Holidays and paganism?

[Milluw]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

Edited November 11, 2015 by Milluw

[Traveler]

The term “Holliday” has root meaning of Holyday.  It is a reference to the days we celebrate something significant associated with what and how we worship.  At this was the ancient intent.  Our modern culture uses holidays not as something holy and symbol of worship but of leisure, play or excuse to “party”.  

 

Perhaps we should ask ourselves what holy expressions or holy days do we celebrate in conjunction to our covenant with G-d.   Perhaps our most important holy day is or ought to be the Sabbath.   For example – for myself – one way I celebrate the Sabbath is that I have dedicated a uniform (I say uniform for lack of a better term) that is specific to my worship.  My Sabbath clothing is also what I consider my best and are reserved for my sacred worship.  The only non-Sabbath activity I use this clothing for are attendance at the temple (also part of my worship covenant) and a funeral of a covenant saint.  I do not wear my worship clothing to non-worship or non-covenant events.

 

Usually I wear my covenant clothing for the entire Sabbath day – unless there is an “ox in the mire” then I will change from my covenant clothing to something more appropriate for what is necessary for the condition.  Once in talking to a close friend (but inactive with their covenant member) I pointed out that on the coming Sabbath that it may be important to be at church.  They responded that there was a football game that they did not want to miss.  I pointed out that a modern convenience of almost all TV service providers is a capability to record a program and see it later.  They smiled and said, “Really – we can now record church services?”

 

I am not concerned with what we do for entertainment or fun.  What concerns me are those that have no covenants to celebrate their worship.

[estradling75]

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

 

I am not so worried about that was....  I have no control over that.  I have control over what I currently do with it, what I let it become.  To me that is the overriding factor.  If what I do with it and make it into is Good then it is Good.  If what I do with it is Bad then it is Bad.

[NeedleinA]

Apparently the church enjoys the tradition of Christmas lights... so do I!

https://www.lds.org/church/events/temple-square-lights-2013?lang=eng

 

We have celebrated Halloween in our ward for as long as I can remember, Trunk-or-Treat and costumes. 

Only rule that routinely gets brought up at these functions (other than cross dressing) is, you can dress up but no "masks" allowed.

 

Handbook 2 - 13.6.25

Unapproved Activities

Church units may not sponsor the following activities. Leaders, parents, and others who plan or participate in Church activities should be aware of these restrictions...

"3. Activities that involve wearing masks, except in dramatic productions."

Edited November 11, 2015 by NeedleinA

[AnnieCarvalho]

Since paganism and other religions preceded Christianity, I don't feel it is strange that many of our Christian or secular  holidays have pagan roots. I look at some of them more as 'cultural' holidays, personally. It's pretty common knowledge that often, pagan holidays were given a veneer of whatever religions happened to be the religion of the conquerors, in our case, Christians.

 

I know there are many examples of General Authorities speak about holidays such as Christmas, Halloween and characters with pagan roots such as Santa Claus (Krampus!), with fondness.

 

I haven't personally heard of any speaking out against those.

 

What I've learned from my own study is this:

 

Christmas = Yule. The birth of the SUN child after the long dark winter without seeing it

 

Groundhog Day =  Bride/Imbolc. The first stirrings of Spring. The beginning of the lambing season. The day the Goddess brings the SUN to the earth's surface and the warming begins. 

 

Valentine's Day - Lupercalia 

 

Easter = Ostara/Earrach. The first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.  Ostara's symbols are the hare and eggs. Fertility. Rebith.

 

May Day = Beltaine. In some pagan myths, this is the day the young god and goddess meet, and sparks fly. This is a fertility festival Hoops symbolizing eternal life, flowers, purification by jumping fires or driving livestock through those. The maypole  represents the erect penis (can I say penis here?).

 

Thanksgiving = Lammas/Lughnasadh/Foghar combination. Harvest celebrations around the same time of year

 

Halloween = Samhain OR Dia de los Muertes. Several cultures have a holiday around this time of year honoring ancestors. Time of death, animals were slaughtered in the cold weather, the fields were fallow, old and sick people died, it was a scary time. The days were short and dark. This is the time the goddess (pregnant with the new SUN)  left the face of the earth, leaving cold and darkness behind her.

