CHRISTMAS = Revised Saturnalia plus Mythra's birthday

[Cyrus]

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bossJJ : "Christianity is essentially the cult of Mythra with a new name."

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Link :
The Saturnalia were a joyous Roman pagan festival with merrymaking, probably lots of sex, and gift exchanges celebrating the passage from the shortest day of the year to the first growing day in December.

December 25 was the birthday of the Iranian Zoroastrian mystery god Mythra, very popular among the Roman soldiers.

It was known that Jesus was born sometime in spring, but the church decided to join rather than fight the invincible popularity of the Saturnalia and Mythra's birthday celebrations.

Hence: Mythra (born from a virgin and bathed in the blood of a sacrificed bull) was likened to Jesus and the Saturnalia festival became the Christmas celebration.

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Discuss.

[Spaded]

Here's a similar story: I remember hearing that "Hell" as we know it was created by a pope who used religion as a tool (scare tactic) to get people to fight in a crusade. The vikings of ancient times believed in a cold abyss called "Hel" that they would go to if they died in their sleep, rather than dying in battle and going to Valhalla. The pope wanted to appeal to those people's beliefs to get them to fight in his wars.

[jthegreat]

Christianity is significantly different from Mythraism, even though Jesus myths share similarities to Mythras (Mythra, Mitra) myths. So the first quote isn't exactly true. However, it is true that Christmas was put on the 25th to help convert the Roman Empire to Christianity.

[DCWildcat]

This is basic, undergraduate level stuff.

Yes, the Christmas tradition of giving gifts and partying is taken directly from Romans. Easter follows a very similar story. No intelligent Christian disputes this.

Why are we discussing this? There is no value in it. Unless you're pinning down the fact that the vast majority of protestant (and to a slightly smaller extent catholic) christians don't know it, which is kind of pointless since 99% of churchgoers are clueless to 200 level college theology anyway.

[DCWildcat]

This seems to me another in a long line of ways to bash Christianity (or, in some cases, religion in general), while the great majority of people offering opinions on here have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

Is strong logic present? Yes. But it's like putting John Nash in the middle of a debate on the gospel of Thomas. He has no idea what's going on, and can't offer an opinion of substance simply because he has little exposure to the subject matter.

The problem with religion is that, unlike other disciplines like sociology and chemistry, everyone seems to THINK they have some sort of a clue. Most do not.

[DCWildcat]

I apologize for the harshness of my earlier post, I shouldn't have assumed that I know your motives. It's just very frustrating reading what many otherwise intelligent people have been arguing on this forum.

I think a good analogy for the topic of this post would be for me to start a thread that said: "THOMAS JEFFERSON: Toinked slaves. Discuss."

[vulturesrow]

DC Wildcat,

Just curious what your background in theology is? I was going to address Cyrus's point at some part, especially since BossJJ seems obsessed with his contention that the Jesus is just a repackaging of pagan myths. The simple answer (from the Catholic point of view) is that there are some pagan elements (mostly symbolic things) that we have taken as having captured some part of the truth of God and Jesus and thus we have taken those symbols and incorporated them into a fuller understanding of God.

[FredJones888]

easter is even more obviously pagan than christmas. however this doesn't stop it from being a great holiday.