Author Topic: Can I celebrate holidays such as Yule and Ostara on their christianified dates? (Read 15793 times)

bernadette · « **Reply #150 on:** March 13, 2013, 05:38:46 am »

Quote from: Dark Midnight;101059

Ok, for the final time, I am not putting the boot in on anyone. You do not know me, you have no idea how fast or slow I can read anything. As it happens, I am a very fast reader. I always have been and, at 38 years old, I have had a lot of practice. I am getting very tired of you insulting me because you are trying to avoid the simple fact that you cannot answer the questions that have been asked.

Dealing with your sulk has made me late. I provided a link to an article agreeing and confirming my opinion on Easter one of the two major Christian holy days and here you're back saying you read quickly. Well done you.

SunflowerP · « **Reply #151 on:** March 13, 2013, 05:51:26 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101051

Here is a link to someone else who believes Easter was Pagan first:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism

No one here is claiming that you're the only person who believes that. Indeed, we're well aware that there are many people who believe it. That doesn't make it any more accurate, though. (And that article is full of factual inaccuracies.)

I think one of the problems you've been having with this thread is that, because the word "lie" was used, you feel that you are being called a liar. This is not the case; we're well aware that you did not invent the "stolen holidays" idea. It's clear that you are honest and sincere in believing it to be factual - nevertheless, it is erroneous.

Sunflower

bernadette · « **Reply #152 on:** March 13, 2013, 05:57:40 am »

Quote from: SunflowerP;101062

No one here is claiming that you're the only person who believes that. Indeed, we're well aware that there are many people who believe it. That doesn't make it any more accurate, though. (And that article is full of factual inaccuracies.)

I think one of the problems you've been having with this thread is that, because the word "lie" was used, you feel that you are being called a liar. This is not the case; we're well aware that you did not invent the "stolen holidays" idea. It's clear that you are honest and sincere in believing it to be factual - nevertheless, it is erroneous.

Sunflower

You see I don't know how you can say that the very name of Easter is Pagan in origin. Yule is the winter solstice and pure happenstance did not put Christmas right beside it.

The area in question is relatively small but does spread further than the immediate Mid East. The tribes in that area whilst still tribes were in many places very cosmopolitan and what today we would describe as multicultural.

I am so late! but I do want to look into the Judaism aspect I thought it was Pagan in origin I still do but someone else does not so I will check.

Rhyshadow · « **Reply #153 on:** March 13, 2013, 05:59:01 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101061

Dealing with your sulk has made me late. I provided a link to an article agreeing and confirming my opinion on Easter one of the two major Christian holy days and here you're back saying you read quickly. Well done you.

I read that article and all the posts - still no 'meat' to the argument, just an assertion that since the dates coincide, it MUST be true

That many other religions have holy days that correspond means they stole them too?

Shinto
Shunbun no Hi - Vernal Equinox
Midori no Hi - May 4, A day to celebrate nature and her blessings.
Tennō Tanjōbi - December 23, Emperor's Birthday- traditional - the Emperor is considered a direct descendent of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess so is considered divine - birth of the demi-God?

That religions all across the world have set dates for festivals at about the same time IS pure coincidence, just following the sun's cycle is all - Christians didn't "steal" anything.

SunflowerP · « **Reply #154 on:** March 13, 2013, 06:08:36 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101056

No I'm not I'm using the terms we use today. I just gave you the link you asked for its quite self explanatory.

The article in question is a human-interest piece from The Guardian, not even remotely scholarly. What is it about the article that provides evidence of anything more than "this reporter is able to collect all sorts of stuff that has been said, accurately or inaccurately, about the subject"?

Quote

I really do have to go out.

Y'know, that's okay. I don't require that you answer my questions right this instant; if you don't have a chance to answer for several hours, that's not a problem. After all, I might not have a chance to read them for several hours. The thread will still be here when you come back.

Sunflower

Dark Midnight · « **Reply #155 on:** March 13, 2013, 06:54:56 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101061

Dealing with your sulk has made me late. I provided a link to an article agreeing and confirming my opinion on Easter one of the two major Christian holy days and here you're back saying you read quickly. Well done you.

