Welcome back to Shemis Popri. I'm Joe Heschmire. And it's that time of year again when people start claiming that Christmas is really pagan.

Now, on the face of it, that's not an entirely crazy theory. I mean, Christmas is celebrated on December 25th, a day not found in the Bible.

And it's on a day that's the winter solstice on the old Roman calendar.

Plus, you've got things like Christmas trees and even things called eulogs that certainly

seem pagan, right?

Well, add to that that there's this longstanding practice of certain Protestant groups

telling their congregations that Christmases of pagan origins.

This is one of the reasons that Puritans refused to celebrate Christmas and actually outlawed it in the late 17th century in Massachusetts.

And then you've got these days a growing chorus of modern non-religious people, non-Christians and neo-pagans, who claim that Christmas is theirs, or at least not Christians.

And it's not surprising, given all of this,

that people come to the conclusion that, sure,

maybe Christmas isn't of Christian origin.

Maybe it was just placed there on December 25th

to counteract some pagan holiday.

Very common popular myth, but a myth it is.

Because the truth is, the whole Christmas is pagan thing

really falls apart when you look at the historical evidence. Now this year, I'm going to look

at a brand new video called A Very Pagan Christmas, which claims to be a documentary, despite

not citing any documentation. But it has this going for it. It is pretty slick. It's

pretty well made. It uses AI pretty effectively and a way to draw you into the message being

presented. And the core claim of the video is this. Hidden beneath this holiday's cheerful facade

lies a story far older than the birth of Christ, one filled with powerful ancient rituals,

...