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12-19-2022, 10:11 PM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 7,601
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul
...Continued from the above post
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/asd/2...gan-just-stop/
Finally, for our purposes, he concludes with these three arguments:
- Is this about the winter solstice?
- Is this about religious holidays in general?
- Is this about [insert any other symbol or custom that has been associated at some point with some pagan religion]?
True to his constant, he deflects with more red herrings and intellectual dishonesty. Regarding the winter solstice, he writes:
Except for Saturnalia and in particular, Brumalia, which was derived from a Greek celebration to Dionysus/Bacchus, the Greek God of Wine and Orgies.
He goes on:
God has a calendar, and in it, He does not prescribe the attending to solstices or equinoxes or gives them any meaning. Rather, He cares about His festivals, and our following of them as typological of His Son's Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Return as the Holy Spirit, and the In-Dwelling that return causes.
Regarding item number 2 above, He writes in brief:
The same God who created all days, and commanded certain of them to be celebrated or observed, just as the author attempts to acknowledge, also commanded we not just abstain from, but also to abhor idolatry, in all its forms. And in that ancient world in which God commanded certain days to be celebrated and observed, you had best believe that the heathen and pagan cultures surrounding Israel had their holy days, too, and whenever Israel or Judah fell into idolatry, one of the first things they did was abandon their ancestral festivals for the holy days of the heathens and pagans, participating in all the lewd and violent acts demanded by the evil spirits who inhabited the idols Israel and/or Judah came to worship. So, if anyone thinks that God is okay with His people doing their own thing, worshipping Him however and in this case, WHENEVER they wanted, in their own ways, in their own times, especially as it pertained to idolatry, you, my friend, are loco/loca.
One man was found picking up sticks on a Sabbath, and God commanded he be stoned to death. Nadab and Abihu brought the wrong kind of fire into the Tabernacle, and God killed them. Korah whined and complained about Moses and Aaron leading the priesthood, and God not only killed him, but all his relatives. When Israel mingled with the Moabites and participated in their worship at Baal Peor, God killed 23,000 of them. This is Bible. Presuming to worship God however one likes, in whatever way, according to whatever calendar one finds convenient, is a clear violation of the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and all that the Holy Scriptures of the New Covenant stand for. Toward the end of Revelation, it is clear that idolaters will have their part in the lake which burns with fire and sulfur.
Finally, for point 3 above, the author has the audacity to write the following:
At this point, this dude couldn't be a greater cheerleader for Team Pagan if he tried. Pagans worship demons (which he knows, as he admits later on in his article). You cannot baptize the worship of a demon and make it Christian. You cannot take pagan worship and make any of it holy or pure, any more than you can burn your child in the belly of Chemosh and call it good.
Let the man's own words condemn him:
His failure to see his own unfortunate disconnect is sad. I hope he recovers himself someday.
He goes on:
Take away all that is pagan, all that not only I, but many others have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt truly is pagan, starting with December 25th, and moving on from there, and go and worship the Lord and celebrate His birth all you want. But as it stands, the Mass of Christ is rife with paganism, and anyone participating in those things needs to know that.
Peace and God bless,
Aaron
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If I may jump in on your discussion, I respectfully have a couple of questions:
Now, mind you… I know absolutely nothing about you personally, so I don’t know if you have a secular job. But if you do, would you accept a ‘Christmas bonus’ from your employer? Be it monetary or a ham/turkey, would you take it with thanks?
And if said boss closed up shop for the week between Christmas and the New Year, with pay, would you accept it?
Convictions are right and necessary, and I leave that all with the individual, but I have often wondered about this. I used to work with a very nice lady who was JW, and we were discussing Christmas one night at break. Since she brought the subject up, I asked if she took the $500 bonus, and she said, “Well, sure!”
That never made sense to me…
Again, I mean no disrespect to you or anyone who disagrees with Christmas, but I am curious about this.
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12-20-2022, 06:35 AM
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Covenant Apostolic
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sebastian, FL
Posts: 8,765
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
The problem is that participating in the Sunday, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's, Trunk or treat, ect. Is participating in Mystery Babylon which was established by Nimrod in the book Genesis 11 and will be destroyed by the Second Coming in the book of Revelation.
We are called out of Mystery Babylon (Baal worship). Revelation 17, Revelation 18, Jeremiah 50, Jeremiah 51.
The book of Jeremiah tells the tale of 2 sisters, Judah and Israel.
Israel was divorced and scattered among the nations because of Baal worship, instituted first by Nimrod at the tower of Babel and continued by Jeroboam when he became king of the 10 tribes. 1 Kings 12:26-30
Israel is divorced and scattered among the nations because of the sin of Jeroboam ( Jeremiah 3). The only way for God to bring her back is by making a new covenant with the House of Judah and the House of Israel, according to the prophet Jeremiah.
In Jeremiah 33 we are told the new covenant will be with Judah and Israel and then God will write the law in our hearts.
The second Exodus is like the first.
The blood on the doorpost, the water of the red sea, the cloud by day and fire by night. The tablets of law written in stone.
Repentance, Baptism, and the Spirit writing the law of God on the fleshly tablets of our hearts.
Exodus 20
Last edited by Amanah; 12-20-2022 at 07:57 AM.
