BigMike Loc: yerington nv

PeterS

True, why delude ourselves with our crimes against each other when we can celebrate the pagan holiday of the Winter Solstice. Sick indeed...

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

So...since the policy is no different I guess the mean (purposely ambiguous) hypocrisy level on the left must have risen...more.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

All holidays are pagan repurposes. What does that have to do with anything?

Why do you knuckleheads have to make everything in life political?

proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

Because without that,they have nothing...

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Many holidays indeed have their start in pagan celebrations. However, everything evolves and I do not think the majority of people who celebrate Christmas is celebrating the winter solstice. In fact, I do not know anyone who lights a candle and walks around their house 7 times (especially when it is -20 outside) wearing a nightgown and chants praise to long ago dismissed gods. Nor do they go to a forest and harvest a log to burn continuously for 7 days (if it goes out, suposedly the goblins will break into your house and cause all kinds of trouble). And tell me, who has a fireplace that burns wood.... especially a huge log? And there are some other less savory connections to this pagan holiday. What I do see are people remembering those who have less, as required by the Bible (both Christian and Jewish) and remembering a baby born that gave hope to the world. So, for Christians they do not honor a long dead set of gods..... but have changed the holiday into a celebration of a child that would change the face of all nations.

It is amusing when atheist go out of their way to demean the values that have, admittedly, changed over the years. As for me... I wish you a very Merry Christmas.... or a wonderful Festival of Lights (let us see if this can be claimed to be pagan).....

PeterS

Snip>>>In the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, we read the story of the “Flight into Egypt” in which, after the birth of Jesus and the visit from the Magi, an “angel of the Lord” comes to Joseph in a dream and warns him to leave Bethlehem for Egypt (Mt 2:12-15). Why? Because King Herod was planning to “seek out the child to destroy him.” Mary and Joseph do leave, along with Jesus, and, according to Matthew, make their way into Egypt. Afterward, King Herod slaughters all the male children in Bethlehem under two years of age. This dramatic episode is part of the Gospel reading for the “Feast of the Holy Innocents,” celebrated on Dec. 28.

Do a google search "Jesus was an immigrant" and you will come up with thousands of citations. The one I thought most poignant was How We Treat Immigrants Is How We Treat God.

So the Christ Child locked in a cage is perfectly appropriate for how you CC's treat the Lord your god...

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

How WE treat the Lord our God??? That doesn't make any sense at all. I don't know what the hell you are trying to accomplish in doing the devil's work, but it is futile, dude. I wear the Whole Armor at all times. And, FYI, This attempt of yours to equate events in the life of Jesus with current affairs is pathetic.

PeterS

Calling something for what it is isn't demeaning anyone's values. I love Christmas and it is my favorite holiday but the celebration is for the winter's solstice and was adapted to Christ when the Christians were trying to convert the pagans.

As for Hanukkah, Snip>>>

There is a great deal of evidence that, in much of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, the winter solstice was a time for imploring the sunlight to return and celebrating its readiness to do so. In Rome, the 25th of December was the birthday of the Unconquerable Sun. In Persia, at the winter solstice, the common people set great bonfires and their rulers sent birds aloft bearing torches of dried grass.

It is a short leap to surmising that the Syrian Greeks may have chosen the 25th of Kislev as a time to desecrate the Temple by making their own sacrifices there precisely because it was a time of solar and lunar darkness, the time of the winter solstice and the waning of the moon. And it is a short leap to surmise that the Maccabees, when they took the anniversary of that day as the day of rededication, were rededicating not only the Temple but the day itself to Jewish holiness; were capturing a pagan solstice festival that had won wide support among partially Hellenized Jews, in order to make it a day of God’s victory over paganism. Even the lighting of candles for Hanukkah fits the context of the surrounding torchlight honors for the sun.

Some commentators have objected that Hanukkah cannot be a solstice festival because it is tied to the lunar, not the solar, cycle. But this objection ignores the fact that the festivals that are most clearly solar — Sukkot and Passover, the festivals of fall and spring — are nevertheless tied to the full moon for their dates. The objection also ignores the fact that Judaism insists on keeping the sun and moon cycles in tension with each other in its entire calendar — never adopting either a purely lunar or a purely solar calendar, but insisting that each be corrected by the other.

