[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Lee Kaiwen]

montims:
> Truly, however the word is used today, a pagan has historically
> been a non-christian. ..

Goddlefrood:
> Pagan historically referred to the old
> pre-Christian religions, excluding Judaism.

And, historically, of course, early Christians did not consider 
themselves non-Jews -- nor did anyone else.

What drew me into this discussion was the claim of americanghosttour 
(who unfortunately seems to have vanished of late) that most Christmas 
traditions were Wiccan in origin (though he quite possibly intended pagan).

There are at least three problems with the claim, one semantic, one 
mathematical, one historical.

The first problem is what, precisely, does "pagan" mean? And in fact it 
doesn't mean anything precisely. Even the neo-pagan sites I've visited 
have difficulty defining it, and quickly devolve into sub-dividing 
"paganism" into more easily definable sub-groups -- neo-Wiccans, 
neo-Druids, even Hindus and Buddhists, of all things (and I suspect 
Hindus and Buddhists, at least, would be surprised to find themselves 
lumped together at all, and might have a thing or two to say about 
having to share a room with Gardnerian witches, Kemeticists and the 
Gwyddonic Order).

Even in this discussion definitions seem to speak much more about what 
paganism isn't than what it is. But just saying "It's not Christian", or 
"non-Judeo-Christo-Islamism", is, to say the least, not terribly useful. 
A bit like responding to "What's your nationality?" with "I'm not American".

Leaving "pagan" to mean no more than "non-Christian" reduces 
americanhosttour's claim to "most Christmas traditions are non-Christian 
in origin", a perhaps true, but ultimately not terribly productive, 
statement.

Secondly, "most". "Most" generally requires, at a minimum, knowing how 
many of a thing there are. "Most boys at my school are taller than me" 
presumes I know a) how many boys there are at my school and b) how many 
are taller than me.

So anyone care to tell us how many Christmas traditions there are? 
Didn't think so.

Finally, if there's one thing we have learned in this discussion, it's 
that "most" Christmas traditions are a complex amalgam of earlier 
traditions and beliefs. Father Christmas/St. Nicholas is an pastiche of 
elements from many cultures -- too many for overly simplistic claims of 
ownership. In any case, claiming pagan origin simply begs the question, 
where did pagan practices originate?

CJ