Re:Merry Christmas Everyone
by satvikpendem on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @06:31PM
(#42511955)
I agree but I also would be interested to see any proof for the claims you're talking about with regards to Christmas not having any pagan roots, where are you finding this information or rather, where can I read more?
I linked one example—a video on Christmas trees from a religious studies scholar. They have similar content on the date of Christmas, and there are plenty of sources on each other tradition.
Here's another one on Saturnalia from the same scholar:
Re:Merry Christmas Everyone
by satvikpendem on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @06:41PM
(#42511999)
Great, appreciate it. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas indeed!
One small exception
Russian empire turned a figure from Pagan mythology into a St Claus like figure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ded_Moroz
But my understanding is that him handing out gifts didn't come from Pagan traditions and was a result of largely copying Santa Claus traits.
Later during Soviet times secularish Christmas traditions including Ded Moroz were moved to New Year's.
In the absence of evidence about the timing being affected by other festivals and in the presence of much evidence that all the actual traditions are far more recent than pagan, I don't believe it's fair to claim Christmas has pagan origins. The absolute best we can do is say that its timing may have been influenced by other, pre-Christian celebrations.