Can you stop with the lies about traditional Christianity?

QvQ

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Thank you very much.
I did want to read The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Next! Thank you for the reminder
I read the Gospels of Thomas. I did not keep the copies. It seemed to be a thread of Christianity corrupted by some strong mix of an earlier or very different religion. Historically, it is of interest to see how the early pagans incorporated Christianity into their own cultures and beliefs. Like Christmas Trees, that nature/pagan worship eventually became subsumed into pure Christianity.
 
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The Liturgist

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Like Christmas Trees, that nature/pagan worship eventually became subsumed into pure Christianity.

I’ve never seen a Christmas Tree in an Orthodox church, and to my knowledge there is no Christian church in existence which uses the Christmas tree in its liturgy or worship.
 
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QvQ

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I’ve never seen a Christmas Tree in an Orthodox church, and to my knowledge there is no Christian church in existence which uses the Christmas tree in its liturgy or worship.
The northern pagans did have sacred trees, particularly the Germanic tribes. Christmas trees are a vestige of an older religion. It is my opinion that when Christianity was introduced into those cultures, the pagan religious leaders attempted to "meld" the new with the old. As if a Pagan Tree Priest taught that trees were still sacred because the Cross is wood. Not completely understanding the new Christianity and seeking to preserve the elements of the old, that is Gnostic. Christianity was pure then, pure now. Christmas trees are mere secular decoration. Gnostic, historically of some value. Otherwise, just a vestigial remnant of a bygone belief system.
 
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prodromos

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The northern pagans did have sacred trees, particularly the Germanic tribes. Christmas trees are a vestige of an older religion. It is my opinion that when Christianity was introduced into those cultures, the pagan religious leaders attempted to "meld" the new with the old. As if a Pagan Tree Priest taught that trees were still sacred because the Cross is wood. Not completely understanding the new Christianity and seeking to preserve the elements of the old, that is Gnostic. Christianity was pure then, pure now. Christmas trees are mere secular decoration. Gnostic, historically of some value. Otherwise, just a vestigial remnant of a bygone belief system.
What meaning did the pagans give to trees? What meaning did Christians? Are they the same?
 
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The Liturgist

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The northern pagans did have sacred trees, particularly the Germanic tribes. Christmas trees are a vestige of an older religion. It is my opinion that when Christianity was introduced into those cultures, the pagan religious leaders attempted to "meld" the new with the old. As if a Pagan Tree Priest taught that trees were still sacred because the Cross is wood. Not completely understanding the new Christianity and seeking to preserve the elements of the old, that is Gnostic. Christianity was pure then, pure now. Christmas trees are mere secular decoration. Gnostic, historically of some value. Otherwise, just a vestigial remnant of a bygone belief system.

Actually sacred trees are more of a vestige of Animism that survived into the polytheistic religions.

But the fact is, historically speaking, there was no “Pagan Tree Priest”, Christisns in countries where sacred groves were a thing, like Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, historically did not have them, and none of the traditional churches ever used Christmas Trees in worship.

Obviously, if people performed sacrifices to Christmas Trees, that would be something else.

Gnosticism, if anything, in its extreme rejection of the material world, reminds me of some extremely iconoclastic “four bare walls and a sermon” type of aliturgical churches.

It should also be noted that Paganism is no better or worse than any other non-Christian religion. So, while we do not have sacred trees in Christianity, we do have a sacred bush, that being the burning bush in Sinai, which survives and still exists to this day as part of one of the oldest and most important monasteries, that of St. Catharine, which also provides healthcare to bedouin tribes, and is also an autonomous Eastern Orthodox church, the smallest autonomous EO church in existence, and to my knowledge, the only Christian church to operate exclusively on the Sinai Peninsula, and the Christian church most at risk of being exterminated by Islamic terrorists (with the possible death of every member of the church).

