Why do people insist that Christians stole Christmas from the pagans?
First off I have to say that you have an extremely rude classmate and that she’s a poor model for the pagan community. If she doesn’t respect your right to your beliefs, then she doesn’t deserve respect in return. I don’t think “stole” is the right word for what the church did with the pagan holidays. “Borrowed”, “co-opted”, etc. would be more accurate. As others have pointed out, this was a conscious decision in order to win new converts. At first, many of these borrowed celebrations weren’t that different from their pagan origins. But as time went on, they evolved to become a completely new celebration which has some echoes of the older pagan traditions (e.g. bringing trees/evergreen into the home for Christmas). So the Christian celebrations have really become their own tradition. No, the pagans didn’t invent the “winter solstice”. It’s a natural occurrence. But, the pagans did invest it with significance and develop celebrations to mark its occurrence. Now, to be fair, this co-opti
