Christmas and how I see it.

[Mammamel]

Christmas and how I see it.
I know many ladies here will disagree with me on this, but every year these useless arguments come up. (2 Timothy 2)
First of all, Christmas is no more a Bible holy day than new years or thanksgiving. It was a feast day for the winter solstice.
Now early Christians wanting to convert pagans changed it to a “Christian” holiday. Actually it was the catholic religion, and we all know how mel feels about religion… (Note, for new readers, mel does not endorse any religion, only Bible Faith)
Halloween, Christmas and Easter are all taken from pagan feast days. Now, the translators of the KJV put easter in place of Pentecost, not sure why as easter as far as I can find is not in the original greek texts.


Now for the record I do not have an issue with celebrating any feast days. Why? Because God doesn’t. (Colossians 2:6) Yes I know many see Halloween as a carnival for evil, and that is THEIR issue. Personally I find it ironic that those who refuse to celebrate Halloween (for the record I don’t, it just isn’t my thing) have no issue with Christmas or easter when the actual “roots” are the same.


Now yes, I understand the “but the pagans” argument. What are pagans? Pagans are the lost. What they did, do or did not and do not do, mean NOTHING to Christians. Giving anything they did credence gives them power. We are under God’s control or should be.


I mean come on, the days of the week; the months of the year are ALL named for pagan gods and goddesses. So if we follow the “you can’t do this its pagan” line to its logical conclusion, we have to rename all the days of the week and months of the year. Caesar was a pagan, so the way we count time has to be redone as well.


Now here is why I feel the way I do, and first and foremost no I am NOT a liberal Christian, many of our very conservative ladies are more liberal than I am.

First off God has ALL the power. He made the days, it doesn’t matter what our ancestors did with them, as long as we remember WHO made them and why. (Genesis 1)

Secondly, God tells us to rejoice in everyday because it is one He made. It doesn’t matter what the day is. (Psalm 118)

Third God tells us not to judge others for celebrating feasts, moons and so on. WE ARE NOT TO JUDGE anyone for what days THEY DECIDE to mark. (Colossians 2)

Fourth, God says the days mean nothing, all His feast days and such were to foreshadow Christ, who came and filled them all. (Hebrews 9)

Fifth, if the early catholic church can convert days to mean what ever they want to, so can I.

Now some say well I won’t do Santa Claus. Do you even know who he is? YES Virginia, there WAS a real man behind Santa Claus.
Here is a short version of the story of his history:

Today is St Nicholas' day, the saint responsible for the frenzy of gift giving we indulge in at this season. According to the legend he was passing the home of a family which lacked the wealth to pay the dowry for the daughters of the house to marry and so secretly made up purses which he then had delivered to the house as a gift to each daughter. The legend has grown a little in the telling, but the fact is that he was known in his own time for his generosity to all in need and his willingness to give even what he needed to someone he judged in greater need than himself.
He was Bishop of Smyrna, now part of modern Turkey and is regarded as one of the best examples of Christian living of his time. Interestingly, in some parts of Europe, including Holland, St Nicholas' Day is the day on which gifts are traditionally exchanged and Christmas is kept as a feast dedicated purely to the Christ Child.

Taken from this site, my research all indicates this to be accurate information.
http://graymonk.mu.nu/archives/2005/...holas_bis.html (http://graymonk.mu.nu/archives/2005/12/st_nicholas_bis.html)

Now true the commercial dude we have today is not indicative of the real guy. However, why not give your kids the real scoop? Use this man to teach them charity, how to care for the less fortunate, as Christ commands us to do. To teach them how real humans CAN put into action the things the Son of God did while He was here teaching us. This guy did his best to follow Christ’s example.


Just because market street doesn’t follow his example is no reason to tarnish his name with blather about taking Christ out of Christmas, cuz truthfully, until the catholic church put Him there, Christ wasn’t there. (Other than being part of the day as He is in everyday)


The Bible NEVER tells us to celebrate the birth of the Savior. Now I personally love the tradition surrounding it, Crèches are one of my favorite things and the Bible account of His birth is the most beautiful story I have ever read.


However God wants us to focus on His saving act, not His birth as a mortal man. What are we told to do? (1 Corinthians 16) We are told to take the communion in remembrance of Him who died to set us free. Not once a year, but on the first day of the week.


To do anything else, and claim it to be a holy day is to add to the Bible. ONLY God can set up a Holy Day. God Himself has said in the new testament that no day is special any longer, we are to have no regard of days. At least as far as HE is concerned. Now does He say we can not celebrate and make merry with our friends and family? NO! Added to that He specifically tells us NOT to judge those who do.

So because one does not celebrate does not make them a better Christian, more moral, more righteous nor does it mean they have higher values than those who do not. God doesn’t make that distinction, so neither can we.

