Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

So as anyone who's been watching these forums or surfing the internet knows, there is a lot of accusation that Christrians either:

1) Stole Christmas from pagans,
2) Celebrate a hodge podge of stolen traditions from various cultures,
3) Are really celebrating the Winter Solstice.

In other words, we're all dirty holiday thieves and we aren't celebrating the nativity of Jesus like we claim we are.

Misty Rose constantly reminds people of this and apparently ignored some of my posts on this topic as well. That website InterruptorJones linked to--"CENSOR'd"Christmas.org, claims the same things. A webcomic I was linked to, Poisoned Minds, also claims this (even though they really tear up the "Happy Holidays" ultra-PC people at the same time).

But are they telling the truth or upholding something worthy of being busted on Snopes?

Because I'm tired of hearing these "'Christmas' isn't Christian at all" claims over and over again, I've decided to find out after a some wiki-ing and research.

TO START THINGS OFF, I WAS SOMEWHAT WRONG!

Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 6/7th, as I said before--but it's not because they disagree with the date. They simply did not accept two calendar reforms--therefore, the Orthodox date of Christmas is still December 25, but for the rest of us it's January 6/7th.

Modern Orthodox Christians do seem to assume that's just when to celebrate, given some of the Orthodox boyos I've talked to don't seem concious of the calendar date change. And neither did I when I first discovered this!

BUT WHY DECEMBER 25th? ISN'T THAT WHEN YULE AND OTHER PAGAN HOLIDAYS ARE?

Yeah, it is. But first of all, multiple holidays can be on the same date. It's true! This should be enough to defeat the argument that Christmas is a stolen holiday, but apparently it's not. People can't accept that two holidays can occur on the same date--that one must have stolen the day from another.

Because of that, we're going to have to delve into the origins of Christmas itself. Hold onto your socks, people!

We know that Christmas is the holiday celebrating Jesus' birth. No ifs, ands, or buts. Traditions have formed a secular shell that anyone can celebrate, but at its core, this is what the holiday is about. So we have to ask ...

THE DATE OF JESUS' BIRTH--WHEN IS IT?

No one really knows for sure of course, but logic and reasoning have been used to try and pin down the correct date. Here's some of the contenders.

One school of thought believes that Jesus was born at the start of Hanukkah (25 Kislev, into Tevet for the Jewish calendar). Under the old Julian calender, it is thought by this school that Jesus was born 5 BC--which would put 25 Kislev on November 25 for us.

Early Christians, including the 3rd century St. Hippolytus (who is notable for defending Christianity in writing in the early 200s) held that Jesus birth was on December 25 (or January 6). He (and the rest of his school of thought) believed that old testament prophets up to Jesus died on an anniversary of their conception or birth birth. They felt that since Jesus followed this tradition, so the date of his conception was nine months after Good Friday. Whether or not Jesus did die on his birthday, this still shows that Christians were trying to pin down when Jesus was born that was not influenced by the Winter Solstic or pagan festivals. Are you taking notes, Misty?

There's a third school of thought that also places Jesus' birth at December 25, but is held unreliable and makes a bunch of assumptions by scholars. For posterity, here it is: The posulation uses the six-year almanac of priestly Job rotations, which were discovered along with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The belief holds that the almanac shows the week when John the Baptist's father served as a high priest. It's been implied that John the Baptist could only have been concieved on that week. It's a common belief that his conception is tied to Jesus' own, so the school of thought thinks that his birth fell on or around December 25.

Here's a more detailed account of the reasoning:


So, we have an early Christian view that sets the date at December 25, not influenced by Pagan holidays. We have a second theory that does the same, using the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Job rotations for evidence. Sound theories or not, they are still reasonings that do not whatsoever mention anything about the Winter Solstice or pagan holidays, and that's mainly what I'm getting at here.

OKAY, SO--WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL DATE OF CELEBRATION?

Early Christians reasoned Jesus' birth was on the 25th of December, so they probably celebrated then. Christmas was not among the eariest feast/celebration Christians celebrated, interestingly enough. The earliest known lists of Christian feasts by Irenaeus and Tertullian don't mention it.

