'Xmas' is not a word what is wrong with you

Burnsy2023 said:
This is like the argument of the broomstick. A man has a wooden broomstick and uses it daily for several years. One day he breaks the handle in half, so he fashions a new handle out of the rail from an old wardrobe. His broomstick is repaired and he carries on using it. A few years later the head is looking a bit worn, so he replaces the bristles and his broom brushes as it did when new. So at this point the broom is more replaces parts than it is original, so is it still the same brush?

The pagan festival has been changed so much over the years it's no longer anywhere recognisable as the same festival and is now a completely different one.
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Yes, but it was STARTED by the Pagans. That's what we're arguing about. I completely agree that it has barely any resemblance to the original Pagan version, but my point still stands: it is not Christian!
 
AlecR said:
Yes, but it was STARTED by the Pagans. That's what we're arguing about. I completely agree that it has barely any resemblance to the original Pagan version, but my point still stands: it is not Christian!
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So you're saying that because you think it was started by the pagans (which I don't know enough to give an opinion on) that it's still a pagan festival? My point is that it's irrelevant how it started, it's only a Christian festival now.
 
SeraphX said:
Chrimbo

/thread :D
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Lol. Seriously though i'm no expert but If God wanted His people to celebrate christmas surely He would have instructed His people to do so in the Bible?, also where in the Bible does Jesus Christ Himself instruct his followers to celebrate christmas?.You would have thought that Jesus Christ being the head of Christianity would have clearly shown instructions to his followers to celebrate christmas, but no one has ever found any instructions by the Christ to celebrate christmas, so therefore it is not a christian teaching from Jesus Christ himself, surely?.
 
Castiel said:
Do grow up. While I didn't need google in this ocassion..it is a very useful tool for searching for sources and information...perhaps if more people did their research then they would be so darned ill-informed in the first place. :rolleyes:
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Unbunch your panties Cas and calm down. Got to take the **** occasionally but we all know you're a good poster on here.
 
AlecR said:
To summarise: Christmas is Pagan, which was taken by Christianity as a good way to celebrate the birth of Christ.

I'm a Christian myself and I don't care that it's stolen! Of course we celebrate it now because we 'associate' it with the birth of Christ, but to say it began because of Christianity is just wrong, sorry.
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You are wrong, there are far too many problems inherent with the position that Christmas has its roots in paganism rather than it assimilating various other local traditions in its evolution. . But feel free to carry on believing it.
 
Castiel said:
Christianity, like almost all beliefs systems assimilated the former beliefs of its converts into its traditions...this is a cultural impact common in human society.
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Really? You sure that they didn't change their beliefs to make converting less disruptive and therefore easier.
Festivals at the same time of the year, change the weekly day of worship from Saturday to the "pagan" Sunday, build churches on or near "pagan" temples. Same times and same place just a different deity, has to be a lot easier to convert when there is less disruption to the routine.

Just a theory though, as is yours. :)
 
AlecR said:
it is not Christian!
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It's the celebration of the SUN not the SON, lol. [FONT=arial, helvetica] the most important date in the festive season for Pagans is the winter solstice which always takes place around December 21. Called Yule, it is one of the traditional Celtic fire festivals and marks the return of the light after the longest night of the year.

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BBC News | Pagan Christmas | Whose Christmas is it anyway?


Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia.

Judaism online lol Origin of Christmas
 
Redz said:
Really? You sure that they didn't change their beliefs to make converting less disruptive and therefore easier.
Festivals at the same time of the year, change the weekly day of worship from Saturday to the "pagan" Sunday, build churches on or near "pagan" temples. Same times and same place just a different deity, has to be a lot easier to convert when there is less disruption to the routine.

Just a theory though, as is yours. :)
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Sunday was to separate and distinguish themselves from 2nd Temple Judaism. It was common for early Christians to do this, which is why it is a flawed position to conclude that paganism was inherent in the creation of early Christian observances...it is clear that Christianisation meant the assimilation of local beliefs into Christian Tradition and that there are commonalities between Christian and other religions traditions and observances...this is due to cultural and seasonal similarities common to the regions in which these belief were borne...but it goes against everything g we know about early Christians to conclude that Christmas was 'stolen' from other Pagan festivals which predate Christianity..particularly ones such as Yule as Christmas (or a form of it) was observed in North Africa as early as the early 2nd Century, long before any contact between Christianity and Germanic Paganism.

There is simply no evidence that Christians were adopting observances from the much larger and more influential pagan religions during the first 4 centuries of Christianity..all the evidence point to the opposite...Christmas was first recorded in the 2nd Century as being the 6th January, a date still observed by Armenian and some Eastern Christian Churches...the Donatists of North Africa observed Christmas on December 25th around the same time and this North African Christian Sect greatly influenced later North African Church Fathers such as Augustine and Origen.

After Constantine's conversion there was clearly some assimilation of Roman culture into Christianity...similarly some Popes such as Gregory the Great in the 7th Century actively assimilated paganism as a device to convert large swathes of people..but this doesn't mean that Christmas was originally a Pagan Festival..it simply means that it, like Christianity in General has assimilated the beliefs of its converts as it spread throughout Europe.

The idea that Christmas was formed from an already existing pagan festival is a misconception...just look at all the positions given by people in this thread..it was Saturnalia, it was Yule, it was Winter Solstice...clearly Christianity absorbed all these things into its traditions, but it also implies that Christmas existed prior to this assimilation. The importance of dates such as Solstices and Equinoxes were common across many people's...it is a common thread in almost all belief systems and doesn't imply that they all stole from each other...they simply are common because of the literal observable significance.
 
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Redz said:
Crimbo?
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What would a shortened version of Chrimbo be? Xbo? But thats Xbox One! Xbox One is a console made by Microsoft! Microsoft make Windows! Windows goes on PC's! Half Life 2 was on PC! HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED AND COMING THIS XBO!
 
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