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12-20-2022, 08:23 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: South Central Texas
Posts: 2,796
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul
So, for the record, for all who are reading along, Originalist or seguidordejesus, or otherwise, let's just say, there's only less than a 1% chance I'm right. You're going to risk provoking the Lord to jealousy by becoming a worshipper of demons? No need to answer publicly, but I hope you sincerely consider or reconsider your ways, as it were. What you do is up to you, no skin off my nose.
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I do appreciate you taking the article seriously instead of outright rejecting it. We don't have a fear-based approach in the Orthodox church about these things, so while I get what you're saying about the 1%, just...no.
Maybe we're wrong. Maybe God is angry with us and jealous of something we do with our families that literally doesn't take away from Him at all. I'll take my chances on that because that's not the God I believe in. And my wife and I come from a reasonably long line of non-Christmas celebrators, and are very modest in our own celebrations. Our own idol, er, tree is only 12" tall LOL
The central part of my faith around this season is celebrating the Nativity of our Lord, which yes, we celebrating on December 25 (on whichever church calendar the jurisdiction uses - another discussion) and has no mention of Christmas trees in the service.
I do believe you and the other main contributors in this thread choose not to celebrate due to a genuine desire to please God and not out of fear and I can respect that. I hope you're not like the ones I saw growing up that preach against Easter on Easter b/c to me that's just weird. But kudos for working it out for yourself.
I doubt you're going to convince any Orthodox Christian (not that we're your only audience) based on much of the information you presented because 1 - we respect the Tradition of the Church, which has been worked out/hashed out over many centuries and 2 - we do not give much credence to isolated examples or unlabeled marginal remarks, but rather the consensus of the whole Church as we work things out together (not accepting it blindly as it might seem). This is a radical difference in our viewpoints but very important.
Again, thanks for at least considering the article/rant on its merits even if we don't agree
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12-20-2022, 11:04 AM
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Unvaxxed Pureblood
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Zion aka TEXAS
Posts: 26,018
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Originalist
Our society is built on the assumption of innocence until proof is brought forth to convict the accused. In this case, a day is the accused. The presumption od innocence applies. Of all the "evidence" that has been brought forth, how much of it is documented instead of being hearsay? Where are the footnotes? Where are the original source documents?
The accused remains innocent.
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SHIFTING THE BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialscien...n-of-Proof.htm
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12-20-2022, 11:06 AM
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Unvaxxed Pureblood
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Zion aka TEXAS
Posts: 26,018
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanah
The problem is that participating in the Sunday, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's, Trunk or treat, ect. Is participating in Mystery Babylon which was established by Nimrod in the book Genesis 11 and will be destroyed by the Second Coming in the book of Revelation.
We are called out of Mystery Babylon (Baal worship). Revelation 17, Revelation 18, Jeremiah 50, Jeremiah 51.
The book of Jeremiah tells the tale of 2 sisters, Judah and Israel.
Israel was divorced and scattered among the nations because of Baal worship, instituted first by Nimrod at the tower of Babel and continued by Jeroboam when he became king of the 10 tribes. 1 Kings 12:26-30
Israel is divorced and scattered among the nations because of the sin of Jeroboam ( Jeremiah 3). The only way for God to bring her back is by making a new covenant with the House of Judah and the House of Israel, according to the prophet Jeremiah.
In Jeremiah 33 we are told the new covenant will be with Judah and Israel and then God will write the law in our hearts.
The second Exodus is like the first.
The blood on the doorpost, the water of the red sea, the cloud by day and fire by night. The tablets of law written in stone.
Repentance, Baptism, and the Spirit writing the law of God on the fleshly tablets of our hearts.
Exodus 20
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12-20-2022, 11:19 AM
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Unvaxxed Pureblood
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Zion aka TEXAS
Posts: 26,018
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
It's like Sunday keepers who claim they don't keep Sunday out of continuing catholic traditions, it's all just a coinkydink they have church on the same day... every... single... week... forever....
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12-20-2022, 11:46 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 10,073
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Esaias
SHIFTING THE BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialscien...n-of-Proof.htm
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I made no accusation. I made a statement based on the presumption of innocence. The accusation had already been made on this site, on numerous occasions, by the anti-Christmas crowd.
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12-20-2022, 11:54 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 10,073
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Esaias
It's like Sunday keepers who claim they don't keep Sunday out of continuing catholic traditions, it's all just a coinkydink they have church on the same day... every... single... week... forever....
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Intent does matter Some people put lights in their hedges year round because they think it is pretty, not because of Christmas and not for paganism. But people like you think that just because a pagan did something similar a thousand years ago for religious reasons, then that makes it wrong for anybody to do at any time in history thereafter for any reason. As for Sunday worship, the same rule does apply. The day is irrelevant t God. It is completely inert.
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12-20-2022, 03:50 PM
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Covenant Apostolic
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sebastian, FL
Posts: 8,765
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
God sanctified and commanded the Sabbath in Genesis and Exodus.
Constantine and the Catholic Church (Mystery Babylon) legislated Sunday worship.
Last edited by Amanah; 12-20-2022 at 04:00 PM.
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12-20-2022, 04:31 PM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: South Central Texas
Posts: 2,796
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Re: Christmas is not pagan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanah
Constantine and the Catholic Church (Mystery Babylon) legislated Sunday worship.
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You say that like it's a bad thing.
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