Here's some historical information from Wikipedia on the subject:


But why did the date fixate on December 25 in the first place? Well, there's been all kinds of theories.

I believe Misty Rose prefers this one--the idea that Christians celebrated on 25 to crowd out the traditional Roman holiday of the feast of Sol Invictus. However, the actual school of thought is that emperor Constantine set Christmas to this date after converting to Christianity to give Christians and Pagans of the Empire a common feast holiday, that the entire empire would celebrate together. Such a feast in Constaninople wasn't recorded until a century after his rule under a different emperor, however. In Rome there's a document that mentions this going back to 350 AD but with no mention of Constantine, just Pope Julius I.

Also, Constantine's conversion happened around 313 AD--and early Christians had already taken stock in the concept of Jesus's birthday being December 25. For me, that is more than enough to sink Misty's ship. BATTLESHIP--SUNK!

A more general claim is that Christianity's traditions of gift giving, feasting, and postponment of business developed (or in a more hostile/degrading spin, stolen) from those of the traditional Roman religious holiday season, Saturnalia. The Winter Solstice, as I've discovered, does lands on December 25 in the Julian Calendar, which is that feast of Sol Invictus. So I do have to admit that December 25 was the Winter Solstice for the calendar of the time. However, I think I've demonstrated that Christians didn't set December 25 as the date to celebrate Jesus' birth because of the Romans or the Solstice, but because they geniuinely think Jesus was born that day.

But the traits of Saturnalia--postponment of business, feasting, gift giving--accusing Christmas of stealing these from the Romans--isn't that a bit absurd? The concept of giving gifts and postponement of business on holidays can't be traced back to its origins in Saturnalia, can it? I don't really think so. You're free to prove me wrong on that, though.

Feasting--well, it's quite clearly obvious from what I've already presented that Christians didn't steal the concept of feasting on holidays from the Romans, so.

"But what about Advent?" You might say. The holy season leading up to Christmas. Some people might point to this being stolen from Saturnalia (which is also a holy season for the Romans), but that's silly. Saturnalia was/is (does anyone worship the Roman religion anymore?) a period of merriment and celebration--Advent is a time of pentinence and fasting. Two different things, entirely.

A spin on the above theory used by Misty Rose is that zealous Christian missionaries tried to "force Jesus down the throats of pagans" through custom. People who think this way claim that after Christianity was established in Scandinavia and Germany, the newly Christian nations would say "Okay, Yule is now Christmas" and thus overwrite Paganism with Christianity.

I think it's safe to say that the previous information discussed totally sinks that theory in the context of "Christians only celebrate on December 25 because of vile propaganda to convert Germanic/Scandinavian pagans" Christianity didn't spread to Scandinavia until much later compared to the origins of Christmas. We're easily talking a 700 year difference, probably more. I can't get a good date, but by around 1000 AD I know the Norse Christian kingdoms started popping up. The Germanic tribes converted to Christianity beginning around 500 AD, and continued spreading from there--still too late for this accusation.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TRADITIONS OF CHRISTMAS? SURELY THOSE AREN'T CHRISTIAN IN ORIGIN!

Let's take it by the numbers.

A more general claim based on Misty's favorite take from the last bit is that Christianity's traditions of gift giving, feasting, and postponment of business developed (or in a more hostile/degrading spin, stolen) from those of the traditional Roman religious holiday season, Saturnalia. The Winter Solstice, as I've discovered, does lands on December 25 in the Julian Calendar, which is that feast of Sol Invictus. So I do have to admit that December 25 was the Winter Solstice for the calendar of the time. However, I think I've demonstrated that Christians didn't set December 25 as the date to celebrate Jesus' birth because of the Romans or the Solstice, but because they geniuinely think Jesus was born that day.

But the traits of Saturnalia--postponment of business, feasting, gift giving--accusing Christmas of stealing these from the Romans--isn't that a bit absurd? The concept of giving gifts and postponement of business on holidays can't be traced back to its origins in Saturnalia, can it? I don't really think so. You're free to prove me wrong on that, though. In fact, we have a few Jews here--I don't know much about Jewish traditions on Hannukah, but they could tell us if gift giving and postponing of business transactions occurs during that time.

