Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,150,991 members, 7,810,766 topics. Date: Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 02:58 PM

Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala - Religion - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Religion / Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala (559 Views)

Why I'm Convinced That No One Will Make Heaven, Be You A Christian Or A Pagan / "Christians Should Apologise To Gays" - Pope Francis / Why Christians Should Not Celebrate Easter- Femi Aribisala (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply) (Go Down)

Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala by TheGreenDay: 10:53am On Jan 03, 2016
Christians are supposed to be disciples of Jesus. We call him Lord and Saviour; “the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus gives us this charge: “Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you.” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Nevertheless, many of us who call Jesus “Lord, Lord” do not do the things he says. (Luke 6:46). Worse still, many Christians are unfamiliar with the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus never told anyone to celebrate his birthday. If he wanted us to do so, he would have told us when and how. He did not. Moreover, we know from the scriptures that the early church never celebrated Jesus’ birthday. There is no such record in the Acts of the Apostles. We are told to remember the Lord’s death (Luke 22:19), and not to celebrate his birth.



Ungodly birthday parties

Every birthday celebration recorded in the bible is ungodly; and results in either mischief or disaster. As one of the special features of his birthday, Pharaoh had one of his servants, the chief baker, hung. (Gen 40:20-22). In similar fashion, one of the highlights of Herod’s birthday party was the beheading of John the Baptist. (Matthew 14:6-11).

Job fears the birthday parties of his children are prone to ungodliness: “When these birthday parties ended – and sometimes they lasted several days – Job would summon his children to him and sanctify them, getting up early in the morning and offering a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said, ‘Perhaps my sons have sinned and turned away from God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular practice.” (Job 1:4-5).

True enough, God wiped out all of Job’s children in one disaster that came while they were celebrating the birthday of his oldest son. (Job 1:13-19). Thereby, Job came to realise the vanity of life. He cursed his birthday, saying: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’” (Job 3:3). So does Jeremiah who exclaims: “Cursed be the day in which I was born! Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!” (Jeremiah 20:14).

Birthday parties are carnal and worldly; therefore believers are never seen holding them in the scriptures. Jesus says: “Whoever loves his life loses it.” (John 12:25). True believers do not celebrate every extra year spent on earth away from God.



Unscriptural Christmas

Jesus says: “Salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22). However, Christmas is not Jewish: it is Roman. You will not find in the scriptures any of the things normally associated with Christmas, such as the exchanging of gifts; the Christmas tree; the singing of carols; Santa Claus; the hanging of the mistletoe and the burning of the yule log. These are all of pagan origin.

Charles Spurgeon, the famous English preacher of the nineteenth century, said: “Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas… we find no scriptural word whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because (it is) not of divine authority.”

Christmas was not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church. The general Jewish pattern was to celebrate the death of a remarkable person rather than his birth. Thus, Solomon says: “A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1-4).

The word “Christmas” itself comes from the combination of two words; “Christ” and “mass.” The mass, according to Roman Catholicism, is a prayer read for the soul of a dead person. The contradiction of celebrating the death of Christ on a date alleged to be his birthday came about because Christmas originally had nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of Jesus.

However, the Church of Rome absorbed the customs, traditions and general paganism of different tribes, cultures and nations, in the bid to make it easy for pagans to become Christians. Accordingly, a feast was established in memorial of Jesus in the fourth century. In the fifth century, the Roman Catholic Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the same day as the pagan feast of the birth of the sun.



Pagan Christmas

December 25 celebrations actually started with sun-worshipers during the time of Nimrod; the man who supervised the building of the tower of Babel. His widow, Semiramis, said to be the queen of heaven, had a son called Tammuz; venerated by many as the god of the sun. It was believed that Tammuz died on December 22 and rose from the dead three days later.

Emperor Aurelian of Rome proclaimed the sun god Tammuz to be the principal patron of the Roman Empire on December 25, 274 AD. The date corresponds with the winter solstice when pagans celebrate the renewed power of the sun. It was also the day of the Roman Saturnalia; a festival dedicated to Saturn, the God of Agriculture, after whom Saturday is named.

The Romans also observed “the Kalends of January;” representing the triumph of life over death. The entire season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis; the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.”

After Constantine, the Roman emperor, won the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he forced all the pagans of his empire to be baptised into the Christian church. So doing, Christianity became paganised, especially because pagans far outnumbered Christians. December 25, the date of Tammuz’s alleged rebirth, was then designated as also the birthday of Jesus.



