Christmas is not pagan

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by good samaritan

I am sorry I didn’t realize the thread became exclusive.

No, I was starting to wonder because the flow of the conversation made it sound as if he was responding but with your user name.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by diakonos

I’m betting these guys also celebrate Lupercalia lite.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by coksiw

BTW, you can sum the Pharisees problem the way you want it, but Jesus already summed it up in a more accurate term: hypocrisy. You are again misassociating people in this thread that are against your position with the Pharisees by wrong characterization.

What's interesting in these types of discussions is how the charge of Pharisaism is thrown around, and by whom. On the one hand, people use the Pharisees as the archetype of someone who believes God ought to be actually obeyed in accordance with the Word. If you say "God says we should do x, y, and z and so we should do x, y, and z like He said" you get accused of being a Pharisee, a legalist, being "strict", etc.

But the Pharisees actually spent all their time figuring out ways to NOT obey God while maintaining the appearance of being "spiritual" and "closer to God". Their religion consisted in amalgamating various heathen philosophies to the worship of Jehovah, maintenance of unbiblical man-made traditions, and finding loopholes to avoid doing anything God said to do whenever it suited them, while insisting on obedience to usually misapplied misinterpretations of the Word, and often just making things up out of their own personal thoughts and demanding others follow them.

Which strangely looks and sounds EXACTLY like those today who like to throw around the label "Pharisee".

Interestingly, the Qumran community in their writings referred to the Pharisees as "givers of smooth words", that is, people who refused to obey Scripture as written but instead looked for easy ways out of actual obedience by using loopholes and mystical super-spiritual excuses.

[coksiw]

Originally Posted by Esaias

What's interesting in these types of discussions is how the charge of Pharisaism is thrown around, and by whom. On the one hand, people use the Pharisees as the archetype of someone who believes God ought to be actually obeyed in accordance with the Word. If you say "God says we should do x, y, and z and so we should do x, y, and z like He said" you get accused of being a Pharisee, a legalist, being "strict", etc.

But the Pharisees actually spent all their time figuring out ways to NOT obey God while maintaining the appearance of being "spiritual" and "closer to God". Their religion consisted in amalgamating various heathen philosophies to the worship of Jehovah, maintenance of unbiblical man-made traditions, and finding loopholes to avoid doing anything God said to do whenever it suited them, while insisting on obedience to usually misapplied misinterpretations of the Word, and often just making things up out of their own personal thoughts and demanding others follow them.

Which strangely looks and sounds EXACTLY like those today who like to throw around the label "Pharisee".

Interestingly, the Qumran community in their writings referred to the Pharisees as "givers of smooth words", that is, people who refused to obey Scripture as written but instead looked for easy ways out of actual obedience by using loopholes and mystical super-spiritual excuses.

Yup

[good samaritan]

Originally Posted by Esaias

What's interesting in these types of discussions is how the charge of Pharisaism is thrown around, and by whom. On the one hand, people use the Pharisees as the archetype of someone who believes God ought to be actually obeyed in accordance with the Word. If you say "God says we should do x, y, and z and so we should do x, y, and z like He said" you get accused of being a Pharisee, a legalist, being "strict", etc.

But the Pharisees actually spent all their time figuring out ways to NOT obey God while maintaining the appearance of being "spiritual" and "closer to God". Their religion consisted in amalgamating various heathen philosophies to the worship of Jehovah, maintenance of unbiblical man-made traditions, and finding loopholes to avoid doing anything God said to do whenever it suited them, while insisting on obedience to usually misapplied misinterpretations of the Word, and often just making things up out of their own personal thoughts and demanding others follow them.

Which strangely looks and sounds EXACTLY like those today who like to throw around the label "Pharisee".

Interestingly, the Qumran community in their writings referred to the Pharisees as "givers of smooth words", that is, people who refused to obey Scripture as written but instead looked for easy ways out of actual obedience by using loopholes and mystical super-spiritual excuses.

On the contrary, the Pharisee meticulously observed much of the law.

Matthew 23:23
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

The Pharisees failed miserably in the department of treating their neighbors righteously. They did a very good job keeping certain legitimate laws that made them look and feel holy. Sabbath keeping and tithing where probably not an issue for them, but they could easily walk by the beggar on the street without batting an eye.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Xmas is Western and Eastern Roman mass. Will you also argue for the other holy days within the months of December and January? The whole debate of Xmas being Christian usually stem from a Protestant view point. Because no mention of the other holy days which revolve around the Xmas, are even taken into account. All anyone tries to prove is the Xmas being a celebration held by the original Christians. Yet, never trying to prove the other holy days as being originally practiced by the early church. Xmas (as we have today) is a culmination of different pagan, and heretical Western and Eastern Roman traditions.

