Christian/Pagan Holidays (Formerly: Happy Valentine's Day!)

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Aaron H posted: Okay, one last thing to further clarify my earlier statement. Christian festivals on pagan holidays were done for several reasons. Some more apparent than others:

1. To prevent the Believers from sinning by participating in a pagan ritual or practice.
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When they celebrate Jesus' birthday and ressurection on a pagan holiday when they could have picked any other date, in a way, Believers ARE participating in a pagan ritual.
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Aaron H posted: 2. To show to the pagans that Christians can have fun too. (I'm serious here)
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The pagans would have known (even if another date was chosen to have a party) that they were having fun.
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Aaron H posted: 3. To keep Believers excited about their faith.
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As a Believer, it doesn?t exite me to know that a (for some) sacred day is being profaned by paganism of old.
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Aaron H posted: 4. To attract new Believers to the Faith.
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Again, I think that a new Believer, seeing that the Christian festivals are on a pagan holiday would likely turn him away from Christian beliefs, instead of for it.

In conclusion, I would like to say, the people who determined the dates had hundreds of days (365).
There were surely, after all the pagan days in the year, at least fifty, maybe a hundred or more days for them to chose from that was not celebrated by pagans. And, instead, they chose two well known pagan days.

Today we have a
Paganized Passover,
And a
?Christianized? Christmas.

Wow. We really have a believer here who uses his brain instead of just repeating those phrases people taught him as facts when he was a kid?

TennR, I very much agree with you!

Thank you, Finn

Yeah, I agree. You seem a very intelligent and well-read young man. Now you just have to get some corduroys and you will be complete. Just kiddin'. Anyway, I also hate when young people just spout the phrases and beliefs their parents taught them, without bothering to think of things on their own.

Tenn, you do have some great counter points, however, you are missing a key part of my arguement. Humans are creatures of habit, so it was (and is) natural for Christians to "take over" a pagan holiday and apply the changes they felt were needed.
Does that make any sense? (my mind is a bit fried after a long night's work)

Caitlin said:

Kate said:

OOOH it's going to bother me until I remember: there is a book called "A Moveable Feast," but I can't remember who it's by. Anyone know?

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Haven't read it...just looked it up. Hemmingway. But from the book reviews I don't see how it relates.....(Looks pretty damn good tho!) Is there another book of a similar title..or is this the one you are thinking of? [/B]

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This is a rather interesting topic, the whole thing about pagan/Judeo-Christian feast days, but I'm not going to comment on that right now.

With regards to Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, it was a very good book of short episodes about his time in Paris with other members of the Lost Generation, including Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ford Madox Ford. Highlights include the slightly eccentric Miss Stein and the passage in which Papa and F. Scott compare endowments. Somewhat skewed representations of the other writers, but certainly very interesting, and I'd place it very close to his other great books, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Attila the Professor said:

This is a rather interesting topic, the whole thing about pagan/Judeo-Christian feast days, but I'm not going to comment on that right now.

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You haven't commented on much lately. Your absense is noted.