Why are Pagans given a bad rep when many christian traditions are derived from us?

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart · Dec 18, 2010

I've never understood this. I, and I can guarantee that most other pagans have nothing against christians until you try to push your faith on us. What you need to realize is that many "christian" celebrations are derived from our celebrations. Christians also keep many of our symbols. It just makes no sense for christians to be all high and mighty. I just don't understand, maybe someone can explain this to me.

Ih8s8n · Dec 18, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart: I'm glad to see that you put "christian" in quotes. Personally, I agree that there are many things within "professing Christianity" that are pagan in origin. I say "professing Christianity" because not all things are what they "profess" to be. Anyhow, were there any specific "celebrations" that you had in mind?

laconicstudent · Dec 18, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
I've never understood this. I, and I can guarantee that most other pagans have nothing against christians until you try to push your faith on us. What you need to realize is that many "christian" celebrations are derived from our celebrations. Christians also keep many of our symbols. It just makes no sense for christians to be all high and mighty. I just don't understand, maybe someone can explain this to me.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, eh? But really, aside from the varying question of what is and what is not adopted from paganism, I personally don't see Christians as high and mighty over it. Except for the fundemenalist fringe who thinks that Christmas is evil simply because it falls on the same day as a pagan festival. Ah well.

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart · Dec 19, 2010

Ih8s8n said:
HiddenFaceHiddenHeart: I'm glad to see that you put "christian" in quotes. Personally, I agree that there are many things within "professing Christianity" that are pagan in origin. I say "professing Christianity" because not all things are what they "profess" to be. Anyhow, were there any specific "celebrations" that you had in mind?

Just mostly Christmas. I don't understand why December 25th, Yule, is used as symbolism for the birth of Jesus Christ. The tree, also a pagan symbol...I could go on, but sleep deprivation is kicking in.

laconicstudent said:
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, eh? But really, aside from the varying question of what is and what is not adopted from paganism, I personally don't see Christians as high and mighty over it. Except for the fundemenalist fringe who thinks that Christmas is evil simply because it falls on the same day as a pagan festival. Ah well.

I've noticed that some Christians don't celebrate Christmas....it's odd to me. If you're going to twist a Pagan celebration and turn it into a Christian holiday then why not celebrate it? I mean, I'm not condemning anyone, I was just wanting to know why Pagans get a bad rap.

laconicstudent · Dec 19, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
I've noticed that some Christians don't celebrate Christmas....it's odd to me. If you're going to twist a Pagan celebration and turn it into a Christian holiday then why not celebrate it? I mean, I'm not condemning anyone, I was just wanting to know why Pagans get a bad rap.

It isn't a "Pagan celebration", twisted or otherwise. To say it is, is to utilize post hoc ergo propter hoc. When Christians refuse to celebrate Christmas, they simply buy into that silly fallacy. I frankly don't get why they obsess over blaming pagans for a non-issue.

vespasia · Dec 19, 2010

Hi Hidden,

There are only so many days in a year so each faith is liable to have a festival that clashes on the same date as another.

Humans also get funny over cold dark nights in the winter and need to remind themselves of hope. For most pagan's that will be a reminder that Imbolc will be here soon. For Christians it is the light o Christ's birth recalled at the darkest time of winter but not on the solstice. Okay Saturnalia could be a bit of a riot- literally and I can understand why the Roman authorities would want to have replaced that with something a little more decorous once Christianity became the state religion but why should not Christians celebrate hope come as Emmanuel in the winter?

I would also like to assure you pagans no longer get such a bad rap. Things have moved on - a lot.

It will be a long time before I forget the idiocy of the 80's and early 90's.

Ih8s8n · Dec 19, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
Just mostly Christmas. I don't understand why December 25th, Yule, is used as symbolism for the birth of Jesus Christ. The tree, also a pagan symbol...I could go on, but sleep deprivation is kicking in.

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart: For what it's worth, I don't celebrate "Christmas". If you'd like to know why, then you can click on the following link where I give a pretty detailed reason for my own convictions:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7515724-3/#post56190928

As far as sleep deprivation is concerned, "Been there, done that" for about the last 20 years. Anyhow, check out the link and let me know what you think of what I've written. You won't be able to respond on that thread (forum rules, not mine), but you're free to comment here. Take care.

razeontherock · Dec 20, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
What you need to realize is that many "christian" celebrations are derived from our celebrations.

FALSE! Hopefully others have already addressed this? Briefly, all things are in the process of being reconciled to G-d. The pagan roots of Easter eggs and bunnies and Christmas trees (etc etc) do NOT defile G-d's Holiness!