Xmas is religious mess.

Thanks, and good night.

This is a point non-Catholics and non-Orthodox never seem to address: What about the multitude of other "holy feast days"? And, more importantly, the MANNER of keeping them?

When people point here or there and say "Christmas has its Christian origins HERE", they conveniently ignore the fact the SAME sources institute the Host, the Sacramentalism, the clergyism, the use of candles and incense, fasting, mandatory attendance at THEIR authorized church service, and a bunch of other things. These other things that the Protestant would like to dispense with are PART AND PARCEL of the very thing they wish to keep!

It's like when Protestants hold as authoritative the Creeds of Nicea and Constantinople and Chalcedon, but reject the Canons of those very same Councils, and the organization that held those Councils! It's hilarious, actually, and just shows that these people have a genuinely cherry-picked make-it-up-as-you-go religion with no real consistency.

Christmas is Christian ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, yet Protestants utterly fail to see the irony of their position: that they are in reality just backsliding catholics.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by good samaritan

On the contrary, the Pharisee meticulously observed much of the law.

Matthew 23:23
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

The Pharisees failed miserably in the department of treating their neighbors righteously. They did a very good job keeping certain legitimate laws that made them look and feel holy. Sabbath keeping and tithing where probably not an issue for them, but they could easily walk by the beggar on the street without batting an eye.

Mark 7:5-13 KJV
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? [6] He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. [7] Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. [8] For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. [9] And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. [10] For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: [11] But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. [12] And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; [13] Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

[Esaias]

And now... New Year's!

The date is pagan, and Roman Catholic.

The traditions - including black eyed peas and ham, and a Watchnight service on New Year's Eve - are pagan and catholic.

To CELEBRATE New Year's on January 1st is a DENIAL OF THE SOVEREIGNTY AND MONARCHY OF GOD, who declared THIS:

Exodus 12:1-14 KJV
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, [2] This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. [3] Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: [4] And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. [5] Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: [6] And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. [7] And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. [8] And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. [9] Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. [10] And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. [11] And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover. [12] For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. [13] And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are : and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. [14] And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

According to God Himself, the real New Year's Day is 14 days prior to Passover, in the spring. NOT January 1st! We can't make the world or the Pope recognize God's authority, but we can certainly refuse to CELEBRATE their blatant disregard for our God and Saviour. We as Christians can acknowledge the true Biblical God-ordained New Year's Day (in the spring, the new moon right before Passover), and pay no mind to the heathen and their rebellious superstitions.

[Nicodemus1968]

Originally Posted by Esaias

And now... New Year's!

The date is pagan, and Roman Catholic.

The traditions - including black eyed peas and ham, and a Watchnight service on New Year's Eve - are pagan and catholic.

To CELEBRATE New Year's on January 1st is a DENIAL OF THE SOVEREIGNTY AND MONARCHY OF GOD, who declared THIS:

Exodus 12:1-14 KJV
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, [2] This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. [3] Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: [4] And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. [5] Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: [6] And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. [7] And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. [8] And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. [9] Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. [10] And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. [11] And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover. [12] For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. [13] And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are : and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. [14] And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

According to God Himself, the real New Year's Day is 14 days prior to Passover, in the spring. NOT January 1st! We can't make the world or the Pope recognize God's authority, but we can certainly refuse to CELEBRATE their blatant disregard for our God and Saviour. We as Christians can acknowledge the true Biblical God-ordained New Year's Day (in the spring, the new moon right before Passover), and pay no mind to the heathen and their rebellious superstitions.

Completely off topic.
The LDS church over took the Catholic Church as the wealthiest church in the world, by three times as much. Pope may not have as much power as we think.

[seguidordejesus]

Originally Posted by Esaias

It's like when Protestants hold as authoritative the Creeds of Nicea and Constantinople and Chalcedon, but reject the Canons of those very same Councils, and the organization that held those Councils! It's hilarious, actually, and just shows that these people have a genuinely cherry-picked make-it-up-as-you-go religion with no real consistency.

On this we definitely agree.