• eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      December 25 literally the Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, invented by Emperor Julian in an attempt to restore paganism to the Roman Empire in the early 300s.

      Dec 25 only became accepted as the birth date of Jesus afterwards.

      Can’t make it up.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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        3 months ago

        tbf Julian was more of a neoplatonist rather than a sun cultist, and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti predates Julian. But yes, December 25 being ‘Christmas’ is absolutely part of the Christian exploitation of pre-existing pagan traditions to make conversion easier - as is Christmas’s relation to Saturnalia, a way cooler holiday than some dweeb being born in Bethlehem, smh.

    • smayonak@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Reskinned cultic Persian diety known as Mithras. Mithras was not related in any way to the Abrahamic god and it’s not known how the historical Jesus borrowed large elements from the Mithras legend other than plagiarism.

      El is the name of an abrahamic storm god believed to be God. He was once a member of a Canaanite (and probably before then) pantheon but its clerics overthrew the old order and installed El as the sole god. Hilariously the clerics didn’t remove all references to El’s divine wife, Asherah, from the bible and you can still see references to her even today. Although most references are to the symbols of Ashera and not the goddess.

      Religious scholars do backflips to try and explain why a pagan god exists in the bible and they can’t get around the most obvious answer that it’s a error and the name had been partially edited out of older versions of the bible.