Christmas, the world's biggest holiday, is fast-approaching and nearly two billion people will be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ this December 25th. But there are millions out there who choose not to celebrate Christmas at all because of it's pagan origin. Here's an excerpt from an article published on JW.org entitled "Why Do Some People Not Celebrate Christmas?":
It was not until more than 300 years after Jesus’ birth that Christendom officially began to observe Christmas on December 25. Interestingly, in the mid-17th century, an act of parliament banned Christmas celebrations in England. In the United States, the Massachusetts General Court did the same. Why? The book The Battle for Christmas, says: “Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer.”
The roots of Christmas can be traced back to pagan Rome with its mixture of festivals for honoring the agricultural god Saturn and the sun god Sol Invictus, or Mithra. Anthropologists Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling, coauthors of the book Pagan Christmas, write: “Like many pre-Christian customs and beliefs, the old feast commemorating the yearly return of the sun was rededicated to the birth of Christ.”
Interesting indeed!
Read the full article at:
www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20121201/why-some-do-not-celebrate-christmas/
