is christmas based on pagan underpinnings?

[Sevenseas]

What's an 'underpinning'?  Maybe we can discuss that...  ...

[GoldenEagle]

What's an 'underpinning'?  Maybe we can discuss that...  ...

"underpinning"

 

...a set of ideas, motives, or devices that justify or form the basis for something.

...support, justify, or form the basis for.

 

...a foundation or basis.

I imagine the OP was talking aboutt Christmas supposedly having pagan roots.

 

This thread seems like the cup is half empty... For a cup half full try:

 

[Sevenseas]

LOL!...oh good I can sleep again.  Gotta go check out the amazing thread.......

[Will_Hoyt]

If we are talking about the "True spirit of christmas" No it is not pagan and has it's roots in Christianity

 

If we are talking about traditions and rituals added onto that well traditions and rituals have been borrowed and shared by religions the world over.

 

Modern christmas is similar to the yule tide [time? not sure which honestly] of old. Which is pagan itself. As stated previously based around the winter solstice and took up several days [i could be mistaken it is very late please fact check].

[other one]

is Christmas based on pagan underpinnings?

 

Well since a lot of the traditions for Christmas were being celebrated before the birth of Jesus, I would say that to some people yes it is pagan.....    but to a Christian I would say no not really.    We did seem to take up some of the traditions that had been around at the time, but those things mean different things to a Christian than they would a pagan.

 

I think that's what most years make this such a topic that really never gets talked through......    the real answer to the question is........   yes... and no...   or in one word "Depends".

 

 

At one time in my life I thought celebrating Christmas was wrong, but several years ago reading the posts of several people here convinced me to change my mind.....   but I still don't like the pagan traditions.....    and no we don't put trees up in our house....   but I do get my wife a really nice poinsettia.

[Will_Hoyt]

We grow poinsetta's in my state

[other one]

what I get comes from just south of Tyler Texas from what I'm told.

[Guest shiloh357]

I was listening to a missionary to Japan explain that from a missionary's perspective, when you are in a culture that has pagan holidays, those whom you reach for Jesus, if they don't have something to replace their former pagan cultural holidays with, will revert back to those cutlural celebrations because it is all they know.

 

Often, he said, missionaries will find ways to help former pagans who have converted to Christ to have Christian holidays on the same day as the pagan holidays as a means of giving them something they can do to honor Jesus on the same days that they were accustomed to.   The idea isn't that they are talking what is pagan and offering it to God, but they are simply taking advantage of a holiday system that is already entrenched in the culture and using it as a vehicle to keep those new believers from reverting back to pagan celebrations.

 

It is likely that the early Christians were doing the same thing. They were not trying to paganize anything, but they were trying to find ways to honor God in the midst of pagan culture.  They worked with that they had to work with.  They had celebrations that occurred on the same day because that is the time that everyone celebrated and it made sense to offer Christian holidays on those same dates.   They were not mixing paganism and Jesus.  They were simply taking advantage of the opportunities.  If they had Christian holidays on other dates, the new Christians would have still gone to Saturnalia events in addition to the Christian holidays.   The idea was to lessen the number of Christians engaging in paganism as much as possible.

bump

[Butch5]

Yes, pagan practices were simply "Christianized" by the Church