Why are so many christian rituals the same as pagan ones?

my point in asking ‘why cant we all get along’ and calling ‘intollerence the enemy’ was a personal statement. My sisters are jewish, I am christian, my husband is pagan, and my grandmother is catholic (yes, still christian, but a totally different culture religiously than my own beliefs)…I call my sisters to wish them happy channukah, celebrate halloween according to my husbands beliefs, and attend mass when I visit my grandmother. we love eachother and accept eachother exactly as we are. we embrace the differences in eachothers beliefs and realize it is part of what makes us the people that we are. I find that many of the people asking or respondong to questions about similarities in christianity/ paganism are one-sided and closed-minded…and I am referring to both christians and non-christians. so my comment was simply a plea to everyone to stop attacking eachother. I apologize if I came acoss as anything other than that.

The silence from the believers is deafening…

Amblessed makes one feeble post and then runs away, and orion, silverwings, rnealw, justsearching are no where to be found.

Hi, jimahl. There are lots of OT examples of the kinds of things we’re discussing, like the thunder god/sun god Psalms I mentioned, but you’re interested in the NT ones, so I’ll go through some you mention.

Yes, Mary does seem to have been a virgin, although if you look at the Isaiah prophecies you could argue they only mean ‘young girl’ (hope you don’t mind me arguing your side of the story too). I believe the standard Christian teaching, however. There are other gods from the middle east with some kind of virgin birth story attached to them, I agree. Could be a ‘whisper’, could be that it just makes the birth clearly miraculous…

Jesus was baptised - yes, that’s just history, as far as I can see. Baptism in water is a convenient symbol of rebirth or of washing away sins, so logically it worked in Judaism and other religions as well as Christianity - I have no problem that it happened before the time of John the Baptist and Jesus.

Did other religions use special meals to cement their faith comminities? Certainly, as the Last Supper was itself a Passover Meal. Why should God/Jesus have invented something totally revolutionary? There is something very special about eating together and it’s perfectly appropriate that other religions also do that, and make it a form of worship as well as socialising.

Was Jesus resurrected from death? Yes. He did it to other people too. Mithras is the best example of resurrection in another religion that I can think of. It’s farily contemporary with Christianity, and I don’t know if they coppied Christian ideas and just made them sexist and warlike, or if it had totally separate origins. I can’t remember the dates off the top of my head. Perhaps you’ve got that info.

BTW, I don’t see these earlier religions as ‘pagan’. Given that this is derived from the Roman word meaning ‘country dweller’ and was applied to those who remained worshipping the old gods when the townies had mainly become Christians, ‘pagan’ doesn’t seem to describe the highly developed city-based religions we’re talking about.

I also think that, while the subject has considerable intellectual appeal, neither of us is advancing our cause much. I’m pretty certain that a disinterested reader would find that both of our positions rely as much on our beliefs as on the facts. But, from an intellectual point of view, I’ve enjoyed it, so thanks for bringing up the subject!

flossheal, thanks, I’ve enjoyed it too. At least you are willing to seriously discuss the subject. You are a very open minded christian. Most would never even consider some of the things you said here.

* “…but one thing unites them all…the belief to treat others respectfully”

The respect you speak of, has historically applied ONLY to fellow believers. How many religion inspired atrociticies would you like me to list?

Amblessed, your answer is interesting and I’d like to ask a serious question in response? Will those who believed in those pagan religions also go to heaven? If not, why not? And how does that apply to modern (post-resurrection) men?

Thanks.

This is a very good question. The reason christian rituals are the same as pagan ones is because when the christians turned the pagans into christians they adopted the pagan holidays to make it easier for them to adapt to christianity. Read “Angels and Demons” and the sequel “The DaVinci Code” both by Dan Brown. They rock the foundation of christiananity!

Iowagrrl, I understand how they became adopted. My question is for believers to tell me how the christ story could be true if all of the tenets of christianity existed before the birth of christ.

flossheal, none of the examples of pagan rituals adopted by christianity are from the old testament. They are all from the gospels.

So do you think god “wispered” to pagans about communion, baptism, the virgin birth, and the resurection, and that is how the rituals/beliefs began? Why would he do that? Is it your contention that christ was actually born to a virgin, was baptized, created the rite of communion at the last supper, and was resurected from death, even though past pagan religions had gods/prophets doing the exact same things? Was it just coincindence? Or was it real only with christ?

As iowagrrl2008 said, & if you look, a lot of the bibl is borrowed things. Like angels, bibical religouns “borroed” winged man becouse they thought they were “pretty”. So between borrowing & converting & such, that’s why. it’s really not it’s own religoun if yu ask me, just odds & ends of Jewish & some pagan(along with some egyption) & such, even the parts that weren’t even put in the bible really. Not trying to sound mean, though I admit I’m not to found of that religoun. Though what bothers me most is Satanism, it’s basily a rebelion against christainiy if you read through the rulse & laws of it. Then again some Jews have simular things to the occult if you lok closely. I’m rambling again time for me to shut up XD

“does it really matter??? “

Yes, it does matter. We should always be learning everything we can about our history. Christianity is a large part of human history, especially in the West. If we can understand how it came to exist and what influenced its beginnings, we will understand more about where we are today and why we believe what we do.