Feasting--well, it's quite clearly obvious from what I've already presented that Christians didn't steal the concept of feasting on holidays from the Romans, so.

"But what about Advent?" You might say. Some people might point to this being stolen from Saturnalia (which is also a holy season for the Romans) since it leads up to Christmas, but that's silly. Saturnalia was/is (does anyone worship the Roman religion anymore?) a period of merriment and celebration of which Sol Invictus occured somewhere in the middle--Advent is a time of pentinence and fasting that starts after Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and ends on Christmas. Two different things, entirely.

So--the holy season leading up to Christmas. The feasting, and surely gift giving and business transaction posting--these traditions were not stolen from anyone (the latter three being common traits of any holiday, I'd bet).

How about the Christmas tree?

I do believe Misty Rose has thrown out some vague references to Egyptian, Roman, and Germanic pagan celebrations that did similar things (this is related to the accusation that choosing December 25 as Christmas was a ploy to convert pagans). The truth is, scholars aren't really sure when or if the Christmas tree had early roots (no pun intended) in any pagan tradition. It is, however, a tradition that's started in Germany, along with the usage of candlewreaths in Advent. (But the candlewreath was invented in the 19th century and is a purely Christian tradition).

See, the popular story is that St. Boniface, sent on a mission to what is now the state of Hesse in Germany in the 700s, started the tradition of the Christmas tree by forcing it on pagans by cutting down the holy oak tree dedicated to Thor. Then, the story goses, he told the pagans they would then use evergreeen fir trees instead to celebrate Jesus' coming. Some variants say that the tree immediately sprung out of the fallen oak tree.

As for actual records, there seems to be confirmation that St. Boniface cut down the sacred oak tree in Fritzlair--but no mention of changing their custom. Instead, he used the wood from the oak tree to build a chapel--on its site now rests the Fritzlair cathedral. I can't find any historcial mention of the bishop converting pagans through the use of switching out their trees.

Didymus might get a kick out of this (and could tell me a bit about whether this is true), but the Christmas tree as we know it is often said to be the work of Martin Luther back in the 15th century. This theory isn't airtight, but there is some evidence that can point in that direction, found in songs dating from that time.

In the end, we don't know enough for sure as far as when and where Christmas trees became a tradition, but I'd bet my money on a German origin. I've come to find that the most iconic secular traditions of Christmas come from German Christians ... and for me, personally, the Martin Luther theory sounds plausible.

Now, in Scandinavia, the story is different--traditions typically local to their area (but recognized worldwide, especially in Europe) do come from pagan/Asratu tradition. There, Christmas is typically known as 'Yule.' Some of the more potent traditions I can think of include the Yule log and "Christmas ale."

I think that just leaves Santa Claus to talk about, one of the most recognizable of all Christmas traditions and now more of a symbol of the secularism/commercialism that's developed around the holiday.

Santa Claus as we know him has a few resonating events in other cultural or religious holidays, but in reality it comes strictly from a Christian background. Santa Claus, whose alias is sometimes Saint Nick, is a de-Catholicization of St. Nicholas of Myra. He was a bishop who lived back in the 300s in what's now Turkey. Nicholas is well known for giving gifts to the poor, including helping daughters of a family so that they wouldn't have to work as prostitutes. He is also well known for secretive gift-giving (take note!).

As far as my research goes, St. Nicholas' feast day was considered a time of exchanging gifsts and secret gift giving, especially in Germany, where the tradition was slowly transitioning to Christmas itself. When the Protestant reformations occured in Germany, an attempt as made to de-Catholicize the Christian traditions. This led to Martin Luther replacing the festival with a Christkind (Christ Child in German) celebration on Christmas Eve. That's where we get "Kris Kringle," by the way, another one of Santa Claus' names.

In Holland, Santa Claus (Sinterklaas) does indeed look rather like a bishop, or more like St. Nicholas of Myra. He's even got the bishop's hat. Our depiction of Santa Claus is likely a syncretic image pieced together and melded from various Christmas traditions and depictions of St. Nicholas.

TO SUM IT ALL UP

Here's what I've learned from my research:

The date of Jesus' birth was indeed thought to be on December 25th by early Christians.

Celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25th was not designed to force/encourage pagans to convert.to Christianity--it was already being celebrated before official declarations by the Roman empire were (possibly) made.

Only some Christmas traditions have an obviously pagan background. Some traditions are just too common in theme to really be accused of 'stolen' from any sort of holiday or culture. Others still are purely Christian in origin or have a good chance of being started by Christians.

Any thoughts? Possibly challenges? Or maybe some light fighting?

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I confess to having only skimmed your post--sorry, Trevmun, but brevity isn't your strong suit--but here's my take on it: It's obvious that many Christmas traditions are throwbacks from older faiths, and Christ probably wasn't born anywhere near December 25, but who cares? When Christians decorate a tree and light a Yule log on December 25th, they know they're celebrating the birth of Christ, I know they're celebrating the birth of Christ, and He (assuming He's out there somewhere) knows they're celebrating His birth. The fact that many Christmas rituals have little, historically, to do with Christ, is moot. In short, it's the thought that counts.

Maybe if I were a Pagan I would be upset about my traditions being "stolen" by those naughty Christians, but let's be serious. It's been centuries. I'd like to think that if I were a Pagan I wouldn't be so uptight.

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This is how I interpreted your post:

"It's too long, so I didn't read it. It's still a fact that Christmas is derived from pagan traditions."

Suffice to say, spending several hours looking this stuff up only to have it blown off as "it's obvious Christmas is derived from pagan traditions" when the post was skimmed and not really read irks me.

It seems more like assumptions have become "fact," but they're still assumptions. :/ Wrong assumptions, in some cases. Breivity is not my strong suit, but I think you should read my post in detail. I put a lot of work into researching this stuff and trying to understand the details of it all. What you may think is "generally accepted fact" may, in fact, be wrong.

I do personally think that people who want to claim that Christians completely stole Christmas from pagans--whether it''s way too vague to tell with many possible ways it could go, or not true at all--just want to cast a negative or villainous light. It's true in some cases, but not in others, and there's historical basis for why things came to be.

At any rate:



That's how I pretty much feel, but the fact so many people go around saying "Christians stole/derived Christmas from pagans" got to me, so I wanted to find out myself if it was true.

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Well, you interpreted it wrong. A more accurate summary would have been, "It's too long, so I only skimmed it. It's still a fact that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ."

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I agree with IJ in that Jesus's birth was probably not on December 25th. I think that the Roman censuses were held sometime in the spring, actually. But it really doesn't matter what day we celebrate Jesus's birth, anyway, as long as we celebrate it.

Quite frankly I'm getting sick of tired of this, and it just shows how desperate people are to sever anything Pagan from their everyday lives and create

First of all, it's way too damn long and there's almost nothing solid I can actually reply to. The only things that are half worth replying to are the Christmas trees - the decorating of trees is DEFINITELY a Pagan tradition.

Read this - http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_tree.htm

It's interesting how things like this appear on religious tolerance, and I do feel certain people are being a little intolerant here.

I don't constantly complain about the sheer amount of influence Christianity has in my every day life; so must Xians kick up a fuss about a trace of Paganism being in their lfie? It's not as if "Paganism" is even a very specific thing.



Gods, that's annoying. I can't believe someone voted you for best debater. That's a really frustrating tactic; no doubt IJ genuinely couldn't bear to read something that long that made so little of a point. It's all here there everywhere conjecture just trying to find SOMETHING that disproves pagan ties with Christmas as much as you can. If you want people to reply to you, reduce it to about 1/3 of it's current length and actually think about what you're saying.

It IS a fact that Christmas is derived from Pagan traditions and any number of resources will confirm that for you. I've never seen any single Xian source able to refute it. So please, just leave things be.

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CLOCK

Please don't put words in my mouth, Rosalie. That's just as poor a "tactic" as Trev-MUN's.

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Beware of simple solutions to complex problems.

Trev was long winded for a reason.

I think the whole point is moot, though, since celebrating something with a specific intention kinda supersedes any other obscure meaning the celebration could have. Overly simple example: lots of people were/are born on January 25th and I, and others, celebrate my birthday on that day; however, celebrating my b-day doesn't mean we're secretly celebrating everyone else's Jan. 25th b-day.

