After reading all four parts of your series here on Christmas, I can tell you that some people don't celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas. So, what does that mean? In other words, what is Christmas? What is Pagan? These words can take a while to define.
A better question might be how many people emphasize on celebrating the birth of Christ at home on Christmas with their families. A follow-up question might be how many people excessively and aggressively instead overemphasize on Santa, songs about reindeer, gift exchange, etc.
Paganism is very hard to define.
Christmas is very hard to define.
I can talk for days unpacking why I'm making simple statements about things which most people would say are not hard to define.
Long story short and in conclusion, a better question might be which alleged Christmas-related things are too counterproductive to the celebration of the birth of Christ?
Because, long story short and regardless of where different people fall on this debate of "Is Christmas a pagan celebration?" we can or should be able to all agree that Christmas has been conflated and associated with Paganism, etc.
And regardless of whether or not it's correct or incorrect to directly or indirectly correlate and connect Christmas with paganism, Norse god Odin, other things, etc, it is important to see that Satan has the ability to infiltrate and destroy good things from the inside-out.
The Roman Catholic church is an example of that. I'm a Christian but I don't believe in praying to Mary like Catholics are taught to do.
If Christmas is the celebration of Christ, then that is not pagan.
Was Saint Nicholas an evil man? No, I think it was good that he was handing out presents to people. He helped people. So, I wouldn't call Nick a Pagan.
So, I say all of that to say the birth of Christ is not pagan but the improper conflation and association and connection people have made unfairly with Christmas and paganism is pagan or is potentially dangerous within the realm of infiltration and degradation of culture over a series of centuries. Holidays, symbols, traditions, customs, etc, can be co-opt. One example of this is seen with how Billy Graham Crusades were used to convert people not to Christian churches but to Catholicism.
So this reply, is after the other long one
Yes, many people don’t celebrate the birthday of Christ, that’s a fact. That’s a all other conversation, but it’s connected to the anti Christian thing, and the pagan topic helps “destroy” the focus of it.
The pagan Christmas thing, makes it seem like it’s “all fake” , only then can you really start to emphasise the reindeers. Even (some) mild atheists would think about the real celebration, if not for this DaVici code vibe, pagan myth.
I would say paganism is: A religious view outside of the three Abrahamic ones. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, the other one, infiltrates, appropriates and inverts.
Catholics are not taught to pray to Mary. They CAN, ask her to pray for her. It’s the blessed virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Santa Maria. It blows my mind the lack of respect protestants have for her, while saying they love her son. Can only hope that are forgiven.
Catholic, is really the huge, huge topic. Again, all of this pagan vibes, comes from the Catholic pagan myth, I believe. A year ago, when I started really looking into this, the last thing I was expecting was to say “Catholicism is not pagan” But too big of a topic for now. Maybe we can talk someday about it.
“If Christmas is the celebration of Christ, then it can’t be pagan” yes, 100% correct. But I think the pagan, is really to create confusion. Guilty. uncertainty a sense of dread… To open the gates of consumerism and then to open the gates to the other one. Many people who go with the pagan angle, end up saying that it’s a prince of darkness thing. I used to believe it. It implies that Christianity is fake and so on…
It can’t be. But we also, need to use a bit of discernment. That’s why I use the examples of the dogs and the the drinking water. Because, our world also has a “pagan foundation” all pagans did drink water before Jesus heheh The names of the days of the week and months are from pagan origin, in most European languages. The all world except for a small country was pagan, at the time of Jesus.
Writing, mathematics, music…
But on top of that, there is no evidence at all, to suggest it has a pagan origine. none at all. It’s anchored to the dogmatic view that Catholicism is blended with paganism. (Just the other day, I was talking to a rather smart person and he was telling me the Orthodox Church has been around since the beginning. After I showed him, all the sources and references on how they broke from the Catholics 1000 years after, he told me “The roman empire was divided, as such it’s assumed the church was, as well” - Think this illustrates the point.
But since, we take for granted that the Church was paganized, 450 years into it… the next step is to think Christmas was paganise… and the next step… Santa is more important than Jesus… and Christians don’t even fell “right” when celebrating the birth.
Don’t know who Bllly Graham is.