Do you celebrate Christmas? You may aswell celebrate Hitler day...

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

I'm impressed by your depth of knowledge. Not many people, including many of the faithful, take the time to understand the roots and history of their religions.

But I have to ask, why continue to observe Christmas when it's rooted in paganism?

I never said I did observe it. I haven't celebrated Christmas in over a decade.

And I appreciate your kindness.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Just wondering...

Where did you get September?

That's the time historians have nailed down the census by Ceaser that brought Mary and Joseph to their ancestral city of Bethlehem. They were both of the house of David. And another hint is the shepherds. They would not have had their flocks in the fields in the winter months.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Sounds good...

Though isn't that area desert country?

Why would it matter if it was winter or not?

Reply to post by DarknStormy

Well why ddnt you say so... Yes, christians celebrating christmas and thinking its the birth of christ is absolutely ridicilous... I am in total agreeance with that. I'm not the religious type, but I love christmas because of the joy it brings to my children and alot of peoples children. Which makes it wholly worthwhile. I cant see this changing the religous'dogma filled minds though. :-)


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Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Sounds good...

Though isn't that area desert country?

Why would it matter if it was winter or not?

Israel has about all climate zones except arctic. The highlands/mountain areas get quite cold and snowy in the winter. The "wilderness" (Arovah) around Jerusalem is a nasty desert.

Easter isn't a Christian holiday either. The first Christians celebrated Passover. And when settling on a date for Easter the RCC made sure the date could never fall on Passover.

Reply to post by NOTurTypical

You're absolutely right. Easter and christmas have nothing to do with god or Jesus. I learned this long ago... I guess I had thought this was common knowledge. Frinds of mine who are Jehovas witnesses do not celebrate either christmas or easter... Because its paganism. Which is kinda sad for the childrens sake. Having to watch the other kids enjoy those holidays. They are right however with saying it has paganistic ties...


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Easter isn't a Christian holiday either. The first Christians celebrated Passover. And when settling on a date for Easter the RCC made sure the date could never fall on Passover.

Hey NuT!

I thought this sounded wrong. I thought I remembered Passover and Easter coinciding, so I did a quick search.

Easter and Passover

The frequent overlapping of Easter and Passover--of the Christian Holy Week with our eight-day celebration of Passover--merits attention. Unlike the yoking of Christmas and Hanukkah, Easter and Passover are festivals of equal gravity. Side by side they bring to light the deep structures of both religions

Destined to Coincide First, their inviolable matrix is spring. In each case, the calendar is adjusted to ensure that the holiday is celebrated early in the spring. For the church, which believed that the resurrection took place on a Sunday, the First Council of Nicaea in 325 determined that Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. In consequence, Easter remained without a fixed date but proximate to the full moon, which coincided with the start of Passover on the 15th of Nissan.......................

In short, Easter and Passover were destined to coincide time and again.
www.myjewishlearning.com...

Also, there is a very interesting article about how the equinox was found using an Egyptian obelisk called the Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice

The dating of Easter was modeled on that of the Jewish Passover, which marks the liberation of the Jews from Egypt and which traditionally falls in the Jewish lunar calendar on the 14th of the month of Nisan, the day of the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox.[5] Roman Christians however had a twelve month calendar, first the Julian calendar until 1582, and then the Gregorian calendar. Since the Council of Nicaea in 325, the Western Church had required that Easter be celebrated on the Sunday on or after the full moon following March 21, which at that time corresponded indeed to the vernal equinox. The Julian calendar being imprecise however, by the 16th century March 21 fell about 10 days after the vernal equinox, a problem that was solved by the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.[5] (The Eastern Christian Church continues to date Easter by the Julian calendar.) Languet de Gergy, however, wished to verify independently the exact date of the vernal equinox through the gnomon in order to ascertain the date of Easter.[5]

Christians live thousands of miles from where their savior walked, they don't know anything other than what a book said. stop looking for sense in religion because there is non, only faith, blind faith.

Originally posted by chishuppu
Christians live thousands of miles from where their savior walked, they don't know anything other than what a book said. stop looking for sense in religion because there is non, only faith, blind faith.