Moreover, if Hanukkah is not merely a solstice but a darkness festival, then the 25th of Kislev is the perfect time. In some years, the solstice day itself would be a night of bright full moon–especially powerful in an agrarian-pastoral culture with few artificial lights. So even the solstice itself would feel less like the darkest day of the year on such a moonlit night. By setting Hanukkah on the 25th of the month, the Jews made sure that the night would be dark. By setting it in Kislev, they made sure the day would be very short and the sun very dim.

It may even be that the Maccabees’ desire to celebrate a late Sukkot, or to celebrate this newly Judaized solstice festival in ways reminiscent of Sukkot, was tied to Sukkot’s earlier career as in part a festival of the sun. As we have seen in our examination of Sukkot, the Mishnah goes out of its way to preserve the memory that “Our forebears turned toward the East, to the Sun. . .” and the torches of Sukkot, juggled by the Levites as they danced through Jerusalem, may have been reminders of the sun.

If we see Hanukkah as intentionally, not accidentally, placed at the moment of the darkest sun and darkest moon, then one aspect of the candles seems to be an assertion of our hope for renewed light. Just as at Sukkot we poured the water in order to remind God to pour out rain, perhaps one reason for us to light the candles is to remind God to renew the sun and moon. Indeed, the miracle of eight days’ light from one day’s oil sounds like an echo of the Mishnah’s comment that at the Sukkot water pouring, one log (measure) of water was enough for eight days’ pouring.

Our gods are a product of man so there is no surprise that man uses periods that are important as markers for our celebrations.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Correction: your gods. BTW, who is your god?

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Jesus, Mary, or Joseph.... they were never immigrants. If you know your Bible, it is clear "When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up!” he said. “Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to k**l Him.” Matthew 2:13. So the escape to Egypt was to be temporary. To qualify as an immigrant, the individual travels to live permanently in a foreign country. So.... Jesus was not an immigrant. So, discounting that sticky glitch in thinking. Let us move on to historical fact, at that time of the birth, Judea and Egypt, known as Aegyptus, were all within the borders of the Roman empire. Both countries were occupied land under Ceaser, and even though Herod was King of Judea, he ruled on behalf of Ceasar. Jesus and His family, while provincial citizens, were what we would consider Roman nationals who paid taxes to Rome though they were not necessarily citizens of the Roman state. Fleeing to Egypt, then under the personal control of Agustus himself, was on more like moving from California to New York City. So, even using historical information... Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not immigrants.

My thought.... don't just believe what the Liberals are selling. You may run up against a bible historian.....it makes you look foolish.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

The Feasible of Lights actually comes from books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Maccabees — led by the five sons of the priest Mattathias, especially Judah — waged a three-year campaign that culminated in the cleaning and rededication of the Temple. It has NOTHING to do with pagans or their festivals.... but, it does have a lot to do with a miracle of a single container of oil burning each night for 8 days which should have only lasted for one. During this celebration we give thanks to our Father who provided light.... we do not mourn the dead nor fast. Like everything, holidays taken on meanings.... and Hanukkah, as it is now called, developed into a holiday rich with historical significance, physical and supernatural miracle narratives, and a dialogue with Jewish history. So... contrary to what some would say, Hanukkah is based on historical events.... not a sideline of pagan worship.

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

The Great Seer is a HUGE I***T!

moldyoldy

You mean like the f**e war on Christmas?

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

I am so sorry for your hatred of the Holiday Season.
We only celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in hope that one day there will be world peace.
Our goal is only to put one more smile, on one more face, of one more child, and warm one more heart, through the season of Christmas.
No one is stopping you people from closing yourselves off from the rest of the world until this season of giving is over for some. And then you can Slither back out into the public eye.
But do not crawl to far from home, because before you know it, we will be celebrating another day of love in Saint Valentines Day, and then from there Easter is right around the corner.
I am aware of the L*****t view to try and destroy all things Holy, but why hold on to something so tightly that you will loose in the long run?
MERRY CHRISTMAS, Like it or not
MAGA BABBY, MAGA TRUMP
We can say that now. And God Bless Too
Thank you Mr. Trump.