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Christmas Was Not a Pagan Holiday: How To Shut Down Family Idiot Arguing Otherwise
In this episode, we delve into the origins of Christmas traditions, debunking the commonly held belief that many of them stem from pagan practices. We examine historical evidence that suggests the celebration of Jesus's birth on December 25th predates the Sol Invictus festival, discuss the origins of the Christmas tree and its late entry into Christian tradition, and clarify the role of Santa Claus, who originated from the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas. From an exploration of early Christian documents to exposing myths perpetuated by 19th-century German nationalist ideologies, this episode sets the record straight on what truly influenced our beloved Christmas customs.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] The earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as Jesus's birthday predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.
, and keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on that date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.
Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah, who's to say that, yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas,
Speaker: My life has been a lie! God is dead! The government's lame! Thanksgiving is about killing Indians! Jesus wasn't born on Christmas! They moved the date, it was a pagan holiday!
Malcolm Collins: Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with. Jesus's birthday. It was not that some, it's not that Jesus's birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.
It was an already totally Christian saints festival was moved to correspond with a totally Christian [00:01:00] Jesus's birthday as by early church leaders. Right. So it's just some
Simone Collins: religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today. We are going to be discussing the pernicious myth. Many Christian celebrations around Christmas came or are descended from pagan celebrations. What? They are not? I thought they always Yeah, you must have heard this growing up where people are like, Oh, this came from a pagan celebration.
This came from a pagan celebration. And in almost every case, There not only is literally zero strong evidence that they are, there is very strong evidence they did not. And there is actually also evidence in a number of cases that some celebrations that they're like, yeah, but pagans did practice this.
And you're like, Yeah, and they started about [00:02:00] 200 years after Christians did. Are you kidding me? They borrowed it from Christians, not the other way around.
Simone Collins: What? This is crazy. Every year I get in the Christmas spirit and I watch a ton of videos on the history of Christmas and the pagan origins of Christmas and you're subverting that all right
Malcolm Collins: now?
I am. But hold on. I couldn't subvert this on so many levels. So the specific ones that we're going to be addressing are is Christmas copied from Sol Invictus celebration or did it get its date from a Sol Invictus celebration
Simone Collins: or Saturnalia
Malcolm Collins: or Saturnalia?
We're also going to be discussing Saturnalia separately.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: And is the Christmas tree pagan? . Specifically, we'll be arguing in the case of the Christmas tree that the tradition of the Christmas tree is not ancient, it's not derived from Saturnalia, Yule, or Norse mythology.
And then, finally we will touch briefly on Santa Claus being Christian. But, we're gonna hit this from a really weird ang
Published on 1 year ago