Now, the fallacy of saying if Paganism had something, we should not have it is herein revealed. Paganism and Animism had and have sacred bushes (remember, Paganism is extinct, unless one counts Hinduism). Islam, which is the main rival to Christianity today, and which like Paganism in the first four centuries, is most likely to kill us violently (indeed, following the collapse of Hellenic, Egyptian and Mesopotamian Paganism around 400 AD, and a brief period where Persian Zoroastrians, the surviving Norse Pagans, Druids and Slavic Rodnovery Animists, combined with heretical Arians, who predominated among the Visigoths, who were converted not to the Orthodox-Catholic-Apostolic Nicene Christian faith of Calvin, Augustine, you, or me, but to Arianism, which today is represented by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, were collectively the main doers of violence to Christians, by the year 700, the ascendant Islamic caliphate surpassed all of them, and indeed soon converted the Visigoths and most Persians.

Now, Paganism has sacred bushes, and Islam is monotheistic. Just as we do not reject monotheism because of Islam, we also do not demand the monks at St. Catharine’s uproot the bush which had burned in the presence of the Holy Ghost when God spoke to Moses.
 
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QvQ

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Actually sacred trees are more of a vestige of Animism that survived into the polytheistic religions.

But the fact is, historically speaking, there was no “Pagan Tree Priest”, Christisns in countries where sacred groves were a thing, like Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, historically did not have them, and none of the traditional churches ever used Christmas Trees in worship.

Obviously, if people performed sacrifices to Christmas Trees, that would be something else.

Gnosticism, if anything, in its extreme rejection of the material world, reminds me of some extremely iconoclastic “four bare walls and a sermon” type of aliturgical churches.

It should also be noted that Paganism is no better or worse than any other non-Christian religion. So, while we do not have sacred trees in Christianity, we do have a sacred bush, that being the burning bush in Sinai, which survives and still exists to this day as part of one of the oldest and most important monasteries, that of St. Catharine, which also provides healthcare to bedouin tribes, and is also an autonomous Eastern Orthodox church, the smallest autonomous EO church in existence, and to my knowledge, the only Christian church to operate exclusively on the Sinai Peninsula, and the Christian church most at risk of being exterminated by Islamic terrorists (with the possible death of every member of the church).

Now, the fallacy of saying if Paganism had something, we should not have it is herein revealed. Paganism and Animism had and have sacred bushes (remember, Paganism is extinct, unless one counts Hinduism). Islam, which is the main rival to Christianity today, and which like Paganism in the first four centuries, is most likely to kill us violently (indeed, following the collapse of Hellenic, Egyptian and Mesopotamian Paganism around 400 AD, and a brief period where Persian Zoroastrians, the surviving Norse Pagans, Druids and Slavic Rodnovery Animists, combined with heretical Arians, who predominated among the Visigoths, who were converted not to the Orthodox-Catholic-Apostolic Nicene Christian faith of Calvin, Augustine, you, or me, but to Arianism, which today is represented by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, were collectively the main doers of violence to Christians, by the year 700, the ascendant Islamic caliphate surpassed all of them, and indeed soon converted the Visigoths and most Persians.

Now, Paganism has sacred bushes, and Islam is monotheistic. Just as we do not reject monotheism because of Islam, we also do not demand the monks at St. Catharine’s uproot the bush which had burned in the presence of the Holy Ghost when God spoke to Moses.
Thank you for the interesting history.
Welcome to any bush, burn it, water it, do whatever. The fact remains that I accept and agree with the religious world view of the monks at St Catherine. I do not accept or agree with the Gnostics. If Christianity is removed from the Gospel of St. Thomas, there remains a complete and very different religion.
A Muslim (claimed to be) once told me if he asked God to move a mountain, God would provide him with a wheel barrow and shovel. I learned many things from the Muslim about God and Faith. But rejected Islam as incomplete.
My religion is street smart, nuts and bolts. Christ is street smart, nuts and bolts. No flim flam which the Gnostics are. Don't know what denomination I am and don't know all the words like exegesis exactly.
 