I have not made you late in any way, shape or form. YOU have decided to stay and answer me (in a very ill mannered fashion, may I add) and that is not my fault. You could have gone out and answered later at a more convenient time to yourself. Blaming me for your choice is a very silly thing to do.

Thank you. I am aware that my skill at reading is awesome. You provided a link and I read it. I may not have agreed with it (IMO it is full of holes), but I did indeed read it. The fact that you may or may not be able to read that quickly is of absolutely no interest to me at all.

SunflowerP · « **Reply #156 on:** March 13, 2013, 07:10:51 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101063

You see I don't know how you can say that the very name of Easter is Pagan in origin.

Well, it's Anglo-Saxon in origin, and likely dates to before the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons. But the Christian holiday that, in English, is called Easter, was already well-established as a Christian holiday long before that, under names that most often derive from Latin pascha. The Wikipedia article on Names of Easter covers it fairly well.

"The very name of Easter" isn't the name of that Christian holiday in any language but English.

Quote

Yule is the winter solstice and pure happenstance did not put Christmas right beside it.

Neither did pure theft. The link provided when you first came into this thread (I'll provide it for you again, so that you don't have to go digging through the thread if you wish to re-check it) explains the very complex internal-to-Christianity reasons for the choice of date.

That it did fall so close to the solstice, and the various pre-existing holidays connected to it, may well have contributed to the rise, over the course of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, of Christmas from a relatively minor feast to a major one, and there were certainly Christians who took proselytic advantage of the proximity of dates.

Sunflower

RandallS · « **Reply #157 on:** March 13, 2013, 08:34:20 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101002

...sarcasm should be subtle you are as subtle as a brick through a window.:

*** MOD HAT ON ***

Personal attacks are not allowed on The Cauldron. It's in the rules you agreed to read and follow when you created your account. If you cannot argue your case without making personal attacks on those who are arguing against you, you probably need to find another forum. The Cauldron is a debate and discussion forum, so if you state your opinion that X is Y when the facts do not support it, members are likely to argue with you.

Opinions, no matter how sincerely held, do not trump facts on this board. Nor will they be considered factual because someone truly believes them to be fact and can point to other people who also believe the opinion to be fact without actually demonstrating that it is fact.

Finally, the burden of people is ion the person making the claim. You are claiming that Christians stole their holidays from one or more Pagan religions. Therefore, you have to back up the claims, others do not have to prove you wrong to your satisfaction.

RandallS · « **Reply #158 on:** March 13, 2013, 08:37:47 am »

Quote from: RandallS;101080

*** MOD HAT ON ***

I see you continued to make personal attacks in later messages. Enough that I could ban you. However, in fairest, as you made them all before a warning was issues, I will not do so. Should you violate any additional rules, you will be banned, however.

Sophia C · « **Reply #159 on:** March 13, 2013, 08:59:38 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101051

Here is a link to someone else who believes Easter was Pagan first:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism

That article is full of mistakes, some of which were debunked up-thread.

Jenett · « **Reply #160 on:** March 13, 2013, 09:05:27 am »

Quote from: SunflowerP;101071

Just a note that I'm working up a fuller summary and notes about multiple holidays, just to lay it out in one place. (It may take me a bit of the morning, but I'll get it up ASAP.)

Sophia C · « **Reply #161 on:** March 13, 2013, 09:07:15 am »

Quote from: bernadette;101028

No you are playing with this. I have made it clear that I don't believe all Pagans religions are the same I said there are many paths in Paganism. You are asking for a particular tribe which is ridiculous.

I've named the dates'holy days I'm not going to entertain you for another hundred posts you show where Christianity founded one holy day. One will do name one that isn't on the same day or within a day or two of a Pagan holy day.

Let's play Today In World Religions!