That probable makes no sense. I just woke up. Sorry.

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OMG BEES DOT COM is all up in the hizzy, fools!

Clearly, and I was straightforward about my laziness for a reason.

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No, I'm not degrading paganism.

Funny how you use the "intolerance" card--I find people who say something to the effect of 'Christians are holiday thieves' are being intolerant themselves. You might not have said that word for word in the past, but I have seen plenty of it elsewhere.

I'm trying to get the facts straight. If I wanted to 'sever anything Pagan from my everday life' then I wouldn't have made a post like this, because during the course of my post I did point out some Christmas traditions most certainly derived from paganism.



You know, it's funny that a guy who's argued against other Christians and atheists in other forums trying to promote the concept of religious tolerance and respect among different groups is derided as "being intolerant."

In my research (which included Wikipedia mind you), I found that the Germanic/Scandinavian pagans didn't use evergreens, but oaks. Oaks, as I understand it, were considered sacred to Odin, hence their use. The Celtic druids also considered oaks sacred but for what reasons I do not know. The Egyptian's use of palm leaf branches I did come across, but I just figure this shows a common motif in using plants to honor and decorate or symbolize something.

The article does mention a practice of Saturnalia that wasn't in any of the articles I looked up, with the use of the tree--and the Greeks using evergreens in celebrations, well, I've never heard that before, certainly not in my research. That quote by Tertullian is interesting, I should have looked him up a bit more.

I thought Saturnalia was in honor of Saturn though, not Bacchus. Then again, they had a feast for Sol Invictus during Saturnalia, so I suppose honoring multiple gods during Saturn's holy season was common.



I'm not complaining about traces of other cultures in my life, Misty. If I were that stuck up then I'd be fuming over trivial things like Arabic numerals or the days of the week.

What I'm complaining about is those who deride Christians by saying what we celebrate is a stolen holiday that isn't celebrating what we say it is. I'm showing that it's not quite so--and you call me intolerant for it? Pssh.



What was the point of snarking off with something like this? Does it have any relevance to the thread?



That's why he replied back correcting my misreading. Actually, while I'm at it:



Jeez! I wasn't TRYING to pull a cheap "tactic" there.

In retrospect it looks a lot like a straw man argument, but by admitting that's how the post reads to me ("I interpreted your post as"), that's a sign to everyone that if I am reading it wrong then they can reply back telling me how it really is.

And that's what you did. Therefore it's moot, because we both agreed at the end that this kind of stuff shouldn't matter in the long run--I've just seen so many people make a big deal about how "Christmas is stolen" that I've had enough.

I think straw men arguments--at least, intentional ones and not comedic "hey look I'm pulling a straw man" silliness--would be a lot more subtle, dude. Throw me a bone, here!



That's all research. What do you consider "actually thinking" about what I'm saying?



Then read my post and refute my sources. All of them.

Show me that Christians didn't concieve of Jesus being born on December 25th early on, almost a century before the Edict that lifted their prosecution from the Roman government.

Show me that Santa Claus/Saint Nicholas is directly derived from a pagan concept and not a Catholic saint.

Show me that Advent and everything else I have said were all "stolen" from pagans.

I already did half the work for you there, by listing in my thread what traditions WERE derived from pagans. Oh, but you didn't read my post, so you wouldn't know about that!

Oh, and while you're at it, explain to me how pointing out what is and what isn't derived from pagans constitutes intolerance.

I'm not trying to convert pagans with the threat of hellfire.

I'm not calling for pagans to be burned at the stake.

I'm not accusing pagans of being stupid or superstitous or weak minded for their beliefs.

I'm not trying to stamp out paganism.

And yet somehow I feel you're trying to accuse me of intolerance as an attempt to make me look hateful and therefore not worth listening to.

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Indeed. `sokay. No offense, Trev, but I didn't read it either. I've had enough debate for a while.

