The Winter Solstice is on the 21st of December. Christmas is on the 25th of December (actually the 6th of January, if you use the old calendar.)

Christmas trees aren’t pagan, they are German and Jesus’ birth is celebrated 9 months after His conception, which was placed on the 25th of March to roughly line up with His death, as it was believed that Holy men died on the anniversary of their conception.

https://historyforatheists.com/2024/12/pagan-christmas-again/

We don’t know for certain that it wasn’t the actual day. It very well could have been.

The earliest writing about Jesus (1 Thessalonians) refers to Jesus as God’s son and it was only written 20 years after Jesus was crucified. That’s not “long after” in terms of ancient writings, legends typically take longer than living memory to develop.

Also Christianity was persecuted by pagans and was very anti pagan. If the early Christians, presuming some financial motivation, wanted to create a cult and had no issue pandering to Paganism, why not make it polytheistic? Why not worship the emperor of Rome? To compare your argument to swiss cheese would be too charitable.

None of that stuff is Pagan. The Easter egg carries Christian symbolism. Eggs were popular as they were hard boiled on the lead-up to easter due to Lent. The Rabbit was from a German Easter-Hare tradition, likely due to Easter being in Spring.

Sure, you can argue that Easter is being secularised like Christmas and Halloween is. That doesn’t make it Pagan.

Osiris’ resurrection narrative is completely different to Jesus’. The Baal cults are mentioned in the Bible as well as the polytheism that broke out with Yahweh being added to pagan pantheons. So there isn’t really a problem here- Kind of like how some Shinto Japanese practices incorporated Christian practices into them. Doesn’t make Christianity Shinto.

The flood story appearing in numerous eastern cultures would be expected if the flood actually happened, so if anything, it adds credibility to the narrative that there was.a significant flood.

Which snake myth are you referring to? I see several about Norse and Siberian, far away from the Hebrew Israelites.

What was your claim, then? You just name dropped Osiris and told me to research it without any further explanation.

The article you provided is written by a creative writer for an interesting website - it doesn’t even make a scholarly backed claim that the Christmas tree is pagan. In fact, it backs up what I was saying:

The Origin Of The Christmas Tree In Europe Although many countries have declared themselves the home of the Christmas tree, historians have said it’s likely that the real first tree was erected in 16th-century Alsace, in modern-day France. At the time, however, Alsace was a part of German territory, and so the tradition technically belongs to the Germans. Historical records show that a Christmas tree was indeed put up in the Strasbourg Cathedral in 1539, and the tradition quickly became popular throughout the region.

So sure, it is possible that pagans decorated their house with trees common in northern europe during their winter festivals, and then Christians decided to erect a single winter tree in their house later on. It doesn’t mean they’re related. Many religions incorporate fire into practices and burning things without actually being linked to each other.

Yule, a scandinavian festival, used to be celebrated later in winter, typically December to February. They then changed the date to fit in with Christianity, not the other way around. In addition, we have earlier records for Christmas than we do for Yule.

Here’s some better sourced reading on the topic:

https://historyforatheists.com/2024/12/pagan-christmas-again/#Yule

Except that never happened with pagan festivals either, apart from Easter taking the name of the month that was named after a pagan deity.

Jesus never claimed to be a demigod, and is not a demigod. Jesus is and claimed to be God incarnate in Human Form. There are several instances in the Torah and Old Testament where God appears in human form.

Christmas trees are a German tradition. Originally they were “Paradise trees” and were representing the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden in Mystery plays. Typically there are readings around Christmas surrounding the Garden of Eden due to depicting The Fall and why Christ had to come. An evergreen tree was picked, likelt due to practicalities with the fact it was winter, but it also helped that they represented eternal life. They were decorated with fruits and later candles to represent the Light of Christ. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, was German, and he brought the tradition to the UK.

Is this what you’re referring to?

Elaborate?

No, it’s you lot with the trendy new-atheist dogma of “Christianity actually just copied xyz” which has been thoroughly debunked by scholars. It’s just a myth that secular society repeats without questioning at this point. I literally posted a link to an article debunking it. That’s not wilful ignorance. I used to believe that these holidays were pagan too, until I actually researched it.

What stuff? There’s no evidence of Sol Invictus existing before Christianity. The earliest record of the Ostara cult (which was only really an English thing) was 600 years after Christians were recorded celebrating Pascha(Easter) in Greece.

