Pagan Religion and Christianity similarities

divine said:

considering how often christians still today believe that their religion is the only true religion, the word of god and so on, compared to the other, pagan, heathen or why not savage religions/traditions, i believe it can serve as a healthy reminder that their beliefs are not as free from influence from what they consider 'man-made' religious traditions as they would like to think, n'est-ce pas?

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Yes, and I've understood it for quite some time. However, if this site has taught me nothing else, it's that many Christians do not believe their faith to be the only one true path. It's those types of Christians, and indeed, members of many faiths that might otherwise believe that theirs is the only valid one, that tend to frequent RF. (Please note the 'tend'.) Everyone could make arguments up and down the spectrum, but those who would listen already know and those that don't wish to know won't listen.

JamesThePersian said:

How could that possibly be? Both the Nativity (Christmas) and Pascha (Easter) long pre-date any Germanic tribe's conversion to Christianity. There are certain western European customs associated with the two feasts (bunnies and Christmas trees spring to mind) that come from Germanic pre-Christian religions and the name Easter is related to the Germanic goddess Eostre (according to St. Bede, and he ought to have known, because it fell in the month named after her in the Saxon calendar) but that's a far cry from the feasts themselves being Germanic. The majority of languages do not use an Eostre related name for Pascha and, whilst the customs have become very widespread, they are not native to any cultures outside of western Europe.

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Yes, and Easter eggs stem from earlier Eastern European traditions.

But those customs are really pretty trivial, imo.

gnostic said:

Haven't you read the links I provided?

I don't retract anything. I've just supplied of two pagan feasts that are linked to Christian feasts.

It provided a number of customs that are still being use today that belonged to the Germanic feasts.

The decoration of homes (and even trees), the large feasts and merrymaking, giving out of gifts.

Or the decoration of (Easter) eggs and rabbits, a pagan symbols of fertility and birth (and even rebirth), the goddess of spring - Ostara or Eoster.

See my webpage Norse Way. It's late, so I would prefer that you read this, I will explain more if you so wish.

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Look, I have no problem whatsoever with the idea that Christians baptised pagan culture. It's a good thing that they did and was a useful missionary tool. We still do this - we take what is good and useful from a culture and make it part of the customs of the Orthodox in that land. A very good example would be the Serbian Slava where, unusually, rather than having individual patron saints, they have family patrons. This was an adaptation made precisely because the Serbs showed great devotion to household gods before their conversion and it was a very successful evangelical tool. We do not believe that everyone outside the Church is damned or that nobody but Christians can possibly know anything about God, so of course we accept that there can be good customs in pagan religions.

Having said all that (because your reaction to my post was coming quite close to accusing me of ignorance, bigotry or both), that is a far cry from saying that the feasts had Germanic origins. There is a very great, and obvious, difference between the feasts you mentioned and the almost incidental customs associated with them. Do I think these customs are good? With the exception of the Easter bunnies, yes. Does any of this in any way show a Germanic origin to the feasts of Christmas and Easter, which is what you claimed? Absolutely not. You really ought to retract that claim because it is, frankly, unsustainable.

And just as an aside, as Booko pointed out, the Christian practice of painting eggs comes from the culture of the eastern Mediterranean and not the Germanic tribes. That, again, long predates the conversion of even the Saxons.

James

a lot of people found the conversion to christianity easy because they totaly understood the idea of blood sacrifice I.E. jesus dying for our sins.

kai said:

a lot of people found the conversion to christianity easy because they totaly understood the idea of blood sacrifice I.E. jesus dying for our sins.

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Maybe in western Europe, but this understanding of the Crucifixion is completely alien to eastern Christianity. That is one of the major reasons that I became convinced that I had to convert to Orthodoxy. Our Church does not believe that God demanded the sacrifice of His own Son before He could forgive us our sins, which is wonderful because any God who would demand such I find to be utterly repugnant.

