Christmas is not based on a pagan holiday.
"No matter how many times you hear
Sheldon Cooper (or anyone else) say Christmas is based on a pagan holiday
(whether Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, or anything else), we simply
have no evidence of this.
If you read the writings of the
Church Fathers, you do not find those who assign Christmas to December 25th
saying things like, "Let's put Jesus' birthday here so we can subvert a
pagan holiday." (Not that subverting pagan holidays is a bad thing.) They
simply don't do that.
The ones who say Jesus was born
on December 25th do so because that is when they think he was born.
In his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy,
Pope Benedict comments:
"The claim used to be made
that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian
response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the
third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However,
these old theories can no longer be sustained" (pp., 107-108)."
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