None of this makes it Pagan. That’s like saying the 4th of July originates in Julius Caesar. Might as well have just stopped at Christians having “Sunday Services”. Go after Muslims too having “Friday Prayers”. The Pagans had a celebration in Spring - so what? If China gets Christianised, are you going to claim that Easter actually had it’s origins in the Qingming festival because it has similar dates? Sure, for some former-pagans, their old feast days would have been replaced with Christian ones. Same way how Muslims who convert to Christianity would replace their fasting season from Ramadan to that of Lent and Eid with Easter. Doesn’t mean Lent and Easter would have Islamic origins either.

Okay

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/

I think plagiarism was happening. Because the earliest record of the belief of Jesus’ conception being on the 25th of March from Sextus Julius Africanus predates the Chronography of 354 which is the earliest date of Sol Invictus being on the 25th of December, which interestingly enough also records this being Jesus’ date of birth. If I had to accuse anyone of plagiarism, it would have to be the Pagans.

In addition, Sunday being celebrated as a Christian Holy Day is recorded in the writings of St Luke which also predates Sol Invictus by a few centuries.

The 25th of December is not completely random.

The reason lies within Jewish superstition - that a prophet/holy man died on the anniversary of their conception. Someone, likely a century later, reckoned that Jesus died on the 25th of March (we reckon now that it was actually the 3rd of April) so this became the Feast of the Annunciation (conception). So a cycle was created where the day of the death happened on the same as the conception. Another factor is this was also traditionally believed to be the date of the world’s creation.

In fact, in the UK it was this date that was used to demarcate new years. So traditionally many people still commence and terminate land contracts on “Lady day” (the 25th of March) and the tax year begins on the 6th of April (today) which is the 25th of March on the Julian Calendar.

So simply add 9 months - you have the 25th of December.

Saturnalia ended before Christmas. The only “evidence” we have of Christmas potentially being a spin on Sol Invictus is from the Chronography of 354 which states that the 25th of December is both the date of Christmas and Sol Invictus… So it’s also likely that Sol Invictus was actually copying Christmas, not the other way around. In fact, more likely, as that is over one hundred years after Sextus Julius Africanus recorded the 25th of March as the date of Jesus’ conception.

Here’s an article debunking this further.

I have researched this issue. “The pagan origins of Easter” is a common myth (often there are several variants of this myth) which has been debunked.

Easter in Greek and Latin (the language of the first Christians) is Pascha. It’s around the same time as the Passover. That’s why it changes every year due to the lunisolar calendar. It’s just using the old Jewish calendar. The earliest record of Easter being celebrated is from the time when pagans were the ones persecuting Christians.

We don’t know for certain that Jesus wasn’t born in December.

The reason lies within Jewish superstition - that a prophet/holy man died on the anniversary of their conception. Someone, likely a century later, reckoned that Jesus died on the 25th of March (we reckon now that it was actually the 3rd of April) so this became the Feast of the Annunciation (conception). So a cycle was created where the day of the death happened on the same as the conception. Another factor is this was also traditionally believed to be the date of the world’s creation.

In fact, in the UK it was this date that was used to demarcate new years. So traditionally many people still commence and terminate land contracts on “Lady day” (the 25th of March) and the tax year begins on the 6th of April (today) which is the 25th of March on the Julian Calendar.

So simply add 9 months - you have the 25th of December.

As for the saints - most saints commenorated in Christianity are generally Biblical figures or early Christians such as St Patrick or St Nicholas

We don’t know for certain that Jesus wasn’t born in December.

The reason lies within Jewish superstition - that a prophet/holy man died on the anniversary of their conception. Someone, likely a century later, reckoned that Jesus died on the 25th of March (we reckon now that it was actually the 3rd of April) so this became the Feast of the Annunciation (conception). So a cycle was created where the day of the death happened on the same as the conception. Another factor is this was also traditionally believed to be the date of the world’s creation.

In fact, in the UK it was this date that was used to demarcate new years. So traditionally many people still commence and terminate land contracts on “Lady day” (the 25th of March) and the tax year begins on the 6th of April (today) which is the 25th of March on the Julian Calendar.

So simply add 9 months - you have the 25th of December.