James

the festivals of easter and christmas are not really of germanic origin but the christian church changed their celebrastions to coincide with the ethnic festivals to make the transition to christianity easier so it would be the time of year that easter and christmas are celebrated that may be germanic

JamesThePersian said:

Maybe in western Europe, but this understanding of the Crucifixion is completely alien to eastern Christianity. That is one of the major reasons that I became convinced that I had to convert to Orthodoxy. Our Church does not believe that God demanded the sacrifice of His own Son before He could forgive us our sins, which is wonderful because any God who would demand such I find to be utterly repugnant.

James

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I didnt mean that christians beieved it was a blood sacrifice but that heathen peoples would and accept it as just that

kai said:

the festivals of easter and christmas are not really of germanic origin but the christian church changed their celebrastions to coincide with the ethnic festivals to make the transition to christianity easier so it would be the time of year that easter and christmas are celebrated that may be germanic

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You are correct in general here (as I tried to point out above) but not in the specifics. The dates of Easter and Christmas were settled long in advance of the first Germanic tribes' conversions to Christianity so their beliefs can have played no part in the calendar.

As a general point, I would like to make it clear that it is impossible, whilst being intellectually honest, to go from a simple similarity between two religions to the conclusion that religion X influenced Y. Often the reverse is just as plausible, or it's possible that they were both influenced by Z, and it's even possible that the similarities are entirely coincidental. A good case in point is Mithraism. Almost nothing that we know about this cult is older than the 4th century. Given that that is well into the Christian era, it's just as likely that their use of 25th December as the birthday (not that being pulled fully formed from a rock is actually a birth) of Mithras comes from the Christian date of Christ's birth as the reverse. I'm not saying that those who believe in a Mithraic influence on Christianity are definitely wrong (though I know enough about the creation of the Church calendar to have serious doubts on this score) but rather that any such belief is nothing more than an opinion which, with the current information available, can be neither proven nor disproven.

James

kai said:

I didnt mean that christians beieved it was a blood sacrifice but that heathen peoples would and accept it as just that

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You may well be right. This would certainly help explain why the idea was so beloved of the recently Christianised Franks, whose rise to political dominance in western Europe almost certainly precipitated the Great Schism between east and west.

James

JamesThePersian said:

Maybe in western Europe, but this understanding of the Crucifixion is completely alien to eastern Christianity. That is one of the major reasons that I became convinced that I had to convert to Orthodoxy. Our Church does not believe that God demanded the sacrifice of His own Son before He could forgive us our sins, which is wonderful because any God who would demand such I find to be utterly repugnant.

James

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forgive my ignorance of the eastern church but if god didnt demand the sacrifice was it the idea of jesus to sacrifice himself in this way,and then why would god forgive us our sins for this

kai said:

forgive my ignorance of the eastern church but if god didnt demand the sacrifice was it the idea of jesus to sacrifice himself in this way,and then why would god forgive us our sins for this

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Our soteriology is really very different from that of western Christianity. We do not view the Crucifixion as a sacrifice to God, whether voluntary or involuntary and we do not see the effect of the Crucifixion as being simply the forgiveness of our sins. We see Christ's death as a self-sacrifice for mankind which allowed Him to defeat the hold of death over man. This is part and parcel of our whole understanding of the Incarnation where Christ healed our relationship with God, that was damaged at the fall in Adam's turning from Him, by assuming humanity, thereby becoming the mediator between man and God, the bridge between human and Divine. We see Christ as the great Physician and sin as illness more than crime. Our dominant metaphor would be medical rather than the forensic one of the west. This, however, is off topic. If you have further questions, post them in the Eastern Orthodox forum or PM me. I don't want to derail the thread more than we already have.

James

JamesThePersian said:

Maybe in western Europe, but this understanding of the Crucifixion is completely alien to eastern Christianity. That is one of the major reasons that I became convinced that I had to convert to Orthodoxy. Our Church does not believe that God demanded the sacrifice of His own Son before He could forgive us our sins, which is wonderful because any God who would demand such I find to be utterly repugnant.

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Thanks, James, this is good to know, since sometimes non-Christians who also see it as utterly repugnant use it to whip on Christianity.

kai said:

forgive my ignorance of the eastern church but if god didnt demand the sacrifice was it the idea of jesus to sacrifice himself in this way,and then why would god forgive us our sins for this

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I obviously would not answer for James, to whom this question was addressed, but I would point out that prophecy in the Tenach demanded such a sacrifice if Jesus was to be who He claimed to be.

