Christmas is not pagan

[Truthseeker]

Those who choose to celebrate it would do well to not make it like it some God honoring thing or an actual celebration of his birth.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Truthseeker

Those who choose to celebrate it would do well to not make it like it some God honoring thing or an actual celebration of his birth.

And who are you to make such a statement? Last night I was in a CHRISTMAS service where we fell on our faces and worshipped God for being manifest in flesh. The Holy Ghost fell when we sang "Oh Holy Night." I guess God didn't get your memo.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

You two are being ridiculous. Seeing your positions left in tatters, you count on this blog author to save you.

The only way our position would "left in tatters" would be if you, with all your copying and pasting, had actually proven that Christmas was pagan. Did you do that? Be honest.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Originalist

The only way our position would "left in tatters" would be if you, with all your copying and pasting, had actually proven that Christmas was pagan. Did you do that? Be honest.

All my copying and pasting was to show, first, that I wasn't taking anything the author of the blog wrote out of context, and second, to give source material for anyone interested enough to have a look, to show I didn't pull any of my statements and conclusions out of thin air, something you refused to do when asked in good faith.

And what did I prove or not prove?

I've shown that the Mass of Christ, as a Catholic holy day, is rife with pagan elements from the very beginning, starting with the date the holy day is assigned on the liturgical calendar of that faith tradition, and like a black hole, the Mass of Christ has only amassed more pagan elements to itself since that time till now. You are of course, free to prove me wrong...

Finally, the fact that you demand honesty from me, when you, with a Graduate Degree in History, and being a teacher no less, wouldn't so much as lift a finger to support your claim suggests you have no interest in being honest yourself.

We haven't interacted too much here at AFF, but I have read a lot of your posts, and while I haven't always agreed with their contents, I always thought well of you before. But that was before. You have certainly left much to be desired here, in this, YOUR thread.

As Aleister Crowely was famous as saying, since you are already inclined, as it pertains to the Catholic Mass of Christ, at least: Do As Thou Wilt.

Who am I to tell you otherwise?

For everyone else who might be reading: I hope you took the time to read my posts, and to seriously consider and reflect upon them with an open mind. If you stand and/or remained unconvinced, know that I have no personal quarrel with you. Truth can be assailed and crashed and bashed into with however big a hammer as you can muster. Fight against it with all your might and see what sticks and what chips away. At the end, whatever remains will be true, having been put to the test.

Take it easy, y'all.

Aaron

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

All my copying and pasting was to show, first, that I wasn't taking anything the author of the blog wrote out of context, and second, to give source material for anyone interested enough to have a look, to show I didn't pull any of my statements and conclusions out of thin air, something you refused to do when asked in good faith.

And what did I prove or not prove?

I've shown that the Mass of Christ, as a Catholic holy day, is rife with pagan elements from the very beginning, starting with the date the holy day is assigned on the liturgical calendar of that faith tradition, and like a black hole, the Mass of Christ has only amassed more pagan elements to itself since that time till now. You are of course, free to prove me wrong...

Finally, the fact that you demand honesty from me, when you, with a Graduate Degree in History, and being a teacher no less, wouldn't so much as lift a finger to support your claim suggests you have no interest in being honest yourself.

We haven't interacted too much here at AFF, but I have read a lot of your posts, and while I haven't always agreed with their contents, I always thought well of you before. But that was before. You have certainly left much to be desired here, in this, YOUR thread.

As Aleister Crowely was famous as saying, since you are already inclined, as it pertains to the Catholic Mass of Christ, at least: Do As Thou Wilt.

Who am I to tell you otherwise?

For everyone else who might be reading: I hope you took the time to read my posts, and to seriously consider and reflect upon them with an open mind. If you stand and/or remained unconvinced, know that I have no personal quarrel with you. Truth can be assailed and crashed and bashed into with however big a hammer as you can muster. Fight against it with all your might and see what sticks and what chips away. At the end, whatever remains will be true, having been put to the test.

Take it easy, y'all.

Aaron

Yeah, I'm really a Catholic. Good one.

The answer is, no, you did not prove a single "pagan" connection to Christmas. You didn't even actually prove a pagan connection to certain days. Zero original source documents. Same old junk that has been repeated as "fact" but has no real sources to back up the claims.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Esaias

YOU started the thread making a claim. You were asked to support your claim. You refused.


You lost any credibility from that point forward. All of Votivesoul's posts are therefore meant for the readers more than anyone else (namely, you)

Of course, you won't listen much less consider anything that contradicts your enjoyment of the Mass of the Nativity, so naturally you will squeak and squawk every couple of posts and continue blindly in your pagan traditions patting yourself on the back thinking you have "won".

Enjoy your "victory".

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.

[Originalist]

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

What saddens me is that you spent allot of time on this but yet did not provide anything but opinions and hearsay. Nothing you cited would be accepted as "evidence" in a court of law or in any graduate school.

Here. Maybe this will help.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Originalist

Yeah, I'm really a Catholic. Good one.

The answer is, no, you did not prove a single "pagan" connection to Christmas. You didn't even actually prove a pagan connection to certain days. Zero original source documents. Same old junk that has been repeated as "fact" but has no real sources to back up the claims.

Now you're just being a hypocrite. I never called you a Catholic. Get over yourself.

Secondly, if you had spent any time actually reading all the links I posted, you would see, for example:

That this link regaring Jesse Trees:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070125...I_williams.pdf

Has 26 footnotes to the source material.

This footnote about Sinterklaas has 60 footnotes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinter...Ghesquiere1989

This link about Roman Solstice Celebrations was written by a historian and a scholar, and has footnotes at the bottom to source material:

https://historyandarchaeologyonline....-celebrations/

This link footnotes to the source materials:

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/saturnalia

One of the footnotes links here:

https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Solsti.../dp/B00C2I5I0K

This book is the source material for the quotes in the first link.

This link IS the source material for the Saga of Haakon The Good:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/05hakon.htm

This link IS the source material for the Life of Saint Nicholas:

https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who...-archimandrite

And, since this is AFF and not a college classroom, you'll forgive me for not writing these posts like an essay.

So, since you are no longer reachable and don't care to realize it, this post, Originalist, like Esaias wrote, isn't for you. Have a nice day, Dude.

[votivesoul]

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.

And how is the day going to address its accusers? The day will speak for itself and provide its own defense?

Come on! You are the defender of the day, so you provide the evidence to refute the claim. Which you have still refused to do. And you want me to watch a youtube video timestamped to the end, in which the speaker provides no scholarly resources or footnotes and source material, yet you have the cojones to drag me over the coals, even though I did?

Your conscience must be eating you alive right now. I hope you get yourself sorted out.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

And how is the day going to address its accusers? The day will speak for itself and provide its own defense?

Come on! You are the defender of the day, so you provide the evidence to refute the claim. Which you have still refused to do. And you want me to watch a youtube video timestamped to the end, in which the speaker provides no scholarly resources or footnotes and source material, yet you have the cojones to drag me over the coals, even though I did?

Your conscience must be eating you alive right now. I hope you get yourself sorted out.

You provided just what the described, books quoting from books that quoted from other books, with no real original source documents. Your sources don't even get the pagan religions right, just as the video points out. Nothing you cited would hold up in a court of Law, nothing about the origins of Santa, Saturnalia, Horace, or anything else.