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CalvinSays t1_iz6pek8 wrote

Reply to comment by Sad_Blueberry_3868 in How did new emerging religions succeed despite established pre-existing religions during ancient and/or pre-historic times? by matthewlee0165

Not at all. Christianity was very much syncretism, at least early on. By the time possible syncretism does happen, it was already the culturally favored religion so this wouldn't explain the spread. As for the supposed syncretism like Easter and Christmas this simply wasn't the case. It was ironically propaganda started by Protestants in the 19th century against the Roman Catholic Church. Secularists ran with it to condemn the whole Christian tradition.

The most important work in this regard is Alexander Hislop's the Two Babylons.

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webbphillips t1_iz778a3 wrote

Could you elaborate on Christmas and Easter a bit? Maybe I misread your post because I thought it was well established that those are Christianized pagan winter and spring festivals. If not, then why does Santa look like Odin and they both fly around at the end of December? And why eggs and bunnies, as are common among spring festivals?

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CalvinSays t1_iz78r0e wrote

An important thing to realize is that similarity does not establish dependence. You have to show that one tradition is in fact dependant on another. Otherwise, you fall prey to same kind of reasoning that leads people to believe aliens taught us how to build the pyramids because so many independent cultures built them.

One also needs to be critical of sources. Where do we get the information regarding Odin? Often, when supposed pagan Origins to Christimas traditions are stated, they are given without any source. Be sure to locate the sources these traditions supposedly come from. When were they recorded?

As for the Odin claim specifically, I will point you to Jackson Crawford. He is an excellent scholar with a PhD in Old Norse. He is certainly better qualified than I to dig into the specifics: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_o5ih9WuCxQ

As for Easter, Michael Jones at InspiringPhilosophy put together a good video on the topic: https://youtu.be/IffNsK_fdoY

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