Take Christ out of christmas?

shortee · (#1 (**permalink**))

Christmas has become more of a winter holiday than a christian festival. It has been so commercialised that we tend to forget the meaning of it. People are busy buying presents and sending cards on this occasion and its the the only day of the year that some will make an effort to go to church. Its all about merry making and not celebrating the birth of our saviour. Do you think people have lost the plot about christmas? And do non-christians get offended with all the hullabaloo i.e you have christmas decorations put up all over and mind you, two months before christmas, the Tv, radio, newspapers and magazines are all bombarded with christmas adverts! Jews, muslims at el are not up our faces during their festivities. Is it fair?

teejay · (#2 (**permalink**))

Shortee, Christmas has got nothing to do with the birth of christ. Besides, nowhere in the bible, does Christ tell us to remember his his birth and celebrate it. Instead we are told to practice the Lord supper, fasting and praying in remberence of him.

The pomp you see around during Christmas festive is exactly what it should be. Christmas is a pagan tradition dragged into the Church. Like I have said elsewhere in this forum, The fact that the shephards were out looking after their herds (when the angels anounced to them the brith of Christ) means that it wasn't winter time. Therefore the birth of Christ could not have occured during winter. Ask yourself what everyone is celebrating. The birth of another Christ(born during winter)?I have always wondered.

milanya · (#3 (**permalink**))

Christmas in not a pagan tradition dragged into the churh, rather it was a church celebration to counter the pagan traditions of dec 25th

KEMINOKANA · (#4 (**permalink**))

>Christmas in not a pagan tradition dragged into the churh,
>rather it was a church celebration to counter the pagan
>traditions of dec 25th

HUH??? Hapo umedanganya I think Milanya.

Hmmm another holiday is easter.

But come to think of it, religion and the church has been way commercialized and politicized. God must be weeping.

safina · (#5 (**permalink**))

teejay · (#6 (**permalink**))

>Christmas in not a pagan tradition dragged into the church,
>rather it was a church celebration to counter the pagan
>traditions of dec 25th

Millicent Anyango do you in your view think that the church has achieved this objective? While pondering on that I would also like you to examine this two phrases, "The end justifying the means, and the means justifying the end." Which one of the two do you think God would have loved the Church to observe? Do we continue to live the lie that Christ was born on Christmas day or do we discard the centuries old fallacy and let other Christians know where the truth lies.

If we are saying that for every pagan event, the church should devise "counterfeits", how many more deceptions are we living with in the church thinking that they are indeed sacred, yet all are part of human traditions? Isn't it as a result of this that the church has veered from its spiritual orbit and fallen short of God's glory? Isn't this the reason we continue to isolate ourselves further and further away from God?

In my view I think that if indeed the church was "countering" the pagan traditions by initiating them into the church then, we can only say that the church conformed to the ways of the world. The church simply relaxed her divine guidelines in order see admission of more souls in the temples and not to conquer them for Christ. The result of this fault saw the adoption of pagan rites into the Church, the most conspicuous being veneration of images, Sunday worship, etc.

With such laxity as far as worshiping God is concerned it is common to hear many people say that God looks into your heart. I have persistently wondered at how someone with good knowledge of the Bible can say this.To me this is defeatist option on the part of a person who finds it hard to carry his cross behind the lord. We all know that what comes from you is from within your heart. Skimpy dressing for instance;you oblige to your heart's beckon in order for you to adorn such attire. If your heart pleases God then we will only see Godliness in you i.e. beginning from the way you talk, walk, dress - generally your actions will make you stand out from the rest. You will be salt of world that Christ talked about, but you must keep it in your mind that this path will invite upon you, jaundiced eyes of persecution. When truly Christ is in a person, one will refrain themself from saying that God looks in my heart and not the dressing. God indeed look into your heart but he finds your heart is pro-worldliness(dirty language,skimpy attire) how do you want him there when the room is already full with things so filthy in his sight.

We must know that anything that human traditions are only meant to draw us backwards spiritually.

shortee · (#7 (**permalink**))

I must admit that i have no much knowledge of the bible. I think it was a high time i had a read. But should christians not commemorate the birth and resurrection of Jesus and without the occassions being turned meaningless?!

http://www.shalom-peace.com/ischris.html
"Before the birth of The Messiah, Y'shua our LORD, The Romans had a pagan feast called 'saturnalia' that was observed during the early part of winter, what we now call 'December', and its heathen feast and practices fell towards the end of the month"

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Basic..._christmas.htm

ATLian · (#8 (**permalink**))

>The fact
>that the shephards were out looking after their herds (when
>the angels anounced to them the brith of Christ) means that it
>wasn't winter time. Therefore the birth of Christ could not
>have occured during winter.

