Merry Christmas. What I believe

[YourShadow]

so I found some real information about christmas,NOTE: this is just to enlighten if you even want to be:
At one time the observance of Christmas was outlawed in Britain and America. The 17th century Puritans were offended by the overindulgence in eating and drinking that was a part of this celebration. In 1642 under Puritan rule all Christmas celebrations were forbidden by parliament. After the end of Puritan rule in 1660 these celebrations resurfaced. The word Christmas comes from Cristes maesse, an early English phrase that means mass of Christ. The word Xmas is sometimes used instead of Christmas. In Greek X is the first letter of Christ's name.
Santa Claus was brought into Christmas by the blending of pagan legends with traditions about saints. This traditional figure is known by different names in different counties; Father Christmas, St. Nichols, St. Martin, Pere Noel. The fireplace was the natural entrance and exit of the gods of fire and sun gods when they visited homes.

Christmas originated in the 4th century as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. Before the introduction of Christmas, each year beginning on December 17 Romans honored Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture, in a festival called Saturnalia. This festival lasted for seven days and included the winter solstice, which usually occurred around December 25 on the ancient Julian calendar. During Saturnalia the Romans feasted, postponed all business and warfare, exchanged gifts, and temporarily freed their slaves. Many Romans also celebrated the lengthening of daylight following the winter solstice by participating in rituals to glorify Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light (Mithraims). These and other winter festivities continued through January 1, the festival of Kalends, when Romans marked the day of the new moon and the first day of the month and year. Although the Gospels describe Jesus’ birth in detail, they never mention the date, so historians do not know on what date he was born. The Roman Catholic Church chose December 25 as the day for the Feast of the Nativity in order to give Christian meaning to existing pagan rituals.The Catholic Church hoped to draw pagans into its religion by allowing them to continue their revelry while simultaneously honoring the birthday of Jesus.


References:
Steep, Clayton, "Christmas 2,000 years before Christ". The Good New Of The World Tomorrow, December 1985. Steep, Clayton, "In time For Christmas". The Plan Truth, November/ December 1990. World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, 1993

[zodiak]

okay, but the question is so..... I think every one here knows about that, except the wee ones.

[YourShadow]

well Im not just saying santa's a lie
its pretty much everything about christmas

[BlueJade]

thats why I don't deal with xmas
it has evil roots

[Lon]

It is Christmas day and a merry one to all!!! Tis the season for love, and warmth and God. I've been a bit aprehensive before in past threads on what I believe, and been vocal against what others believe. So for once, allow me a chance to share with everyone this christmas day my beliefs and how I know god to be.

Let me say that I seek the origional faith and the origional god. I am not interested in dogma. If I want dogma, I'll rent the movie.

I believe that the majority of what we know about god, jesus, and the judeic(sp?) christian faith draws its strength from the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See, and the Vatican. I further believe that the modern Catholic church, much do it its activities in the 14th through 17th centuries, have become corupt with power. Religion as being the one soul venue to access god and the afterlife has proved to be a powerful tool of power and motivation, and the early church was not afraid to monopolize on the subject.

The holy faith stole many concepts, rituals, and rites from popular pegan practices at the time of holy roman emporor Pope Constintene. Such rites include but is not limited to Christmas as it is celebrated on the 25th of december. To pegans, this is called Yule. Or the abolishment of the winter solstice and the birth of the summer months. This was done to show the heathens that they truely do worship the same god as Abraham's god, and to assist in easing the converting process. Constintine had a novel idea, if you can't beat them.... assume they are already doing your stuff and relate to them!

I believe the bible as we know it is also equally corupt. Not in source mind you. I fully believe that the bible was inspired by god. However, written by man. The "by man" part is where I have the problems. The bible only represents a small collection of material written on the subject of the holy christian god. There are seperate books written in the new testiment era that also include books by Jesus himself, Mary Magdoline, as well as seven books written by Moses. These books are called the Apacrapha. These books were not cannonized by the Vatican for one major reason... the council (yes a group of old men) did not vote on it because it did not adhear to the already chosen continueity for their faith.

God isn't about continueity. God is about you and him. One on one. What is good for one person may not be good for another. And this would debunk the entire catholic principle and power system. Also there were other scriptures and text that would suggest the holy grail was not a cup, but a womb. The womb of Mary Magdoline, Jesus Christ's love intrest. But I'll save the Dan Brown lectures for another thread. The point here that is important to stress is that the books we have to choose from as christians that are in our bibles, are books that were voted on by a group of humans for linier continuity purposes. In other words, the cannon lititure convays the meanings THEY wanted it to. Couple the above with the fact that the bible has been orally passed down as tradition, written, re-written, and re-translated hundreds of times we also allow for simple, but impactful errors. Erros that simply can re-define the foundation of someone's faith.

