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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well I’m of European ancestry and I’m atheist. I stay culturally close to Christianity because
Christianity is central to all our cultural things. And obviously I have very little problem with this because [b]Christianity stole all the pagan culture and customs[/b] from them to create their own anyway. [/quote]

This has been refuted many, many times here. And, of course, it's been refuted by actual historians. For starters, although there are lots more historians saying the same thing: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-rest-is-history/402-christmas-pagan-or-christian/[/quote]

Instead of posting a link to a podcast, why not post the facts presented here?  Not all of them, just the best one refuting the MANY sources indicating the opposite.[/quote]

DP. You get what you give.  If you want someone on a message board to refute your thesis in detail, you first need to provide a detailed thesis, which you haven't done. It's all been laid out in this award winning atheist blog...but you have to do the actual work of reading it.

https://historyforatheists.com/the-great-myths/5 [/quote]

OK, that's fine, I am a DP but I'll do as you ask.  I'll cite a few facts specifically and then if you can tell me how the podcast link refutes those as false that would be educational to me.

[i]Saturnalia is a classic example of a winter solstice festival, one of many which have evolved in different cultures to bring good cheer in the season of long nights, and to mark the sense a sense of renewal and rejuvenation. In 274 AD, long after Saturnalia was already a thing, the Romans established yet another way to mark the season: a day to celebrate the sun god Sol Invictus. And the day in question? December 25th.

It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same December 25 the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries, the Christians also took part.'

Less than a century later, Pope Julius I officially established that same date as Christ’s birthday, conveniently appropriating the existing pagan shenanigans as a key Christian date.[/i]

https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-pagan-roots-of-christmas

Let's start with that one.  I will post more.  How does the podcast refute that?[/quote]

DP, and I haven't listened to the podcast, but that bit of history is very easy to refute in this certain form; that is a THEORY, but the data for it is sparse and it's generally disfavored by most contemporary historians.

In terms of data, Sol Invictus was a minor deity until the late 3rd century. 274 is when the cult of Sol Invictus got a boost under Aurelius, but there's not solid data that December 25th was the date of any festival for Sol Invictus at that time. You'll find some scholars who think the December 25th festival began in 274, but that's supposition. There's also basically no evidence that the holiday was particularly important or widespread festival. The first definite reference to Dies Natalis Solis Invicti being on December 25th we have comes in the Chronograph of 354, which is the same source that everyone agrees on December 25th as a date for Christmas.

Some older historians, relying on a much later source, Dionysius Bar Salibi writing in the 12th century who claimed that the December 25th date was chosen because it coincided with Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. You quoted him when said "It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same December 25 the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries, the Christians also took part." No serious historian would rely on this source in 2023, however. Firstly, because he's writing centuries after the events he's describing. It would be as if I made up a story about someone who lived in the 14th century. You need primary source data to support anything I write about something that happened 700 years ago. I'm not a reliable source on my own. Secondly, because he's writing a polemic to support an alternative date of Christmas (January 6th). The approach relying on supposed connections to other holidays tends to be called the "History of Religions" approach, and it's not currently supported by most historians.

The alternative approach, which is currently supported by academic historians, is called the Calculation Theory. In suggests that Christians first calculated Jesus's death date and relying on a modified version of a belief that holy men died the same day they were born. They calculated Jesus's death date based on the Gospels and then assigned that date, March 25th, to his conception, not his birth. Going forward nine months they arrived on December 25th as the date of his birth. There's evidence that Christians began dating the conception of Jesus, the Annunciation, much earlier than Christmas, possibly as early as the 200s, well before any evidence that Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was celebrated on December 25th. Some of that evidence is contested, but plenty of scholars accept it.

So when you present the Sol Invictus story as "facts," you're wildly misstating the state of the scholarship among academic historians. The evidence simply isn't there, and most historians think an alternative story is more likely.[/quote]

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