Happy Thanksgiving!

[The Beatles]

Heh, thanks for providing a few more examples. Not complaining, but do want to shut the picky-choosy traditionalists up.

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs* Beatles. Indeed.

I think I read somewhere that the Christians aligned Christmas with the Pagan holiday to make Christianity more appealing

Er, kinda, they more just adopted it cause that was what their potential worshipers were used too.

When they banned the naked caroling they perverted it. When they took the orgies out they perverted it. When they put the birth of Jesus in they perverted it. When they tried to make it a quasi moral holiday they perverted it.

*laughs*. Right Nuke.

[pukkan]

heh turkey day for me this year was also birthday celebration

[Ruddertail]

I prefer to start celebrating Christmas on Dec. 17th, like it used to be before Christians perverted the holiday. Shame really, taking a time of perfectly fun drinking and debauchery and putting some crazy religous twist to it.

Nuke, Christians did not pervert Christmas. Christmas was a distinctly Christian holiday. They may have attempted to replace a pagan holiday with Christmas, but "Christmas", derived from "Christ" and "Mass" (Catholic term for a worship service, though I may be overgeneralizing what it refers to) was always Christian - or do you know of a pagan group that would call a holiday Christmas - something that refers to the the service or the worship of Christ?

[The Beatles]

I don't believe he's referring to the name, but rather to the date and perhaps customs.

Then again, from looking around, it's not a Christian holiday anymore, but a big-business politically-correct holiday. Everyone says "Happy Holidays", everyone tries to sell me lights and chocolates, cards and presents, records of carols; the state declares it is a holiday.

Personally, I always say "Happy Christmas", but that is about as far as I have managed to rebel. I, too, carol, buy presents, take a few days off work, and all the rest of it.

[Ruddertail]

I don't believe he's referring to the name, but rather to the date and perhaps customs.

Probably true. However, he should not call it Christmas, then, because it most certainly was not Christmas.

And you'll note I said "Christmas was a Christian holiday". While Christians (like myself) still celebrate Christ's Birth during the time, many other people celebrate various other customs, including the "Gimme" one...

[The Beatles]

The holiday is still ours, but the name is perhaps no longer, because it's been taken over by commerce.

[Nuclear Raunch]

The only things that I can think of that has been added by Christians is

1: The name of the holiday.

2: The name of the god whose birthday is celebrated.

3: The nativity scene.

So far as I know everything else about Christmas customs and traditions were around before Christians decided to include the holiday as part of their religion. Wreaths, Christmas trees, caroling, presents, feasting, mistle toes, Yule logs, holly, ham, Christmas lights, December 25th, Santa hats etc...

I call it Christmas for the same reason I refer to the Soviet Union as Russia or the UK as Britain. Different name, few changes, essentially the same thing. (If you're gonna "debunk" anything I've said that would definately be your best bet) However if you prefer I can refer to it as "The Holiday Now Known as Christmas"

The holiday now known as Christmas, as Beatles said, has become all about merchandising. When Christians took it over they stripped the funner parts out, when corporations got ahold of it they stripped everything but the spending money part. Who knows what it will degenerate into next.

In my opinion if Christians wanted to celebrate the birth of Christ they should do it sometime in the Spring. I guess if you're into the Jewish belief of integral age then either April 3rd or July 3rd would be appropriate dates. Also the holiday shouldn't involve any of the pagan traditions. But then again as you may have guessed I'm not a Christian, so I guess if you guys want to decorate and praise a tribute to the god of farming who am I to judge?

[Gen. Volkov]

Not even the nativity scene. It was just connected to Christmas, but the basic scene was already around well before Christianity came along. It's traceable back to at least the Greeks. Most Christian imagery is in fact stuff they adopted and converted to a Christian tone. Later artists imitated, and expanded upon early styles, but the basic pattern of the art is pretty constant.

Rudder, the Christians called it Christmas, but Dec. 25th is not Jesus' birthday. It's unlikely he was even born in the month of December. The Christians, as with many other holidays, took pre-existing traditions and gave them a Christian face. It's called syncretion, or syncretism. Many religions did this in the Roman Empire, not just Christianity. There are very few, if any, purely Christian holidays. Most are just refaced pagan traditions.

[The Beatles]

Yes, quite some imagery can be traced to Zoroastrianism.