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OMG BEES DOT COM is all up in the hizzy, fools!

hey Trev-MUN. first of all, i DID read the whole thing, because i appreciate the amount of time and effort you must have put into writing it. i have a lot of respect for intellectual dilligence and honesty, so thank you for that.

however, i still disagree with you. first of all, i'll respond to something specific you mentioned:



nope, those are not traditional Chanukkah things. Chanukkah is a festival but not a "yom tov" -- a holiday such as Shabbat or Yom Kippur, where doing work (including postponing business transactions) is observed. on most 8-day holidays, such a Passover, the first and last two days are yom tov and the middle four are "chol hamoed" where work can be done, but Chanukkah is such a minor holiday, quite possibly the most minor Jewish holiday that there is, that there's no such prohibition against business transactions.

gift giving on Chanukkah is relatively common today, but that's mostly a Twentieth Century phenomenon coming from the perceived competition with Christmas.

now, we know that not only was December 25 the solstice, but it had been being celebrated as the date of the virgin birth of the pagan god Mithras for at least 200 years before the traditional date of the birth of Jesus, and that the Romans had been celebrating it for probably 150 years by then. given the fact that it's pretty implausible that Jesus was born in the winter -- among other reasons, since the New Testament says that the shepherds were out tending their flocks at the time, which would not have been the case during the winter time -- this makes the idea that the date of Christmas is not just coincidentally the same day as the birth of Mithras.

as for the traditions, mistletoe is a well-known pagan fertility symbol that was associated with the solstice and with Mithras. there's actually a prohibition in the Talmud (the compendium of Jewish law) that you can't bring a tree into your house for purposes of worship, because it was a practice held by the idolotrous pagans of the region at the time. i mean, these days "Yule" is even a synonym for Christmas! i think it's pretty obvious. for the first few centuries after the formation of Christianity, the Church begged people not to celebrate this holiday -- since the vast majority of second-generation Christians onward were pagan converts or their descendents -- but people liked it, because it's fun and whatever, and it stuck. apparently Pope Gregory I allowed the Church to synthesize the pagan tradition with Christianity to make it more palatable for the recent-pagans to accept. that happened a lot, actually -- the abolishment of the commandments, of circumsision, the whole idea of a virgin birth and of a semi-divine saviour figure who dies for the sins of others, is right out of pagan mythology, and would have made a lot of sense to pagans, whereas all of it is absolutely anathema to any Jew who understands his own traditions and theology.

good work, though. i admire your dedication to defending and standing up for your beliefs.

Ah, alrighty. I wasn't entirely sure.

Your post's mentioning of Mithraism is ... kind of interesting. From what I understand, you're saying that Christianity shares a lot of aspects with Mithraism, that Mithraism is older than Christianity and that Christianity itself has a lot of pagan aspects from a Jew's perspective, not just in its holiday--which, of course, you disagreed with my findings on.

Well, I guess we're all pagans to eachother.

I tried looking up Mithraism--consulted Wikipedia and some other encyclopedias on it. There is a general lack of information on Mithraism, some 600 brief inscriptions or so since it didn't have a body of scripture and was passed from initiate to initiate. I haven't seen many books on the subject either, save for Franz Cumont's who seems to have been the one to imply that Christianity is an outgrowth of Mithraism, not Judaism.

It was a bit hard to follow, too--even though this is a mystery religion followed mainly by the Roman army, it seems historians are also saying that it started in 4,000 BC in Babylon with their god, also called Mithras.

That said, some of the superficial similarities are interesting, but once I started reading it there were a lot of differences underneath the surface. For example, all the sources I've looked at say Mithras was not born from a virgin mother--he sprung forth from a rock fully formed, knife in hand and wearing a cap. I can't find any evidence that supports the idea that this is a virgin birth. I mean, rocks can't have sex in the first place. D: Some of the sources say that Mithras was born in the open under a tree, but not all of them agree with that. Jesus, of course, was born in a stable and this is agreed upon.

EDIT: I originally said 'Jesus was born in a cave,' but Cobalt called me on my mishap before I could correct it. :/

Jesus on the other hand was indeed born from a virgin mother, a human, so ...

This would be an interesting debate for another thread, though, and admittedly I'm not all that equipped to argue about this--Mithraism is new to me and I haven't given it an extensive look.



