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One of the things I find interesting in many of the books you find on neo-paganism is that most rely on the propaganda misinformation that Protestants used to label Catholics as pagan and/or Anti-Christian. Classic examples of this are the origin of Christmas and Easter. While no religion exists in a vacuum and there's bound to be some mixing, it's one thing for converts from a religion to incorporate elements of they're former culture/religion into their new religion and another for proselytizers to force a religious symbol or practice to mean something different to win converts.

Thoughts, opinions?

The dates had they choose for Christmas and Easter had little connection with paganism and more with Judaism and when Christianity believes that Jesus died. If you are talking about symbols such as Christmas trees and Rabbits. Yes they did derive from pagan practices but those were localized innovations to the celebration of the holiday. That would be like saying because pagans party, partying is a pagan practice.

You are illustrating some of the Protestant misinformation that I am talking about. The dating of Easter is calculated by finding the first Sunday after the first Pashal full moon after the spring equinox. If it was supposed to replace fertility festivals why celebrate it well after the equinox? As for the eggs, the usage of eggs has more to do with Lent pratices and possibly a remnant from Passover practices with a pagan incorporation. During Lent, it was tradition for all carne, including eggs, to be fasted from. After Lent, i.e. Easter Sunday, the fast was over and you had all these eggs saved up. Next hard boiled eggs were traditionally part of Passover Seder and symbolized the festival's sacrifice offered back when there was a Temple in Jerusalem. As for the coloring, of eggs, the traditional color that eggs were normally colored was red and has to do with Roman lore concerning an emperor's conversion to Christianity. As for the rabbits that's obviously an innovation introduced at a later date after the fall of Rome. Yes this was an appropriated symbol into Christianity but whether it was done by the converts as a cultural carry over or proselytizers as a means to convert is unclear.

Edit: At best you could say that it was a variation of the Passover celebration centered around the Christ resurrection mythos with Gentile pageantry and flair thrown in. I might have misunderstood you but if this is what you were trying to say then yes that is correct. Considering that much of Christianity was focused on Gentiles, it's unclear whether the Gentile flair and pageantry was added by the converts or by those doing the converting.

Yes Christianity was initially a very eclectic religion among the Gentiles though an orthodoxy of some kind had to be developed else it would have been completely lost seeing as Christianity was about to die around the time Marcionism was becoming popular.

Again I agree to avoid religous books because either way they all end up point at some other religon as if it's their fault or your all going to hell or something like that again RELIGON IS SO COMPLICATED gonk

While you did not say Easter specifically you had said something along the lines of:
This is why I had address the dating of Easter in my response. As for the symbolism again some of the symbolism is unclear on it's origin since some can be linked back to Judaism such as eggs. My point was initially to address that much of the research linking Easter to having a pagan origin comes from protestants trying to demonize Catholicism and justify themselves as being more "True" Christians.

I never disputed that and even acknowledged that it was a localized innovation incorporated into the holiday. Though rabbits have very little to do with Easter tradition wink

The dating of Christmas has more to do with a belief in Judaism that prophets are conceived on the same day that they die. It was believed that Jesus died on March 25 (the Feast of Annunciation, so then his date of birth had to be on December 25 by their logic. The earliest dating we have of Christmas being celebrated on December 25 by Roman Christians is 243 CE based on the Chronography of 354. The only connection that Christmas has with Saternalia is that they were both celebrations and shared elements that are common to all festivals. Now if this dating is correct that would mean that the celebration of Sol Invictus (another holiday Christmas is accused of replacing) was created after Christmas was being celebrated by Christians as a way for the Roman government to attract people away from this popular religion they perceived as an atheist threat (yes early Christians were regarded as atheists). Seeing as that it was the Roman Christians that ended up winning central authority of the religion, it's no surprise that the celebration of Christmas on the 25 of December continued as opposed to other dates proposed by other sects or based on more accurate calculations. Though the celebration of Christmas is more about a Mass focused on how Christ came into the world than his actual birth so it's a bit of a misnomer to say that Christmas about Jesus' birthday.

As for the holly and colors of Christmas being incorporated from Pagan practices I have no qualm with saying that they did come from pagan practices though since the carry overs are being used as "garnishes" to holiday rather than actually central to the holiday, it's quite a stretch for those to claim that Christmas has a pagan origin.

lol, ok, if I can remember the name I will.

I didn't know that about Christmas, interesting. I learn something new every day.