 

This is a short list. There are others. For the most part, these are seasonal celebrations, marking astronomical dates such as the Solstices and Equinoxes.  To me, they are ingrained in our ancestral memory and many people WANT to celebrate them.  As the Church conquered the land, and the people refused to stop celebrating, it was easier to lay a veneer of Christianity on top, than to try to wipe them out.

 

That's my belief anyway, until someone convinces me otherwise.

 

I think it's what is in your heart that matters.

Edited November 11, 2015 by AnnieCarvalho

[AnnieCarvalho]

I like what Estradling said.

 

I am not so concerned with how something USED to be celebrated, but more concerned with what is in my own heart as I celebrate and my own reasons for celebrating.

[NeuroTypical]

Fun and informative article: Are Halloween's roots evil and satanic?

 

One of my favorite holiday songs is not really a Christmas song, but comes from an outspoken athiest entertainer Tim Minchin.  A rather touching secular defense of the holiday, even if it is mixed with a bunch of anti-Christian sentiment.  

 

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

 

For the love of pete, do NOT click on his other stuff, because you'll find little besides foul-mouthed mockery of sacred things.  But his Christmas song is different.

Edited November 11, 2015 by NeuroTypical

[AnnieCarvalho]

This is an interesting article and video explaining the difference between All Saints Day and All Souls Day in the Catholic Church. 

 

http://www.catholic.org/saints/allsaints/

[Guest]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them...

 

I hope what I'm about to state translates well into Danish.

 

The term "pagan" has a dark connotation in today's vernacular.  But it is, IMO, exaggerated.  Pagan simply means the religion of the land.  By that definition, Christianity can be considered the Pagan faith of the United States.

 

Yes, they had differing views, beliefs, and traditions.  But that didn't necessarily mean they worshiped the devil.  Some did; most didn't.  I don't think many believe the Romans' worship of their pantheon was considered dark or twisted.  They were just misguided.

 

As Christianity spread, we adopted the common traditions with a Christian bent to them.  We changed them to mean what we wanted them to mean.  In this sense, Estradling was correct.  

 

We took the meaning of winter solstice of the return of the light (the sun) to the earth to mean the Light of the World was now introduced to the world.

We took the meaning of Easter (birth, fertility, life) to be representative of the resurrection (renewed life) of Christ.

We took the egg to be a symbol of the tomb.  (This one is really stretching it IMO).

 

What really concerns me is that today's society has been taking away all the HOLY aspects of such Holy Days away and replaced them with partying, gluttony, materialism, etc.

 

To combat this (I am not bragging, but merely suggesting some things that can be done to combat this "worldly creep"):

 

My family has taken the time to have an egg hunt a week before or after Easter Sunday.  We reserve Easter to go over the atonement and resurrection of Christ.

 

We've separated morning vs afternoon of Christmas Day.  Morning is for the remembering and celebration of the Birth of Christ.  The afternoon is for the secular aspects.

 

At Thanksgiving we take the time to say what we're thankful for.  We even had the "thankful tree".  We found a stick with several branches that looked like a small barren tree.  We planted it into a foam base in a pot.  We made fall colored leaves out of construction paper.  Then we wrote what we were thankful for and attached them to the tree until it looked like a full tree.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Guest

[mdfxdb]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

Most holidays have their roots in "pagan" days, or days of celebration for other religions i.e. non christian.  When the Catholic church (defined as all embracing/universal) came to preeminence, they tried to encompass all the traditions and replace the meaning of various days of celebration with Christ centered meanings.  They were trying to be all encompassing, and universal...Catholic

 

I think they were pretty successful.  

 

But, yeah, most of the holidays we celebrate have no historical meaning for "christian" churches.  No one really believes that Jesus was born on the 25th of December do they?