Also, it is interesting to note with the bible, that each major branch of Christianity has their own bible, and several bibles are missing or have added scriptures than the rest. To give an example: (Least I be mistaken) The concept of purgatory is non cannon. No where in the bible does the subject of purgatory exist. Yet, the catholics preach and teach it as it appears in their text.

Simply because of mans own hand in the exposure and procreation of the numbers in the modern church and those who have faith, I believe religion to be flawed. If it is not currently flawed, then the potential for it to be is very high. When talking bout what God wants, it is easy to take one powerful sum of ego, when you address others. I don't believe this is exactly right. Certainly God wants you to spread the word, but not at the risk of having to ram rod it down someone's throat.
The very principle of "The Holy Church can NEVER be wrong" goes to serve as proof of my point.
The Crusades: The church was obviously wrong.
The Inquisition: Still wrong
The Churches stance of Neutrality during the Holocost: Nothing better.
The Witch Trials of Salem Mass: We're still in left field boss.
The Church simply has made obviously grievous erros that due to dogma can be brushed off as nessessary for the times. Of course HUMANS make mistakes, but when you represent god, as the church does... no mistakes can be made. The dogma in religion distorts the image god wants to present humans.

While I have spent many years studing religions and walking between churches I've noticed the following which seems to be true anywhere I look.
1) Almost all major religious faiths believe in 1 all powerful creator or energy source that represents order.
2) Almost all major religous faiths belive in 1 malignent force that draws some kind of relationship to the source of order. This malignent force represents chaos. (some western cultures translate order and chaos to be good and evil.)
3) All major faiths believe in the karmatic "golden rule".
4) all major faiths believe in or establish some form of life after death or the procession of continueing life or education that extends beyond this mortal coil.

What this means to me. We all worship the same god. You call him Johova. I call him Jesus, someone else Budah. A third The Green Man. What ever. Each culture refrences the same master creator. We just know him by diffrent names.
*But why would god do such a thing, why not let him be known by the same to all nations?
*Because, God wants EVERYONE to know him. To come to him. He's smart enough to understand what works for one tribe will not neccessarly work for another.

There certainly is an opposition out there. Be it demons, monsters, or spirits. Balance in the universe is primal. Everything has balance. I'm sure the rules don't change when God is in the picture.

Heaven and Hell: Are what you make of it. Hell was largely created by the catholics to be fictatious. A scare tactic to keep the faithful in the pews and in line. Your religious boogie man if you will. Hell is simply the lack of the presance of god. In some considerations, we're living in hell right now. I believe hell IS punishment, and a lesson IS to be learned. Your choice is to suffer until your time is up. Like jail, then you are released. Possibly re-incarnated for another trial? No human being on earth is capable of commiting any crime or sin SO grievis that it would deserve eternal damnation. And no fare, loving or just god would send his or her own creation to that damnation just because of a tiff in diffrent concepts of the unknown. Thats like giving you a test, telling you if you pass you live. If you fail you die, but I'm not going to tell you what the material is that the test will cover, so you better study hard. That would just be cruel.

Jesus Christ: I do not doubt that he was not a real man, and a wonderful profit. And until other proof is given, I believe that he is the son of the loving and living god.

The Bible: I believe in the bible. Unlike its contextual refrecnes, the bible is the only thing about the christian faith that can be proven, with out a shadow of a doubt, to be real and exists. As for everything else. I believe the bible is a wonderful collection of ideals and bed time stories. Of course it is mixed in with a bit of historical accuracies (as accurate as they can be for ancient text) to serve as a GUIDE for your PERSONAL walk with god. A guide is not a rule book. A guide does not say Do it THIS way or ELSE. It is just an outline of suggestions to ease you along your way.

Life, Death and 42: I believe we live. I believe we die. I believe we continue on after death in one form or another. Right now, I am strongly considering the arguement in favor of re-incarnation. After all, energy can not be created Nor can it be destroyed. It has to go somewhere. I'm still trying to weigh it out in my soul and spiritual conscience if it is true or not.

Aliens: How arrogent to believe that we are the ONLY intelligent life that god created. Do they have some conspiricy connection to the earth, our creation, or our religion. Hell no. But I will not deny their existance. Statisticly, the chances for alien life to exist is higher than the probability of the existance of a god.

