MERRY MITHRA - Christmas is pagan.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

I engage in no pagan festivities to worship Jesus.

Glad to hear that!

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by mfblume

I engage in no pagan festivities to worship Jesus.

Actually people engage in Catholic and Lutheran rituals to worship their Jesus.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Esaias

The issue isn't using pagan names for things like the days of the week. The Bible itself uses Babylonian names for certain months. Israelites occasionally were given and used names derived from pagan gods - like Mordechai (variation of Marduk) and Esther (variation of Ishtar), Belteshazzar (which includes the name Bel), etc.

The issue is taking pagan religious rites and trying to apply them to the worship of God, attempting to worship God by means of pagan religious rites, taking the core elements of heathen demon worship and trying to adapt them to the worship of God. That is explicitly forbidden by God.

In the case of Christmas, we have the pagan holy day of the Nativity of the Invincible Sun (Mithra, Helios, Baal, etc) being "adapted" to the worship of God in the form of a Catholic Mass feast day, which in itself is a variation on pagan religious rites (Mystery rites, especially of Mithra, the number 1 rival of Christianity in the first several hundred years after Christ). Protestants want to keep the Catholic tradition because "muh funz" but don't want to look all vatican-y so they strip out some of the overt catholic stuff but keep the core ideas along with the entirely secular "buy stuff" motif.

Pentecostals have taken stands against purely secular stuff like sports and tv and women wearing makeup and men's neckties and most don't bat an eye. But point a knife at the sacred cows of CATHOLIC AND PAGAN RELIGIOUS RITES and hoo boy watch the fur fly.

Really makes a person think. IF they're a thinking person, that is.

And round and round we go. The claim you make in the emboldened section above is in dispute. Scholars/Historians do not agree on this. Some say it was the Sun worshippers who hijacked Christmas.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Originalist

And round and round we go. The claim you make in the emboldened section above is in dispute. Scholars/Historians do not agree on this. Some say it was the Sun worshippers who hijacked Christmas.

Nobody with any credibility says the Sun worshippers hijacked Christmas from the catholics.

YOU haven't made a case for anything yet.

Meanwhile, I posted a link to the text (and artwork) of the Philocalus Calendar of 354 AD which shows Dec 25th was recognised BY ROMAN CHRISTIANS as the Nativity of Sol Invictus and you called it "commentary".

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Nobody with any credibility says the Sun worshippers hijacked Christmas from the catholics.

YOU haven't made a case for anything yet.

Meanwhile, I posted a link to the text (and artwork) of the Philocalus Calendar of 354 AD which shows Dec 25th was recognised BY ROMAN CHRISTIANS as the Nativity of Sol Invictus and you called it "commentary".

And again, not all scholars agree the December 25th date is authentic. Even the very limited Wikipedia grasps the simple truth that yu don't:

The Philocalian calendar of AD 354, part VI, gives a festival of natalpubeis invicti on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this festival was celebrated before the mid-4th century.[44][k][47] The same Philocalian calendar, part VIII, also mentions the birth of Jesus Christ, stating that the "Lord Jesus Christ was born eight days before the calends of January" (that is, on December 25).

Since the 12th century,[48] there have been theories that the near-solstice date of 25 December for Christmas was selected because it was the date of the festival of dies natalis solis invicti, but historians of late antiquity make no mention of this, and others speculate Aurelian chose December 25 to shadow early Christian celebrations already on the rise.[49]

Legacy
Christianity
According to some historians, Christmas was set to December 25th because it was the date of the festival of Sol Invictus. This idea became popular especially in the 18th[50][51] and 19th centuries.[52]: 45 [53][54]

The charioteer in the mosaic of Mausoleum M has been interpreted by some as Christ. Clement of Alexandria had spoken of Christ driving his chariot across the sky.[55] This interpretation is doubted by others: "Only the cross-shaped nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent",[56] and the figure is seen by some simply as a representation of the Sun with no explicit religious reference whatever, pagan or Christian49

But I am sure that are cited by Wikipedia are only credible if they hold you view, right?