Conversely celebrating them with the freedom God gives us does not make us more knowledgeable or discerning than those who do not. (A direct example is between eating meat or not in 1 Corinthians, neither side is better than the other)

The bigger issue with this is when I see this discussed, and unfortunately is usually the “well I don’t” camp that I see this with, is pride. I have seen pride a lot on the site lately. Sort of acting as if they are on a pedestal and we mere lesser Christians.


Ladies, acting like that casts a bad light on Christ, and is not how HE acted, EVER to the people of His day. Neither do we have reason to act that way. If He who had reason to be prideful of His way of living was the most humble, we can do no less. Besides, I have never seen a snobby Christian win souls to God, but I have see the reverse happen, many times.

[Dannielle]

:love-smiley-008:

[happymom]

Thank you so much for sharing this. It is all so well put. I think I will have my husband read it. We have been researching all of this, and you have summed it up so well. Thanks again.

[egg30]

Thank you Mel.

Eva

[jmgrizza]

:bighug:

[Mislead....]

I have been doing much biblical/historical studying over the past few years. It is time to study history (not what the public"Gov't" school system fed us).
Most of our forefathers/ancestors lives were dictated & driven by higher learned and very crafty forces--I still have a father-in-law with a 8th grade education. We hold dear to the traditions that they were bamboozled into believing.....because every one else followed in those days. Most importantly...If they did'nt follow them....some form of discrimination was bestowed onto them (Peer pressure,Laws,Outcasts,witches,etc.). Now is the time to sort out fact from fiction & get your life in order. Use a internet search engine & study these things for yourself. Type in:Origins of ......Christmas,Easter,Thanksgiving,Halloween. Study also:Constantines role in Christianity,Secrets of the Vatican...Etc. It is up to each individual to find their way........sift through the deception.........May the truth set us free. God bless

http://godkind.org/pagan-holidays.html
*We The Blind/We The People" --->Another similar story/Different perspective http://richmond.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12342/index.php (Copy/paste into address bar)

The Real Origins of Turkey Day

It is quite human to do things the way it was done previous. To accept what you have known as the way things are and as how they should be - and to not question the origins of things which seem self-evident. Thanksgiving is one of these things.

The Pilgrims and the Indians sitting down for dinner together is not the real reason for Thanksgiving, as most people might think.

Thanksgiving is in fact not an old holiday, or connected to 17th century New England in any way. No "Thanksgiving" feast occurred in Plymouth. Only within the 20th century did people begin to associate this day with the Pilgrims and the Indians. This was promulgated mostly by a cheery whitewashing of the Pilgrim-Indian relationship, and the Christian slant given the day of observance created by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

"The Pilgrims were Puritans, which is a very strict religion," Professor of Early American History Edward Gray said. "The way they gave thanks was through fasting. They would not have feasted to give thanks." Had the Pilgrims been giving thanks, the leader of the church would have announced a time of atonement throughout the town. This would have resulted in solemn prayer and fasting for a specified number of days.

The only reason that the myth itself of a 17th century Thanksgiving dinner exists is due to a letter found in England from Plymouth stating that there was a feast from the good harvest. He was writing his parents to say that the previous winter had been extremely rough and much of the colony had died. He stated that after the next harvest, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans ate a harvest feast.


Abrham Lincoln

Most of the food at modern tables for Thanksgiving doesn't really even resemble the food at this first harvest festival in 17th century New England. That feast might have included a wild turkey, but it would certainly have included seafood and shellfish -- the primary food sources for New England Native Americans. The meal also would have had nuts and berries.

The true tale behind the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce dates lead back to before the end of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln decided that Americans needed to have a day to give thanks to God. In the middle of the civil war, Lincoln was grappling for ways for people to come together, trying to hold the union from breaking apart. Lincoln stated in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of Oct. 3, 1863, "I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." Lincoln also advised Americans to help each other and pray for one another on this day. It is widely recognized among historians that due to Lincoln's decision, Americans all around the country feast in thanks on the last Thursday in November.

And over time, starting from Lincoln's proclamation - this tradition evolved of specific dishes. This combined with white guilt over how the Indians were treated and got somehow transformed into this idea of Pilgrims and Indians coming together. This single feast linked through one letter sent back home turned into this bland, mindless gorging by a country who neither farms or harvests, nor does it hardly show the proper dignity and respect to the people who were here first, the Natives, who saved the first Pilgrims'in the first place.


"Tradition is the illusion of permanence"

William Bradford


Reflections on the Pilgrims and Their Relations With The Natives

In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast(at Plymouth Rock) delivering 102 Puritan exiles. The original Native people "Indians") of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off in great numbers. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea behind. That plague swept the so called "tribes of New England", destroyed some villages totally.

The Puritans landed and built their colony called "the Plymouth Plantation" near the desired ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Historical accounts tell us that only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived. He had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. The Pilgrim crop failed miserably, but the agricultural expertise of Squanto produced 20 acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. Squanto spoke the colonists' language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch fish. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.

These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the Puritans not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace. In celebration of their good fortune, the colony's governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast after the first harvest of 1621. It later became known as "Thanksgiving", but the Pilgrims never called it that.