From my pov, Jesus gave us a *message* that would allow us to be forgiven for our sins. His life, like those of every Prophet, was a sacrifice -- in His case the ultimate one. Whether He was ultlimately crucified or not would, imo, have no effect on the message of the Gospel to show people the way to righteousness (and forgiveness).

Quite frankly, I have never understood the idea that "Christ died to forgive our sins" or "save us" or whatever. Here's why:

Suppose Christ was born of the virgin Mary, etc etc, lived and was crucified, etc, but never taught anything. Would we remember Him now? Why would anyone have a reason to follow Him? How would we be saved? How could we learn what it meant to be righteous?

That's why I can't understand, or accept, the idea "Christ died for our sins." I don't come from a culture that does blood sacrifice and it makes no sense at all.

Rather, tell me that in order to bring us this wonderful Message, the Gospel, He lived a saintly life and gave up human comforts and even consented to martyrdom, it was just that important that we get that Message. That's something I can believe in.

As for the pagans (she said, trying desperately to keep this vaguely on topic), if they were from cultures that understood blood sacrifice, it might've made a good selling point for them.

kai said:

the festivals of easter and christmas are not really of germanic origin but the christian church changed their celebrastions to coincide with the ethnic festivals to make the transition to christianity easier so it would be the time of year that easter and christmas are celebrated that may be germanic

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yes i think it is something along those lines . it was not a case of gaining hearts, but gaining numbers ,and this to me seems to go against the bible.
The primary concern of a genuine Christian should be to worship God "with spirit and truth." (John 4:24) and the earlier celabrations and festivals were normally to do with the worship of other Gods , not the God of the bible , i dont think that the mixing of worship would be very good in the eyes of the God of the bible. but the bible does foretell this sort of thing would happen. faithfulness to God is most important .
Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him John 4;..23

Again, James, I am speaking that the customs in both Christmas and Easter have their pagan origins. Christmas and Easter is more than the Nativity and Pascha.

Tell me, James.

What customs in Christmas are purely Christian?

And what customs in Easter are purely Christian?

And when did these purely Christian customs originated. Do they originate at the time of his birth and resurrection, or were these feasts decided afterward, centuries later?

I'm not James, but if you don't mind, Gnostic...
Just a few short remarks.

gnostic said:

Again, James, I am speaking that the customs in both Christmas and Easter have their pagan origins.
Christmas and Easter is more than the Nativity and Pascha.

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...And do not have scriptural basis at all.
There are neither command to celebrate them nor example of celebrating them by Christians.

gnostic said:

What customs in Christmas are purely Christian?

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None.

gnostic said:

And what customs in Easter are purely Christian?

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None.

gnostic said:

And when did these purely Christian customs originated.

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I'm inclined to see the word "purely" as an expression of irony. Am I right or am I right?

gnostic said:

Do they originate at the time of his birth and resurrection, or were these feasts decided afterward, centuries later?

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The latter.

But I long to see James answer too.

By the way I see it as ironical that such an issues (Pagan Religion and Christianity similarities) are raised at all.
It obviously would not be the case if the teaching of Christ hadn't been being distorted all the time by wilful additions and exclusions, as if it is a dish list in the restaurant...

More that that, mind that:
- attacking such unauthorized additions and exclusions is pointless;
- protecting them from attacks is pointless and in vain.

What are you doing here, guys?

The only feast that I recall that comes from the Bible that was probably instituted by God, via Moses, is the Passover. And this is purely a Hebrew/Jewish feast, to commemorate the exodus out of Egypt.

The only possible new feast, from that Jesus had, according to the gospels, was the Last Supper, and that was not commemorated on Easter, but a couple of days before his resurrection. Jesus had never asked for any feast on his resurrection, and the apostles didn't seem to have done so, when Jesus ascended. And even then, there is no reported cases, where the apostles upheld the Last Supper as a feast or not.