Pagan holidays in our church:

[OzarkWoman]

Quote:

. . . you people thinking you are so much better and smarter. . .

People who think this do not generally engage in dialogue. The mere fact that we (I) am engaging in dialogue with you bears witness to the falsity of your statement as it applies to me and every other person who engages you.

If our common perception of you was as you said, we would simply ignore you.

WRONG, but you go ahead and believe in that false assumption.

[Stan]

I will never chastise anyone for celebrating a holiday. It is a personal and heart issue like everything else. Yet, I feel grateful that my walk with God has personally given me the want and will not to celebrate with the world the things that are an abomination in the eyes of God.

Seems like you may have been reading the Bible again.

Quote:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

http://biblehub.com/colossians/2-16.htm

and

Quote:

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.

http://biblehub.com/romans/14-5.htm

[Textus Receptus]

Originally Posted By: Textus Receptus

I will never chastise anyone for celebrating a holiday. It is a personal and heart issue like everything else. Yet, I feel grateful that my walk with God has personally given me the want and will not to celebrate with the world the things that are an abomination in the eyes of God.

Seems like you may have been reading the Bible again.

Quote:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

http://biblehub.com/colossians/2-16.htm

and

Quote:

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.

http://biblehub.com/romans/14-5.htm

Stan, yes, reading the bible is a good thing. With regards to your comments, it would be a much easier world for Christians if we could continue to live in the world without a personal transformation. Dying to self is part of being born again; the old self dies and the new self comes to life John 3:3–7). You must put away the old and become new in Christ. As for the scriptures you have mentioned, it is ironic, that you as an Adventist, you would use Col 2:16 to defend pagan and/or catholic holidays since the protestant world use Col 2:16 to uphold their choice to worship on Sunday.

Frankly, the scriptures you present are not even germane to the subject since Paul was refering the ceremonial Sabbaths and Religous feast days which were shadows that were fulfilled by Christ and not an excuse to participate in Pagan celebrations, no matter how baptised they are. As I mentioned in my earlier post, its a personal decision. One that I have chosen to abstain.

"It is interesting to note how often our Church has availed herself of practices which were in common use among pagans...Thus it is true, in a certain sense, that some Catholic rites and ceremonies are a reproduction of those of pagan creeds...." (The Externals of the Catholic Church, Her Government, Ceremonies, Festivals, Sacramentals and Devotions, by John F. Sullivan, p 156, published by P.J. Kennedy, NY, 1942)

"It has often been charged... that Catholicism is overlaid with many pagan incrustations. Catholicism is ready to accept that accusation - and even to make it her boast... the great god Pan is not really dead, he is baptized" -The Story of Catholicism p 37

For a quick review,

http://www.adventist.org/spirituality/sabbath/article/go/0/the-sabbath-in-colossians-2/

[olger]

I see your point TR.

Another verse that my old friend Stanislaus could have used is "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them" (Ephesians 5:11).

Another great verse that rounds out our understanding is:

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. [17] And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:15).

God's Word helps us be wise and balanced.

oG

[phkrause]

Quote:

The fact that you say you get a bit queasy about Halloween shows you know little about it and have fallen for the hype and fear that has been instilled in you.

The fact that you would say the above clearly demonstrates that you know nothing about Rudywoofs.

[phkrause]

Quote:

If one is going to have a hissy and teach that one should not celebrate Halloween, then one should also teach that Christmas is not Christ's birthday and is nothing but a Pagan holiday that commercialism caught and now is nothing a way to get people to part with their money. Isaac is not a Christ and never was. I can't believe some of you in here, exactly why I left the hypocritical church I was baptized in.

The Church is people. It sounds to me like you are as judgmental as those who may have had a part in your decision to leave that church.

[Joshua-]

I will never chastise anyone for celebrating a holiday. It is a personal and heart issue like everything else. Yet, I feel grateful that my walk with God has personally given me the want and will not to celebrate with the world the things that are an abomination in the eyes of God.

[Kevin H]

If one is going to have a hissy and teach that one should not celebrate Halloween, then one should also teach that Christmas is not Christ's birthday and is nothing but a Pagan holiday that commercialism caught and now is nothing a way to get people to part with their money. Isaac is not a Christ and never was. I can't believe some of you in here, exactly why I left the hypocritical church I was baptized in.

I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend or make you upset with me. It was just that you put together a bunch of words, apparently out of something you were passionate about and the words typed faster than what you were trying to say, and that I could not know if I agreed or disagreed with your post because I could not follow where you were coming from or where you were going or what your point is. I wanted clarification, no more and no less. I know that your words make sense to you as you are reading them through what you are thinking. However, I found them very confusing. Had I realized that this is a very touchy subject with you, I should have just let it pass, because I honestly enjoy a number of your posts here, could see that there was something that you were trying to say, but which I could not get out of the words you typed, and I simply wanted to follow what you were trying to say. I am sorry that I was unclear in my post and that it upset you.

[Kevin H]

I am not interested in when Jesus was actually born, only the fact that he was born. I am not concerned about whether or not anyone celebrates Christmas or not.

What I am concerned with is being aware about the updated studies. I know that we have all heard and been taught that Christmas was started in the 4th century when Constantine made Christianity legal and that they borrowed a pagan holiday. I know we hear this in church, read it in books, hear it on the History channel (except for the newer programs).

However this was based on the best research done a few hundred years ago and has become tradition. However the books use to teach that the atom could not be split, and that smoking was good for asthma, and remember how upset the church was when Galileo said that the earth goes around the sun rather than the sun going around the earth. However continued research and especially in the age of archaeology has given us new understandings. We have documentation that was not available to the historians doing research a couple of hundred years ago. We need to remain current.

We can't set up a straw man to knock down. If we tell people not to celebrate Christmas because it is pagan; how will you respond to them when they discover that you are using out of date information, and they learn that it actually came from Judaism, and that Passover and Yom Kippur and the others are pagan in origin?

Celebrate Christmas, or don't celebrate Christmas. But please be correct in your history.

I first learned about this in either the 2001, 2002 or 2003 November-December Bible Review. They had an excellent article. Then about 2,3 or 4 I believe years ago Biblical Archaeology Review gave an article not as easy reading as Bible Review did, but where they gave a lot more documentation that Bible Review did not give. It is starting to trickle down. Colleges are starting to teach this new information. The newer programs on the history channel has been bringing up this new information, although they still play the older ones with the old understanding. This information is finding it's way into sermons and if I remember correctly there was discussion here a while back about an article in one of our papers, the Review or something that has been giving this new information.

It was one thing to say that Christmas came in the fourth century from the Pagans when that was the best information we had. It is something else to say it today when we have this new information. I know this is new for all of us, because we were taught the one thing for so long. But when new information and documentation is discovered, we need to modify what we teach by what we now know.

[Tom Wetmore]

[M. T. Cross]

Some of the views here really remind me of a very similar thread on a Pagan forum I post at. There was a poster that was sure that Christians had stolen all their Holy Days from pagans. 25 pages of posts showing that Christian holidays are pretty much Christian or Jewish in origin. Nothing anyone said could convince her otherwise.

I guess some people are so caught up in what they WANT to believe that when factual information is thrown up in front of them they just can't see it. Everyone else is wrong.

In this thread there is a former Christian that is now a Pagan and a former witch that is now a Christian stating that there is a difference between Christian holidays and pagan holidays. But what would we know right?

[CoAspen]

Quote:

I guess some people are so caught up in what they WANT to believe that when factual information is thrown up in front of them they just can't see it. Everyone else is wrong.

In this thread there is a former Christian that is now a Pagan and a former witch that is now a Christian stating that there is a difference between Christian holidays and pagan holidays.

Ah, the human condition, I know what I want to believe and don't present anything that attempts to disprove it!!! It will always be wrong!!!! Facts should never, will never or can they ever be a substitute for what the individual wants to believe!!!!! So There!!!!!!!!!

[Tom Wetmore]

It is the result of the Semmelweis reflex (sometimes called the "Semmelweis effect") which is the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, traditions, or beliefs.

[BobRyan]

It is the result of the Semmelweis reflex (sometimes called the "Semmelweis effect") which is the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, traditions, or beliefs.

You see that a lot when trying to convince evolutionists that their long held beliefs are mere fiction.

in Christ,

Bob

[CoAspen]

[olger]

Originally Posted By: Tom Wetmore

It is the result of the Semmelweis reflex (sometimes called the "Semmelweis effect") which is the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, traditions, or beliefs.

You see that a lot when trying to convince evolutionists that their long held beliefs are mere fiction.

in Christ,

Bob

Cha-ching !!

[Kevin H]

I am not sure if this is Semmelweis reflex. This is fairly new information that most of us have not yet heard, and then when hearing it, what we hear sounds strange. This information was first being discussed among the scholars and historians, then in the early 2000s it appeared in Bible Review, then a couple years ago it appeared in Biblical Archaeology Review, one or a couple of our papers and is only recently trickling down to the general population. It is one thing to read it from us writing about it here, it is something else when we have read some of the articles and seen the evidence.

The Semmelweis reflex would be what we'd see in the future when this becomes common knowledge and sub groups who want to ignore it. I'm blessed because I got to read it in a couple of journals, otherwise I'd be scratching my head as well. I'm glad that I have the reference so ready, unlike that article that I had to read for the Seminary that Mrs. White wrote about the 6,000 years or other things that I read but can't give others the source so that they can study it on their own.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Sometimes I think that specific days, including holidays, don't matter - they are just 24 hr periods of time, and it doesn't matter what they are called, or what you do.

But then, I think, "yes, it *does* matter" (at least, it *does* to me). In Christianity, a day is set aside specifically for worshiping God. When I was a witch, the high Sabbats were very important to me for worship, and certain things were done. Honestly, I felt more sanctity for the Sabbats as a witch, than I feel for any Christian "holiday" now.

It's not the name that one gives a specific day that makes it important; rather, it's what the day signifies to each person. To some, October 31, or December 25, or July 4, are very significant. To others, maybe just one is significant. Or none.

I think each person must determine what day(s) is/are important, and why it's important..

(but I still don't like Samhain)

[rev184]

Be not stained of the world. James

If a thing be offensive to your brother our sister why hold on to it. Paul

LATTER RAIN !? BLESSINGS FROM ABOVE!? ONE ACCORD? Acts ....first rain.

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Paul

[ClubV12]

It's a worthy goal of which you speak Rev184. Right now, at this time, we are in the "Church Militant". Division is the rule not the exception, that will continue until the Church is purified, by prosecution. Which will lead to the Church Victorius. While we wait, we develop the patience of the Saints.

[Gregory Matthews]

Quote:

If a thing be offensive to your brother our sister why hold on to it.

Because everything that we do is offensive to someone.

E.G. My wife and I eat wheat products. That is offensive to some and we have had those people attempt to convert us to their diet.

NOTE: Their diet was not heathy, against the counsel of EGW and contributed to their ill health.

[Naomi]

Quote:

Because everything that we do is offensive to someone.

YES!!!!

[Ted Oplinger]

I am not sure if this is Semmelweis reflex. This is fairly new information that most of us have not yet heard, and then when hearing it, what we hear sounds strange. This information was first being discussed among the scholars and historians, then in the early 2000s it appeared in Bible Review, then a couple years ago it appeared in Biblical Archaeology Review, one or a couple of our papers and is only recently trickling down to the general population. It is one thing to read it from us writing about it here, it is something else when we have read some of the articles and seen the evidence.

The Semmelweis reflex would be what we'd see in the future when this becomes common knowledge and sub groups who want to ignore it. I'm blessed because I got to read it in a couple of journals, otherwise I'd be scratching my head as well. I'm glad that I have the reference so ready, unlike that article that I had to read for the Seminary that Mrs. White wrote about the 6,000 years or other things that I read but can't give others the source so that they can study it on their own.

If I am not mistaken, it is the reflex named after the Hungarian scientist Ignaz Semmelweis, who proposed a thorough cleaning of hands and equipment, and the changing of surgical gowns, as a means of lowering mortality rates in midwives wards and hospitals.

While Semmelweis was vindicated by increasing mountains of empirical evidence in every hospital and ward his techniques were applied in, Semmelweis' contemporaries universally shunned him and his practices as being beneath the dignity of their profession. They had set the terms of what was a dignified and knowledgeable practice; keeping in a state of cleanliness was not part of that practice. Semmelweis could not offer any scientific reason why his methods worked; hence, the rest of the medical community felt it had the intellectual right to dismiss Semmelweis out of hand.

Only when bacteria were first observed, and it was conclusively demonstrated how aseptic techniques countered bacterial propagation, did these doctors "get it". Intellectual and scientific pride reflexively rejects that which exists, but cannot be explained scientifically.

And, yes, this applies to many areas today - particularly in origins.

Food for thought

[rev184]

It's a worthy goal of which you speak Rev184. Right now, at this time, we are in the "Church Militant". Division is the rule not the exception, that will continue until the Church is purified, by prosecution. Which will lead to the Church Victorius. While we wait, we develop the patience of the Saints.

what's it meant division?

[ClubV12]

People with different ideas on doctrine for one thing. People that only complain about what see in the Church, in the members, in leadership, in our schools, etc.

Lots of folks walking in the garden and instead of picking the roses, the lillies, the pinks are caught up in the thorns, brush and bramble all around them. Dividing those members of the body into a group here and there, gossiping and such.

It's OK if you can see this kind of action as an opportunity for growth, to rise above the petty differences, to set an example for a better way to be a Christian. I don't always get that part right, but I'm working on it and Gods grace is sufficient.