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dzheremi

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Talk about Christmas trees or other externals is really pretty parochial, since they're only a western phenomenon, and only present outside of that context by the fact of the impact of western culture on other types of Christians (and non-Christians; when I lived in Oregon while I was going to college there, the second largest foreign-born student population were Saudis, and these people loved Christmas; it was obviously not a religious holiday for them, of course, but an excuse to exchange gifts and meet with friends, just like it is for the majority of westerners).

It's just like the Malankara Orthodox from India and their army of Santas and Christmas caroling (something we don't do in the Coptic Orthodox Church): it obviously betrays a Western/European influence -- which you might expect if you know anything about India's colonial history under the Portuguese and the British -- but it doesn't really touch their liturgical worship any. Can you really convict these people of anything beyond undoubtedly having more fun than you? (And one of them wearing a terrifying Santa mask, yes :eek:)


Meanwhile, in their Nativity liturgies...


Not a Santa hat to be found, nor a Christmas tree. :) This is right to do, of course, and I would take the fact that they can make such distinctions as these (what is for the liturgy and what is not) ought to be instructive to those who are looking from the outside, as any of us in this thread are. And I would like to extend the same courtesy to any others who I am not in communion with, too, like when the Antiochian Orthodox Arabs flex their pop music muscles for Christmas:


If I were to say "This type of music isn't in keeping with the Antiochian Orthodox tradition!" (cf. "Christmas trees aren't an integral part of the Christian faith!"), I would fully expect any Antiochian Orthodox person to answer "Yes, I know." :D That doesn't mean that they can't have it (clearly) and still be faithful to Christ and their Church.

We shouldn't confuse "These people have a Christmas tree" with "These people have succumbed to paganism" just because the pagans also had trees, since the context and meaning is totally different. It is up to the Church to draw the line appropriately, and it is not infrequently the case that criticism in matters such as these reveals a fundamental lack of trust in the Church to do so properly, which is unfaithful to Christ's words that the gates of hell shall not be victorious against His Church. Christ really said that, without adding "unless you have a Christmas tree." ;)
 
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The Liturgist

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Talk about Christmas trees or other externals is really pretty parochial, since they're only a western phenomenon, and only present outside of that context by the fact of the impact of western culture on other types of Christians (and non-Christians; when I lived in Oregon while I was going to college there, the second largest foreign-born student population were Saudis, and these people loved Christmas; it was obviously not a religious holiday for them, of course, but an excuse to exchange gifts and meet with friends, just like it is for the majority of westerners).

It's just like the Malankara Orthodox from India and their army of Santas and Christmas caroling (something we don't do in the Coptic Orthodox Church): it obviously betrays a Western/European influence -- which you might expect if you know anything about India's colonial history under the Portuguese and the British -- but it doesn't really touch their liturgical worship any. Can you really convict these people of anything beyond undoubtedly having more fun than you? (And one of them wearing a terrifying Santa mask, yes :eek:)


Meanwhile, in their Nativity liturgies...


Not a Santa hat to be found, nor a Christmas tree. :) This is right to do, of course, and I would take the fact that they can make such distinctions as these (what is for the liturgy and what is not) ought to be instructive to those who are looking from the outside, as any of us in this thread are. And I would like to extend the same courtesy to any others who am not in communion with, too, like when the Antiochian Orthodox Arabs flex their pop music muscles for Christmas:


If I were to say "This type of music isn't in keeping with the Antiochian Orthodox tradition!" (cf. "Christmas trees aren't an integral part of the Christian faith!"), I would fully expect any Antiochian Orthodox person to answer "Yes, I know." :D That doesn't mean that they can't have it (clearly) and still be faithful to Christ and their Church.

We shouldn't confuse "These people have a Christmas tree" with "These people have succumbed to paganism" just because the pagans also had trees, since the context and meaning is totally different. It is up to the Church to draw the line appropriately, and it is not infrequently the case that criticism in matters such as these reveals a fundamental lack of trust in the Church to do so properly, which is unfaithful to Christ's words that the gates of hell shall not be victorious against His Church. Christ really said that, without adding "unless you have a Christmas tree." ;)

Beautiful liturgy.
 