Catholic saints' days today: St. Agnellus of Pisa, St. Ansovinus, St. Euphrasia of Constantinople, St. Heldrad, St. Kevoca, St. Macedonius, St. Mochoemoc, St. Nicephorus, St. Ramirus and Companions, St. Roderic, St. Roderic and Salomon, St. Sabinus, St. Theusetas, St. Urpasian. (Apparently St Heldrad invented ways of rescuing travelers in the Alps. That's a decent reason for sainthood.) Other religions' holy days in close proximity to today: The Baha'i holy day of Naw Ruz is coming up on the 21st; Jewish Passover starts on the 25th; the Birth of Prophet Zaranhushtra, in Zoroastrianism, is on the 26th; the Hindu festival of Holi is on the 27th. As you can see, Ostara (or Mabon in the Southern Hemisphere) is much closer to Naw Ruz than it is to Easter. That seems to be a better case for theft than with Easter, which isn't until the 31st this year. Those Baha'i and their evil theft of Ostara!

There is always a holy day close to another religion's holy day, because there are many religions, and religious calendars have many holy days. In terms of Christianity, we in the secularized, post-Enlightenment world are usually primarily aware of Christmas and Easter and maybe one or two others (and only based on their Western dating - Orthodox Christmas and Easter are at different times). Spend some time in a Roman Catholic, Anglican or other liturgical church and take a good look at their liturgical calendars, and you'll find that there are many, many holy days, beyond Christmas and Easter.

The best evidence for Christian appropriation of pre-Christian festivals and holy days is a letter from the year 601 in which Pope Gregory advises Abbot Mellitus to re-purpose pagan statues and temples in England for Christian worship. This is one reason why some old churches were built on pre-Christian sacred sites. In the same letter, he suggests that saints' days might replace festivals in which oxen are sacrificed to pagan gods, so that the pagans have something else to do with the urge to worship on those days. A number of Neo-Pagan authors (including Philip Carr-Gomm) have assumed, with no further evidence than this letter, that this means Easter and Christmas were based on pagan festivals - which they also assume are the same as the Wiccan festivals celebrated since about the 1950s. (See his not-very-good 'The Book of English Magic'.) The problems with this assumption are numerous, as has been explained in the thread - from the misguided idea that the Christian church cared anything about a tiny island far to the west of them while they were dating Christmas and Easter, to the fact that there is NO evidence that any of the modern Neo-Pagan festivals are pre-Christian. The earliest we can date most of them is the middle ages. Lughnasadh may be a little earlier, but none of the others have been researched in enough depth for any evidence of earlier dating to have emerged. (See Máire MacNeill's The Festival of Lughnasa for more on that - and of course the marvellous Ronald Hutton, who has been recommended earlier in this thread.)

I'm glad to see you mention, earlier in the thread, that Easter is based on a lunar alignment (unlike the Spring Equinox which, as I'm sure you know, is not). I'm sure that by now, after all your research on Judaism, you will be aware that it is not borrowed from 'paganism', but based on the Jewish calendar in relation to Passover. (With some differences of calculation that put them out of sync in the modern world.) The Passover feast, as I'm sure you know, is the time of Jesus' crucifixion in the gospel. Whether or not it actually happened, the early Christian church believed that it happened at Passover.

yewberry · « **Reply #162 on:** March 13, 2013, 09:20:02 am »

Quote from: bernadette;100626

I used the Christian word because I am clearly in the company of fundamentalist Christians.

Nope.

Brina

yewberry · « **Reply #163 on:** March 13, 2013, 09:38:16 am »

Quote from: MadZealot;101058

But I thought Sunflower wasn't talking about Easter.

Sweet marshmallow Jesus, get your damn story straight.

I'm starting to smell troll. Recycled troll.

Brina

Darkhawk · « **Reply #164 on:** March 13, 2013, 09:52:49 am »

Quote from: bernadette;100989

Where was I wrong aggressive or not? I don't see how anyone can argue that Christian holy days being the same or as near as makes no difference to Pagan holy days is coincidence or accident.

Regardless of the facts of the matter (and the fact that in the case of the actual major festivals of the Christian religion they are all based on Judaism), I cannot for the life of me come up with a single reason to give a shit.

The fact that some people have some profound interest in the fact that one religion they don't practice has some festivals which might have common origin with another religion that they don't practice is really, really weird to me. I cannot wrap my head around the whole giant kettle of "not your business" that it is. It's clearly not academic interest, so what the heck is it? Some kind of delusion that ancient paganism was a grand universal something or other rather than a whole truckload of unrelated tribal/cultural/local religions?

Bloody Romans have a lot to answer for, really.