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart · Dec 21, 2010

razeontherock said:
FALSE! Hopefully others have already addressed this? Briefly, all things are in the process of being reconciled to G-d. The pagan roots of Easter eggs and bunnies and Christmas trees (etc etc) do NOT defile G-d's Holiness!

This is the ignorance I've spoken about that people don't understand what I speak about and just decide to try and tell me how "holy" god is. Sorry dude, I'm not a Christian.

laconicstudent · Dec 21, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
This is the ignorance I've spoken about that people don't understand what I speak about and just decide to try and tell me how "holy" god is. Sorry dude, I'm not a Christian.

And we aren't pagan, and don't believe that Christian holy days are derived from paganism per your post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Ravenzomg · Dec 22, 2010

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
Just mostly Christmas. I don't understand why December 25th, Yule, is used as symbolism for the birth of Jesus Christ. The tree, also a pagan symbol...I could go on, but sleep deprivation is kicking in.

Somewhere around the 3rd century AD, one of the early theologians [I believe it was Tertullian, correct me if I'm wrong!] calculated that, given Biblical references [eg: the relation of Christ's crucification to Passover], Christ had to have died on March 25th. Being the Most Perfect, He has to have left this world [died] and entered this world [the immaculate conception] on the same day. Being perfect, the Most Perfect Man would thus have a Perfect gestation period of 9 months, taking us from the Conception on March 25th to Birth on December the 25th. So no, the date of Christmas is not rooted in Paganism [Saturnalia], but rather Judaism [Passover].

I can't source it, but I remember Christmas trees being the popularized choice for a doctrinal requirement that in the advent season Believers take green plants as a symbol of life or something? Can't recall 100%.

The Easter bunny/eggs thing is pretty well a glitch though, can't really argue that one. >.>

razeontherock · Dec 22, 2010

Ravenzomg said:
Somewhere around the 3rd century AD, one of the early theologians [I believe it was Tertullian, correct me if I'm wrong!] calculated that, given Biblical references [eg: the relation of Christ's crucification to Passover], Christ had to have died on March 25th. Being the Most Perfect, He has to have left this world [died] and entered this world [the immaculate conception] on the same day. Being perfect, the Most Perfect Man would thus have a Perfect gestation period of 9 months, taking us from the Conception on March 25th to Birth on December the 25th. So no, the date of Christmas is not rooted in Paganism [Saturnalia], but rather Judaism [Passover].

I laugh at this not because I think you misquote Tertullian, but because this kind of gobbledygook is just SO laughable, and is why I've always ignored RC ... "stuff." (For lack of a better term.)

1. They didn't have to "calculate" the date of Christ's death, it was known.
2. This isn't what immaculate conception refers to; that would be more ... "stuff."
3. Jewish Feasts announce Christ's birth, and it sure isn't 3/25!
4. Their calendar was so imperfect that if a 9 month gestation period was important, Jesus had better not align his time in the womb to it

I bet your right in your basic premise though, that some whack job spewed out such nonsense and it's been held in esteem ever since.

Pardon my irreverence

Ravenzomg · Dec 23, 2010

razeontherock said:
I laugh at this not because I think you misquote Tertullian, but because this kind of gobbledygook is just SO laughable, and is why I've always ignored RC ... "stuff." (For lack of a better term.)

1. They didn't have to "calculate" the date of Christ's death, it was known.
2. This isn't what immaculate conception refers to; that would be more ... "stuff."
3. Jewish Feasts announce Christ's birth, and it sure isn't 3/25!
4. Their calendar was so imperfect that if a 9 month gestation period was important, Jesus had better not align his time in the womb to it

I bet your right in your basic premise though, that some whack job spewed out such nonsense and it's been held in esteem ever since.

Pardon my irreverence

2) With a R.C. upbringing I recall that there's quite a bit more stuff. But dealing with Christian theologians the Important Bits are just taken for granted, so I suppose they figured numbers were a very good addition to the already established [and probably 100% sufficient already] conditions of being the Most Perfect.

4) Count it with me: Third Century Theologians were not (one) mathematicians or (two) medical experts. =P

1,3) Oh, these "calculations" are indeed a little less than.... "correct" [I think the predicted day of Christ's death may have been a Tuesday if you re-check it], but the fact remains that the date of Christmas is a reference to Passover, calculated [not 100% correctly, but calculated with 100% effort (which is what is always important, right? ;-)) none-the-less] to be either March 25th --> December 25th, or April 6th --> January 6th in the given year, thus putting it as a reference to Judaism (ie: Lunar Calendar) rather than it being a re-creation of a Pagan holiday [ie: Solar Calendar]. So the co-incidence with Solar Festivals just happens to be a rather happy... co-incidence.

