Have the Christians stolen their religious days from Pagan cultures???

Easter,Thanksgiving day,Chrismas are Pagan dates relating to the cosmos and Nature.Probably as old as 40.000 years.The new religions(their origions not more than only 6000 years)for political reasons, now claim they relate to the life of a man.is this not filosohical and cultural theft???

some would say that when Constantine made Christainity legal,(i think it was around 301 AD?) he provided religious symbols and holidays to relate to the pagan religion so more people would accept Christains and maybe confert.

I agree with Shadow...most of the religious holidays are in fact stolen from pagan culture. Easter and Christmas certainly are...although people believe Thanksgiving was created as a result of the pilgrims and events of 1620-21.

No, its the other way around.

I think you should move the question to the Religion & Spirituality category. You might get more answers there.

It is a common phenomenon for one religion to "borrow" or "steal" (if you insist) from another. There are good things in every religion, and some of the practices of one enhance the practices of another.

Seasonal festivals are a phenomenon of almost every religious culture, especially if it originated in agricultural times or societies. So you can see in the Bible that there were harvest festivals and the like. These later became imbued with meanings in addition to the agricultural meanings. For example, Sukkot, the Festival of the Ingathering, became associated with the Israelite's journey through the wilderness, and the makeshift huts became identified with the types of dwellings they lived in during that exodus. In reality, it is quite possible that the makeshift dwellings were put up for some agricultural purpose.

But as cultures become less agricultural, these festivals risk losing their original importance. And festival celebration is extremely important for a culture, to remember God at various times of the year, to be thankful for the gifts He gives, and so on. And also, so that families and communities can come together and have time to celebrate.
So when the agricultural origin of the holidays is not so important anymore, other meanings are attached to the festival. In the case of the Bible, the original meaning has not been altogether lost. Jews to this day acknowledge that the holidays have agricultural meaning, as well as the other meanings.

Christmas is definitely a borrowed holiday. The original meaning is not acknowledged anymore by most Christians. To me, the offense, if there is one, is not so much that they borrowed a holiday, but that they deny its original meaning, and look down on Pagans who choose to follow it according to its original conception.
If you think about the original meaning of Christmas, as a time when the days from then on start to get longer and brighter and warmer, and there is a "rebirth" that is taking place in nature, then it really is beautiful and makes a lot of sense. It also makes sense that this would be a good time to celebrate the birth of a savior however. It very well symbolizes that the savior was born in a time of darkness, but that with his birth, things would progressively get lighter and brighter!

Let's look at another example of cultural borrowing, or "theft." Yoga. Many in the west now embrace Yoga, but they often strip it of its original religious meaning. I do not see too many Hindus getting upset that Westerners have "stolen" their practice. Instead, I see them being thrilled that a beneficiary practice of theirs is being embraced by the world at large, and hoping that its benefits will spread to the others.

Buddhists do not get bent out of shape if they find non-Buddhists practicing their meditations. Instead they think this is great.

The way I see it is there is no reason to deny yourself the benefits and wisdom of another culture's practices if they can enhance your life. But we should always give credit where credit is due. ;-)

for the most part, yes.

I don't think it's necessary to say modern Christians are "date theives." Maybe the original reasons for the dates of Christian holidays were partly political (and many of the symbols associated with Christian holidays are Pagan too - easter bunny, christmas tree, etc.), but they can't exactly change them now! Can't we all just get along?

First of all Thanksgiving is a political holiday not necessarily a Christian holiday. Christians all over the world do NOT celebrate/ Thanksgiving was not borrowed from anywhere, merely a day that a group of travellers got together to give thanks for being free, for new friends, a new home and most importantly that they had survived.

Christmas was a holiday set to celebrate the birth of the Christ, however to make things easier (how I"m not sure), early Christians replaced an already Pagan celebration (Saturnalia) with the Christmas celebration

Easter, Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs have been taken from the Pagan Festival of Ishtar the goddess of fertility. Her festival was held around the time of the vernal equinox..or in the spring.

I wouldn't call it philosophical or cultural theft, more a cultural transition or metomorphosis. Like a mix of beliefs that have been evolved along with mankind to fit the mindset of those celebrating them.

don't even think about that question....CHRISTIANS ROX!

Does it really matter?

No, it's opportunism. The Christians took popular days that already had celebration to put their own holidays on because it made the process of cenverting people easier. Of course, if you actually think that the pagan nature of Easter, for instance, never changed over the thousands of years it existed before the Christians showed, you're just plain nuts.

My husband is a pastor and he says YES!!!

yes ive heard that from several sources... that's part of the reason why JW's don't celebrate those days. All evidence would point to Jesus being born in autumn, not winter, anyway

Not theft so much as adaption. The Romans had a harvest festival called the Saturnalia, so the Christians adapted it as Christmas. You can find many such instances. Jewish Passover became Christian Easter mostly by history and timing. Jesus was in Jerusalem for Passover when he was killed.

most christian religious days are christians' own, and they can really trace back in christian history why they celebrate the feast on that day. for those that coincide with pagan feasts, they may just be a case of 'inculturation' or the practice of making a local ritual or feast more 'christian' or inline with christian beliefs. but i don't think it's theft or anything like that.

Who knows wat ur talkin abotu?

It is believed that Christ was born arround August. The church took the pagan celebration of the eqinox which is on the 21st and moved it to the 25th and started celebrating the birth of Christ to make it easier to convert pagans to Christianty. Easter celebrates the resurection of Christ from death it is celebrated arround Passover, a Jewish holiday, because thats when Christ died. It was not stolen or borrowed from the Jews. Thanksgiving Day is not really a religious holiday. Halloween should interest you though. It is similar to Christmas. Halloween is the the day before All saints day. It is also called All Hallows eve. Its a christian holiday taken from the celts in order to make it easer to convert them to christianity. They changed the "pagan" holidays to christian holidays to make the religion more palatable for the people they were trying to convert but we still keep many of the traditions alive. So in conclusion I think that cultural theft is really in the eye of the beholder.

All major religions have.

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