“tollerence is the key, intollerence is the enemy”

This is an irrelevant statement. The question is not fostering intolerance. It’s asking Christians to explain their thoughts on the origin of their faith and its practices. And seeking to know and understand is the key to tolerance.

amblessed, I agree your answer is simple, but woefully inadequate to actually answer the question.

So your contention is that god taught pagans how to perform christian rituals before the birth of christ. Are you admitting that the act of communion did not originate with christ? Or baptism, or the virgin birth, or even the resurrection?

How exactly did god guide the pagans? Did he reveal himself to them? If pagans were being guided by god, then how do you know it isn’t the pagans who had the right religion, and the christians just copied from them?

There are two typical responses to this . The first is simply to deny the evidence either by refusing to acknowledge it, by claiming that the similarities are “not that similar”, or by noting a few cases where Mithraism borrowed from Christianity and jumping to the erroneous conclusion that ‘therefor all similarities were borrowed from Christianity, not the other way around’. This last approach is the least honest and the most common, and completely denies even the words of the church fathers Origen and Justin Martyr who admitted these pagan roots.

The other typical apologetic response is to claim ‘the devil’ knew in advance about Christianity and influenced pagan religions ahead of time to cause confusion to us.

does it really matter??? why do I continue seeing this same question over and over? every religious/non-religious belief structure has “borrowed” beliefs or practices…but one thing unites them all…the belief to treat others respectfully. if someone chooses to believe a certain way, its just that…their choice, no matter where the origins came from. tollerence is the key, intollerence is the enemy…not why we believe what we do or do not…cant we all just get along!!!???

Answers to this question will most likely be denial. Many believers aren’t even aware that Christianity had pagan origins. I didn’t know that when I was a believer, and I certainly didn’t go out of my way to look into it as a possibility. People just don’t want to hear something like that because to even consider it is blasphemous

But it is true that everything in Christianity, as you point out, was borrowed from pagan mythology and other ancient beliefs, rituals, and legends. It is also true that early Christian history (1st-2nd centuries AD) was heavily revised by Christian writers later on (3rd-5th centuries AD). For example, the Roman Empire’s persecution of Christians usually took place in short periods and was only severe in a few areas. But it has been exaggerated to appear as if it was constant and univerally oppressive. The Emperor Titus actually insisted that Christians receive fair trials and due process, and that they not be sought out and punished on hearsay.

Hello, I’m here now! I think the festival dates and events are self-explanatory, as you imply, and the links with other mythologies are very interesting. My background is in archaeology so I know something about Mithraism and various middle-eastern religions - even Pharoah Akenaten’s monotheism, which bears some interesting comparisons with early Judaism.

Despite being aware of those links, I believe that Christianity is the fullest expression of God’s work and God’s will, let along of God’s love, so I remain a committed Christian. Amblessed’s point is good and explains some of what is going on, I think - God may have ‘shouted’ with Jesus but He ‘whispers’ anywhere and anytime - many of these ‘whispers’ of the truth can be picked up in religions all over the world. St Patrick found them when he went to Ireland and he used them very effectively to explain the gospel.

There are other possible explanations for other things. God can heal and that He does so in non-Christian contexts as well as Christian ones just shows that He cares about people - He doesn’t always work miraculously but why shouldn’t He at times?

Angels - if they’re real, it makes sense that other, non-Christian religions encountered them too.

The similarities between imagery and language can certainly be attributed to influence between different cultures. Some Christians are uncomfortable with hearing that pagan hymns, for example to the sun, or to weather gods, are quite similar to some Psalms. But the Hebrews were hearing those hymns in Egypt, Babylon, or wherever, and I don’t find it particularly revolting that they would have borrowed the language of the pagan hymns to describe their own God. Modern Christian songwriters use the language and music of the 21st Century, and it makes their worship songs relevant to 21st Century Christians. That there are links between Biblical writings and other religions is something similar, in my opinion.

But at times, and I want to be honest with you, jimahl, even I can get a bit uncomfortable with the apparatly ‘derivative’ nature of some of the Biblical writing. You want to challenge Christians on that and, at least in the Old Testament, I confess myself challenged. I do, however, trust God because I not only have some thousands of years old writings, but also a living relationship with Him. What I experience of Him now I find to be true of Jesus in the New Testament and in (much of) the Old Testament too, so my opinion is based on both educated study and faith.

christians cant make up there minds !!

pagans belive in nature :}

I’ld say what Hourglass said exactly