Yeah, mainly due to Scandinavian infusion, like I pointed out--that's primarily, from my research, where I saw pagan traditions infused with Christmas.

But that's where I've got some problems with your evidence--I never saw mistletoe come up with Roman paganism or Mithraism. That, I thought, was largely a Norse/Scandinavian/Germanic tradition, from Baldur getting a headshot by a mistletoe dart from his half brother. That's what I know--but where did you hear about the connection mistletoe has to Mithraism and Roman paganism?

Also, concerning Pope Gregory I--I looked up both Wikipedia, New Advent and some other sources and I can't find what you're referring to concerning his allowing pagans to celebrate their holidays. He came two centuries after the records of feasts being held by Christians on the 25th, though, so ...

As for the relation of Jesus and Mithras having the same birthday, it's indeed a similarity. I don't give it much thought--of course, when one looks at the surface of both religions and sees all the similarities it's easy to conclude one was derived from the other, until they look deeper. There's also the difference in how Christianity and Mithraism is practiced. Mithraism is a secretive religion, not in the open and only initiates knew anything about it. Christianity didn't start with Roman soldiers, however. Many converted later, but they didn't start the religion. As to whether or not the religion was practiced significantly outside the army and in/around where Christianity was born, I really have no clue. I do know however it was never an official religion of the empire, only linked through Sol Invictus.

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i thought Jesus was supposed to have been born in a stable.

but anyway, here's what i found when i started doing a little digging on Mithras:



there's also:



so there you've got the tree stuff. plus the virgin birth, and the semi-divine saviour figure, neither of which are anywhere in the Jewish prophecies or beliefs about what the messiah (or anyone else, for that matter) was supposed to be like, and actually pretty obviously violate the actual messianic beliefs and requirements, so it's pretty clearly a later adaptation. i'm not sure whether it was something that was injected into early Christianity intentionally to lure pagans into converting or if it just developed naturally from the religious understanding of the ex-pagan intellectuals who came to have sway over theological issues in the early Church. either way, though, it's completely outside of the Jewish understanding of God and the messiah.



well, here:





the Wikipedia entry on Christmas says it quite clearly:






no, Christianty didn't start with Roman soldiers, obviously; it started out as a heretical sect or cult of Judaism. the first generation of Christians were all Jews, but there were only about 300 or so of them. extremely few Jews were converting to Christianity after about the first Century CE, though -- almost 100% of the Christians post that first generation were either the descendents of those few hundred original "Jewish Christians" or, most significantly, the pagans who were converted by Paul (and, later, others in his mold) once it became obvious that Christianity would need a huge injection of gentile converts if it wanted to survive, since the Jews were no longer becoming Christians.

Paul had to compromise on the requirements of Christianity to get pagans to convert, since originally stuff like circumcision, the dietary requirements, etc, were still in effect according to Jesus and his apostles, but the pagans just weren't going to go for that stuff. once the pagans gained what was basically a majority share of Christianity, including leadership positions in the Church, it was only a matter of time before they brought their theological understanding and their religious traditions to what had been, until that point, a largely Jewish movement.

... wow, how did I manage that one? Moreover, how did I not catch that I said that?

Yeah, he was born in a stable in Bethlehem. Serious brainfart there, heh. :/ Sorry.

I think it's time we took this debate on Mithraism/Christianity to a new thread, however. The parts relevant to this thread I'll reply to, but I need to address some other stuff first ... so it might be a while.

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Umm...It was a manger.

Or is there a difference?

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A manger is a trough made of stone or wood to hold food for animals, so it was used as a sort of crib.

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I can see plainly why you weren't voted best debater... your ideas, though very well researched, are laden with slander and statements to inflate your ego.

And you've never read the book on debating called "The Book of War." Your starting statements always break the most important rule... about stating all your facts at the beginning... It's overwhelming. This goes for speaking or forum debate. I've been doing public speaking and debate for over 6 years...

All I want is that Christianity give credit where credit is due. Plus, even in its origins, the birth of christ can coincide with the birthgiving act of the goddess...

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Okay ... what the heck, dude?

