Have a pagan Christmas
Created | Updated Mar 8, 2006
So much of what is done around this time of year comes from non-Christian roots with only a patina of Christianity as a flavor added to it, to correct this mis-impression this holiday should be called a 'pagan' Christmas and just forget the religiousity. Every year people want to return the spirit of Christ to Christmas when they really dont even understand what they are saying.
What birthday?
Up until the start of the fourth century no ever heard of celebrating the birth of Christ as a holiday. Christians celebrated the death of Jesus not his birth. Some very poor research was done at that time to try and determine when the year of His birth and they came up with 4 BC. It has since been placed correctly at 6 BC. While the date was not known because the people didn't really trust scripture to give them the correct date. For those who care to know the correct date and to get an explanation go to www.new-life.net/chrtms10.htm and read it for yourself. It is thoroughly investigated and logically proven.
When the Roman church leaders decided for themselves which date was to be the celebration the truth was never the issue, what really mattered was how can we keep our fellow Christians from going to the pagan festival around winter solstice to worship the sun god instead of the son of God. By choosing December 25th they could pre-empt their fellow members from choosing the other celebration so that is why even today we celebrate the birth of our Lord on that date. But lest someone still insist they want to bring the typical christmas paraphenalia out of mothballs (like we do each year) let us examine the reality that surrounds some of these other items and discover the source from which they began.
Pagan trees?
Cutting evergreens and standing them in some special place (either in the house or outside) began in Babylon. Yes quite far before any Celts. Some of the Old testament prophets condemned it then, yet we still manage to bring this ancient custom into our home (sometimes we even use plastic trees) . Americans have a national tree and every city and state has to have their own. It is not enough to just cut these poor trees down but to "re-plant" them in some artificial place and cover them with decorations. At first candles and other lights were added (also roundly condemned by the prophets).
Madonna = Semiramis of Babylon
The worship of Mary is worship of Semiramis, which started in Babylon. It has slowly evolved through pre-Christian cultures into what is called the Madonna ("our Lady"), it is not Mary. The "Madonna and child" images have been recovered from ancient Babylonian excavations. The tradition of worshipping these images is pagan practice and is condemned in scripture. It has come to us down from the most ancient through the Romans as another way to honor Artemis/Diana/Semiramis and has changed little in the intervening centuries.
Who were the Magi?
The Magi probably came from Babylon where the largest society of Jews lived at the time. Babylon had the greatest Rabbinical school around and there were undoubtedly some who were wise enough to know the prophecies about a coming King of the Jews. They brought symbolic gifts to signify the recepient as this prophesied King.
Normally when we meet with some important person, gifts are given to that person. It took until the Victorian era and the rise of the middle class that brought us the custom of exchanging gifts. Parents should keep their children in clothes and other things they really need on an as needed basis instead of waiting until some pagan feast day of celebration. Certainly Christians have no monopoly on giving gifts.
Where do these traditions lead us?
We were warned in scripture by the Apostle Paul concerning following of traditions. While traditions can be fun and even add a certain meaning to some event, it is the Lord not the tradition that we follow. What happens is that when our children grow up to learn that none of this is really the source of Christmas they lose their faith in scripture. Instead what we need to do is to teach our children the truth about Jesus' birthday and face the issue of these pagan roots to what it is we do at this time of year. On the other hand, there is much pagan meaning to this time of year, none of which even points to the Christian God. Yeah some people want to stretch the truth and bend the meanings of these into a Christian clebration but they can be ignored if you want.
To have fun, a person can just go with the pagans entirely, ignore those people who insist on bringing Christ into Christmas (He was never there in the first place.) By going with these pagans at least we can be honest and follow the original meaning of these feast days. Good luck
