Do you believe that many  important Christian holidays are converted Pagan Festival Days?
90757
Almost all of the Christian Holidays are on top of Pagan Holidays. Easter is on top of Ostera. Bunnies and eggs are pagan symbols of spring and fertility. \n\nHallowe'en is a Pagan holiday, but most people don't know where the holiday origins are from. Pagans call the day Samhain. The old God dies on this day, and the Goddess mourns him until his rebirth at Yule (Christmas - Winter Solstice). The Catholic Church created All Saint's Day (November 1) as a holy day to recognize all the Catholic saints. But it wasn't a powerful enough idea to wipe out the traditional Hallowe'en celebrattions. Ironically, many Christians don't approve of the celebration of Halloween because of its Pagan origins, not realizing that almost all of the holidays they observe had Pagan beginnings.\n\nChristmas is on the Winter Solstice. Even non-Pagans use the term "Yule" around the Christmas holidays. Yule is celebrated on the Winter Solstice (December 22nd), on the shortest day of the year. Since the days get longer from this point in the year, Yule is a celebration of the returning sun and the rebirth of the Pagan God who died at Hallowe'en. As with Easter, the Christian story of the birth of Jesus fits nicely with the Pagan mythology of a "God" reborn. Traditions such as wreaths and Yule logs are remnants of the original beliefs. Gifts were exchanged at Yule long before the Wise Men offered their gifts to the baby Jesus.\n\nGroundhogs Day, although not specifically a Christian holiday, is on the day of the Pagan Holiday called Candlemas (or Imbolc) that is celebrated on February 2nd. Because spring is just starting to show itself at this time of year, there were various superstitions about predicting the weather, and how long it would be until the end of winter. The original idea was to watch for a hedgehog, but as people immigrated to North America, the tradition changed to a ground hog, since we didn't have hedgehogs here.\n\nThe reasons Christian holidays are celebrated on the Pagan holidays is because in the early era of the Christian Church in Europe they were having trouble getting the peasants and simple folk to accept the Christian faith, so they placed the Christian Holidays at the same time as the Pagan Celebrations for that everyone would be happy. By blending the two together it was easier to convert the people to Christianity.
451067
I thought you said you are both Christian. Only pagans celebrate birthdays.
422007
I'm with you.  \n\nI don't think it's a sin to celebrate holidays, but they are separate from Christianity.  \n\nThe only thing the Bible tells us to celebrate is Christ's death, burial, and resurrection - the Lord's supper - and the disciples did that on the first day of the week.  (Acts 20:7, I Corinthians 10:16-17 and 11:20)\n\nGrowing up, my sister thought that Santa was more powerful than God, because Santa brought her presents.  We do need to be careful what we teach children with our traditions.
1022376
They don't celebrate the Christian holidays, because they are all based on Pagan holidays:\nAll Souls (saints) Day, Halloween/Samhain\nChristmas/Yule, WInter Solstice\nEaster/Oestre\nGroundhog Day (I know, not Christian)/Imbolc\n\nRejection of Holidays\n\nOne of the more well-known practices of the Jehovah's Witnesses is their non-celebration of holidays. All holidays, including birthdays, are considered "pagan holidays" and may not be observed by Witnesses. The official website of the Jehovah's Witnesses explains:\n\n    Jesus never commanded Christians to celebrate his birth. Rather, he told his disciples to memorialize, or remember, his death. (Luke 22:19, 20) Christmas and its customs come from ancient false religions. The same is true of Easter customs, such as the use of eggs and rabbits. The early Christians did not celebrate Christmas or Easter, nor do true Christians today.\n\n    The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah. (Genesis 40:20-22; Mark 6:21, 22, 24-27) The early Christians did not celebrate birthdays. The custom of celebrating birthdays comes from ancient false religions. True Christians give gifts and have good times together at other times during the year. {1}
840425
As a child in the 50s, you possibly saw 'Punch & Judy', which is also based on pagan characters which have been adapted. Hobby Horses, the Harvest Festival, Halloween (as already mentioned) and many other festival activities are linked to original pagan worship. The church adopted these to teach their message through the old ways.
958747
Yea I didn't know much about Paganism. I learned alot from Chris J, a user on here, he is awesome. Also I saw that many of my fellow Christians are absolute NUTCASES on here.\n\n():-D\nshadowgirl
873899
Good point, but I'm not going to let Christmas or Easter be just like any other days.They are Christian holidays and need to be celebrated. Thanksgiving I'm willing to give up. Cooking and cleaning up all day while the men sit and watch football. Women really got the shaft on that holiday!
