"Holiday tree"

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Okay I don't really have any opinion on the actual subject of this thread but there are two assertions in Snowguy's post, other than the one that ingemann covered, that I want to address.

1. While it's more or less indisputably true that the word 'Easter' derives from the name of a pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess (even Bede admits this), Sumerian isn't even an Indo-European language, so the 'Ishtar' connection is almost certainly a false cognate. It's also worth noting that this is only true of a few of the Germanic languages--other languages have words for Easter related to Pesach.
2. That is most certainly not true of 'all' or even most patron saints. It's notably truer in some places (e.g. Ireland, where that was done to a significant chunk of the Druidic pantheon) than in others (e.g. the Mediterranean basin, which has from a very early date had more than enough legit Christian historical or semi-historical figures to go around.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What is your point here?  I never said Easter came from Ishtar.  I said Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess of fertility, sounds remarkably like Easter, a Name attributed to a relatively unknown goddess of the dawn who presides over a holiday that celebrated fertility and rebirth.  A mere curiosity.  Of course I really doubt the pagan germanic gods just evolved out of nowhere.  There wiuld have been influences, perhaps from the areas where civilization first began?  I have no proof...just speculation.

Okay, it sounded to me like you were positing a connection, but if you weren't trying to do that then my mistake, sorry.

Okay I don't really have any opinion on the actual subject of this thread but there are two assertions in Snowguy's post, other than the one that ingemann covered, that I want to address.

1. While it's more or less indisputably true that the word 'Easter' derives from the name of a pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess (even Bede admits this), Sumerian isn't even an Indo-European language, so the 'Ishtar' connection is almost certainly a false cognate. It's also worth noting that this is only true of a few of the Germanic languages--other languages have words for Easter related to Pesach.
2. That is most certainly not true of 'all' or even most patron saints. It's notably truer in some places (e.g. Ireland, where that was done to a significant chunk of the Druidic pantheon) than in others (e.g. the Mediterranean basin, which has from a very early date had more than enough legit Christian historical or semi-historical figures to go around.)

What is your point here?  I never said Easter came from Ishtar.  I said Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess of fertility, sounds remarkably like Easter, a Name attributed to a relatively unknown goddess of the dawn who presides over a holiday that celebrated fertility and rebirth.  A mere curiosity.  Of course I really doubt the pagan germanic gods just evolved out of nowhere.  There wiuld have been influences, perhaps from the areas where civilization first began?  I have no proof...just speculation.

And while ingemann is right that the fir tree was a replacement for the oak that was meant to represent the trinity, why have a tree at all?

The point is.... These were Christian replacements for pagan practices.  Just like holiday trees and getting together and celebrating secularly is a modern replacement, using many of the same props in a very similar process, of Christianity.

This has been happening forever.  If you want to be holier than me and spar over details in a big blow out of fecal pompousness, go right ahead.  Just don't twist my words against me.

The Christmas tree was and is not connected with the pagan oak or ask, first of all the Christmas tree is developed in a area which have not been pagan for millenium, second the winter solstice was not connected with these trees in pagan rituals, but with feasting, sacrifices to the fey and the ancestors and the Wild Hunt. Third when something was hanged on these trees it was not candle light and gifts, but human and animal who was sacrifised to Odin/Woten through hangings (as he was the hanged god).

Just because Christmas is a pagan holiday, it doesn't mean the ritual we use at Christmas have pagan origins, through some myths connected with Christmas like the Wandering Jew is thinly disguised pagan myths adapted into a Christian context.

You are entitled to your opinion on the matter...but even a cursory glance at the wikipedia article for Christmas trees would inform you of the story of St. Boniface cutting down Donar's oak and replacing it with an evergreen fir, because it is triangle shaped and is a reminder of the trinity.

A bit further down it talks of Scandinavian remnants of tree worship by decorating the farmstead with evergreens to scare away the devil.  Which verse in the book of Luke mentions sprucing up the house to scare off Satan? 

Your assertion that the Christmas tree is a purely Christian tradition is ludicrous.

I don't know, a symbol that originated as a direct and deliberate replacement, as opposed to co-option, of a pagan symbol seems about as Christian as it gets to me.

The demand for Biblical proof-texting to consider a tradition 'Christian' is, of course, painfully Protestant-specific.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm saying that it's A Protestant Thing but I'm not claiming that it's the only possible type of Protestant Thing or the only attitude that Protestants have. That would be an absurd assertion.