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QvQ

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Talk about Christmas trees or other externals is really pretty parochial, since they're only a western phenomenon, and only present outside of that context by the fact of the impact of western culture on other types of Christians (and non-Christians; when I lived in Oregon while I was going to college there, the second largest foreign-born student population were Saudis, and these people loved Christmas; it was obviously not a religious holiday for them, of course, but an excuse to exchange gifts and meet with friends, just like it is for the majority of westerners).

It's just like the Malankara Orthodox from India and their army of Santas and Christmas caroling (something we don't do in the Coptic Orthodox Church): it obviously betrays a Western/European influence -- which you might expect if you know anything about India's colonial history under the Portuguese and the British -- but it doesn't really touch their liturgical worship any. Can you really convict these people of anything beyond undoubtedly having more fun than you? (And one of them wearing a terrifying Santa mask, yes :eek:)


Meanwhile, in their Nativity liturgies...


Not a Santa hat to be found, nor a Christmas tree. :) This is right to do, of course, and I would take the fact that they can make such distinctions as these (what is for the liturgy and what is not) ought to be instructive to those who are looking from the outside, as any of us in this thread are. And I would like to extend the same courtesy to any others who I am not in communion with, too, like when the Antiochian Orthodox Arabs flex their pop music muscles for Christmas:


If I were to say "This type of music isn't in keeping with the Antiochian Orthodox tradition!" (cf. "Christmas trees aren't an integral part of the Christian faith!"), I would fully expect any Antiochian Orthodox person to answer "Yes, I know." :D That doesn't mean that they can't have it (clearly) and still be faithful to Christ and their Church.

We shouldn't confuse "These people have a Christmas tree" with "These people have succumbed to paganism" just because the pagans also had trees, since the context and meaning is totally different. It is up to the Church to draw the line appropriately, and it is not infrequently the case that criticism in matters such as these reveals a fundamental lack of trust in the Church to do so properly, which is unfaithful to Christ's words that the gates of hell shall not be victorious against His Church. Christ really said that, without adding "unless you have a Christmas tree." ;)
The Puritans believed that Christmas was a Christian veneer on a pagan holiday, which, being a Puritan, is my argument about Gnosticism, a thin Christian veneer on pagan religion.
The Southerners celebrated Christmas, still do, with all the trappings; caroling, Christmas Trees, gifts, Santa.
IT is separate from the religion, as Liturgist stated
 
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dzheremi

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The Puritans believed that Christmas was a Christian veneer on a pagan holiday, which, being a Puritan, is my argument about Gnosticism, a thin Christian veneer on pagan religion.
The Southerners celebrated Christmas, still do, with all the trappings; caroling, Christmas Trees, gifts, Santa.
IT is separate from the religion, as Liturgist stated

The specific way it is celebrated, sure, in that not all people go caroling, exchange gifts, have trees, etc. (this is all the specifically European/Greco-Roman stuff I was talking about in my post), but not the (liturgical) celebration itself. That has been part of Christianity the world over since c. 4th century, if memory serves me -- and before that it was still celebrated, it just wasn't separate from the celebration of Epiphany as its own thing; today only the Armenians keep the two together as one celebration, on January 6th, whereas the rest of the Christian East celebrates the Nativity the day after that. (Note: I don't agree with the reasoning for the December 25 date of Christmas given in the video below, which has very weak support in ancient sources, but I would have to conclude that if it somehow is true then it would indicate the present-day celebration of the Nativity as it is in Eastern Christianity to be a very deliberate move away from any association with paganism, thereby making this particular criticism of it by Puritans or any others completely irrelevant outside of a western context, i.e., for the majority of Christianity, if we conceive of things as Christians of that same bygone era would have, where there is one apostolic see founded in the West, and all the rest are in the East.)

