The Turkish Saint Nicholas isn't the same thing as Santa Claus though.
He is Old Father Time/Saturn.
The Turkish Bishop was festooned with Pagan practise to try and infiltrate the territory of the old gods, like giving the Devil the horns of Pan and the trident of Poseidon.
One mistake I will correct is Buddha's birthday.
I fell foul of that common error of saying he was born at Christmas when he was actually born at Easter (or thereabouts as both are movable spring feasts based on the lunar calender, this year Easter is the end of April, Buddhas birthday is the beginning of May but both move around).
However it is the birth feast of
- Horus
- Osiris
- Attis of Phrygia
- Krishna
- Zoroaster/Zarathustra
- Mithra of Persia
- Heracles
- Dionysus
- Tammuz
- Adonis
- Hermes
- Bacchus
- Prometheus
If December 25th was chosen to depaganise the Mass day, why pick another significantly pagan day?
You can't get more Pagan than that period of the year without perhaps setting it on Samhain (or All Saints Day if you happen to be a Catholic).
Or is that another mistake on my part?
My sentence about Christmas was pretty much the same as saying Halloween has almost nothing to do with Christianity despite the shifting of All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day to 'coincide' with it?
As for claims that I am mocking the beliefs others I didn't start this thread or any of the religious threads on this board so please don't accuse my of hijacking it. If one is invited to discuss a subject, the discussion is bound to include this sort of material as much as DE's Mormon thread is going to discuss the 'discovery' of the book of Mormon and what it has to say about native American peoples.
Otherwise what is it for?