deep into paganism, it's alright to celebrate these festivals. What do you think?

Answer 1

All Saints day is not the same for all Chritians, the Orthodox Church celebrates it the sunday after Pentocost.
The western all saints day was selected by Saint Patrick
as it was the Celtic new year. I still celebrate the western Haloween as I am of celtic decent and Patrick is my Patron saint, and costumes are cool.
Easter is not the Greek name in the countries that tradtionaly folloe ther Orthodox Church some variation of Paskha is used. Paskha also means passover the original calculations of the date were designed so it would be some sunday after the Jewish passover- it changed in the west during the medival/renesace period. Eggs have always represtended life.
Christmas- there are litugical reasons for the date as well.
manly the early church would fast for 40 days before both
feasts. (eastern Christians still do) so it was set up to give some spacing between the two feats. Christmas is actualy a period of 2 feasts the nativity Decemebr 25th and the Epiphany- Janurary 6th. We have a better idea of when the redurection was then the nativity as there is no clear date given. As for paganism it is important to remeber what ever date you choose you could find some pagan celebration about the same time and some costoms would carry over.
For example in part of Europe there is a folk dance in many viliges on Easter sunday which stems from pagan spring festavals. These things would have some of their meanings changed as it would now be about having fun while celebrating Christ.

Answer 2

Hi u have some misunderstandings going on here, Easter ( the goddess Astra) has nothing 2 do with out risen Lord, it never did, He IS Hebrew, by birth, He walked the earth a Hebrew , teaching, in death & resurrection. He IS still Hebrew. He would not want us to be fellowing pagan traditions, no Easter wasn't stolen from the pagan festivals, but it was assimilated into the church because the people at the time believed the ends justified the means. As many places of worship do today. (It also was in existed before the Messiah was born) There must be some way 2 Messiah said He would be in the grave (the sign of Jonah with the FISH) for 3 nights and 3 days, u really can't get Friday evening to Sunday morning before sun rise to fit into 3 evenings and 3 mornings.
Halloween was the called 'All Saint's Day' People believed u had to put a jack-o-lantern out to ward off bad spirits that were about on that day, and if u had 2 leave ur house u had to disguise ur self so the bad spirits wouldn't know how u were.
Christmas means Christ's Mass, but again I must point out that as Messiah IS Hebrew He never had a mass, He never went to Mass He never had a part in Mass.
Yeshua (Jesus) was born when the shepherds were abiding in their fields at night, which means 1. No shepherd is going to have his flock in the fields durning winter 2. there were therefore no animals in the stable where He was born.
By the way the wise men came almost 2 yrs later when Yeshua was living with His mother & step-father in a house.

Answer 3

What is God's view of things? Which is more important- our view or His? For an answer look what the Bible says.

Galatians 5:9 talked to people who baked every day for their food. It says "do you not know a little leaven ferments the whole lump?" Or a little corruption corrupt the whole thing.

Jesus spoke in Matthew 6:24 how a slave cannot slave for two masters. A choice had to be made because it was an impossible situation.

What kind of sharing does light have with darkness? Gray is still a form of light not darkness. (2Cor. 6:14-18)

Make sure what is acceptable and quit sharing works belonging to darkness is the advice of Ephesians 5:10-11.

Haggai asked the priests in his time, if something unclean touches something clean, can the clean become unclean? they answered yes. (Haggai 2:11-13) Their problem was in mixing a little false worship in with pure. It had the same result.

Deuteronomy 5:8-10 shows God exacts and expects exclusive devotion or worship. He exacts punishment on those who fail to the point of punishment of their children in some cases.

God's qualities of Righteousness and Jealousy are shown in Exodus 34:14. Also His demand for exclusive devotion is repeated.

Under the list of things that prevent one from inheriting entrance into God's Kingdom is idolatry in Galatians 5:19-21. This would be anything except for God Himself, which no image could be made of Him. (Isaiah 46:5, 9; 44:9-20)

So since the only "holiday" we were ordered to keep is "the Lord's Evening Meal" (1Corin. 11:20-26) and all these others have paganism running all through them, what do you think God's opinion of them would be?

Answer 4

The Bible does not command us to celebrate these holidays, nor does it command us to refrain from them.

Knowing the truth is helpful. Much of your research is correct. Some could be considered opinion, or informed opinion.

The Bible also tells us that for Christians, the world permits all sorts of behavior. Not all of this behavior is good, and Christians ought to practice behavior that is good.

So my take is this. First of all, know that these holidays are not sacred. They are just holidays, reserved to commemorate some event or another. Even though they are reserved for some event, most of them have incorrect concepts. Even though elements may have roots in paganism, most of the celebrants don't understand that, either. Under this umbrella of truth, also know that as long as the celebration does not violate God's word, it makes no difference if you celebrate or not.

So, if you are not worshipping false gods -- cool. Have fun, but do not sin. Participate in the celebration unless your knowledge of truth informs you that something is out of balance with Biblical Teaching.

In my life, I pass on Halloween. Too much of the stuff in these celebrations borders on occult, and God did say to avoid occult. Christmas is a fun holiday, even though the date is way off. Easter doesn't need a special day, as we are called to remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus every Sunday. Why add all the other fuss for just one of them?

Answer 5

It was common in the early church to take pagan festivals and Christianize them. That's the key. These were all Christianized holidays. What we should do as Christians is celebrate them in the Christian manner. Focus on the Christian elements rather than allowing the Pagan elements to dominate once again. IE on Halloween don't celebrate witchcraft. It's that simple.

Answer 6

This is how Jesus himself felt. In prayer to his Father, he once said: “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) He said that “true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him.”—John 4:23.

(John 4:24) “God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.””

Halloween is a major satanic ritual day. “It’s a religious holiday for the underworld, with satanists performing sacrifices and witches quietly celebrating with prayer circles or meals for the dead,” according to a USA Today article. It quoted Washington witch Bryan Jordan as saying, “[Christians] don’t realize it, but they’re celebrating our holiday with us. . . . We like it.”

Answer 7

alot of the pagan rituals and holidays were merged by the church in an effort to get non believers (of jesus) to belong and conform to their doctrines.

Answer 8

Since all three of those holidays are holy days in the Catholic Church I think it would be best to get an answer from a reliable Catholic source about their origin, in order to prevent bias.

Easter
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05224d.htm

Easter Contraversy
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05228a.htm

Halloween
All Saints Day
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm

Christmas
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

With love in Christ.

Answer 9

To hallow the dead? Don't know why I started this way...anyway, for your question, yes these are true or close. However it gets ten times worst. Sorry! Twenty times or more - guaranteed...continue researching...

Answer 10

I personally do not celebrate any of them because I am an atheist.