Originally Posted by
uscitizen
Easter, the other ChristoPagan holiday.
Strange that both main Christian holidays have so much paganism in them.
It isn't strange. It is what happens when you attempt to keep together an Empire by creating a culture. It was very successful and it was how the Catholic (Universal) church came about.
It was much like the Unitarian Church of our time, it inculcated religious rites from many different denominations and created new ways to celebrate them that perpetuated a shared culture throughout the entire Byzantine Empire.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
- -- Aristotle
Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.
- -- The Buddha
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- -- Aristotle
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