I'm not trying to inflate my ego. I don't think I'm important. In fact, I was shocked that people nominated me for being Best Debator on that wikiawards thing. But you know, I probably shouldn't even be on it in the first place.

I don't think of myself as some awesome prestigious debater, I'm just doing my thing. I debate not because I love to, but because I want to set things straight--either my own facts or someone else's. If you want to critique my debating style, fine, but why here? Granted I did PM you after seeing this, but--I figured it had to be said here, since I'd prefer giving some kind of explanation or defence to a public accusation about me.

It's true that my initial post did make much mentioning of Misty Rose, but slander is a false statment intended to injure someone's reputation. Misty Rose has indeed claimed severla times that Christians are just celebrating Winter Solstice and/or Christmas is derived from pagan traditions. I didn't intentionally attempt to slander her. I do feel Misty Rose has tried to slander ME in her reply by implying that I'm intolerant of paganism, however, for making such a thread.



That's what I want to do, too.

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Trev - See this as constructive criticism only, and not as a personal attack.



Statements like this can be taken as misplaced sarcasm and, to a degree, inflation of your ego and a disregard towards your opponent. It doesn't matter how much you know, or how much you say you know. If you try and inflate your ego, people will not give half a crap what you say. Learned that in my first competition in 9th grade.

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That's not me trying to inflate my ego.

That's me trying to take a more whimisical, more comical approach to debating. See, when I wrote that post and the one after it where I was using colors and the like, I was trying to write it in a way that didn't sound aggressive or making it a personal attack. I figured acting stupid with an obnoxious "straw man" would have taken the edge off.

I actually halfway did that in this one too with the BATTLESHIP SUNK reference.

Well, now I can see that approach failed if instead I'm considered egostic, arrogant, and self-important. :/ Being interpreted in just the way I didn't want to be interpreted. All three of which I was trying NOT to be, EVER. I've argued against narcissist people before, and that's one major thing I don't want to become.

At any rate ... again this thing is going off topic ... but I think I've explained myself. Whether or not people will conclude I'm still an egoist, I don't know. But I can see now IJ (judging from his implication that I use lowly debate tactics), you, and Misty (... well, that's a given) all consider me a sniveling self-important sadist, so I suppose this explanation came too late to really matter, huh.

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TOAST PAINT!

So, to summarize this thread so far, Christmas is December 25 because various Roman rulers wanted to keep the Empire unified since that date was around a few Roman celebrations. Today, since we obviously don't celebrate Roman festivals anymore, and since we don't know Jesus Christ's exact birthdate, December 25 has become canon for the Western church's date of Christmas, so why change it? As long as we have a date to celebrate His birth, that's all that matters.

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TOASTPAINT NOTHING! My browser crashed before I could post this. Friggin toastpainting before I can say anything...tch

Trev - No, I just want you to do a better job at proving it. You have the gumption and, apparently, the spare time to be a good debater... But the use of whimsy can be very touchy in certain areas, just be careful. Battleship sunk is a good one to use, in fact, I would've used it. But the example I posted is what you dont want to do, because you sound like you are undermining your opponent.

Ok, now... Toastpaint.

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Trev-MUN, for the record i am perfectly content with the style and content of your arguments. i don't learn anything from people who already agree with me!

That's common sense. Just, I'm saying there's a more cordial and better way of expressing a disagreeing opinion.

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i haven't found Trev-MUN to be insulting or egotistical at all, though. just saying.

Once again, TOAST PAINT!

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If you've been doing public speaking and debate for over 6 years, assuming you've won arguments, then you've broken this rule as well.

Regarding Trev-MUN's starting post . . . Trev didn't lay out the facts at the beginning; he outlined what the post would be about. Then he went into facts, or what I hope are facts.

In 6 years of debate you've never made a simple thesis statement? And no fancy Malcolm-X-putting-it-in-the-middle-of-a-speech excuse, either.

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OMG BEES DOT COM is all up in the hizzy, fools!

I was not making a debate out of this, so I figured it would not be necessary.

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I realize that; however, outlining your path is what you do at the beginning of any debate, and that's waht Trev did!

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OMG BEES DOT COM is all up in the hizzy, fools!