I want to take this time to wish every one on this forum a very Merry Christmas. I have not been on the boards latley due to excessive orders on my Candle and Soap making ventures and the recent death of my beloved uncle. Things should be calming down soon and I will be back to my usual posting.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Each one of you are very special to Quoteland and deserve to have the Best Christmas Ever.
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"A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B." -Fats Domino
I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying, are the best I've ever had. I find it hard to tell you, cuz I find it hard to take. When people run in circles, it's a very very Mad World... Mad World...
December 25th has nothing to do with Jesus. Early Christians stole a Roman holiday that worshiped Saturn for the purpose of increasing membership and making Christianity more palatable to roman pagans.
And no, nobody knows when Jesus died or when he was born.
I won't cry for yesterday There's an ordinary woooorld! Somehow I will survive! ~Duran Duran
I'm going to celebrate Christmas over dinner with strangers for whom English is a rather difficult second language. Third time I've done it. First time I've done it in my own country.
Posts: 5633 | Location: Aotearoa (New Zealand) | Registered: 09-22-02
Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease; Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing the glory to God and of good-will to man! Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Posts: 4943 | Location: my enchanted forest | Registered: 09-14-02
quote:Originally posted by Ladon: December 25th has nothing to do with Jesus. Early Christians stole a Roman holiday that worshiped Saturn for the purpose of increasing membership and making Christianity more palatable to roman pagans.
And no, nobody knows when Jesus died or when he was born.
To say that Christians stole a holiday from the Romans is an assumption of your bias I think.
People have been using the seasonal clock for the purposes of spiritual activities since way way before the Romans. Since the dawn of time even.
People who work the land are much more atune to the influences of astrological and cosmological events, on life on earth. These things are physical realities.
Christians didn't steal a Roman holiday.... this holy day is celebrated at the optimal time in the calender to enhance worship. That's all.
Anyway, I also wish everyone a happy and safe Christmas. Hope it's a good one.
Posts: 3724 | Location: Brisbane, Australia | Registered: 07-26-02
May you always feel the abundance that make everyday a birth of Christ.
When this happens.... finding the date doesn't really matter... and everything is MADE NEW.
Just have a lot of egg nog and a smile Ladon. . You may or may not be right about the date, but its the spiked egg nog, the smile, and the hang over that really matters.
Oh... here is a gift for you...
It starts in the will, the mind simply follows. - John of the Cross, Dark Night of The Soul
_________________________________ When you find meaning in what you do... what you do becomes a prayer.
Time and again since my tenure here I've seen "disrespectful" clashes, leading to the locking of posts (repression and resentment), the leaving of good quality members(still more resentment), and the out and out banning of some(unending resentment).
quote: December 25th has nothing to do with Jesus. Early Christians stole a Roman holiday that worshiped Saturn for the purpose of increasing membership and making Christianity more palatable to roman pagans.
Great story man. Why don't you tell that at some church during x-mas and let me know how that goes.
quote:I'm going to celebrate Christmas over dinner with strangers for whom English is a rather difficult second language. Third time I've done it. First time I've done it in my own country.
awww... baby that's so cute. I only consider doing something like this with really attractive someone who I can teach some body language to .... and/or teach them bad words and tell them it means Merry X-mas! Go and spread the loving word!!!
Merry Christmas from K.O! I wish everyone all the best and all the coolest presents!
“who honestly comes to this website to look up quotes?” - PSUfootball21 (PSU for life baby)
Good point Ladon. No one knows for sure the exact date of Jesus' birth. But, as the others have pointed out too- it doesn't really matter a whole lot- it's the meaning that counts.
It's setting aside a day to remember the Lord's humble beginnings, and when all is said and done, if God had really wanted us to know exactly what day and hour Jesus was born, He would have stuck it in the Bible.
MERRY CHRISTMAS YA'LL!!
//hey and if you really want to listen to a great christmas song- listen to "O Holy Night" sung by incredible Josh Groban. IT"S AWESOME!!//
"There is nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action." -Geothe
Posts: 481 | Location: Washington, USA | Registered: 11-16-04
Somebody, actually a priest, told me once that the reason that the story of Jesus is so powerful is that part of us is always dying and part of us is always rising.
Merry Christmas, all, and best wishes for your new beginnings.
Seashell ebb music wayriver she flows. --James Joyce
quote: ood point Ladon. No one knows for sure the exact date of Jesus' birth. But, as the others have pointed out too- it doesn't really matter a whole lot- it's the meaning that counts.
