Who's upset? I was just pointing out that people have already said (about three hundred times) all the points that have been mentioned in this thread to date.
Have fun scrimshawing.
Laura_charlotte, good information, and as we can see it is up to the individual as to what is done with it. Scripture tells us some never accept truth. I've wondered if it's because of fear.
Many people go to church only twice a year,Christmas and Easter. Plays at both seasons are very important.You'd be amazed at how people hear the gospel through plays or music and get saved because it is less intimidating then preaching from the Bible.Many unsaved will come to see a family member in a play where they would not go sit under a preacher.
You haven't seen the others? There have been at least three that I know of this holiday season alone.
Oh well, a simple search should help. Search is your friend y'know. We'll just run a search for "Christmas..." in thread title alone (don't want results for every time someone mentions "Christmas" in a post, just the threads that deal with Christmas...) sort by date, descending order, to get the most recent ones first... and voila tout!
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/104056-sabbath-sunday-christmas.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-disc...-christians-shouldnt-celebrate-christmas.html
http://christianchat.com/miscellaneous/99800-christmas-origins.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/95932-did-god-command-us-not-do-christmas.html
Shoot that's just the ones from this year. If you want more, let's see what last year has to offer...
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/80712-christmas-real-birth-jesus.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/81439-mary-christmas-detailed-look-luke-1-a.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/81415-merry-christmas-again.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-disc...ot-celebrate-christmas-easter-rest-world.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-disc...ns-celebrate-christmas-religious-holiday.html
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/53581-why-celebrate-christmas.html
http://christianchat.com/miscellaneous/79684-origin-christmas.html
And that's only through December of last year. There are pages and pages more results because this forum has been around for a few years and EVERY FLIPPING YEAR we get multiple "Christmas is pagan!" threads.
Now do you see why we keep saying basically "oh no, not this again"?
The OP was to some degree incorrect. Christmas did not originate as a pagan holiday, though that's not to say that it didn't subsume some pagan elements over the centuries.
Nearly all aspects of Christmas observance have their roots in Roman custom and religion. Consider the following admission from a large American newspaper (The Buffalo News, Nov. 22, 1984): “The earliest reference to Christmas being marked on Dec. 25 comes from the second century after Jesus’ birth. It is considered likely the first Christmas celebrations were in reaction to the Roman Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the winter solstice—the return of the sun—and honored Saturn, the god of sowing. Saturnalia was a rowdy time, much opposed by the more austere leaders among the still-minority Christian sect. Christmas developed, one scholar says, as a means of replacing worship of thesun with worship of the Son. By 529 A.D., after Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian made Christmas a civic holiday. The celebration of Christmas reached its peak—some would say its worst moments—in the medieval period when it became a time for conspicuous consumption and unequaled revelry.”Consider these quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 edition, under “Christmas”: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church…The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.” Further, “Pagan customs centring round the January calends gravitated to Christmas.” Under “Natal Day,” Origen, an early Catholic writer, admitted, “…In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world” (emphasis mine).
The Encyclopedia Americana, 1956 edition, adds, “Christmas…was not observed in the first centuries of the Christian church, since the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth…a feast was established in memory of this event [Christ’s birth] in the 4th century. In the 5th century the Western church ordered the feast to be celebrated on the day of the Mithraic rites of the birth of the sun and at the close of the Saturnalia, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ’s birth existed.”
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and lying to a child... breaking a sacred bond, the one person in life a child should never have to worry about lying to them.... tells them santa is real, that can have negative impact on a child-parent relationship...
When they find out that Santa Clause is a lie and the Ishtar bunny is a lie then they think "maybe I ought to look into this Jesus Christ business also."
Karraster, not to defend anyone, but we might want to take into consideration the fact that even as Yah hates sin, and false gods, and probably just about anything that directs people to such things, any posts exposing the situation and distaste for could be perceived as hatred for the deception behind the traditions.
How is it some people say?
"Love God, hate sin".
So very personal...
I have a few friends who wont even consider Jesus anymore because of that exact same thing. They throw it all out, "baby with the bath water"
someone approached me one day and told me, "Christmas and Easter are fake, Jesus was not even born on that day. I ignored him and then it kept popping up, so I looked into it. Found out a lot more. But its heartbreaking to think of those that fall away.
I posted a link for information concerning this, and now this comment?
Here's a quote from that link;
The True Origin of Christmas
Again, this is only one of many that prove the origin of this pagan holiday...
(1) Where, in any primary source, was Saturnalia associated with 25 Dec? I know of sources where it was associated with 17 Dec, and expanded in later years to 23 Dec, but never was it celebrated on 25 Dec.
(2) Not all of Christianity observed 25 Dec, the Eastern half observed 6 Jan. What's your explanation for 6 Jan?
(3) Your source doesn't consider available evidence from Hippolytus and Clement of Alexandria; a rather convenient omission.
(1) Where, in any primary source, was Saturnalia associated with 25 Dec? I know of sources where it was associated with 17 Dec, and expanded in later years to 23 Dec, but never was it celebrated on 25 Dec.
(2) Not all of Christianity observed 25 Dec, the Eastern half observed 6 Jan. What's your explanation for 6 Jan?
(3) Your source doesn't consider available evidence from Hippolytus and Clement of Alexandria; a rather convenient omission.
...Again, this is only one of many that prove the origin of this pagan holiday...
Oh another thread about how evil Christmas is, yay.....
There's nothing wrong with commemorating the birth of Christ. We commemorate the birth of our country. We commemorate the birth of past presidents. We commemorate the birth of ourselves. And yet it's seen as wrong to commemorate the birth of our Savior.
I dont believe the issue is with celebrating the birth of the Savior.
I believe the issue is celebrating the birth of the Savior using pagan methods.
Colossians 2:16
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
I am always blessed by Christmas. And yes, I know it is NOT the probable actual date of when Jesus was born. But any date will serve, regardless of the history of Christmas, not sure how much posted here is right or wrong. Because we have no idea what the early church did about celebrating the nativity.
I love that I go for walks in secular malls, and I hear music singing "Christ the Saviour is born." When I was a teacher, I used to sing all the traditional carols, put on a Christmas show, and then teach the children about the real meaning of Christmas. That is Jesus came to die for our sins. Many of those children had never heard the name of Jesus. With the older kids, I had them write about their Christmas. It was amazing how many kids went to temple (Sikh) and then came home and opened their presents under the Christmas tree. Of course, I shared the gospel with them, and never got a single complaint, even though it was a public, secular school
Today, I had the joy of buying presents for a young child on a reservation in South Dakota. He didn't have boots, clothes or toys, because his grandmother feeds all the children in their housing complex, rather than buy things for her grandchildren who he cares for.
Christmas is a time for giving and sharing the gospel. I will keep it for that reason alone!