754175
There is nothing wrong at all, with many or most of our holidays being agricultural in nature.  \n\nThat does not mean that Christians can't also celibrate them in they're own ways.  As I believe you said, you celebrate the idea of Santa.  He is fun.  And yet there is no Christian symbolism with him, but that is ok, you also celebrate Christ's birth.\n\nAs far as holiday's also being agriculturally based, that is ok and good, we all have to eat.  And so we enjoy the times that things are planted and harvested, and rejoice in God's creation.\n\nMany of the early festivals in the Bible are based on harvests, plantings, etc.\n\nJesus had wine at the last supper.  An agricultural product.
934413
Pagan here, we have Holidays yes.  Our holidays are not tied to given dates, they are seasonal, the dates can be charted by the zodiac and the suns position in them.\n\nSamhain Oct. 31 (All Hallows Eve, or "Hallowe'en"; November Eve) \n\nWinter Solstice approx. Dec. 21 (Midwinter; Yule, or "Wheel") Also called Pagan Christmas by some , though not by me.  I don't do a Christ's Mass\n\nCandlemas Feb. 2 (Imbolg or Oimelc, "in the belly") \n\nVernal Equinox approx. Mar. 21 Day and night are equal, but day is increasing \n\nBeltane April 30 (May Eve) \n \nSummer Solstice approx. June 21 (Midsummer) This Sabbat marks the longest day of the year.\n \nLammas July 31 ("Loaf mass", also called Lughnassad, "Commemoration of Lugh"; August Eve) The First-Fruits of the Harvest.\n\nAutumn Equinox approx. Sept. 21 Night and day are equal, with night increasing in length\n\nAnd yes, there are rituals and customs to go with each of them.
323819
Okay . . . Okay . . . the questioner is correct . . . \n\nChristmas is originally a pagan holiday . . . a week long festival . . . actually 12 days long . . . reminds you of a song.\n\nThis holiday was adopted to convert pagans into Christianity . . . and they accepted it hook, line, and sinker.\n\nThe majority of the holidays celebrated by Christian have pagan origins . . . but back to Christmas . . . \n\nSome of you said you celebrate this day in remembrance of the birth of Christ.  Did Christ ask his followers to remember his birth?  No he did not . . . instead he commanded his followers to commemorate the last supper in his remembrance . . . . Not do perform it daily or weekly . . . but annually like the early christians did . . . prior to 325 AD.
320355
You better believe they did.  They took over our holidays, built their churches on our sacred space and generally tried to re-write historic facts to claim that it isn't true.   Most of the stories in the Bible are derived from older, Pagan tales.  I'm not making this up, do some research and you'll see what I mean.  Before Mary, a Pagan goddess named Cybele gave birth to a son, she too was a virgin.   That's just one example. There are many others.  So yeah, Christianity has Pagan DNA no matter how much people try to deny it.
436297
Catholic religious holidays and feast days are pretty spread out throughout the year, not just in or near winter.\n\nI believe Jewish holidays are too.  Two of the major ones, Yom Kippur and Roshashana, are in the early fall.
364068
Just another pagan tradition!
863080
Absolutely not. The date was chosen in an effort to get pagans to convert their own celebration of the "return of the sun" to the "birth of the Son".  A little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down.
1124756
I agree\n\nso-called christians are not following the Bible..only traditions of man\nIf the date of Jesus birth were important, dont you think it would be recorded? Can anyone find a record of Jesus birth being celebrated in the Bible?....I dont think so.  \nThis is because God's people were aware of the pagan roots of birthday celebrations...\n\nWhat is most important concerning Christ and his redeeming mankind is his sacrificial death.\n\nCertainly there are records of that in  the Bible.  Jesus gave the command to remember him (Lu 22:19) this was a new celebration to replace the Passover of the old Mosaic Law\n (every Nisan 14..which falls 14 days after the new moon following the spring equinox--according to the lunar calendar used at that time)
23950
The church had nothing to do with it. A roman emperor in the 4th century A.D. wanted to make everybody happy. There was a pagan celebration called Saturnalia. The emperor set the Christian's holiday at the same time as Saturnalia so pagans and Christians could be celebrating at the same time. Is everybody happy?  \n\nSee link for the history.
620202
Here's some links to rituals at about.com.  \n\nhttp://paganwiccan.about.com/od/midsummerrituals/?terms=pagan+holidays