Xmas is pagan, because xianity is pagan.
It just so happen that rome decided to adopt the cult and make it the religion of the empire.
A religion that we come to know today.
So as of consequence other belief systems that could be destroyed were destroyed, because they were competition.
This right here is probably the best comment on the thread.
The NT is a hijacked political propaganda of a sect of the Jews that wanted to fight for their freedom. Once you understand this and the lengths people will go to fight for freedom (All Americans should understand this), then you will have an accurate basis for understanding the New Testament.
Israel had already broken in half before they came into Israel. After that, Yeshua referred to the "lost sheep", also reflecting how the law had become a prop that gave power to a few while oppressing the average person. And therefore average people gave up trying to keep it.
But as a consequence of all this, there was no unity among Israel as a nation. And they happened to be under one of the greatest militaries in world history. But this fact may have not been universally known just like many Arabs grow up thinking they stand any chance against the American military. But the American military is so powerful that Americans don't even know how powerful it is or what the latest weapons are. And therefore it can do what many conquerors throughout history have all tried to do; which is dominate so that they could not only be prosperous but also be so strong that they can create peace.
I believe Rome had the same intention. But it came at a high cost. Taxes.
Everyone thinks Yeshua/Jesus was the messiah/Christ/whatever. The truth? He wasn't. Prophecies aren't real. They are educated guesses about the future. We make prophecies all the time about everything from who's going to win the next football game to predictions about the next election. Yeshua and his disciples knew the prophecies and were able to copy some of the things they knew had to happen and for miracles, all they had to do was tell stories about miraculous events. But if you actually look for what happened to Lazarus for example... you wont find anything because it never happened.
The reason they lied is simple. The ONLY person they believed who could lead them to war against Rome was the next KING of Israel. That is what "mashiach/messiah" means. The anointing was simply the crowning ceremony. Every king of Israel was a messiah. So in order to gain their freedom (and get out from under Roman taxes which they were willing to fight and die for) they had to be united. They needed Yeshua to play that role so they used hidden language to make suggestions to the crowds of followers about who Yeshua actually was. They were hinting that he was going to be the next king. This is the reason he was executed the way he was, with a crown of thorns. They found out about his sedition and he was prosecuted for it.
This would have been the end of the story and the NT wouldn't have existed except for the fact that they tried to keep the fight going. Even losing their messiah they still wanted to fight Rome. That's how you know it wasn't about sin and salvation. These were simply additional elements that brought more people into following him and showing him acting as a high priest.
He was no different from Martin Luther King. White people loved MLK because he preached about love and peace but he was assassinated when he started talking about economic justice. Jesus is worshipped for his sermons on love, but not for any anti-Roman propaganda. Why is that? It's because Rome took over their dooms day cult. Their dooms day already happened. They already fled to the mountains which is where we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. They thought their world was ending in their lifetime and it was all because the fight for freedom wasn't over. And eventually Rome came for them. Once that happened, who was left to control the narrative? Who was left to make all these MLK streets in every major city in the part of town that's still mostly black in spite of his dream?
Eventually, the messianic cult was converted into a Roman sun cult under Constantine. They merged Jesus and the idea of being "son of God" with being "God the son" and "God the sun". Jesus became a solar deity which is why they put the halo behind his head. And that is how Roman Catholicism was born.
By the time black people had "caught the spirit" (because we too, like the Israelites under Rome, wanted to be free) we had already missed the part where Roman Catholicism had murdered and killed millions of people who refused to accept the doctrine of the Trinity. It was a new litmus test and excuse to kill Jews and Muslims. Everything the Roman Catholics didn't like was considered heresy and demonic (including strong women). And there was a whole period called the Dark Ages where Christianity was the worst thing on earth because it was literally the religion of the Empire; not of any God. And so the protestant movement was born and eventually forgot what it was that they escaped and the fact that there was no divine intervention to keep it from happening.
And Yeshua/Jesus was not the messiah because he never became king of Israel.
