Augustus
…
Also people gave up eggs for Lent and thus could eat eggs again at Easter.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
The Paganisation of Christianity
- Thread starter ronki23
- Start date
Also people gave up eggs for Lent and thus could eat eggs again at Easter.
Therefore Lent is Pagan, right???
Augustus
…
Eggs are pagan. Fire is pagan. Wood is pagan. Decorations are pagan. Gifts are pagan. Feasts are pagan. Drinking is pagan. Singing is pagan. Snow is pagan. Winter flora and fauna are pagan. 4th C Byzantine saints are pagan. Stuff folk invented in the 17th C is pagan. Stuff folk invented in the 18th C is pagan. Stuff folk invented in the 19th C is pagan. Stuff folk invented in the 20th C is pagan.
Obviously pagan traditions just lay dormant for a millennium then magically reappeared. Only an apologist could doubt that.
Stuff Romantics and writers of fairy tales made up in the 19th C must definitely reflect super ancient tradition even if there is no evidence of it as pagans existed and were ancient so everything ever attributed to pagans must be have existed and been ancient.
All rationalists know everything is pagan and must smugly announce it every December because factz.
Mithras is the reason for the season! Or is it Saturnalia? or Sol Invictus? or Odin?
Hermit Philosopher
Selflessly here for you
I cannot help but think that the correct title ought to be: The Christening of Paganism.
Paganism is older than Christianity. Its traditions were/are rooted in nature and followed/follow the natural cycles of the land.
Agriculturally, pagan celebrations were very suitable and attaching new Christian festivities to those that folk already partook in, made the spreading Christianity (as a culture, especially) somewhat easier.
Ps. When did they stop teaching these things about our history in schools…? And like, why…?
Augustus
…
This is the problem with this narrative, plenty of paganism is not older than Christianity.
People just lump it all together as "paganism" and assume it's all some cohesive and unbroken tradition.
Which festivals were these? Not Christmas or Easter anyway.
Presumably the main reason is that it isn't actually true...
It is quite a good reason really when you think about it
They do teach about historic Paganism at school. We learnt about Saxon gods and had to sing this silly sing about them.
Hermit Philosopher
Selflessly here for you
Dear Augustus,
I refer to the classic definition of paganism (paganism) and that is the one that makes sense to discuss in relation to the comment I made to OP.
Though there are quite a few, I’ll here just give one example that suggests that your presumption above is incorrect and that they must have stopped teaching these things in school for a different reason than the one you wish to offer:
The winter solstice in Sweden takes place mid December. As the darkest day of the year, it had always been “celebrated”/“ritualised” - especially in pre-Christian times, when daylight was a necessity to working the land and there was only a few hours of it.
But, since the 1800’s that pre-Christian (pagan) tradition was replaced by a new, Christian one - mainly known to Christians in Sweden, oddly enough…: Every 13th of December, Christians (in Sweden) celebrate The Day of St. Lucia.
They still don’t quite know why.
But it did stopped them ritualising about the solstice.
Humbly
Hermit
I refer to the classic definition of paganism (paganism) and that is the one that makes sense to discuss in relation to the comment I made to OP.
Presumably the main reason is that it isn't actually true... It is quite a good reason really when you think about it
Though there are quite a few, I’ll here just give one example that suggests that your presumption above is incorrect and that they must have stopped teaching these things in school for a different reason than the one you wish to offer:
The winter solstice in Sweden takes place mid December. As the darkest day of the year, it had always been “celebrated”/“ritualised” - especially in pre-Christian times, when daylight was a necessity to working the land and there was only a few hours of it.
But, since the 1800’s that pre-Christian (pagan) tradition was replaced by a new, Christian one - mainly known to Christians in Sweden, oddly enough…: Every 13th of December, Christians (in Sweden) celebrate The Day of St. Lucia.
They still don’t quite know why.
But it did stopped them ritualising about the solstice.
Humbly
Hermit
Augustus
…
The odds on anything that began in the 18th c reflecting genuine pagan traditions are not exactly high.
Christians celebrate things for the same reason pagans did, but not necessarily because they are secretly copying pagans as a marketing ploy a millennium after Christianisation of the region. The days getting longer is an observable, tangible phenomenon. Winter was a time of hardship and death so people mark its passing.
That's why all kinds of cultures independently marked midwinter and numerous other similar times of the year.
St Lucia on 13th dates back to classical antiquity in the Roman Empire. It is celebrated in other places that were not Norse pagan.
Can't say I buy the "anything christians do in December = Pagan" line of logic given the complete lack of evidence, presence of contradictory evidence, massive time gaps, etc. Christmas, Christmas trees, yule logs, etc.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Christianity is a combination of Hellenism (pagan) and Judaism
Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions
This shows all the Christian concepts come from Hellenism, a trend sweeping through all religions from 300 BC - 100Ad. This is why the "mystery religions" also had dying/rising sons/daughters of their one true God. Like Judaism they started out using Mesopotamian myths and then adopted Greek and Persian myths as well.
-Hellenistic religion strove to regain their place in the world beyond this world where they truly belonged, to encounter the god beyond the god of this world who was the true god, and to awaken that part of themselves (their souls or spirits) that had descended from the heavenly realm by stripping off their bodies, which belonged to this world.
-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions
This shows all the Christian concepts come from Hellenism, a trend sweeping through all religions from 300 BC - 100Ad. This is why the "mystery religions" also had dying/rising sons/daughters of their one true God. Like Judaism they started out using Mesopotamian myths and then adopted Greek and Persian myths as well.
-Hellenistic religion strove to regain their place in the world beyond this world where they truly belonged, to encounter the god beyond the god of this world who was the true god, and to awaken that part of themselves (their souls or spirits) that had descended from the heavenly realm by stripping off their bodies, which belonged to this world.
-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.