CommonTruth - CHRISTMAS

« CHRISTMAS »

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Dec 28, 2009, 2:32pm

[Home] [Help] [Search] [Login] [Register]

CommonTruth :: General :: Celebrations/Recreation :: CHRISTMAS

« Page 2 of 2 Jump to page Go

Author

Topic: CHRISTMAS (Read 320 times)

susiem
Lurker

member is offline

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 40

Re: CHRISTMAS
« Reply #15 on Apr 8, 2008, 2:11pm »

[quote author=jwnomore board=rec thread=33 post=1233 time=1207638687]
Quote:

Good luck with your taxes! Don't worry about 607 until they are done. I know that sometimes CARM posters can make you feel like this:

#blowup#

I have been waiting for a while to use that icon....

#laugh# Yeah! I know the feeling. Well, I'm to the part of our taxes where I know how much we owe, so that's some progress so far. #wink#

I'm going to keep my discussion of 607 here just to cut down on the distractions.

As to Christmas, yes, I believe it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. It's not so much because of pagans, at all, but because of what it is today. There is just no way I can view it as being 'celebrated to the Lord'. [Romans 14]

I don't know that it would be connected with food sacrificed to idols that Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 8, but the whole Santa thing, the expense, the stress, the hardship on those who are poor.......the whole social custom that there must be something "wrong" with people who don't celebrate Christmas, the routinely mouthed words 'Merry Christmas' or 'Merry Xmas', the "duty" it's become to get gifts for others, the one time of the year [maybe two times, counting Thanksgiving] that food and gifts are given to the poor [what do they do the rest of the year?].

It has become quite a popular holiday in countries that don't even believe in Jesus --- popular because of its commercialism. Whatever the 'spirit' of Christmas is has dollar signs written all over it.

Just as some churches are beginning to see Halloween as wrong to celebrate because of what it's become, so I view Christmas the same. I truly do not see how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can take part in it. However, I don't consider them "bad" as much as I feel they are misguided and don't know any better.

Anyone who has become one of Jehovah's Witnesses has studied the scriptures about this and has acknowledged it is displeasing to God. If they have changed their minds and it has now become important for them to celebrate these things, why criticize us for our stand on it when it used to be one they made as well?

SusieM

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

jwnomore
Lurker

member is offline

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 14

Re: CHRISTMAS
« Reply #16 on Apr 8, 2008, 6:46pm »

Apr 8, 2008, 2:11pm, susiem wrote:

[quote author=jwnomore board=rec thread=33 post=1233 time=1207638687]
Quote:

Good luck with your taxes! Don't worry about 607 until they are done. I know that sometimes CARM posters can make you feel like this:

I have been waiting for a while to use that icon....

This is what I feel like with the IRS:
#fence#

*sigh*

Susie, I am just going to repeat this one point quick. I don't want to celebrate Christmas - it is not important for me to celebrate these things. It IS important to me to not judge others if they feel its OK for them AND it is equally important for me to not judge other is they decide it is not for them. See what I mean?

I bring up the meat sacrificed to idols because it is the same type of situtaion. One could argue that it was against God's principles to eat that meat - after all, under the old covenant, it was a grave sin. Paul said, that's not the sin - the sin would be if you took your Chritian freedom and used it in such a way that it caused others to stumble. But nobody should be judging anyone a sinner just because their conscience let them eat meat sacrificed to idols.

So for you SusieM, you see Christmas as very "commercialized" - I for one am with you on that point. XMas seems like a large headache for me. So many people go into debt just to get gifts ... not a smart idea. But what if somebody celebrated it by having a family dinner and going to church? They may put up a tree.. or not.. it doesn't matter. But the point is that if they take that day and use it to celebrate Christ's birth, then that's a day special to them. I could HATE Christmas (I'm not that too thrilled about it at all), but what I can't do is judge someone else's spirituality based on their decision to celebrate.

See what I mean?

You mention studying the scriptures and acknowledging that Christmas is displeasing to God. What scriptures would you use?

About the last sentence in previous post. If 607 wasn't the fall of Jerusalem, it carries some implications with that. Ones that reach all the way to 1914.

Thanks!

#tea4two#

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

susiem
Lurker

member is offline

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 40

Re: CHRISTMAS
« Reply #17 on Apr 8, 2008, 9:32pm »

Apr 8, 2008, 6:46pm, jwnomore wrote:

This is what I feel like with the IRS:
#fence#

My eyes are crossing from trying to decipher some of the instructions!! #insane# #throw#

Quote:

About the last sentence in previous post. If 607 wasn't the fall of Jerusalem, it carries some implications with that. Ones that reach all the way to 1914.

Thanks for clarifying that; I thought for a minute you meant you were quitting the discussion. #scooter#

Quote:

Susie, I am just going to repeat this one point quick. I don't want to celebrate Christmas - it is not important for me to celebrate these things. It IS important to me to not judge others if they feel its OK for them AND it is equally important for me to not judge other is they decide it is not for them. See what I mean?