You're right, the meaning is about buying things that we don't need and eating lots of food. Oh and Santa Clause. And fourth quarter earnings.
quote: To say that Christians stole a holiday from the Romans is an assumption of your bias I think.
People have been using the seasonal clock for the purposes of spiritual activities since way way before the Romans. Since the dawn of time even.
Early Christian leaders did make the birth of Jesus December 25th for the expressed purpose of increasing membership.
quote: Christians didn't steal a Roman holiday.... this holy day is celebrated at the optimal time in the calender to enhance worship. That's all.
Silly Christian. I guess those Southern Hemisphere people got it all backwards.
Anyways, I wish everyone a hap-hap-happy hyper-materialist day.
Is Christmas really a Christian holiday? Where did it come from? What is Christmas really about?
Actually, most of what Ladon says is true.
"December 25th has nothing to do with Jesus. Early Christians stole a Roman holiday that worshiped Saturn for the purpose of increasing membership and making Christianity more palatable to roman pagans.
And no, nobody knows when Jesus died or when he was born."
(Although the Bible does state when Christ died, it does not say when he was born. It is speculated that because there were shepherds out on the night of his birth it was sometime during autumn, during December shepherds could not be out because of inclement weather.)
The beginnings of Christmas predated the Christian era by many centuries. Shortly after the Flood the spirit and the whole celebration of Christmas had its beginning. It began with Nimrod, grandson of Ham the son of Noah, a wicked, ruthless dictator. In contempt for all decency Nimrod married his own mother, Semiramis. After his untimely death, his mother-wife, Semiramis, taught the lie that her husband-son was a spirit god. She claimed a full-grown evergreen tree sprang overnight from a dead tree stump, which symbolized the springing forth to new life of the dead Nimrod. She taught that on the anniversary of his birth, which was December 25, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts upon it. The historian, Professor Hislop, says: “Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus—the slain god come to life again.”—The Two Babylons, pages 97, 98.
This is the beginning of Christmas. This is also the origin of the yule log, the Christmas tree. Nimrod became worshiped as the “divine son of heaven,” “the Messiah, son of Baal the sun-god.” Devil-worshiping pagans believed that life and immortality proceeded from Nimrod, and so they worshiped the never-dying sun in the heavens as the personification and representation of Nimrod’s “divinity.” Mother and child, Semiramis and Nimrod, became chief objects of worship. The pagan world idolized this combination. In Egypt they were worshiped as Isis and Osiris, in Asia as Cybele and Doius, in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer. Even in China, Japan, Tibet and in other non-Christian lands is to be found the counterpart of the Madonna, held sacred in Christendom. Pagans adored these symbols long before the birth of Christ, yet Christendom hails these as Christian and adoringly speaks of them as “the beautiful spirit of Christmas.”
The Bible studiously avoids the recording of the date of anyone’s birthday, nor is there any record of birthday celebrations by God’s servants, either before or after Christ. The only birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible are that of Pharaoh, when a man was hung, and that of the adulterous King Herod, whose step-daughter Salome danced to make the celebration “merry,” yes, merry by having the head of John the Baptist chopped off.
Around the fourth century, Christians adopted pagan holidays and customs to make Christianity more accessible to gather more followers.
The Catholic Encyclopedia: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their list of feasts.” When apostate Christians began to fall away to pagan practices, Tertullian complained: “By us, who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia [and other pagan feasts] are now frequented, gifts are carried to and fro, . . . and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar.”
In an effort to gain pagan converts the Roman Catholic clergy in the fourth century after Christ took in this pagan Saturnalia on December 25 and sponsored it as the “mass of Christ” or “Christ-mass.” Christmas, therefore, is nothing more than a carbon copy of the pagan Saturnalia. This is generally admitted by historical and religious scholars. Says a world history, On the Road to Civilization, page 164: “The feast of Saturn, the Saturnalia, was a winter festival which lasted a week beginning on the twenty-fifth day of December, and was celebrated with dancing, the exchanging of gifts, and the burning of candles. The Saturnalia was later taken over by the Christians as their Christmas, and given a new significance.”