 
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QvQ

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The specific way it is celebrated, sure, in that not all people go caroling, exchange gifts, have trees, etc. (this is all the specifically European/Greco-Roman stuff I was talking about in my post), but not the (liturgical) celebration itself. That has been part of Christianity the world over since c. 4th century, if memory serves me -- and before that it was still celebrated, it just wasn't separate from the celebration of Epiphany as its own thing; today only the Armenians keep the two together as one celebration, on January 6th, whereas the rest of the Christian East celebrates the Nativity the day after that. (Note: I don't agree with the reasoning for the December 25 date of Christmas given in the video below, which has very weak support in ancient sources, but I would have to conclude that if it somehow is true then it would indicate the present-day celebration of the Nativity as it is in Eastern Christianity to be a very deliberate move away from any association with paganism, thereby making this particular criticism of it by Puritans or any others completely irrelevant outside of a western context, i.e., for the majority of Christianity, if we conceive of things as Christians of that same bygone era would have, where there is one apostolic see founded in the West, and all the rest are in the East.)

To designate a day to honor the birth of Christ is akin to designating a random date to honor veterans. It is not clear that any Christian church was adamant that the day they commemorated the birth of Christ was the absolute specific date that he was born. However, the day designated in Rome was the same as Saturnalia. And it doesn't mean much in the scheme of things.
The criticism of Gnosticism, mine, is relevant as Gnosticism, Manichean, was declared to be heresy although by both East and West, I don't know.
I do know that I read the Gnostic books and I concluded they were not Christian, although masquerading as such. Now I am not a theologian but I agreed with the Church without knowing at that time what the Church opinion was or why. Just my opinion, heresy (old fashioned word for not Christian masquerading as such, corrupt)
 
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prodromos

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However, the day designated in Rome was the same as Saturnalia
This is an oft repeated falsehood. Saturnalia celebrations ran from 17-23 December. December 25 just happens to be the day in 274AD on which Emperor Aurelian dedicated a new temple to the Sun. It wasn't an annual dedication. I don't know of any significance December 25 had for pagans.
 
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QvQ

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This is an oft repeated falsehood. Saturnalia celebrations ran from 17-23 December. I don't know of any significance December 25 had for pagans.
(On the Julian calendar, which the Romans used at the time, the winter solstice fell on December 25.)
Better go inform "This Day in History" and Wikipedia
 
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prodromos

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(On the Julian calendar, which the Romans used at the time, the winter solstice fell on December 25.)
Better go inform "This Day in History" and Wikipedia
Like I said, its an oft repeated falsehood.
 
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Radagast

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To designate a day to honor the birth of Christ is akin to designating a random date to honor veterans.

An even closer analogy is the official "Queen's Birthday" celebration in Commonwealth countries. It's not her actual birthday.
 
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QvQ

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Not really. They only go back as far as the 1500s.
Mistletoe, yule logs, holly, decorating firs all remnants of the Paul Bunyon ancestors tree fetish and incorporated into the Christmas/Yuletide festivities, Yuletide is much older than Christianity, again the solstice celebration
Prodromos, on the Julian no, on the Gregorian yes. But it was a falsehood created by an official act, changing calendars and keeping the same numerical date.
 
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dzheremi

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To designate a day to honor the birth of Christ is akin to designating a random date to honor veterans. It is not clear that any Christian church was adamant that the day they commemorated the birth of Christ was the absolute specific date that he was born. However, the day designated in Rome was the same as Saturnalia. And it doesn't mean much in the scheme of things.
The criticism of Gnosticism, mine, is relevant as Gnosticism, Manichean, was declared to be heresy although by both East and West, I don't know.
I do know that I read the Gnostic books and I concluded they were not Christian, although masquerading as such. Now I am not a theologian but I agreed with the Church without knowing at that time what the Church opinion was or why. Just my opinion, heresy (old fashioned word for not Christian masquerading as such, corrupt)

Again, all you're doing with these kinds of criticisms is saying that you don't like a particular day that Rome chose based on an accusation that is not even well-supported in period sources. What does that have to do with the rest of the world outside of Rome that didn't follow Rome in selecting that particular day, and for whom that particular day would've had no relevance anyway as there was no preexisting pagan festival attached to it that it could be connected to like the Roman Saturnalia? (e.g., Egypt, Libya, Sudan, the Slavic countries, Armenia, Romania, India, Mesopotamia, etc.)