Where do you think Christianity began?

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by chishuppu
Christians live thousands of miles from where their savior walked, they don't know anything other than what a book said. stop looking for sense in religion because there is non, only faith, blind faith.

Where do you think Christianity began?

Thats a good question, did it begin when/where Christ was born, where he preached, where he died, or when he died. Maybe it even began when someone decided to take a left turn from "God" and follow some guy to God.

reply to post by DarknStormy

Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna.

Actually, the mistletoe in Norse mythology was an accident. The Aesir Loki, the trickster-god, was jealous of the popularity of Balder, Odin's prized son, and the messianic-god.

However, Baldr's mother, Frigga, had previously secured promise from every conceivable thing on the planet that they would not harm Balder. So, despite Loki's jealousy and envy, nothing he wielded could harm Baldr. However, Frigga had overlooked one thing: mistletoe. She had not been worried about mistletoe, because she did not believe it was capable of causing harm.

Loki discovered this, and began to plot. In order to prevent himself from being blamed though, Loki needed to find a scapegoat to take the fall for him. This happened to be Höðr, Baldr's brother, who also happened to be blind.

The event itself, went like this:

Loki found Höðr, sadly sitting beside the Aesir. He asked Höðr why he was sad. Höðr told Loki that, because he was blind, he could not participate in the game the other Aesir were playing. Loki asked what the game was, and Höðr explained that the Aesir were throwing weapons at Baldr, because he could not be hurt by them. Loki offered to help Höðr shoot an arrow at Baldr. Höðr agreed, wanting to participate in the game. Loki proceeded to give Höðr a bow, and an arrow made of mistletoe. Höðr pulled back, and released. The mistletoe, being the only thing capable of harming Baldr, shot him straight through the heart, killing him instantly.

It was not a rivalry over the hand of Nanna. The goddess Nanna so loved Baldr, that she died of grief when his funeral pyre was erected. There was never any rivalry for her hand.

A recounting of this myth can be found in Myths of the Norsemen: from the Eddas to the Sagas, collected by H.A. Guerber. Just using Google will produce a number of accounts of the myth as well.

Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.

Most of the sources of "Celtic sacrifice," actually comes from Roman writers. The Roman historians, however, were anything but unbiased.

They did everything they could to try and demonize the Celts when the Celts were their enemies (sacrificial, heathen and uncultured, etc).

Yet, when the Romans and the Celts worked in unison, the Romans all of a sudden tried to ascribe their own paganism as the root of Celtic belief.

This was how deities like Bel, from the Gaulish-Celts, came to be associated with Apollo, the solar-child of Rome; or how Oghma, the Irish-Celtic god of wisdom and skill, came to be associated with Hermes/Mercury, the Grecco-Roman god of wisdom, and medicine.

The Romans tried to tie Celtic culture into their own.

Which, actually, is the same thing that this article seems to be doing. They are presenting practices from bygone cultures, without the proper context, as a way to emotionally affect the opinions of modern-day Christians. None of these pagan rituals are any more, or less, "cultured" than the modern practices of condemning folks to Hell, beating gays to death, or little things like the Inquisition and the murder of tens of thousands of Irish-Celts for not converting.



If you really want a reason to rally against Christmas, use the factual one: Jesus was not born in December, and the early Church only said he was, so that His worship could be overlaid onto solar-messiahs and dying-and-rising gods.

Solar-messiahs, who's birth and death coincide with the Solstices of the sun throughout the solar-year (Summer and Winter/Christmas); and dying-and-rising gods, who's birth, life, and death coincide with the harvests of the year (Spring/Easter and Autumn), were concepts of divinity which had developed thousands of years before Christianity, and which held sway over all of the people the Church wanted to rule.

A true Christian would stop celebrating Christmas because it cannot be factually linked to the doctrines of Christianity. Not because he/she misunderstands ancient pagan practices.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Akragon


You do understand that deserts can get very, very, very cold, right?

Originally posted by chishuppu

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by chishuppu
Christians live thousands of miles from where their savior walked, they don't know anything other than what a book said. stop looking for sense in religion because there is non, only faith, blind faith.

