Merry Christmas to everyone! (a little more than 5 days away!)

[Jorsoft]

What made you go aitheists if your parents are Christian?

I'm just not going to get into it. It's bad taste...

 

[hickfarm]

I'm just not going to get into it. It's bad taste...

Alright if you don't want to say so be it.

 

[Apokalipse]

I honestly dont have a religous preference. :\

without getting into a lot of depth, do you believe that any god(s) exist(s)?

if not, then you are an atheist by definition.
theist = believes that one or more gods exist
atheist = not a theist


but let's try and get back to the topic of Christmas....

 

[FireFox]

Hmmm.....For the past 3 minutes I've been trying to come up with a way to tread lightly. But, since we are quoting passages...may I present one?

"But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9)

This roughly translates to:

"The worship of me is pointless, when their teachings in which you worship are laid out by humans."

Now....I confess that I'm not a religious scholar, nor professor; however, I do understand the translation of a language.

To illustrate that point further...The Roman church never adapted the celebration of Christ right away. In fact, didn't it take them over 300 years? Thats plenty of time to create several million teachings.....all by humans.

I can probably find further truth to illustrate that Christ was never even born CLOSE to December 25th. Actually....just to let you know, MOST of my proof would come from your bible.

I'll state this lightly without going in depth...I'm not going to argue all of your arguments with you, but that doesn't mean I can't. This just isn't the place.

The scripture you referenced (Matthew 15:9) is in prophecy of what the jews would be like during the time of Christ. It's not to actually be taken as you are trying to use it.

Most people are aware that Christ's birthday wasn't actually on Dec 25th....according to theologians, they think he was born sometime in the fall, but it doesn't really matter to me.

Now, a second point....

In reference to the above passage, your God also CLEARLY stated:
"Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition" (Mark 7:9)

In this passage, God was referring to the certain teachings of men....saying that we (humans) were great at setting aside the laws of God, just to follow some arbitrary tradition.

Speaking of tradition, your holiday was a holiday celebrated by the Pagans long before the Christians.



Please allow me to encompass all of the above into one thought. I'm not telling or asking you to believe any of this. Research it for yourself. But, in light of what you said above.... "Remember, Christmas is not about giving"...I realize that it was in perfectly good nature, however......this holiday season is about whatever people want it to be about. Regardless of a gift.

Again, you did the same thing with quoting this scripture as you did with the last one. Don't take a scripture and twist it to your liking unless you really do understand. You can't just read something out of the Bible and expect to understand it. That's like opening up a book, reading a page of the book, and expecting to know what's going on in the book just because you read that one page.

I don't really feel like explaining nor is this the place to explain it.

Now....I confess that I'm not a religious scholar, nor professor; however, I do understand the translation of a language.

That's fine by me. I just love it when professors try to tell me what it is that I believe. They're stubborn about it too. It's rather annoying, but I've learned just to ignore them. Don't cast your pearls amongst the....nevermind.

This is takes too much effort to explain, and it'll just go to waste anyway....so, I won't bother.

 

[j12]

please keep this thread on track and refrain from flaming.

i never actually went "christmas shopping" i will probably go this weekend.

 

[FireFox]

please keep this thread on track and refrain from flaming.

i never actually went "christmas shopping" i will probably go this weekend.

Noone has flamed yet you ****ing ***** ****. So, you can just go and **** ******.

I'm only messing with you. On a more serious note....there has been no flaming in this thread yet; however, discussing/debating (whatever you want to call it) religion and what not isn't allowed here...so, at the current rate at which this thread is going it'll end up getting locked.

Anyway, we'll see if people can keep this thread on track. I doubt it....probably already too late.

 

[wicked23]

i heard x-mas the celebration of of St. Nick was in March around the current ST. Patricks day. But when thw Irish wanted to observe St. patricks day, X-mas was moved to december.

Also St. Nicks's day was first celebrated( i think not positive) by leaving shoes next to front door and he would leave small present's in them.

As far as the religious side. Without proof its to easy to say that a group of really smart men who wanted to get rich invented the whole thing a really long time ago. Priests live in nice houses, have nice cars and get money donated to them from people every week. But I'm gonna stay away from that one.

 

[FireFox]

As far as the religious side. Without proof its to easy to say that a group of really smart men who wanted to get rich invented the whole thing a really long time ago. Priests live in nice houses, have nice cars and get money donated to them from people every week. But I'm gonna stay away from that one.

And they like little boys too.

 

[Shannon]

Thanks for responding to that post, FireFox. I didn't want to leave those out-of-context scriptures on their own.

You may not be a religious scholar, but I have been studying Christian Apologetics for over 5 years. Also, I'm not catholic.

As far as Christ not actually being born on the 25th of December, I know that. Most Christian adults know that it's not the actual day, it's just the day that we chose to celebrate it. No one is claiming that we know the day that Christ was actually born.

I also knew that pagan holidays originated at the end of December before Christ. This is also common knowledge and nobody is denying it. They put Christmas at that same time as the pagan celebrations intentionally to sort of turn the celebrations toward Christ rather than the pagan tradition of worshiping the Sun and other things like that. I always thought it was pretty cool, because some people went from worshiping the sun to worshiping the Son of God.

Sure, the holidays may be about whatever you want. But I wasn't talking about some general "holidays". I was talking about Christmas, Christ's Mass. I'm not celebrating the holidays, and I never claimed to be. I am celebrating the birth of Christ, and I take great joy in that. I know that many people celebrate a general, secular "holidays", but frankly I think they're missing out on the real joy that is to be had.

I thought this was the "Merry Christmas" thread.

On a slightly side note, Buddhism refutes the laws of logical reasoning. If Christianity is true, there is no "safe way" to live without Christ.

 

[hillbillybob]

I was raised catholic, but have chosen to refute the church do to the actions of a bishop. May he burn...you get the rest.

I believe in one god, yes, but I also believe that jesus has come in many forms. I believe that every religion has something to teach, and try to learn that lesson. As for religion or beliefs being logical, forget it, because there is no logic to anyones belief system. There is no logic to mine, there is definatly no logic to christianity, so on and so forth. There is only beliefs, and what more proof does a person need than their beliefs.

As for Christmas, I personally hate it because of how big business like Wal-Mart have raped and pillaged the old ways. That being a time of year when friends and family can gather, eat, share with each other, etc. I havent bought a gift for my family in over 5 years, because we started christmas being a gathering, not a giving. We talk, we work, we play, hunt, etc...but its all about being together.