TeeJay,

we're talking about the weather in Bethlehem, Israel, not Bethlehem, Pensylvania (where it gets cold like hell). Israel is in the Middle East, where it's hot like heck. Therefore what is so odd about shepherds being out with their sheep in December in the Middle East?????

Some more questions for you:

What denomination of Christianity do you belong to? I've asked you this several times but you never reply. Does your sect observe and believe in Christmas?

When do you think Jesus was born?

Also, assuming you think he was born on, say, July 15th, should Christians celebrate that day as holy or what?

What I'm trying to say is I'm not sure that you're anti Christmas because it's held on the wrong date, ama because it's "pagan", or what?

safina · (#9 (**permalink**))

The simple truth is,the capitalists have hijacked all the holidays.

ATLian · (#10 (**permalink**))

>If we are saying that for every pagan event, the church should
>devise "counterfeits", how many more deceptions are we living
>with in the church thinking that they are indeed sacred, yet
>all are part of human traditions?

Actually a ton of Christian beliefs and celebrations are derived from "pagan" beliefs and celebrations.

The thing to note is ALL these other "pagan" religions had these beliefs for thousands and hundreds of years before Christ was born. Before the first "pagans" converted to Christianity, they obviously belonged to these religions. Therefore it's obvious that the earliest Christians brought about their "pagan" beliefs into Christianity and incorporated tham as the irrefutable gospel truth. I think even the most fanatical blind-believers would have to agree that many of Christianity's holiest beliefs and practices are directly copied from "pagan" beliefs. Let me list a few things I got by googling for a few minutes.

Christ's life - a god born of man, simple life, wandered around with disciples, performed miracles, confronted the devil, rose people from the dead, prophesied his death and resurrection, died then resurrected, etc - is exactly the same as many gods went through e.g. Osiris (Egyptian), Mithras (Roman) and Adonis (Greek). Mithras told his disciples "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation" years before Christ told the same to his disciples. Mithras was killed with 2 torch-bearers on both his sides, just like Jesus had the 2 thieves on his sides. And Mithrases torch-bearers had one torch facing up and another facing down, symbolising heaven and hell, just like one of the thugs next to Jesus went to heaven and the other to hell.

Another Greek god Attis died on March 23rd and resurrected on March 25th, the stereotypical Easter days. Christmas used to be celebrated by the Egyptians in late December as the birthday of their man-god Aion. The flood and the ark are taken from Egyptian mythology too. The concept of the trinity existed in Egyptian and Indian gods. etc.

The plagiarism is a bit too much. Which should make a Christian wonder - what is really truely from god, and what is just a copy-and-paste from other "pagan" religions and beliefs.

Finally, to illustrate again how blatant the plagiarism was, some researchers "analyzed stories and myths of Aeneas, Arthur, Buddha, David, Gilgamesh, Heracles, Lohengrin, Moses, Odysseus, Oedipus, Perseus, Romulus, Siegfried, etc. and have identified twenty-two recurring elements in these myths." All these recurring elements are also see in Jesus' life:

- His mother is a royal virgin.
- His father is a king.
- His father and mother are related.
- His conception was unusual.
- He was said to be the son of God.
- There was an attempt to kill the hero while he was a child.
- He was spirited away.
- Little or no information is known about his childhood.
- He goes to a future kingdom.
- He is victorious over the king.
- He becomes king.
- He reigns uneventfully, for a while.
- He prescribes laws.
- He loses favor with the gods or his subjects.
- He is driven from the throne and city.
- He has a mysterious death.
- He dies at the top of a hill.
- If he has any children, they do not succeed him.
- His body was not buried.
- One or more holy sepulchers are built.that Jesus was executed.

Since the "pagan" religions and Christianity share so many beliefs, we're faced with 2 options to explain this: either the founders of those old "pagan" religions observed Christianity and it's practices then WENT BACK in time and incorporated the Christian beliefs into their religions - ama Christians who came later on copied and incorporated the existing "pagan" beliefs into their new religion of Christianity. I think it doesn't take a genius to figure out which of the two options is the correct one.