[Connie]

I see paganism and satanism as two very different things. There's plenty of pagan roots with most holidays but nothing that i have been able to uncover with satanism, not even in my studies of Halloween. But i agree with others, make these holidays your own. It doesn't matter how others in the past or present have celebrated. Take what's good and incorporate it in your own way with what works for you and your family.

[Guest]

Okay, most, if not all Christian Holidays (as Traveller pointed out - they are Holy Days) started from the Catholic Church (as the oldest Christian Church in existence).  Before Christ died for our sins, people celebrated festivals and feasts and such as a tradition.  All of these holidays stem from these festivals as pagans/jews converted to Christianity.

 

There is nothing wrong with this.

 

I'll give you a very simplistic example... November 11 in American tradition is Veteran's Day, a national holiday where schools are closed.  Now, let's say there's this public school teacher whose dad died on November 11.  His dad was never in the military, never associated with veterans and even was one of those who waved anti-Vietnam-war signs in his younger years.  But, since public schools are closed on Nov 11, the public school teacher decided he is going to spend the day as a memorial for his father.  He then goes to the cemetery to offer prayers and flowers and clean the graveyard and take her mom out to lunch to pore over photo albums.  Nov 11, for this teacher, is now not a Veteran's Day holiday but a My Father's Memorial Day.  Now, it just so happened that his cousins decided to go ahead and follow his tradition and use November 11 as their own Father's Memorial Day because they are also off work then.  Now, let's say that all their neighbors decided, that's a great idea... let's all hold Memorial services for our Fathers on Nov 11!  And so on and so forth throughout the generations until it got to be so big that now, people forgot that it is Veterans Day, they just now thought Nov 11 is Father's Memorial Day.

 

There is nothing wrong with this even if the original father was anti-military and anti-vet.

 

Make sense?

 

......

 

Now, as far as the pagan roots of holidays, 2000 years is quite a long time such that we can't really be sure anymore what the root of these holidays truly are.  But, growing up Catholic, I have been told several stories of the origins.  I can't be sure about the authenticity of these stories... but, here's the origin of Christmas Day - Dec 25 - as I know it:

 

Before the time of Christ, the Romans celebrated a festival called Saturnalia - in honor of the deity Saturn, the god of agriculture, abundance, and peace.  This week-long festival started on the equivalent of Dec 17 in the modern calendar and lasted through Dec 25.  During this week, the Roman courts are closed in honor of the festivities.  So, people who commit crimes during this week are not rounded up for justice.  The festival soon evolved into merry making, drunkenness, and unspeakable crimes on the streets.  The Roman authorities decided they can't just let crimes go but at the same time, didn't want Roman soldiers and courts to have to miss the festivities.  So, they started the tradition of picking an innocent person to "sacrifice" for the crimes committed during the week.  The highlight of the festivities on the last day of the festival is to then kill the innocent in place of the criminals.

 

When Paul went to convert the Romans, the pagans converted to Christianity in vast numbers.  But, they continued to celebrate Saturnalia.  The main festival of celebrating thanksgiving for peace and abundance was kept but instead of thanking Saturn, they thank the One True God.  But the Romans who have not converted to Christianity continued to celebrate with drunkenness and unspeakable crimes in the streets and expecting the killing of the innocent on the last day of the festival.  The Bishop of Rome (don't know which one - it would be after Peter's death) then decided that to completely eliminate this tradition, they're going to honor the sacrifice of Christ instead as the innocent blood shed for all.  So the Church declared Dec 25 as the Feast of Christ.  After a few centuries, Dec 25, evolved into the Feast of the Nativity - the Birth of Christ to separate it from the Easter holiday that evolved from the pagan ritual of the death of the Sun on the Southern Cross.

 

So, until today, Christians all over the world celebrate Dec 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, with the original history of how this came about lost in the 2000 years of history.

 

Now, the Prophet Joseph Smith, received revelation that Dec 25 is not the exact anniversary of Christ's birth, rather, April 6 is more likely his birthday.  But instead of changing the tradition for the LDS to celebrate Christmas in April, the LDS Church continues to join the rest of Christendom in celebrating Christ's birthday on Dec 25.  Dec 25 has become a well established tradition - even among non-Christians - of thanksgiving and giving gifts to promote good will and peace to all men... something that is perfectly befitting Christ's mission.

