My personal take on Freemasonry, why i didn't join., page 7

Originally posted by Masonic Light

Originally posted by JoshNorton
Let's see... Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon following the Spring Equinox. Right. Nothing pagan about that...

As well as the fact that the word "Easter" is derived from the goddess Eostre. Christianity is "pagan" in the sense that it is sort of the Jewish version of Osirianism. As a mystery religion, Christianity was in competition with Mithraism, and eventually won out, although, at heart, the two have many more similarities than differences.

Easter is wholly pagan, but you don't find any mention of it in the scriptures. You misunderstand history. Christianity was infiltrated by false teachers and paganized. It was actually foretold to happen by Jesus and the Apostle Paul.

And if you're really interested in how true Christianity is practiced look to the group known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

There is a reason they don't celebrate holidays, such as Easter, and Christmas, or birthdays. Because they are aware of their pagan origins. In fact Jehovah's Witnesses are the only ones who have stripped apostate Christianity of all of its pagan roots and went back to the beginning and worship the way the first century Christians did, pure worship of the only true God.

Actually Jesus prophezied it would happen just as it did in an illustration perhaps you seem to be unaware of. You see he told his followers that his enemy came and sowed weeds in among the wheat during the night. His servants upon seeing the weeds growing asked the master if they should uproot them, the master said, not to until the harvest, lest the uproot some of the wheat along with the weeds.

Then he explained the meaning of the parable:

(Matthew 13:37-43) . . .“The sower of the fine seed is the Son of man; 38 the field is the world; as for the fine seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, 39 and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is a conclusion of a system of things, and the reapers are angels. 40 Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in the conclusion of the system of things. 41 The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness, 42 and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where [their] weeping and the gnashing of [their] teeth will be. 43 At that time the righteous ones will shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let him that has ears listen.

The Devil sowed weeds or fake Christians in among the real ones. Until by the third century a great apostasy had developed just as foretold:

(2 Thessalonians 2:3) 3 Let no one seduce YOU in any manner, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction.

Slowly philosophers entered into the Church and took their pagan teachings, and Greek ideas and changed the meaning of Christianity, and by the third century the pagan Emperor Constantine while still holding the title of Pontifix Maximus over his pagan religion made that apostate Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. And all of the pagan holidays and ceremonies of the pagans of Rome were incorporated into the apostazied Church.

Just because you see paganism running rampant in Christendom, that does not mean Christianity came from paganism. That's a fools story you've been lead to believe.

Jesus said that the harvest was the conclusion of the system of things. And that at the end of the days he would separate his people out from among the false religions of Christendom. And thus, you see in this our day a restoration to pure Christianity by God's real followers.

Here's a couple of quotes about that:

The Encyclopedia Canadiana

The work of Jehovah’s Witnesses is the revival and re-establishment of the primitive Christianity practised by Jesus and his disciples during the first and second centuries of our era.” Referring to the Witnesses, the New Catholic Encyclopedia notes: “They regard the Bible as their only source of belief and rule of conduct.

If you're interested in some of the similarities between the two here are a few more quotes:

Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics

: “The view was widely prevalent in the early Church that war is an organized iniquity with which the Church and the followers of Christ can have nothing to do.

Australian Encyclopaedia

Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain a strict neutrality in time of war.

Edward Gibbon's - The History of the Decline and fall of the Roman Empire:

It was impossible that the Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes.

The book Paganism in our Christianity:

Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon [a coequal Trinity], and nowhere in the New Testament does the word ‘Trinity’ appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord; and the origin of the conception is entirely pagan.

Here's a quote by the Catholics on the above mentioned on the pagan origin of the Trinity as found in the New Catholic Encyclopedia:

They [Jehovah’s Witnesses] condemn the Trinity as pagan idolatry . . . They consider Jesus as the greatest of Jehovah’s Witnesses, ‘a god’ (so they translate John 1.1), inferior to no one but to Jehovah. . . . He died as a man and was raised as an immortal spirit Son.

These are but a very very few quotes. Here are some similarities between first century Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses:

Both consider themselves part of God's kingdom and are thus no part of the world. Neither would involve themselves in the politics of the world.

First century Christians were persecuted for not celebrating many of the holidays and festivities in pagan Rome that were later adopted in apostate Christianity, such as the Saturnalia, they did not celebrate birthdays.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate holidays based in pagan origins, and are scorned by the world for it.

All first century Christians were preachers that went from house to house. All Jehovah's Witnesses are ministers that preach public ally and from house to house.

The first century Christians did not hold titles, there were no divisions in a laity and a clergy. Among Jehovah's Witnesses there is no clergy.

Finally a list ofstriking resemblances between primitive Christianity and Jehovah's Witnesses that make them very separate and distinct from all other religions on earth? Here is a quote (many people are actually amazed to learn about this if they did not know)

They have no clergy class.
˘ Their elders, teachers, and missionaries
are unsalaried.
˘ They neither tithe nor take up money
collections at their places of worship,
known as Kingdom Halls.
˘ All their activities are supported by
anonymous donations.
˘ They remain neutral with regard to
politics.
˘ They advocate peace and do not participate
in warfare.
˘ They are globally united in their faith
and Bible-based beliefs.
˘ They are fully integrated, with no social,
ethnic, racial, or class divisions.
˘ They are not affiliated with any other
religion, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or
Protestant.

Bible teachings that separate Jehovah's Witnesses from all other religions of Christendom, that mirror those of the first century Christians:

They believe that there is only one true God, whose name is Jehovah.

˘ They do not believe that Jesus Christ is Almighty God, nor do they believe in the Trinity doctrine.

˘ They follow the teachings of Jesus and honor him as the Son of God.

˘ They do not venerate the cross, nor do they use idols in their worship.

˘ They do not believe in a fiery hell where all bad people go after death.

˘ They believe that God will bless obedient mankind with perfect everlasting life in an earthly paradise.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they have successfully reestablished first-century Christianity, the form of Christianity that Jesus’ apostles practiced.

The Bible itself states that in the last days the pure form of worship would be reestablished, and it has. And it is not in any obsucure place. Rather it is a drawing out of people from all walks of life, from every social strata, from every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and a unifying of these people. Yes, the words of Isaiah have had a LITERAL fulfillment in that mighty nation of people now numbering over 7 million from out of all the nations. They have become united by love, and by pure teaching, and have taught the world who look son in utter amazement that real peace among all mankind is really possible today:

"And many peoples will certainly go and say: “Come, YOU people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. 4 And he will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore." - Isaiah 2:3, 4.

edit on 14-11-2010 by Calender because: to add a / in front of one of the "ex"s