yes, OF COURSE christmas is a religious holiday. Its celebrating the birth of jesus.

I don't believe Christmas is a RELIGIOUS holiday, but I do believe it is a Christian holiday. It is the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior...the Single most important event in HISTORY. It had to occur perfectly to fulfill the Old Testament Prophesies. Even if Jesus was probably born sometimes in April .

NotJon : I'm not sure about the Roman thing but I do know the Catholic church choose the 25th as the celebration date since the Pagan's celebrated the some Winter solstice holiday around the same time and they were trying to make it easier to convert people and they also wanted to stamp out paganism and putting some of their major holidays on the same date helped to do that.

Holidays are what you make them so the answer is going to be different for every person. For me, no it's not, but then again I don't give or get presents either, I just spend time with the people I'm close with.

I think Christmas SHOULD be a religious holiday, but thanks to big companies trying to sell a lot of useless things to people, it has begun to lost its meaning. Personally, I think if we just abandoned the gift giving, Christmas would be a lot more better.

It is religious, but not many people actually think "Hey, this is Jesus's birthday, and I am gonna worship him and celebrate him and kiss him like a madman dammit!". They think more about presents and trees and lights, which is understandable, considering I do too (I'm not Catholic). But I think commercialism has pretty much taken over Christmas and is wiping away all religious meaning, which is a bit sad in a way.

DAEDAE : I say yes. Even though these days it is all about the presents, it is originally Jesus's birthday.

No. Its a commercial holiday.

Christmas is technically a religious holiday, but people have turned it into a way just to get presents and stuff like that. I still view it as a religious holiday, then again I do look forward to the presents.

i don't feel Christmas is a religious holiday simply for the fact that it did not originate with the bible,

"The truth is that all of the customs of Christmas pre-date the birth of Jesus Christ, and a study of this would reveal that
Christmas in our day is a collection of traditions and practices taken from many cultures and nations.

The date of December 25th comes from Rome and was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god.

This was done long before the birth of Jesus.

It was noted by the pre-Christian Romans and other pagans, that daylight began to increase after December 22nd, when they assumed that the sun god died.

These ancients believed that the sun god rose from the dead three days later as the new-born and venerable sun.

Thus, they figured that to be the reason for increasing daylight.

This was a cause for much wild excitement and celebration. Gift giving and merriment filled the temples of ancient Rome, as sacred priests of Saturn, called dendrophori, carried wreaths of evergreen boughs in procession.

In Germany, the evergreen tree was used in worship and celebration of the yule god, also in observance of the resurrected sun god.

The evergreen tree was a symbol of the essence of life and was regarded as a phallic symbol in fertility worship.

Witches and other pagans regarded the red holly as a symbol of the menstrual blood of the queen of heaven, also known as Diana.

The holly wood was used by witches to make wands.

The white berries of mistletoe were believed by pagans to represent droplets of the semen of the sun god.

Both holly and mistletoe were hung in doorways of temples and homes to invoke powers of fertility in those who stood beneath and kissed, causing the spirits of the god and goddess to enter them.

These customs transcended the borders of Rome and Germany to the far reaches of the known world.

The question now arises: How did all of these customs find their way into contemporary Christianity, ranging from Catholicism to Protestantism to fundamentalist churches?

The word "Christmas"itself reveals who married paganism to Christianity.

The word "Christmas" is a combination of the words "Christ" and "Mass.

The word "Mass" means death and was coined originally by the Roman Catholic Church, and belongs exclusively to the church of Rome.

The ritual of the Mass involves the death of Christ, and the distribution of the "Host", a word taken from the Latin word "hostiall" meaning victim!

In short, Christmas is strictly a Roman Catholic word."
quoted from the website : http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html
for more in-depth : http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

Christmas Is a combination of many different pagan traditions. The fact that Chrsitains celebrate is hypocritical considering any belief or tradition outside of Christianity is considered evil. No one knows the exact time when Jesus was born and died so I still don't understand why everyone is lead to believe it has something to do with Jesus. Evil American corporations claimed it as there's and now own Christmas, and all of the sheep throw money at these greedy pricks. Coca Cola changed the colour of Santa's suit to match there product. I'm sure there are many other's who have done similar things. It's all lies and people swallow it up and ask for more.

Wow, who would have thought more people think Christmas is in fact a religious holiday...I for one think it is way too commercial.
Since the holidays are over this poll should be closed

I think its a religious,but it isn't. Every body celebrate christmas that i know. My friend Zion celebrates Christmas and he's a athious.

I said no, but I would like to clarify:

Firstly, historical evidence (including readings in the Bible) indicate that Jesus was born sometime in September, not December. Why it is celebrated in December has many arguments, most prominent being that Dec 25th has ties with several Pagan gods births and so the moved the celebration there to ease conversion to the Christian faith. Christmas trees have roots in Pagan tradition, as does gift giving, singing, etc... it has several ties to the festival of Saturnalia and other festivals celebrating winter as well.

Secondly, the modern celebration of Christmas is 100% commercial in nature, just watch the adds. For some the spirit of togetherness and appreciation still exist, but for most people it is an excuse to go shopping.

Thirdly, many non-Christians celebrate Christmas. Atheists do it, Pagans do it (myself included), even some Jews and Muslims do it (I know some personally). It is viewed as a cultural holiday, a social holiday, more than a religious one. People give gifts to show their appreciation of one another, not because it was Jesus' supposed birthday.

Elara : I completely agree with you. Christmas was invented to try and convert the pagans, and stole a whackload of pagan traditions to try and make it seem more similar. The majority of "christian" holidays overlap pagan holidays for this same reason. I think of it more as Catholic than Christian though, as I don't group all religions that believe in Christ into the same group as they're so different, but Catholics had major influence on the world for more than a millennium and did however they pleased. The only reason all these Catholic holidays have stuck is because they can generate a lot of revenue by bringing the general populace into a consuming frenzy every couple months or so.

I personally don't care. It's just another day and it only was something special when I was a kid.
Of course, there's one good point that, all those days people celebrate, where do they origin. I usually don't think about it.

Actually only three really generate money: Christmas, Easter, and technically Halloween(more in Latin America because of Dia de los Muertos and All Soul's Day). While there are Saint's Days near almost every Pagan holiday, those are the big ones. The real phenomenons though are Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day... I know that Valentine's absorbed a LOT of the Roman festival of Lupercalia (a fertility festival), but no modern Pagan holiday is really near it other than Imbolc, which is a totally different festival. The Catholic Saint Day associated with it is the Presentation of the Lord, but again, not much similarity that I know of. As for St. Patrick's Day... I am not familiar enough with the Celtic traditions to know if there is an overlap, but it could be tied to some kind of spring festival... but more than likely it has just really become a cultural festival for the Irish.

well most people say Jesus was born on chirsmas but thats false its the winter solstice so no its not religious

I believe that, for me, it is a religious holiday. you don't have to celebrate it that way. but don't put signs up and say don't believe in a myth and stuff. Just celebrate the way you do.

Christmas was originally a pagan holiday and Christians changed the holiday to celebrate Jesus's birth. I am Christian myself, but Christmas day is not the day Christ was born, it was actually sometime in the late summer/early fall. Modern times have put the whole Santa clause spin on it so it has gone in a totally different direction again. It has become more of a marketing time of year when businesses promote their products so that parents can give their children all the expensive toys they normally wouldn't buy. It's actually really good for the economy, with all the consumer spending businesses do great and it gives it a little extra push. Unfortunately it's all temporary.