 

 

So, if you're still celebrating this holiday in worship to Saturn... then you're still pagan.  If you're celebrating this holiday for Christ, then you're Christian.

 

Make sense?

[Blackmarch]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

yes most are adopted from other religions, which in turn was probably adoped or inspired by another religion's rites and traditions, however very little is directly tied to satanism.

humans tend not to be very creative and mostly copy each other.

but in the end it's up to you to make a tradition mean or not mean something to you. the reasons behind most holidays are good enough, and the intents are good, so that's good enough for me.

[Vort]

In the pure sense of the word, we Latter-day Saints celebrate one holiday per week. Other than that, we have no other holidays. We simply join in with the wider world's celebrations when we consider their celebrations to be of worth.

 

If I decide that I hate Christmas (or Easter, or any other so-called "holiday") and that I and my family absolutely will not celebrate it at all, in any sense, my standing in the Church -- and more importantly, my standing before God -- is not in the least affected. That is because they are not true holidays (= holy days), but just cultural celebrations.

[JojoBag]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

 

Christmas has a problem with it.  The Catholic church was trying to assimilate the Roman army and the overwhelming majority of them were involved in pagan religions.  The most prominent was Mithraism.  The god Mithras was born supposedly born on Dec 25th and this was adopted by the Catholic church.  We know that Christ was born on April 6.

[Vort]

We know that Christ was born on April 6.

 

No, we don't know that.

[Guest]

Christmas has a problem with it.  The Catholic church was trying to assimilate the Roman army and the overwhelming majority of them were involved in pagan religions.  The most prominent was Mithraism.  The god Mithras was born supposedly born on Dec 25th and this was adopted by the Catholic church.  We know that Christ was born on April 6.

 

Well, that's one theory - pre-Christian era Romans celebrate Mithras instead of Saturnalia... except it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  First, Mithraism is not a popular religious observation in that region on that time, so having a popular Roman festival of Mithras that is of Persian origin is a lot less likely.   Second, there are no records - not a single one - that supports Mithras was born on what now is Dec 25 or that there is any observation of any Mithras feast coinciding with Saturnalia at all.  Rather, there is a record of somebody in the later centuries making observations of the similarities of the Christian Christ story and the Mithras story... which becomes more of a "which come first, the chicken or the egg" discussion, rather than a Christians converted pagans through the adoption of Mithras claim.

[AnnieCarvalho]

l thought this was an interesting article on Mitra, the Vedic god, and his association with Mithra and Christ:

 

http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm

 

If you look past the "wikipedia" references. . .

[Backroads]

Ah, a nice holiday thread!

I like to think, with absolutely no evidence, the majority of those old faiths still had a nugget of truth. Why go through the pain of scrutinizing their celebrations in some justification attempt to prove their current incarnations evil or wicked or false?

[Jane_Doe]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

 

My thoughts--

 

I am putting up an evergreen tree in my house to celebrate the birth of Christ.  So for me, it is a Christian tradition. 

 

If someone else wants to put an evergreen tree in their house to celebrate a Pagan holiday, then it can be a Pagan for them.

 

Nor do I do care whom "invented" the idea of putting trees in houses.  I'm still putting mine up to celebrate Christ.

[blueskye]

I have been seeing a lot of sources talk about holidays and them having roots from paganism/satanism. And that things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ect. have some pretty dark/twisted history and symbolics to them, and that they aren't as innocent in nature as the majority of us believe. A lot of people are apparantly of the opinion that no real christian would celebrate them. Which when i hear the facts that they are claiming are facts, i can see why it would go against christianity.. but it seems i have only scratched the surface.

 

Personally i have always loved traditions. So i am so bummed about hearing some of these claims.. but would rather know the truth than not. At this point i would like to see which claims have legitimacy or not, but its a whole sea of information out there on this.

