Start the walk to the truths that are being kept hidden from you by the darkness in our world.

Christmas is NOT Jesus' birthday. Its the Sun God's birthday. To participate in it is to worship the Sun God. Just like Sunday is the day of worship of the Sun God, not the Sabath which is Saturday.

Label me what you want, Im of no denomination. I just care enough to start saying something NOW. If only ONE of you starts to find the answers for yourself that Jesus wants you to have, then that is all that matters.

Jesus is Lord. Not the pope.

-- Adrian Cromwell (catlitter@cox.net), March 27, 2004

Answers

Adrian,
It is not quite that simple. It is possible that the celebration of the birth of Christ was placed on the date of a pagan holiday to supplant that holiday with a Christian one (not a bad strategic move it indeed that occurred), but there is evidence that Christmas predates the pagan holiday. If you are indeed interested in the history, I would recommend that you read this article.

In Christ,
Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), March 27, 2004.

Dont try to defend Christmas with more Catholic propaganda.

The fact is, if Jesus is in you and your sitting at some form of Christmas celebration and your ill with all the paganistic stuff going on around you, then you know what Im talking about. If you can just celebrate Christmas, Easter, and many other religious holidays without feeling a single form of uneasiness, then your not listening to Christy. Wake up.

Next time your participating in a Pagan ritual, just stop. And dont let those people around you tell you that your wrong. It is NOT wrong to care about your salvation and to stop participating in Paganism. You dont need those Pagan celebrations, but they need you.

Jesus is Lord. Not the pope.

-- Adrian Cromwell (catlitter@cox.net), March 27, 2004.

Jesus is indeed Lord - a fact which you know from reading Scriptures compiled by the Catholic Church - scriptures which are therefore in perfect accord with its teachings. Writings which were not in accord with the teaching of the Church were not included by the Church when it compiled its book - obviously. Those same Sriptures identify Simon Peter as the one man to whom Jesus entrusted the keys to His kingdom. The one man who was singled out to bind and loose all that defines the Christian Church and the Christian faith. History clearly records the unbroken chain of authority from Simon the Rock to John Paul II.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), March 27, 2004.

Adrian,
I think you are against the secularization of religious holidays. I agree with you there. You might be against any religious holidays as not being necessary for the faithful if they have 'true faith'. I hope you are not saying that, if you are, then you are pre-judging people based on some arbitrary standard of your own. Even Christ honored religious holidays.

As far as Chistmas is concerned: I am giving you history, it isn't really Catholic propaganda, and it is documented. Read though it. Today's Christmas litergy as defined by the Church is not a pagan ceremony and was started way before the Protestant reformation. I think you would be hard pressed to find any paganism in it. Others, especially the secular world, have morphed parts of it into a secular celebration, but that was not the doing of the Church, and it came long after the establishment of the holiday.

The most anyone can say is that the Church might have be placed Christmas upon a date that once was a pagan holiday (again the history is a bit fuzzy on which came 1st the pagan holiday or the Christian one). Go ahead and look up the references cited in the link I posted, I think you will find that they are well founded in history.

By the way, it is not uncommon for Christians to replace pagan holidays with Christian ones, that way the pagan holiday would not be celebrated anymore and a Christian one would be celebrated in its place. It has happened throughout history, up to the present day.

In Christ,
Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@Hotmail.com), March 27, 2004.

Adrian,
Here is non-Catholic's answer to your basic question: Is Christmas Necessary? He also talks about some of the secular 'add-ons' that our society [not the Catholic Church] has placed into the holiday.

In Christ,
Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@Hotmail.com), March 27, 2004.

Adrian, Your a recent convert, right? I love the passion you have in your notes, but please drop the judgementalism, ok?

By the way, Catholics don't think the pope is Lord. We believe Jesus is Lord, and we also believe that He is our Lord and Savior.

In Christ,
Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), March 27, 2004.

Ah, another poor senseless victim of jack chick and his fundy friends. where is that link to jack chick from catholic answers when you need it? (that was very useful, by the way)

Adrian, most of your information is false, based on verifiably false writings by anti catholics who have nothing but hate in their lives. ask yourself, do you want to be a christian filled with love, or one filled with hate? then ask yourself what it type it appears your sources are.

Third, test your information. Fundamentalist "sources" are rarely qualified for the expert level they claim on subjects. Does the source's information agree with secular and non-biased information. most likely not. For example: name the sun god that your source claims was celebrated on christmas... if its not RA or appollo (or his equivalent greek sun god) then your source is misinformed because those are the only three sun gods preexistant to christianity. Next, common sense test the idea. Sun God celebrated on a day in the middle of winter??? i doubt it, that holiday would have more likely fallen somewhere near the longest day of the year, not near the shortest.

use your head, Adrian, your claims don't even make secularly logical sense. stop reading those tracts of jack chicks, as they are protestant propaganda which will only lead you into hate.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), March 27, 2004.

link to jack chick from catholic answers

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), March 27, 2004.

He's not a Chickster. Chick celebrates Christmas and worships on Sunday. Adrian is opposed to Sunday worship and Christmas.

By no means does this mean Chick is always right et all, however, his rhetoric is more in line withthe seventh Day Adventists than Jack Chick. ( He also doesnt link to them though, so more than likely he is a mmber of a radical fringe group.)

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), March 27, 2004.

Adrian, from your quote "Jesus is Lord, not the Pope" it's obvious you are ignorant of Catholicism. Check out that site about "Jack Chick" or read the book "More Biblical Evidence For Catholicism" by Dave Armstrong (A former Protestant) and maybee you'll understand. There's a great chapter called "Is the Catholic Church Pagan" which deals with the faulty claims you make against the church with holidays. Praise the Lord for his Holy Word, and His Holy Spirit, and His Son JESUS CHRIST! Amen!

-- William (Ducin25@aol.com), March 27, 2004.

Interestingly, Sun of Righteousness is one of the titles given to Christ Jesus by the Orthodox Church. Therefore to participate in worshipping God the Sun of Righteousness (Jesus) at Christmas is of course entirely appropriate.

I believe (though someone may correct me here) that it's a similar title to Christ the Light of the World.

-- Sara (sara_catholic_forum@yahoo.co.uk), March 28, 2004.

Adrian,

Someone answered your objection on this thread, based on the Bible. Here is the post by someone name "Interested Party":

Actually, the idea that Christmas is dated to Dec. 25 because that was a pagan feastday (i.e. the birth of the Sun God) is false and was debunked years ago. The use of Dec. 25 as the birth of the Sun God was not instituted until under the Aurelian Emperors in A.D. 251. The celebration of Christmas dates to ca. A.D. 190 (mentioned in a fragment of Hippolytus of that date) or even earlier. The Christian origin of the date is probably Biblical. In LK 1:5-25 it says that the priest Zachary "entered the temple to burn incense" -- ancient Christians knew that entering the temple was something only the High Priest could do and then only on Yom Kippur. So they thought Zachary must have been a high priest (whether this is right or not is irrelevent to the logic of the date--I am not arguing that the ancient Christians were right). Yom Kippur was believed to be about the date Sept. 24 or so. Zachary went home and conceived his son John the Baptism. He was thus born 9 months later on Jun. 24. Jesus was 6 months younger than John (Lk 1:26). So Jesus was born on the night of Dec. 24/25. Or so ancient Christians reasoned. The pagans seem to have put the Sun God's birth on that date to counter the popular Christian feast.

-- Interested-Party (no-spam@notmail.com), March 25, 2004.

-- Emily (jesusfollower7@yahoo.com), March 28, 2004.