Report Blog Entry
first of all, i am a muslim. But i have a huge respect for all the religions, i don't care what religion do you have as long as you are also respectful to mine.
So, i've recently seen some videos saying "chritmas is originally a pagan holiday" and according to them, christmas' real name was "yule". They say christians 'copied' from them...????
To be honest, i kinda find those videos a little weird because why would anyone wants to copy a holiday from another religion? Also please correct me if i'm wrong but isn't christmas is a peaceful holiday where you celebrate christ's birthday? I feel like that is such a original celebration...
Comments
Displaying 4 of 4 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
💜TT💜
I honestly don’t know the history behind the holiday. I grew up with Christmas. It was pretty much the only time I got to see extended family. However, I personally feel like Christmas isn’t celebrated for the right reasons anymore (by most people). They only celebrate for the gifts, not for Christ. This is just my personal opinion.
PL9050
Early Christian theologians calculated Jesus's birthday to be on December 25th, so it was made a holiday (or "holy-day"). Later, when European pagans converted to Christianity, they decided to carry on some of their Yule traditions to Christmas. Thus, the Christmas tree, while beginning as a pagan symbol, is no longer associated with paganism, and is rather just a festivity held during Christmas.
Christianity has had a long history of taking pagan symbols and "making them Christian". An example of this is the Triquetra, which was initially pagan, but became a Christian symbol for the trinity: the doctrine that the single God exists as three separate persons. We did this to help introduce pagans to Christianity through the use of familiar ideas. Its also because there is more power in "conquering" symbols for God rather than destroying them.
Thank you for your open-mindedness.
And to directly answer your second question; yes, Christmas is essentially us celebrating Jesus's birthday.
In Christianity, it is believed that Jesus is God (not just a prophet) and was born of a virgin mother. This is why his birthday is considered such a big deal. Christmas is arguably the third most important Christian holiday, after Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Good Friday solemnly remembers Jesus's death by crucifixion. We believe that Jesus acted as a perfect sacrifice for humanity's sins (before then, animals were used as imperfect sacrifices). Easter Sunday celebrates Jesus's resurrection three days after Good Friday. We believe this proves that he conquered death, even after taking the punishments for all of our sins. This shows he will allow us to be resurrected, so long as we let him bare our sins.
Christmas is celebrated the most of the three as many non-Christians still celebrate it in the West. It has largely been secularized and commercialized.
by PL9050; ; Report
Hal
I Believe Yule Is Both A Wiccan And Neopagan Holiday These Days? It Came From The Germanic People, Who I Think Were Pagans. When The Germanic People Where Christianized, The Christians Took Parts Of The Holiday To Include Within Christmas.
Anna
The truth is, religions have been copying each other. With the three abrahamic religions, the order is this: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Judaism wasnt the first religion to exist, but they got it from another existing practice at the time in the ancient Israel region.
Christianity adapted things from paganism which also didn't come first exactly, and Judaism together. Islam did adaptations of their own from both Judaism and Christianity.
I dont think anyone knows which religion actually came first, but its known that yes, Christmas is a very, very similar to Yule and is definetely an adaptation of that.
So, in resume: All religions came from adaptations of previous religions and practices. Whoever said Christmas is a "copy" of Yule is kind of correct yes. Also because Christianity is a colonizer kind of religion and one of the aspects of colonization is taking something of another and twisting it to your way and erasing the past meaning completely. So yeah