Elaborating on the customs of the Saturnalia, the New Americanized Encyclopedia Britannica, 1900, Vol. IX, page 5236, says: “Saturnalia . . . celebrated on the 19th . . . lasted seven days. The time was one of general joy and mirth. The woolen fetters were taken from the feet of the Image of Saturn, and each man offered a pig. During the festival schools were closed. . . . Gambling with dice, at other times illegal, was practiced. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being tapers and clay dolls. These dolls were especially given to children. Varro thought that these dolls represented original sacrifices of human beings (children to the ‘Infernal God’).”
“Rev.” A. E. Palmer of Holy Trinity Church was reported by the Examiner to have said: “‘Why choose December 25 as the date of the sacred festival? Wouldn’t any other public holiday do just as well for this jollification?’ There was no evidence, he said, that Jesus was born on December 25 but the Church took over a great many of the ancient pagan festivals and gave them Christian meaning. On December 25 was celebrated the return of the sun, with the days becoming longer, and the Church chose this as being symbolic of the light that shone through the darkness. Christmas without Christ, he said, was nothing but a pagan festival.”
James M. Gillis, C. S. P., editor of the Catholic World (December 2, 1945) candidly says: “It is a well-known fact that the popes and councils in the early Church deliberately placed a Christian festival on or near the day of a previously existing pagan carnival, with the purpose of ousting the heathenish and generally licentious celebration.”
Behind its newly, loosely fitted “Christian” mask Christmas was and is nothing more than the ancient pagan Saturnalia. And it is the spirit of this pagan holiday that is hailed as “the beautiful spirit of Christmas.” What is so beautiful about a pagan holiday that dishonors God? What is so beautiful about a festival that is kept in defiance of God’s commands? What is so beautiful about a celebration that has perpetuated a lie? That makes hypocrites out of its participants?
The spirit of God that produces fruits of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-25) is not identified in the Saturnalia borrowed from the pagans. As the well-known Biblical and historical authority, James Murdock, reports in a footnote in his translation of Mosheim’s Institutes of Ecclesiastical History: “From the first institution of this [Christmas] festival the Western nations seem to have transferred to it many of the follies and censurable practices which prevailed in the pagan festivals of the same season, such as adorning the churches fantastically, mingling puppet shows and dramas with worship, universal feasting and merry-making, visits and salutations, presents and jocularity, revelry and drunkenness.”
The new campaign “put Jesus Christ back in Christmas” is an open admission that Christ is not in its celebration. And, as “Rev.” Palmer stated, “Christmas without Christ is nothing but a pagan festival.” So it is. Christ was never in Christmas, nor was Christmas ever in Christ. More apropos and in line with Christian principle would be the slogan: “Away from Christmas and back to Christ.” Simply to label the pagan Saturnalia as Christian does not make it so. A wolf does not become a lamb simply because we call it such. No, nor does Christmas become Christian because professing Christians take part in its celebration. Its celebration by certain religious organizations does not make it Christian, any more than bingo games, lotteries or card parties in religious parish houses or parish schools are for that reason Christian.
Is the spirit of God found in the annual $50-million Christmas-tree business that commemorates the lie of human immortality? Is it found in the glittering balls of gold that pay homage to Balder, god of the ever-mystical sun? Is the spirit of God found in the millions of toy soldiers and tanks, guns and planes that glorify war and not “peace on earth, good will toward men”? Is it found in the gluttony, the drunkenness, lasciviousness and murder committed on this day called “Christmas”?
me ke aloha, elikapeka
Posts: 472 | Location: Houston, Texas, U.S. | Registered: 03-08-03
Elaborating on the customs of the Saturnalia, the New Americanized Encyclopedia Britannica, 1900, Vol. IX, page 5236, says: “Saturnalia . . . celebrated on the 19th . . . lasted seven days. The time was one of general joy and mirth. The woolen fetters were taken from the feet of the Image of Saturn, and each man offered a pig. During the festival schools were closed. . . . Gambling with dice, at other times illegal, was practiced. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being tapers and clay dolls. These dolls were especially given to children. Varro thought that these dolls represented original sacrifices of human beings (children to the ‘Infernal God’).”
“Rev.” A. E. Palmer of Holy Trinity Church was reported by the Examiner to have said: “‘Why choose December 25 as the date of the sacred festival? Wouldn’t any other public holiday do just as well for this jollification?’ There was no evidence, he said, that Jesus was born on December 25 but the Church took over a great many of the ancient pagan festivals and gave them Christian meaning. On December 25 was celebrated the return of the sun, with the days becoming longer, and the Church chose this as being symbolic of the light that shone through the darkness. Christmas without Christ, he said, was nothing but a pagan festival.”
