Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> Technically, there is no "Christian" version of it, unless you include 
> some lame, misplaced (chronologically it can't fit where it got put, if 
> you follow the Bible's supposed sequence of events), story about Jesus 
> and some church services attached. Nothing done on the date, other than 
> the churchy stuff, at least any place I have heard of, isn't 100% pagan. 
> Its one of the cases where they stole the thing, lock, stock, and 
> barrel, but their followers refused to give up all the stuff that went 
> with it.

  When I say "Christian" I'm not exclusively talking about biblical
tradition. I also include everything that has come after it in the
name of Christianity.

  Most Christian holidays are wild mixups of biblical, ecclesiastical and
pagan traditions. Curiously, the first one of those sources actually plays
by far the least significant role in most of the cases. (For instance, the
only modern Christian holiday that is actually mentioned and defined in the
Bible is the passover, from which Easter is derived. And even that is quite
completely different in the Bible than it is today.)

  Blessing houses by waving catkins at them isn't found in the Bible, of
course. However, I still consider to be of Christian origin because it was,
AFAIK, invented in the name of Christianity, rather than having its roots
in a pagan tradition. (Although it certainly *sounds* like it could have been
a pagan tradition that simply got relabelled as Christian tradition, but
I have not found any reference to this.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message