I think I do #salute# .....let's say you are talking about those outside the congregation. I feel that they are just following traditions and customs their families have always followed and haven't really been taught anything else, certainly not all the falseness connected with it or about its origins from the Catholic church and paganism -- and those things may not bother them.

But, maybe you are talking about those within the congregation, baptized witnesses such as yourself who now believe there is nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas and feel it should be a conscience matter.

They know the scriptures: we are to worship Jehovah in spirit and truth. [John 4:23] The date is most certainly false [Luke 2:8-12], as is the Santa myth, the tree, etc.

But, let's say it's a conscience matter in spite of the commercialism and falseness and pagan roots and ties to the Catholic church. Do you see it contributing to the unity of the congregation, or rather would it cause divisions? Suppose your family decides to celebrate Christmas because it doesn't bother their consciences to do so; they invite you to join them but it bothers your conscience so you don't participate. Or, imagine that it's the other way around; it doesn't bother you, so you invite them or some of the friends to you celebration, but they decline. Won't this make for hurt feelings. Some may feel so strongly about it that soon new congregations are formed for each point of view. Don't think this is so very far-fetched. Churches have split over less and formed new denominations for those sharing the same viewpoint.

Isn't that what Paul goes to some extremes for, 'I shall eat meat no more rather than stumble a brother', to illustrate the unity we are to have?

Quote:

I bring up the meat sacrificed to idols because it is the same type of situtaion. One could argue that it was against God's principles to eat that meat - after all, under the old covenant, it was a grave sin. Paul said, that's not the sin - the sin would be if you took your Chritian freedom and used it in such a way that it caused others to stumble. But nobody should be judging anyone a sinner just because their conscience let them eat meat sacrificed to idols.

Quote:

So for you SusieM, you see Christmas as very "commercialized" - I for one am with you on that point. XMas seems like a large headache for me. So many people go into debt just to get gifts ... not a smart idea. But what if somebody celebrated it by having a family dinner and going to church? They may put up a tree.. or not.. it doesn't matter. But the point is that if they take that day and use it to celebrate Christ's birth, then that's a day special to them. I could HATE Christmas (I'm not that too thrilled about it at all), but what I can't do is judge someone else's spirituality based on their decision to celebrate.

See what I mean?

I hope what I've posted above goes to answering this somewhat.

Quote:

You mention studying the scriptures and acknowledging that Christmas is displeasing to God. What scriptures would you use?

First of all, God wants us to worship him in spirit and truth; [John 4:24] marking the birth of his Son at the wrong time of year [Luke 2:8-12] and on a day designed to make pagans more comfortable with the Catholic church is against worshipping in spirit and truth. All the trappings are false from the tree to the gift giving. [Psalm 5:6,7] I'm not against giving gifts, but the commercialism of Christmas takes away from the Bible based giving which is better than receiving for really the giving becomes stress-filled dutiful, rather than loving and spontaneous.

We are to remember Jesus' death, [Luke 22:19] not his birth; but Christmas is looked forward to more than it, if they observe his death at all.

As I noted before, all the world celebrates Christmas, with or without Christ in it; we are to be no part of the world. [John 17:16]

SusieM #smile#

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

susiem
Lurker

member is offline

Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 40

Re: CHRISTMAS
« Reply #18 on Apr 19, 2008, 1:36pm »

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article about the date of Christmas I found while researching dates:#smile#

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Dionysius/dionysius.html

Dionysius Exiguus, a monk from Russia who died about 544, was asked by Pope John I to set out the dates for Easter from the years 527 to 626. It seems that the Pope was keen to produce some order in the celebration of Easter. Dionysius decided to begin with what he considered to be the year of Jesus' birth. He chose the year in which Rome had been founded and determined, from the evidence known to him, that Jesus had been born 753 years later.

He was almost certainly acquainted with a suggestion by Hippolytus (170–236) that the date of Jesus' birth was December 25, but the trouble was that Hippolytus had not backed up this claim with sound arguments. Dionysius, however, had just the argument:
• His contemporaries claimed that God created the earth on March 25.
• It was inconceivable that the son of God could have been in any way imperfect.
• Therefore Jesus must have been conceived on March 25.
• This meant that he must have been born nine months later—December 25.

(Dionysius also concluded that, as a perfect being, Jesus could not have lived an incomplete life so he must have died on March 25 as well!)

December 25 was an auspicious choice. In 274, in Rome, the Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 a civic holiday in celebration of the birth of Mithras, the sun god. By 336, in that same city, Christians countered by celebrating the birth of Jesus, the son of God, on December 25.

Christians in Antioch in 375 celebrated the birth of Jesus on January 6. Christians in Alexandria did not begin to celebrate Christmas at all until 430. So until Dionysius came along there was confusion over dates, and debates raged, even over the usefulness of celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. What had been universally important for all Christians—the pre-eminent event—was the celebration of Easter.

--------------------------

SusieM

Link to Post - Back to Top IP: