Are Easter and Christmas Pagan Holidays?

There is a disturbing trend in churches and Christian circles to denounce the celebration of Easter and Christmas as pagan. The video shared here is an example.

These topics were first introduced by Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylon’s and Ralph Woodrow’s Babylon Mystery Religion. However Woodrow has changed his position on many of these conclusions in his new book The Babylon Connection. Woodrow recognized the flaw in logic used by Hislop and himself and illustrated it in this statement

“By this method, one could take virtually anything and do the same—even the “golden arches” at McDonald’s! The Encyclopedia Americana (article: “Arch”) says the use of arches was known in Babylon as early as 2020 B.C. Since Babylon was called “the golden city” (Isa. 14:4), can there be any doubt about the origin of the golden arches? As silly as this is, this is the type of proof that has been offered over and over about pagan origins.”

Woodrow, The Babylon Connection

We can see here the logic is flawed. Further there are variations on these ancient mythologies and looking for similarities you may find something But that doesn’t prove that there is any connection. For example the story of Nimrod is found in Josephus history and a majority of others as Nimrod rebelling against God and promoting other gods. However there are a couple ancient versions of the story which say the opposite, that he fought the other gods. In fact his name translated in the Septuagint means giant hunter and the bible says he was a mighty hunter before the Lord which seems to suggest that the later minority accounts could be closer to the truth.