St. Nicolas of Myra is a recognized saint in all the historic churches. The "saints" are not super humans who walked around with halos about their heads, they were ordinary men and women which the Church remembers for their lives of faith and witness to Jesus Christ. The historical St. Nicolas of Myra is a saint by this definition, and is remembered as such by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Oriental Orthodox Churches along with the rest of the historically recognized saints. By definition that makes him a saint; as sainthood is nothing other than an honorific recognized by the Church as a whole.
If there was a real Nicolas of Myra, and he is recognized and remembered as a saint in the Christian Church, then that makes him a saint. What, exactly, do you think makes someone a "catholic saint"?
Because, there are historic records, in which, a person is called an actual saint in the church, which all saints are recorded. He, is not in those records. There is
no record in the historic line of catholic saints. None, anywhere around that time period. You can deny it all you like, but there isn't, I'm sorry.
Do
I, personally think that it matters if someone is a
catholic saint? No, but he's depicted as a catholic saint, that the church remembers because of his acts. He might have existed, but the story of him being a catholic saint, is wrong.
To be a saint on the other hand, all you need to do is to love God, and be obedient to Him, as opposed to your own will, and the world. The children of God, are saints.
False. Saturnalia lasted from December 17th to December 23rd.
True, but saturnalia was for 7 days, but they would celebrate saturnalia, and then end it with the sol invictus celebration - which only lasted 2 days, from the 25th, to the 27th. So my apologies, I heard the whole thing lasted for 12 days altogether, but that was misinformation, you're right about the 12 days involving saturnalia.
However, the 12 days does in fact come from the festival called yuletide, which lasted from the 20th, to the 31st. They changed the dates in an attempt to remove the pagan worship, but historically, that didn't work out well. As it can be seen in the fact that christmas was illegal up until the late 1800's-early 1900's in the US because it didn't work, and pagan festivities would still continue to happen.
Saturnalia had nothing to do with sun god worship. Saturnalia was an observance that celebrated Saturn, cognate with the Greek titan Kronos. Neither Saturn nor Kronos are sun gods.
Saturnalia and Sol Invictus (which means unconquered sun) go hand in hand, pagans would celebrate both. Sol Invictus started on the 25th, and was the birth of the sun "god", but catholicism changed the birth of the "sun god" to the birth of the "son
of God", in hopes to make it easier for pagans to change to christianity.
Odin however was a "god" that led his brothers and sisters (the titans) in a revolt against their father to become king of the "gods"... it's literally a story about satan man... and that is where we get most of our practices involving christmas from, if you want to justify this, go for it.
A common ancient headdress which was the basis for many later headdresses, that some ancient gods were depicted wearing it is irrelevant. Zeus is depicted as wearing sandals, that doesn't make sandals pagan and evil.
The phrygian hat, was worn by molech, which was recognized by the romans as the god of saturn, which is why I brought it up. The god that people would sacrifice their children to by molding metal of him and burning them in his metal hands, his metal bosom, or by simply burning them in fire before his feet, is now who parents the world over place their children on the lap of.
Not only that, but leaving food out for "gods", brother... santa is depicted
as a god. He knows when you're sleeping, knows when you've been good or bad, can fly through the sky, has endless wealth and knows what children want and can give said gifts to every child on earth, whilst fitting through their chimneys and eating all of their cookies. He's got god-like qualities given to him that
only God would be able to do, and we have a tradition in which we're offering food to him. It's a food offering man... it's literally a whoring out to another being, and even though parents don't believe in it, it's still a food offering to the "god" of saturn, that the child believes in.
Saturnalia lasted seven days, inclusive, from the 17th to the 23rd of December. The 12 days of Christmas refers to the Season of Christmas which lasts from Christmas Day until the day before Epiphany. The Christian Calendar is divided into seasons, Christmastide is one of those seasons.
This is correct. The 12 days however, comes from the 12 days of yuletide.
No. Yule was a Germanic tradition that honored Odin and the hunt during the winter season. Odin isn't a sun god.
No, he's not the sun god, but he's connected to the planet saturn. His son, was thor, and thor is called the son of saturn. Saturn is satan, if you look at the lore of each of the pagan gods, all throughout the histories of the cultures of the world, they all have an attributing to saturn, and the stories are the same - it is a "god" that led a revolt against their father, to become king of the "gods". So, it's still in celebration of the planet saturn, which is the same planet attributed to molech, which is a "god" that God, literally tells us
not to have anything to do with, let alone making festivals and holiday traditions after them putting their names and traditions and ideas on par with Jesus in the minds of our children.
The earliest known recognizable Christmas trees date back to the early Lutherans of the 16th century. The practice of bringing in a tree into one's home doesn't date further back than this, prior to this decorated trees were found in parts of Germany around Christmas time since the Renaissance.
That's why I said that christmas trees aren't found until at least 1000 years after all of this. They did however bring the same exact type of tree that we use for christmas trees (an evergreen) in it's bush format into homes - my guess is because it's
much easier to fit into homes? Idk, but they either brought clippings, or entire bushes into their homes. Just not the trees, as you stated, it came much later, and I agreed on this point in my OP.
Wreaths, yes. Reindeer didn't exist in the region of the Roman Empire, but live in the frozen north of Scandinavia. There are eight reindeer because that's the number which Clark Moore used in his famous poem T'was the Night Before Christmas. The earliest depiction of Santa with a reindeer-drawn sleigh comes from the early 19th century. The reindeer motif stems from the fact that in many parts of Europe Santa lives in Lapland, the north pole designation is a North American twist. Caroling--the act of singing as a group--is a Protestant thing, based on the Lutheran position that encouraged congregational singing; in the middle ages the singing of hymns was generally restricted to choirs, Martin Luther believed in a more active congregational participation in the Mass and encouraged and emphasized congregational singing.
We actually get the 8 reindeer because of odin's eight legged horse, but close. You have to realize that catholics wanted to make all of the pagan tradition to become appeasing to christians, so the transition was easier for the pagans, so they literally - they admitted to doing this - took ideas from all over paganism regarding practices of this time (saturnalia, yuletide, yule, and sol invictus) and made them their own.
Well, congratulations on getting everything wrong.
-CryptoLutheran
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Eh, agree to disagree. I generally don't debate on here anymore because it takes so long to respond, especially to things like this. This took legit an hour, and I could've been doing anything else. I'll respond to the other message you sent me one of these days, it was on the pagan root and origin of words like hell, and holy and such, but because there were so many words and it'd take so incredibly long to show the origins of those words, only to have you most likely not believe me anyway, it's not too appealing of a way to spend an hour, hour and a half.
Regardless though, I realize we probably won't agree. If you want to celebrate christmas, even after knowing and reading what I've shown you regarding it's connection to saturn, the sun god, molech, go for it. Just know, biblically, it's not a good thing. None of it. It's ripped from paganism, and that alone should deter us.