James M. Gillis, C. S. P., editor of the Catholic World (December 2, 1945) candidly says: “It is a well-known fact that the popes and councils in the early Church deliberately placed a Christian festival on or near the day of a previously existing pagan carnival, with the purpose of ousting the heathenish and generally licentious celebration.”
Behind its newly, loosely fitted “Christian” mask Christmas was and is nothing more than the ancient pagan Saturnalia. And it is the spirit of this pagan holiday that is hailed as “the beautiful spirit of Christmas.” What is so beautiful about a pagan holiday that dishonors God? What is so beautiful about a festival that is kept in defiance of God’s commands? What is so beautiful about a celebration that has perpetuated a lie? That makes hypocrites out of its participants?
The spirit of God that produces fruits of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-25) is not identified in the Saturnalia borrowed from the pagans. As the well-known Biblical and historical authority, James Murdock, reports in a footnote in his translation of Mosheim’s Institutes of Ecclesiastical History: “From the first institution of this [Christmas] festival the Western nations seem to have transferred to it many of the follies and censurable practices which prevailed in the pagan festivals of the same season, such as adorning the churches fantastically, mingling puppet shows and dramas with worship, universal feasting and merry-making, visits and salutations, presents and jocularity, revelry and drunkenness.”
The new campaign “put Jesus Christ back in Christmas” is an open admission that Christ is not in its celebration. And, as “Rev.” Palmer stated, “Christmas without Christ is nothing but a pagan festival.” So it is. Christ was never in Christmas, nor was Christmas ever in Christ. More apropos and in line with Christian principle would be the slogan: “Away from Christmas and back to Christ.” Simply to label the pagan Saturnalia as Christian does not make it so. A wolf does not become a lamb simply because we call it such. No, nor does Christmas become Christian because professing Christians take part in its celebration. Its celebration by certain religious organizations does not make it Christian, any more than bingo games, lotteries or card parties in religious parish houses or parish schools are for that reason Christian.
Is the spirit of God found in the annual $50-million Christmas-tree business that commemorates the lie of human immortality? Is it found in the glittering balls of gold that pay homage to Balder, god of the ever-mystical sun? Is the spirit of God found in the millions of toy soldiers and tanks, guns and planes that glorify war and not “peace on earth, good will toward men”? Is it found in the gluttony, the drunkenness, lasciviousness and murder committed on this day called “Christmas”?
The funny thing about catchy turns of phrases is that they can be googled... now assuming "Hogcaller" (male) is the original author who posted 12/17/04 on a different site here, it would be helpful if correct attribution were given for quoting or closely paraphrasing him at length in this QL thread. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On a different note, to my QL friends and DF opponents....
Merry Messiah-fest, Airedale
------------------------------ It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. ~ CS Lewis, Weight of Glory
[This message was edited by Airedale on 12-24-04 at 02:21 PM.]
Correct attribution would not go to anyone called the "Hogcaller." In doing research for an article about Christmas, I used a Bible aid published by the Watchtower Tract and Bible Society of Jehovah's Witnesses. This excerpt is from the December 15, 1954 issue of the Watchtower entitled "Origin of Christmas and its Spirit."
me ke aloha, elikapeka.
Posts: 472 | Location: Houston, Texas, U.S. | Registered: 03-08-03
I will happily celebrate both Christmas (with family and Ladon) and then The Feast of the Unconquered Sun, the pagan holiday Christmas swiped (with my friends for kicks). Actually, we just make cookies with little suns on them, but it is amusing all the same (and ironically, my friends are all Christian, hehe).
Personally, I don't think it matters when Jesus was born or why the holiday began...it is so secularized now that Jesus has next to nothing to do with it for most people anyhow. However, while it is definitely a commercialized holiday, what with all the presents and food and decorations, I like it more for the atmosphere. People are just that much nicer and more understanding, there's a warmth amongst strangers, and family and friends get to visit and have fun and good times (or at least gripe together about other relatives).
In any event, whatever its origins, Christmas makes people a little nicer and a little happier, so details are details. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas.
Posts: 3489 | Location: United States | Registered: 03-17-02
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I only consider doing something like this with really attractive someone who I can teach some body language to .... and/or teach them bad words and tell them it means Merry X-mas! Go and spread the loving word!!! 