If you check my icon, you'll see that I evidently no longer follow this as-you-eloquently-label-it "gobbledygook" [Spell-check actually likes that? cool!], and honestly I don't think Catholicism actually maintains that the dates calculated 1700 years ago are truly accurate any more either, hence the whole not-actually-birthday thing. But having associated with Pagans for a while and having that R.C. background I've grown to really hate the whole "Christianity is actually based in Paganism!" thing. Or rather, I just want to hear some more original/accurate arguments. Still better than "Well, my [20th Century re-creationist] religion is older than Christianity" at least.

razeontherock · Dec 23, 2010

Yep, I appreciate your perspective. It is interesting to entertain at least a possibility that somebody involved in the 12/25 thing had a pure motive, other than converting pagans via corrupting Christianity, or daring them to try because it's incorruptible.

What's also interesting is there was probably never a time when ALL Christians felt the same way about it

SpiritualAntiseptic · Feb 3, 2011

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
Just mostly Christmas. I don't understand why December 25th, Yule, is used as symbolism for the birth of Jesus Christ. The tree, also a pagan symbol...I could go on, but sleep deprivation is kicking in.

Christmas wasn't originally celebrated on December 25. It was later moved. December 25 was chosen because the conception of Christ was celebrated on March 25. December 25th was not a pagan holiday.
Yule is not Christian symbolism. Yule is something that people had in far northern Europe that they brought into the Christmas celebration.
To call a tree an exclusively pagan symbol is absurd. The tree finds importance in many different cultures and religion because of its importance for human life.
Trees became popular late in Christianity in Christmas celebrations in Germany. They were used to represent the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in plays at the time. People would take the trees home. They were decorated with apples, like the tree in the garden of eden. Now they are decorated with glass balls and other ornaments.

I've noticed that some Christians don't celebrate Christmas....it's odd to me. If you're going to twist a Pagan celebration and turn it into a Christian holiday then why not celebrate it? I mean, I'm not condemning anyone, I was just wanting to know why Pagans get a bad rap.

Early Christians had many different days of celebrations- called Holy Days (from which we get the word holiday in English). About five hundred years ago many Christians started a new branch wanting to make it simpler and purer, so they rejected all religious holidays, including Christmas.

Christmas isn't a pagan holiday. That is in fact a myth made up generally by the Christians that don't celebrate Christmas.

razeontherock · Feb 3, 2011

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
This is the ignorance I've spoken about that people don't understand what I speak about and just decide to try and tell me how "holy" god is. Sorry dude, I'm not a Christian.

I never said you were a Christian, and there was no ignorance in my post. The Christian Holiday is NOT derived from paganism, which is what you tried to assert. Now certain practices within those Holidays certainly were adopted from paganism, but that is entirely different from what you erroneously claimed.

zaksmummy · Feb 7, 2011

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
I've never understood this. I, and I can guarantee that most other pagans have nothing against christians until you try to push your faith on us. What you need to realize is that many "christian" celebrations are derived from our celebrations. Christians also keep many of our symbols. It just makes no sense for christians to be all high and mighty. I just don't understand, maybe someone can explain this to me.

Because many christians dont know the history of their faith, the furthest most go is to the reformation.

supersoldier71 · Feb 7, 2011

As Christians most of us believe that before there were pagans, there were believers in Yahweh (Adam, Eve, their progeny, etc....) so thus, we actually believe that the roots of our belief system stretch back to the Beginning, before anyone decided to worship created things instead of the Creator. The days designated as holy, whatever they may be, are created for Man, to worship his Creator. The actual dates don't really matter much.

salida · Feb 8, 2011

These pagan things are a cultural thing-christians don't worship it. Plus, maybe the pagans have taken things from christianity.

Christmas is from christ mass-this isn't pagan but for christians initially.

Husky7 · Feb 14, 2011

HiddenFaceHiddenHeart said:
I've never understood this. I, and I can guarantee that most other pagans have nothing against christians until you try to push your faith on us. What you need to realize is that many "christian" celebrations are derived from our celebrations. Christians also keep many of our symbols. It just makes no sense for christians to be all high and mighty. I just don't understand, maybe someone can explain this to me.

You're right, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc. all were orginally derived from Pagan orgin. They are not Christian holidays.

Why are Pagans given a bad rep when many christian traditions are derived from us?

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