Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [RELIGION] Good christians celebrating pagan holidays...

[Rick Buford <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Christian M. Cepel wrote:
> I've always just considered it common knowledge and frankly a little 
> worthless to dwell on.  I have however wished we that we would some day 
> see the wisdom of trying to alter the dates of these celebrations to try 
> to approximate their true dates.  Even so, it would just be 
> approximations.  We know of certain 'hints' towards dates based on 
> things like growing seasons of palm fronds, gestation & breeding seasons 
> of donkeys, (fortunately, passover is a bit more pinned down), whether 
> or not at X time of year there would be shepherds in the hills keeping 
> watch on their flocks by night, etc.  We know I believe fairly vaguely 
> that the wisemen never saw Jesus in the manger, but well after, etc. The 
> gospels aren't always clear and sometimes conflict, and there's not as 
> much overlap as one would like on details like shepherds, angles, stars, 
> wisemen, Herod, little drummer boys (kidding), etc.  Each gospel 
> reflects the 'view' of men with vastly different world views, and 
> priorities, and their accounts reflect those views.

I was actually completely unaware of the relation to pagan holidays 
before a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps I'm just a little more ignorant of 
some of these topics than I thought.

> As far as things being on pagan holidays specifically.... if one were to 
> try to apologize for all the rubbish the Catholic church has pulled over 
> the last two millennial, one would be apologizing pretty much non-stop.

Were these attributed to the Church? or to the Ceasers? I get the 
impression many of these were more related to the executive power's 
decision than the theistic.

> In one sense, it was a very good PR/Propaganda/Manipulation strategy. In 
> another sense, people aren't the ignorant sheep they were back then and 
> are quick to see the dichotomy.

I might argue with the statement that "people aren't the ignorant sheep 
they were back then". I think K summed it up pretty well in MiB:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you 
know it."

> The fact remains that Atheists/Agnostics gleefully trot out little 
> 'factoids' like this over and over and think that it will disrupt our 
> world/worldview and undermine our foundation.  That's simply because 
> they don't understand that we don't, or should not have a worldview, but 
> a heaven view, and things like this aren't all that important.  We are 
> supposed to be in this world, but not of it.

I'm actually more curious, since you state prior knowledge of these 
sorts of things, about whether or not you celebrate what I consider the 
traditional Christmas with presents and such since those appear to be 
the "pagan" parts of the tradition. If so, is it something that bothers 
you at some level?

Rick
--
We simply can't idiot-proof everything. Sometimes the idiots just have 
to suffer and die.
--http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/

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