Now, that said.

All successful religions inherit from their predecessor faiths, its a necessity to convert others. Thus, in more recent times, Islam retained Christ as a great prophet and has great veneration for his mother, the Virgin Mary. Even more recently Mormons bring forward the Bible as part of their holy writings and add its myths to their own myths. In more ancient times, "God" started out almost certainly as a minor Sumerian deity, possibly the god (or baal — which means god) of Mt. Zion. "His" cult became established among the tribes that became Israel and after what appears to have been a long and vicious struggle, forced out the worship of other gods — the longest struggle being against a fertility goddess, whose priests and priestesses were NOT required to be open about their affiliation (thus the prohibition against witches, btw).

Arguably the battle against the fertility goddess was never won — but I believe it probably was.

In any event, as Christianity developed it accepted the myths of dozens of pagan sects. The virgin birth is probably an early example of that — as there were gods all over with virgin births as humans, including some of the Roman emperors (remember, they counted as gods), and the saviors of other, older faiths (please see first link below — it goes through a number of groups — if you prefer I can provide academic texts and archaeological research — let me know by email — this was just expedient).

The use of Christmas and Easter easily allowed the uneducated, illiterate followers of other faiths — most of whom knew nothing of their own theologies really, other than the holy days — to be converted to Christianity, and thus allowed the Church to be triumphant over the pagan faiths that it needed to displace to become the power that it has been for 2000 years.

Of course that did not end the adoption and alteration of extra-Church myth — Satan as those in the Christian world know him, is, in his modern incarnation, an amalgam of pagan deities, created in order to allow the Church to demonize those who followed other gods — and it worked. Ask a Jewish scholar what Satan is, and you will not get the Christian/Islamo view. It is a later view and that shows up quickly.

And for comic relief, consider St. Bridget — formerly the goddess Bridget. Even the miracles are the same.

Kind regards,

Reynolds
http://www.rebuff.org
believeinyou24@yahoo.com
References :
http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/xianity.htm
http://skepdic.com/satan.html
http://www.hranajanto.com/goddessgallery/brigit.html

We may celebrate on the *date* of former pagan festivals, such as the Saturnalia, which celebrated the return of the sun after the solstice, but the reason for the celebration is completely different.

No one knows exactly when Jesus was born; Constantine chose the date for two reasons: 1) even though Easter and the Resurrection are more important, there could be no Crucifixion without a birth; 2) in order to make converts, it was easier, and less bloody, to give new meanings to old celebrations and sacred places/objects than it was to ban them outright.
References :

for the record Catholics aren’t the only ones who celebrate Christmas as the Birth of Christ…Protestants and even Muslims celebrate Christ’s birth. The Muslims Regard Jesus as an important figure.
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And thus it is not a pagan holiday.
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