The thing is they didnt just 'evolve' the Pagan rituals and customs, and idols, they took them whole cloth and just renamed them to try to hide their origin. Here is a interesting read..
Take it step by step…..historically. This is a Gentile-Christian community, from the 2nd century on. Before the Edict of Milan Christians are worshipping in hiding. Congregations are meeting in private homes …. catacombs … out in the woods…..There is no political correctness here, people are saying what they think. It does not matter where they are gathering they are all former Pagans that converted to Christianity. Look through the early Christian writings and you are not going to see a lot of objections to regional customs in Christian congregations.
It not until the Protestant reform that you had people that wanted to prove themselves holier than thou. Basically holier than the Catholic Church. And there is no reason for this…..The history of the Catholic Church was so horrid, that they needed to prove nothing.
But they felt that way anyway…..So they focused on the customs of Christianity….They also started developing man-made sins…I am holier than thou because I do not drink…. I am holier than thou because I do not smoke…. I am holier than thou because I do not dance…. I am holier than thou because I do not gamble. It is all driven by the desire to look good in the eyes of Man and edify themselves and have ammunition to condemn others. Because it is not biblical.
They adopted the wedding ceremonies as a requirement for marriage and that is funny. Of all the customs we have, there are more Pagan customs and rituals in the average Christian wedding ceremony than anything we do….wedding ceremonies are strictly from Pagan cultures. I love weddings.
So what do we have left? Easter….the holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ. They can object to the Ecumenical Councils and Constantine combining the holiday with the holiday of the spring Goddess…I can kind of see that, so do not celebrate Easter, simple as that. I am sure that there are denominations and churches that ignore Easter, but I have never seen one. Of course they are celebrating the story of Christ and His resurrection. I was one of the people fanning the palm leafs in a church play this last Easter. Helped with moving the props around and cleanup. But no one is going to twist your are arm to celebrate Easter. And you can tell your kids and grand kids why you do not hide Easter eggs. Your choice. I love Easter Sunrise vigils.
What is left? You can look at the custom of Christmas….the tree…the Yule log….and decorations and giving presents….Santa Claus LOL….If you look at the time line for these customs they start to develop around the time of the Protestant reform. Pagans and Jews ritually slaughtered and sacrificed animals during the holidays, put we do not do that. We don’t have people dancing naked around a fire at night for Easter or Christmas. Evergreens has always been a symbol of hope for winter to end….and Gentile-Christians have always followed those customs in different ways, because of the customs of their regions.
But we did stop selling our daughters as sex slave on holidays. LOL
As far as I am concerned that was worse than Pagan.
Halloween!!! I can understand someone taking exception to this, to an extent. Pagan religions….of different kinds….all over the world have always had holidays for honoring the dead. Christianity took that custom and had fun with it, but if someone does not want to participate with Halloween I can understand that. And I can understand issues with the All Saints Day side of it, but a lot of it is about recognizing the martyrs.
A few years back I participate in a church organized Hell House which demonstrated the evils of sin and the ramifications and the temptations of the Devil. Great stuff.
You have heard the saying…..It is better to keep your mouth shut and people think you are ignorant, than open it and remove all doubt. Here is the deal, if you have something specific "religiously" that you think Christians are doing that is really Pagan….research it so you know what your are talking about.
So what I am getting at here is that you just can't say…..Pagans have been gathering around a table and eating meat and praying for thousands of years so what Christianity is doing is Pagan! It has to have an intentional purpose to point to Paganism.
