[RonF]

The particular adoption of December 25th may or may not have been influenced by a particular pagan practice, but there have long been festivals to mark the shortest day of the year (currently December 21st) and the beginning of spring (close enough to Easter). The concept that the early Christians used these dates for their own purposes is still a reasonable presumption. These dates have been marked by men for tens of thousands of years, at least.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Thorin]

Thanks for posting this excellent article. The argument that Christmas is "really" the winter solstice is just one aspect of the broader War against Christmas.

Of course, even if Christmas were chosen to coincide with a pagan celebration, that argument would be nonsense. For centuries, the major holiday of the West has been Christmas, and the words of the carols that have been sung by centuries (and often developed from folk music) show that people were celebrating the Birth of Christ.

[maestro]

Christmas is Always on the 25th day of Kislev,....ie. the 1st light-day of Hanukkah!

Merry Hanukkah!!

:-)

[Pyro7480]

BTTT for Advent 2007!

[AnAmericanMother]

I wish these folks would proofread before they publish.

It's "Die Sol Invictus" - "Day of the Unconquered SUN," not “Birth of the Unconquered SON”.

I'll cut him some slack on "birth" and "day" - because a commemorative day could be (although not necessarily) a birthday.

But the confusion between "sun" and "son" is pretty important. Nice pun though.

[ichabod1]

Well, I’m just surprised it’s December 4 already and we haven’t had any threads saying Mary the Mother of God is really a Christianized version of the mystery cult of Isis.

[Salvation]

BTTT!