Where do you think Christianity began?

Thats a good question, did it begin when/where Christ was born, where he preached, where he died, or when he died. Maybe it even began when someone decided to take a left turn from "God" and follow some guy to God.

So consider where Christianity began with what you said originally.

Perhaps no one should believe in quantum physics because most alive today never met Einstein?

That's basically your argument.

reply to post by DarknStormy

So how do Christians celebrate Christmas when its obvious it has nothing to do with Jesus let alone their Faith?

It doesn't matter what day it is or what happened on any particular day in the past. It's what's in your heart here and now that matters. Just like so many people can't understand Thanksgiving. My family and I don't celebrate pilgrims or Indians or Butterball brands. We join to give thanks for family and the love and closeness that comes with it right at that time. We break bread together... all at the same table and that means a lot.

On Christmas, we don't have to give a moment's thought to what someone else did on this particular day. All that matters is what we... each of us feel in our own individual hearts at that split second in time.

The concept is unique to those who believe in something within... more than the shallow, superficial adorning that's without.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


I believe that's exact why they incorporated pagan rituals into Christianity. Take Pan for instance. The god of dance, music and laughter. Where do you think Satan got his goat legs. From Pan of course. They villainized Pagans to increase their flock.

respond to the OP.

It is a good question...why do people celebrate it, knowing it's false at least on one account...and that is the date. One critical mind should ask himself...what else isn't true about it? What else have they made up? To be honest...not many believers know these facts. Even less care about it.

Religious dogma itself discourages questioning and doubt. If you doubt...you are tempted by the Satan. Period. It promotes blind faith...any religion..."just believe in me, and you are saved"...even though none of them really know, but they desperately hope for it to be true.

still they die of hunger, cold, poverty...but still they believe.

So you have posters like these" yeah I know it's false, but I will still celebrate, 'cos it's christmas and gifts and familly..."

They care not about what is truthful and right...they would rather celebrate a pretty lie than an ugly truth.

I for one agree with you...if I celebrate something...I want to be sure that I celebrate something real...something that happened..something just and true...that's the whole point of celebrating anything.

Sad state of affairs...

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly


You have summed it up perfectly though I do not disrespect people who do celebrate because of their lack of knowledge or even their happiness at that time of the year. I'm am one of those people who doesn't eat at Christmas, I spend more time reflecting on people who are less fortunate than I am and I would rather be in tha position than fattened up get drunk.

I stopped celebrating Christmas a long time ago, not because of this information but because I didn't see the point of anyone celebrating it. Firstly, most people don't go to church but celebrate christmas, 2nd eventually you are lying to your children and have to tell them the fat guy from the North Pole is fake, 3rd I foud out that Christmas falls on one of the equinoxes and I really started to doubt the whole concept of Christianity.. But with that, I am learning that its not the Bible thats the issue, its the people who have corrupted it, the same as other religions.. We need to break away from this indoctrinated bs and get back to truths..

We have to start looking out for each other, looking out for ourselves because I don't see any of that coming from the evil a/holes controlling this world right now.. We are on our own.

reply to post by DarknStormy

We need to break away from this indoctrinated bs and get back to truths..

indeed...but who wants the truth ? Billions of followers of mainstream religions? They can't all be right...some are wrong for sure if not all...so of those that are wrong...do you think they want the truth? I doubt it. People want pretty pics..don't go telling them that their God is made up...their whole lives depend on it. Sadly so.

You and me? We fear not the truth, because we have not invested our lives in a lie...and therefore have nothing to lose by hearing the truth. And even if by some fat chance, one day we can prove the existance of God...I would start believing...because I'm not against God...I'm against human lies.

If God speaks to me or shows himself to me...while I'm not under the influence of something halucinogenic, I will gladly believe in him. So far, he's all mums.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly


I think these people who don't want to hear anything else than what their book tells them are the ones who are going to suffer down the track.. Its a sad state of affairs and I really do hope they can break the spell. I can't do it, I have tried to tell them, its useless. As for the ones who just don't care and think the world is going to work itself out, they deserve whats coming... They can even have this world to themselves for all I care.