If I recall correctly, only a few people like Bar Hebraeus (who is much later than the 4th century) and maybe Jerome and a few others ever make this connection between some pagan holiday and Christmas anyway, and when they do they don't even mean it negatively (from what I can remember of Bar Hebraeus' mention, anyway), as it used to be taken as a positive thing that the Church would replace the pagan festivals in the process of Christianization of previously pagan people. Why should we who never bowed to anything Rome was doing in the first place change our whole orientation regarding questions like these (which, again, don't even apply to what we do; there is no pagan anything on January 6/7 to connect the Nativity with) because others don't like what Rome did? Maybe we don't either, as seems to be the case with the Armenians? (even though I think their claim in that video is not on solid ground.)

I don't understand. It seems like we're talking past each other here, or maybe it is not clear enough why the charge you are making is certainly not a good reason to reject the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ our God.

"Rome did this!"
"Okay, well we never did."
"Still you should recognize that Christmas is the repackaging of a pagan holiday."
"How's that?"
"Because of what Rome did!"
"...but we never did that, so why should we stop doing what we were already doing?"
"Because Rome did this!"

And around and around it goes, apparently. :scratch:
 
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QvQ

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Again, all you're doing with these kinds of criticisms is saying that you don't like a particular day that Rome chose based on an accusation that is not even well-supported in period sources. What does that have to do with the rest of the world outside of Rome that didn't follow Rome in selecting that particular day, and for whom that particular day would've had no relevance anyway as there was no preexisting pagan festival attached to it that it could be connected to like the Roman Saturnalia? (e.g., Egypt, Libya, Sudan, the Slavic countries, Armenia, Romania, India, Mesopotamia, etc.)


If I recall correctly, only a few people like Bar Hebraeus (who is much later than the 4th century) and maybe Jerome and a few others ever make this connection between some pagan holiday and Christmas anyway, and when they do they don't even mean it negatively (from what I can remember of Bar Hebraeus' mention, anyway), as it used to be taken as a positive thing that the Church would replace the pagan festivals in the process of Christianization of previously pagan people. Why should we who never bowed to anything Rome was doing in the first place change our whole orientation regarding questions like these (which, again, don't even apply to what we do; there is no pagan anything on January 6/7 to connect the Nativity with) because others don't like what Rome did? Maybe we don't either, as seems to be the case with the Armenians? (even though I think their claim in that video is not on solid ground.)

I don't understand. It seems like we're talking past each other here, or maybe it is not clear enough why the charge you are making is certainly not a good reason to reject the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ our God.

"Rome did this!"
"Okay, well we never did."
"Still you should recognize that Christmas is the repackaging of a pagan holiday."
"How's that?"
"Because of what Rome did!"
"...but we never did that, so why should we stop doing what we were already doing?"
"Because Rome did this!"

And around and around it goes, apparently. :scratch:
I celebrate Christmas.
The original point was that historically, as Christianity spread, there were periods when the original pagan holidays, symbols and doctrines were still strong. It is like ink being diluted by water. There is a time when the two are mixed, pagan and Christian until the water (Christianity) is almost pure except for a slight tint of ink, (the pagan symbols, the names of days, trees at Christmas, Gnosticism) without any real significance.
It was the Gnosticism that was the discussion, not Christmas.
 
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SkyWriting

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Seriously:This Constantine was the Pope/Bishop/Emperor (oh wait, the last one is correct).Muh Pagan Catholicism (seriously, unless you are Jewish, all your culture was originally pagan)False accusations of idolatry or blasphemy about the Mother of God being a "goddess"Etc, etc.

I never heard of 'em.
 
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