Squanto

The "Indians" who attended were not even invited. The pilgrims only invited Chief Massasoit and it was Massasoit who then invited ninety or more of his "Indian" brothers and sisters to the affair to the chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the "Indians" were not invited back for any other such meals. The Pilgrims did however consume a good deal of brew on that day. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day which they preferred even to water.

The peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the Puritans would have fifteen years to establish a firm foothold on the coast. Until 1629 there were no more than 300 Puritans in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of Plymouth; Boston and Salem. For ten years, boat loads of new settlers came.

As the Europeans' numbers increased, they proved not nearly as generous as the Wampanoags. On arrival, the Puritans discussed "who legally owns all this land? "Massachusetts Governor Wintrop declared the "Indians" had not "subdued" the land, and therefore all uncultivated lands should, according to English Common Law, be considered "public domain." This meant they belonged to the king. In short, colonists decided they did not need to consult the "Indians". When they seized the new lands, they only had to consult the representative of the crown (meaning the local governor).

The Puritans embraced a line from Psalms 2:8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heather for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of he earth for thy possession."

Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indigenous People ("Indians"). A company of Pilgrims led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He beheaded an Indian named Wituwamat and brought the head to Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years.

In about 1636, a force of colonists trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians near the mouth of the Mystic River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken.
"To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice to the great delight of the Pilgrims, and they gave praise thereof to God."

The Puritan fathers believed they were the Chosen People of an Infinite God and that this justified anything they did. They were Calvinists who believed that the vast majority of humanity was predestined to ****ation. During this period a day of thanksgiving was also proclaimed in the churches of Manhattan. The European colonists declared thanksgiving days to celebrate mass murder more often than they did for reverence, harvest or friendship.

In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first "scalp bounty". His government paid money for the scalp of each "Indian" brought to him. A couple of years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a "friendly tribe". Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated, skinned alive and forced at points to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed. Then Kieft hired the notorious Underhill who had commanded in the Pequot War to carry out a similar massacre near Stamford, Connecticut. The village was set on fire, and 500 "Indian" residents were put to the sword.


Metacomet

In their victory, the settlers launched an all out genocide plot against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government, following what appeared to be the order of the day, offered twenty shillings bounty for every "Indian" scalp, and forty shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave and rape any "Indian" woman or enslave any "Indian" child under 14 they could kidnap. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful Indians" of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts and were sold onto slave ships. Colonial law further gave permission
to "kill savages ("Indians") on sight at will."

Any goodwill that may have existed was certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding colonies were in a full scale war with the great chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Phillip" by the White man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyles and culture of his people as European laws and values engulfed them. The syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox and all types of "white man" diseases took their toll. Forced ultimately into humiliating submission by the power of a distant king, Metacomet struck out with raids on several isolated frontier towns. The expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians" (natives converted to their version of Christianity), ultimately defeated the great "Indian" nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great "Indian" chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth where it was set upon a poke on Thanksgiving Day, 1767. Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being that the offspring of the "Devil" must pay for the sins of their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust/Genocide of the Red Man and woman, Governor Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate the brotherhood of man, but for:

[God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors... In defeating and disappointing.... the expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...

[AngiePangie]

Great post! :bravo-009:

This past year we have stopped celebrating the made up calendar holidays. We had a harvest meal on the autumn equinox because it feels more right than Thanksgiving, which in Canada is a random picked day, with no ties to anything - at least from what I have read. So we do something nice in thanksgiving for a new cycle of His year, same as the other seasons and times, like halloween / all saints day or the solstices which to me is always a signal of one season settling in and the other ending.
I also feel uncomfortable celebrating Christ's birthday because, imo, it isn't and we aren't biblically told to. So now we do giftmas, which still gives me a reason to decorate and buy / make gifts and look at lights and donate time or stuff and all that junk which makes me happy and doesn't feel weird to my Godly relationship. I have no problems with those who celebrate his birthday though. Or thanksgiving because then we get invited out for a free dinner *yum*

I hope I worded that right:)

[Mammamel]

OK the whole point is, GOD made our days. It does not matter who claims what day for this or that. They ALL, pagan or indian or greek, scot, and so on, belong to GOD.
I can not hold anything against any for what day they choose to celebrate, new moon, made up holiday, harvest what ever.

You see the whole point is, I can not condemn my sisters who choose to celebrate Christ's birth, because, even though the Bible doesn't tell us to, it doesn't us not to either. Its that pesky tenet of speaking where the Bible speaks and where it is quiet shutting up. GOD says:

Romans 14:4-6 (Amplified Bible)

4Who are you to pass judgment on and censure another's household servant? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he shall stand and be upheld, for the Master (the Lord) is mighty to support him and make him stand.
5One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike [sacred]. Let everyone be fully convinced (satisfied) in his own mind.
6He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Since that is all God has to say on it, that is all I have to say.