Hey, I’m not arguing with you 
From what I understand, Christians were celebrating on Christmas Day (although it wasn’t really Christmas Day at that time), whereupon the Roman traditionalists tried to coopt it by making a big to-do out of some minor festival previously of little import. Christmas kept getting bigger and more popular, and the other fell by the wayside.
I mean, c’mon, this is Rome we’re talking about. They had more gods than you can shake a stick at and feasts and festivals and high holy days and something every bloody day of the year somewhere.
Eh, why worry? It’s Christmas Eve - time to throw another faggot on the fire and enjoy the blaze.
True. Sorry. 
And Merry Christmas too.
Unless, of course, he was never born, and it’s simply a myth.
So basically, you’d have Dumbledore, Yoda and Gandalf?
“I have brought you the gift of Gold, Har… uh, Jesus. Have I mentioned you have your mother’s eyes?”
“Frankincense have I brought you, hmm? When 33 years old you reach, look this good you will not!*”
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to d-
Oh, wait, you can? Ah. Well, uhm… have some myrrh, then".
*Cough. Sorry, everyone.
Dumbledore would never have been a Magi because the Baby Jesus would have killed him. Really! You see, Dumbledore is gay, according to his creator.
There was a book called “Le Petit manuel du parfait confessseur” used by Roman Catholic priests in Quebec and elsewhere in the world for several hundred years that states in its chapter on “Sodomites” that God holds homosexuality in such horror that on the night his Son was born, he caused all sodomites in Bethlehem to drop dead!
I don’t know if this book is still in print. It was reprinted in Quebec in the 1960s to give people a laugh, but I have not found it since.
Just think of what it must have looked like at the local gay bar in Bethlehem! Dead queers all over the place.
Or imagine this:
God: What would you like for your birthday, my son?
Jesus: Gee, Dad, a necklace of dead faggots would be nice!
I heard (or read, probably) that the word translated into “manger” could be translated as “crib” or “manger”, depending on the context.
At the risk of turning this thread into a debate, I’d like to ask for clarification on this.
BWUH!
“Pagan solstice festival”? If you’re sitting around your house claiming to be a “pagan” your beliefs are no less ridiculous than anything Christianity can throw at you. At least Christians have the weight of 2,000 years of history; today’s so-called “paganism” is a silly, New Age fad that dates back about forty years and is based on a grab bag of cherry-picked, poorly understood, mostly ahistorical rituals either plunked at random from a wide variety of superstitions or just made up from whole cloth by shysters, slapnads and nutbars.
“Pagan” 2,000 years ago was not a religion; it’s a word that originally had essentially the same meaning and connotation as “Rube” or “bumpkin,” and came to mean “Not a Christian, Muslim or Jew.” “Pagan solstice festival” is exactly as meaningless a description as “Heathen winter holiday” or “Non-believer celebration held the third Tuesday in April.” It describes, in literal use, a thousand or more distinct faiths, and in the case of modern neo-paganism, something that isn’t really much more of a faith than Scientology or the folks who write down “Jedi” on census forms.
How’s that for as take on someone else’s religion?
If there wasn’t a census, why didn’t anybody reading the Gospel accounts in 70 AD say, “What the hell are you talking about??? There was never any census!!! This is all a load of crap” and walk away from Christianity is disgust?
Look, if I were a con artist, I could think of dozens of plausible sounding explanations for Jesus being born in Bethlehem. Why would I make up a census that everyone at the time KNEW had never taken place?
No kidding – I’d find it more plausible if the Bible said Joseph & Mary were merely in town for the X Games.
The gospels were written 30 years after the fact. I imagine most of the folks old enough at the time to remember a census were dead.
And besides, apocalyptic charismatic religions find numbskulls to convert all the time. David Koresh had followers, Heaven’s Gate had followers, Scientology *has *followers. In in the first century AD, Christianity was little more than a loony sect of Judaism.
So in the beginning the gullible nibble on the preposterous story and by the time the’re dead, their grandchildren have been brought up such as to never question it.
Is that really so hard to believe?
“Slapnads”? What a wonderful word. 
Excellent point. The figure at the core of Christianity is just as real as Robin Hood. Well played.
The world was a different place in 70 A.D. News traveled very slowly. If there had been a census of the whole world it would most likely have been written down in more places than the Bible. Much of the New Testament was written after the fact and it would not be surprising if few people had heard of a census of the entire world. If one takes Matthew and Luke separately one of the versions had to be wrong. At 8 days Jesus was said to be in Jerusalem in the temple.It seems the Holy family did a lot of running around during that first period of Jesus birth.
Monavis
So, in brief, you’re saying, “Don’t Payg me, bro!”
I think you know what my point was. IIRC, Mohammed was a real person, but I used the example of Islam as well. Whether a real person, a folk hero, or a movement based on an idea, there are going to be stories and legends that grow up around it. That’s human nature for you. And for myself, I enjoy those legends very much.
I used to think the census described by the author of Luke was silly too, but I changed my mind after reading what Richard Carrier has to say on the subject. Carrier’s an expert in ancient history. He’s also an atheist who strikes me as being very reasonable and fair. Anyway, here’s a link: