God wants every one to enjoy life, why do people want to live under a guilt and fear based life style? Just open your mind and your heart, you can enjoy life and honer God, you don't have to live under dogma to be a good person. If you read and believe in the good book, than you need to understand what it says. Christ gave us guide lines to live by, to love and help one another. He also wanted us to enjoy life. God created us for his own good pleasure. So enjoy the things that life offers and don't get hung up on the miner things. What you fell in your heart is what it's all about. How you are and interact with other people, not if you put lights on your house or not.
2006-12-26 03:03:59
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answer #1
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answered by Nicole 2
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First off, mrseahorse is incorrect to say that only Catholics celebrate Christmas. I'm an Episcopalian, and we celebrate Christmas. There may, however, be some sects that don't celebrate because the celebration isn't mentioned in the Bible.
We may celebrate on the *date* of former pagan festivals, such as the Saturnalia, which celebrated the return of the sun after the solstice, but the reason for the celebration is completely different.
No one knows exactly when Jesus was born; Constantine chose the date for two reasons: 1) even though Easter and the Resurrection are more important, there could be no Crucifixion without a birth; 2) in order to make converts, it was easier, and less bloody, to give new meanings to old celebrations and sacred places/objects than it was to ban them outright.
2006-12-26 03:02:02
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answer #2
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answered by JelliclePat 4
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This is actually not true. Christmas is most certainly a Christian holiday, because it celebrates the birth of Christ, and has for over a thousand years. I know why you think this. Most religious scholars believe that Christ was actually born in the Spring. In early medieval times, many pagans celebrated the winter solstice. December 25 was chosen for the celebration of Jesus' birth, indeed, because Christian leaders at the time it was established hoped that providing a Christian holiday would persuade people to celebrate Christmas instead. That, however, does not make Christmas a pagan celebration. On the contrary, you could argue that it was orginally an anti-pagan celebration. Over the years it has evolved into what it is today, which is a Christian holiday for Christians, and a secular or non-holiday for everyone else.
2006-12-26 02:54:48
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answer #3
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answered by Mr. Taco 7
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Christmas itself is not Pagan. It was placed on the 25th of December to replace a pagan festival to make converting the Pagans easier. They could still have their festival if they just now accepted Christian theology. Christmas to a Christian is the birth of Christ....Yule and other festivals are entirely different things.... So Christian celebrate Xmas to honor the Birth of Christ non Christians celebrate it as a secular holiday and general time of joy... Neo-Pagans and Wiccans celebrate Yule and other festivals to honor the "old ways" however they are not celebrating the same thing the ancients did...despite popular belief...
for the record Catholics aren't the only ones who celebrate Christmas as the Birth of Christ...Protestants and even Muslims celebrate Christ's birth. The Muslims Regard Jesus as an important figure.
2006-12-26 02:57:16
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answer #4
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answered by Nox 2
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The reason I celebrate it is not because of the pagan celebration or even the so called Christian celebration but because it is a reminder to me {and i remember it 12 months out of the year} The BIRTH of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It does not matter when he was born. The name Christmas literally means Christ - mas. which literally means the celebration of the Birth of Christ. I am not a religious person: I am an individual that found out that I was a sinner in need of a Saviour. "For God so loved the world that HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON That Who-so-ever Believeth in HIM should not perish but have Everlasting Life." When you understand the true meaning of the word Christian, it means to BE CHRIST LIKE in all ways.
2006-12-26 03:03:51
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answer #5
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answered by lylshaner 2
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First, do you know what pagan means? Christians feel they have to take an opportunity to celebrate an man who l lived over 2000 years ago. It wasn't always what we have perverted into something that is very unrelated to the birth and resurrection of a man who changed humankind for eternity. I myself decided not to be part of the raping our the real reason. I don't give gifts.Instead I volunteer helping less fortunate. I hope and pray you heart will be filled with a new understanding of what the real Christmas is all about.
God bless you. Peace to you.
2006-12-26 02:55:14
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answer #6
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answered by JOHN 7
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Because the Emperor Constantin The Great declared that christans have to celebrate Christmas , althought it is a pagan celebartion . And we , as good christians , we celebrate Christmas without a hesitation .
2006-12-26 02:49:54
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answer #7
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answered by Miroku 3
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Let's start with mentioned misconceptions -- MOST Christians, including almost all Protestants, do in fact, celebrate. Only a few culty groups on the very fringe of the fundamentalist movement don't.
Now, that said.
All successful religions inherit from their predecessor faiths, its a necessity to convert others. Thus, in more recent times, Islam retained Christ as a great prophet and has great veneration for his mother, the Virgin Mary. Even more recently Mormons bring forward the Bible as part of their holy writings and add its myths to their own myths. In more ancient times, "God" started out almost certainly as a minor Sumerian deity, possibly the god (or baal -- which means god) of Mt. Zion. "His" cult became established among the tribes that became Israel and after what appears to have been a long and vicious struggle, forced out the worship of other gods -- the longest struggle being against a fertility goddess, whose priests and priestesses were NOT required to be open about their affiliation (thus the prohibition against witches, btw).
Arguably the battle against the fertility goddess was never won -- but I believe it probably was.
In any event, as Christianity developed it accepted the myths of dozens of pagan sects. The virgin birth is probably an early example of that -- as there were gods all over with virgin births as humans, including some of the Roman emperors (remember, they counted as gods), and the saviors of other, older faiths (please see first link below -- it goes through a number of groups -- if you prefer I can provide academic texts and archaeological research -- let me know by email -- this was just expedient).
The use of Christmas and Easter easily allowed the uneducated, illiterate followers of other faiths -- most of whom knew nothing of their own theologies really, other than the holy days -- to be converted to Christianity, and thus allowed the Church to be triumphant over the pagan faiths that it needed to displace to become the power that it has been for 2000 years.
Of course that did not end the adoption and alteration of extra-Church myth -- Satan as those in the Christian world know him, is, in his modern incarnation, an amalgam of pagan deities, created in order to allow the Church to demonize those who followed other gods -- and it worked. Ask a Jewish scholar what Satan is, and you will not get the Christian/Islamo view. It is a later view and that shows up quickly.
And for comic relief, consider St. Bridget -- formerly the goddess Bridget. Even the miracles are the same.
Kind regards,
Reynolds
http://www.rebuff.org
believeinyou24@yahoo.com
2006-12-26 04:18:02
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answer #8
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answered by Anonymous
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Christmas is a pagan celebration??
Well I don't know what exactly is celebrating the rest of the world, but here, in Spain, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, ok, I know that firstly it was dated on 6th of January, and Catholic Church changed it, when they changed the calendar in 1582... But, in fact I think the important is what is being celebrated, not exactly when it's celebrated, isn't it?
2006-12-26 02:57:35
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answer #9
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answered by esther c 4
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Well dimwit, we celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas. I think that would answer your question. And it's not all Christians, just Catholics.
And thus it is not a pagan holiday.
2006-12-26 02:56:15
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answer #10
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answered by Anonymous
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You don't know what you are talking about. In the begining, Christians were persecuted for believing in Christ. They used the time of the pagan celebrations to celebrate Christ's birth to protect themselves. They were able to hide because of all the partying going on.
2006-12-26 02:55:17
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answer #11
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answered by me 4
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