Other Gods: Buddah, Zeus, And Other dieties did exist. And probably still do. However they may not exactly be "gods" per say. We as mortals just precieved them as so. Chances are they are immortal spirits of some kind, angels or demons. But they do exist. Even god him/her self acknowledges that: "Have no other god before me." If there were no such things as other gods.... then this statement would have been pointless. God is not pointless.

Trinity: I believe in 3 seperate powers that make up god. "Let us create man in our image." God does not suffer from skitzophrenia.

God as a gender: I believe god is either Genderless, or female. The culture that wrote the old testiment, and the new testiment (and to my knowldge still is to this day) sexist in favor of the man. The men hold all the power and the women do not. This just fuels the entire arguement of Mary Magdoline being a deciple of Christ, his lover, and the origonal foundation of the church. (not simon peter) but this again is a topic for a later Dan Brown inspired thread. So due to the male domenent nature of the cultures that wrote the holy scritpures I have no doubt that they invisioned god to be male in gender. In reality, A beign of pure energy I am more sure is androgenous at best.

Karma: Huge principle in my system of belief. Karma. Do onto others as you will have others do onto you. What ever you give out, you get three fold back. Period.

Church Tithes: Don't believe in it. The tithe system only goes to further the pastors pay check and fund the church in physical's efforts. God does not NEED your money. If you want to show god you love him by giving, donate to a homeless shelter. Tithe to your church if you want to or can afford it. Membership in a church should NOT be dependent on the steady suply of income you provide them.

Above all things, your walk with god is personal. You and him. Do not judge others, Do not cause others to faulter in their walks. These three laws I try to follow are primal. Who am I to judge another for their belief. Furthermore, who am I to risk causing them damnation by confusing them or trying to convert them to MY beliefs? How arogent would I be to assume that my beliefs are the one and only true way to god? Christ made it simple. Believe in me. thats it. Thats really all I need to do.

It is late this christmas eve. And my mind hurts. If I think of anything else, I'll edit my post. But this is what I believe. This is what I am convicted to believe. I want to know my god. THe one true god. The god of my fathers. Not the god that was diluted do to rites, rituals, and compitition with other faiths.

[AyoInuYo]

merry christmas to you too

[-akichan-]

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

Im sry my friends, i decided to make about 50 xmas cards for my friends here on AF but i decided not to cos i just dun have time. I apologize.

This is a present im giving to for the whole site, for Animeforum.com
just clickie on it.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a78...ures/merry.gif

[XxxBlOoDyxVaLeNtiNexxX]

Yay, another good bedtime story for the kids. Wait till you see them cry! But crying can be really annoying.. Just to make sure they don't become pests, tape their mouths, tie them up, and lock them up in a really dark closet. So sad for little immature children everywhere.

[Sakura Holic]

Merry Christmas to everyone in AF. Especially Kaitou Ace. ^_^ ~Gives out candy canes to random people~

[Krsnik]

Good post lon, Good post. Merry christmas guys.

[Loljoke]

Yeah, that was a good, lengthy post..
Anyways, merry christmas!

[[BlackDeath]]

-ROFL- Poor Lon, everyone just ignored his post, got some laughs outta me, reading it then reading the second post.

My opinion on christmas is it's the time when all the little children wait for a big fat guy to come down their chimney. If I were them I wouldn't be so happy knowing that a big fat guy dressed in red breaks into my house and places unmarked packages by my tree! Who know what they could be... anthrax... explosives. If anything I'd be waiting by my fireplace with a shotgun for that bugger to come down...

<3

But Christmas is was to overated, I'm only 18 and I couldn't care less about it, I'm not bothered about recieving gifts or anything, it's just another day of the year.

[japonice_aeris]

hmm Christmas...everyone should just enjoy but have enough wisdom to make ther Christmas Merry!~

[Qeeun]

I didnt have time to read all that so im just gonna state a few things about what i personally believe.

1. Christmas is the time to celebrate are lord jesus christ b-day.
2. Jesus (god's son) was sent to this earth to die for our sins.
3. finally not to make this long... jesus was the lamb of god, the ultimate sacrifice to die for our sins.

Merry Christmas!!! Everyone!!!

[YourShadow]

Yay, another good bedtime story for the kids. Wait till you see them cry! But crying can be really annoying.. Just to make sure they don't become pests, tape their mouths, tie them up, and lock them up in a really dark closet. So sad for little immature children everywhere.

Isn't it better than telling them lies?

[Kewii]

Mod Note: Threads have been merged.

[FarEastStyle]

this is going to be interesting

well I believe that christmas is a big part of satans plan to deceive this world
since no one knows when Christ was really born it, meaning we wasn't meant to know.
so you are really celebrating something totally different,