Christmas tree

Thenceforth, pagan traditions of feasts, partying, giving and receiving of gifts and drunken orgies became grafted into the Christianity. This means whenever Christians say “Merry Christmas,” we are actually mixing the name of Christ with paganism.

It is written in Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD: “Do not learn the way of the heathen; do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple.” (Jeremiah 10:2-4).

What we have here in the scriptures is a perfect description of the decorated Christmas tree. God castigates this as “the way of the heathen.” He expressly commands we should not subscribe to such idolatry. The green tree is mentioned 14 times in the bible and, in every instance, it is linked with idolatry. And yet, it is this same green tree that Christians use as our Christmas tree.

The tradition of bringing an evergreen tree into homes and decorating it began with heathen Greeks who used it to worship their god Adonia. They claimed Adonia was killed and brought back to life by the serpent Aessulapius. Therefore, when Christians decorate green Christmas trees with lights, glitter and tinsel, little do they know they are following the God-forbidden protocols of a pagan festival in honour of an idol god!

http://metropolexpress.com/more/opinion/item/5727-christians-should-not-celebrate-christmas-it-s-pagan-s-celebration-1-femi-aribiasala

Re: Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala by sule17(m): 11:01am On Jan 03, 2016
I dnt know they do celebrate christmax. And is not in anywhere in the bible. Hope am wronge
Re: Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala by Faremisodeeq(m): 11:17am On Jan 03, 2016
It now u know. Dats part of the deal paul struck with constatine
Re: Christians Should Not Celebrate Xmas It's Pagan's Celebration 1 -femi Aribiasala by Unequallyoked: 1:53pm On Jan 04, 2016
This claim is wrong. The origins of christmas have been subjected to uneducated commentary without true research. Read this article in the link below first before you comment. Christmas is NOT a pagan holiday. I'll leave a brief extract.. the rest can be read in the article.


http://oodegr.co/english/ekklisia/genika/pagan_origins_of_christmas.htm

"It's that time of the year again: Christmas time! The trees, the lights, the stockings, the nativity scenes, and, of course, the giant inflatable Santas (really, what would Christmas be without them?) are going up all over the place. And, as every year, the same recycled and ridiculous historical inaccuracies are getting pushed on the unsuspecting masses. I've already seen the articles popping up online and being passed around by friends on Facebook; I'm sure that, as they always do, the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel have something "interesting" and uninformative in the works to deceive their viewers with as well. Search for "Christmas" in Google and immediately you are bombarded with the popular mythology about Christmas' origins. The History Channel's webpage on Christmas (the fourth on the list returned from my Google search), for example, erroneously claims, amongst other things, that Pope Julius I decided on a date of December 25 in order to replace the pagan festival of Saturnalia and that "the Greek and Russian orthodox [sic] churches" celebrate Christmas "13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day."1

Before we begin looking at these trite claims in more detail, I want to point out explicitly that I am writing this post because of an interest in historical truth, not out of any desire to engage in apologetic. In spite of the claims of pseudo-Christian cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses, even if the date for Christmas had been based upon a pagan holiday (though this is not an admission that it was) originally on that date this would not impede or deligitimize the Christian celebration of the holiday. The days of the week all have pagan names (Wednesday, for instance, refers to the Norse god Woden) and yet I doubt I can find many of those who refuse to celebrate Christmas who also refuse to use the names of the days.2 Similarly, whether the Christmas tree or any of the other holiday accessories is of pagan origin or not is immaterial to the use of them by modern Christians; the toothbrush and toilet paper also have pagan origins and again I doubt that I could find many who refuse to use these items.3 The modern use of a Christmas tree no more implies an adherence to any of the pagan cults which used trees in their worship than the eating of a meal implies a dedication to the god Mithras whose worship involved the eating of communal meals.4

With all of that said, the purpose of this post is to clear away the dross of popular mythology and propaganda from the origins of Christmas and the various ways it is celebrated. We will first look at the origins of a Christian feast celebrating the birth of Christ and how that feast came to be placed on December 25. We will then look at some of the particular ways in which that feast is celebrated by Christians today, such as the display of Christmas trees, mistletoe, and nativity scenes, and search for their respective origins. Along the way, I will attempt to clear up some of the other common misconceptions about Christmas both ancient and modern, such as the already-quoted misunderstanding of the date of the celebration of Christmas by Orthodox Christians."

Read the rest in the link above.

(1) (Reply)

What's Your 2016 Theme? / Top Abuja Prophet Predicts The Death Of Top Nollywood Movie Stars In 2016 / Spiritual Digest For The Day 29th Of February 2016

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 43
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.