 

So i am curious if anyone has searched this subject - and what their thoughts and conclusions have been?

Have the church spoken on it?

 

Any input would be appreciated :)

I have heard this a lot, and have researched it. More from a Catholic perspective, because usually when I hear it, it is from the perspective that pagan practices entered the Catholic Church!

 

Evangelization, as Catholics practice it, is important to understand, since European pagan cultures were evangelized by Catholics. Evangelization means to bring someone to the Good News, which is of a course a Person, Jesus Christ. When whole cultures are evangelized, their existing religious practices were sometimes turned, to Christ.

 

So, as an example, the yule log, that was celebrated as part of the pagan holiday for the winter solstice when the light of the sun begins its return to shining brighter and longer, is turned to Christ. The yule log, for Christians, celebrates the Incarnation, when God entered the world as Man, and brought to us a stronger light than the sun itself.

 

In turn, what were once pagan practices, turned to Christ, are revised again by secular celebrations. Such is the case with Halloween, which has been turned to Christ, as the holy days of All Saints and All Souls, but now has been turned again, to a secular celebration. Though of course, many Christians continue to celebrate All Saints and All Souls, with an entire separate understanding from the secular celebration of Halloween.

[blueskye]

Perhaps looking at the development of the Christian liturgical calendar would help.

 

The earliest feast day celebrated, in a lunar cycle, is Easter. The early Christians, knowing that Jesus suffered, died, was buried and rose again, knew this occurred during the Jewish holy day of the Passover. Which is, a lunar based celebration. This is why Easter is a moving feast (not on the same day every year).

 

Forty days of fasting, in association to the Paschal Feast, is a very early practice, which is now known as Lent. Pentecost, as described in Acts, is 50 days after the Resurrection, and is also a very ancient Feast day.

 

Every Sabbath was celebrated as a Paschal Feast (still is today), where we celebrate the Paschal Mystery (Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!)

 

The earliest liturgical calendar feasts (first and second century) were: Lent, Pascha (Easter), Pentecost and the weekly Sabbath. All these, being based on the ancient Jewish lunar calendar.

 

The Feast of the Nativity (Christmas), does not have as strong historical documentation available for it. It was not listed as a Feast day, in the list of Feasts recorded by Iraeneus. It is not believed to have been added to the liturgical calendar, as a Feast day, until the late 4th century. There are no reliable, or accurate accounts, as to why December 25th was selected. There are scholars that say Constantine selected the date to coincide with the Roman pagan holiday of Natalis Invictus, but other scholars that say the date was selected before Constantine. St. Athanasius, in a homily, mentions the two feasts, The  Feast of the Nativity and Natalis Invictus, as coincidently occurring on the same date. The fact is, we don't know why December 25th was selected to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity.

 

Natalis Invictus, was not a Roman holiday until the late 3rd century. It is this Roman holiday that is sometimes tied to Mithras, and thus an attempt to tie it to Christmas. Since Natalis Invictus was not a Roman holiday until the late third century, this places the Christian narrative of the nativity, nearly 300 years prior. If one borrowed from the other, it is the Roman holiday that borrowed from Christianity.

 

As for the word "Easter" and its association to pagan practices in Britain. The Christian holy day has always been called, The Paschal Feast. Easter, is a regional/cultural word for the Holy Day, and is only used in the English language.

Edited November 11, 2015 by blueskye

[JojoBag]

No, we don't know that.

 

Can you please elaborate?  If I'm going by tradition, I want to know.

[Vort]

Can you please elaborate?  If I'm going by tradition, I want to know.

 

Here are a couple of links that discuss the issue.

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700094707/What-was-the-real-date-of-Jesus-birth.html

http://www.holyfetch.com/theories/jesus_birth.html

[Guest]

Can you please elaborate?  If I'm going by tradition, I want to know.

 

This is not even tradition.  It is simply one of the different interpretations of D&C 20.  Elder Talmage interpreted it as April 6 being the birthday of Christ in his book Jesus the Christ.  But, that's not official revelation by the Church.