Zero2Cool
10 years ago
Christmas isn't celebrating Jesus Christ's birthday, but rather celebrating his birth, period.

That makes me ask ... when was Jesus Christ (or YAHWEH) born?
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Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
10 years ago
Well, Christ the God, is and always has been. Christ the human incarnation of God came into being on ... well, no one knows, really.

I do believe, however, that the celebration should *start*, not finish, on whatever day we designate as the anniversary of that human birth. Since for most of us that is now December 25th, I believe the Christmas celebration/holiday-season starts on December 25th (or maybe on the evening of the 24th).

Otherwise, we're effectively celebrating the taking of censuses and collecting of taxes.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
DakotaT
10 years ago

Well, Christ the God, is and always has been. Christ the human incarnation of God came into being on ... well, no one knows, really.

I do believe, however, that the celebration should *start*, not finish, on whatever day we designate as the anniversary of that human birth. Since for most of us that is now December 25th, I believe the Christmas celebration/holiday-season starts on December 25th (or maybe on the evening of the 24th).

Otherwise, we're effectively celebrating the taking of censuses and collecting of taxes.

Originally Posted by: Wade 



And you lecture me on religion. šŸ™„

Christ was born in the fall. His recognized birthdate is December 25th because of the Council of Nicea - where all the other BS about Christ comes from.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=council%20of%20nicea%20trinity&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religionfacts.com%2Fchristianity%2Fbeliefs%2Ftrinity.htm&ei=cJWKUrGCEob9iQL45oHgCg&usg=AFQjCNGRtL0V64L1iZDSBSxuG6NZWclisg 

Basically, what we are taught to believe was a merging of different religions. What one chooses as "facts" can be debated at length by people a lot smarter than any of us are, and has been thoroughly. What I know is that I attend the Catholic Church, but my heart is not in it because of what I know about the corruption of the Church throughout the centuries. Now if the vast fortune hoarded by the Vatican was to start being used for world hunger, my heart and mind might change. I feel about the Catholic Church about the same as I do the US Government.
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GermanGilbert
10 years ago
Born: December 2nd 1983 in a manger in Chico, CA
Cruzified: November 4th 2013 on a pitch in Green Bay, WI
Resurrection: November 24th 2013 at Lambeau Field, Green Bay, WI

Praise the green and gold Jesus. šŸ™



OK, back on topic šŸ˜‰
blank
Cheesey
10 years ago
I don't think the exact date is important.
And to me, we should be celebrating the
fact that He came here to take our sins
on Himself for our salvation.
Unfortunately the world has lost site
of this, and what gifts they will be getting
are all that are on their minds.
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DakotaT
10 years ago

I don't think the exact date is important.
And to me, we should be celebrating the
fact that He came here to take our sins
on Himself for our salvation.
Unfortunately the world has lost site
of this, and what gifts they will be getting
are all that are on their minds.

Originally Posted by: Cheesey 



What if he was just a teacher and philosopher and not the miracle man and water walker - would that destroy your entire existence and belief system? Would you be able to face the day without someone else taking your sins? To me, I see people use Jesus as this huge crutch and not be accountable for themselves.

I see lots of people claim to be Christians, so why have let Christmas become a disgusting display of materialism instead of actually loving one another?
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Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
10 years ago

And you lecture me on religion. šŸ™„

Christ was born in the fall. His recognized birthdate is December 25th because of the Council of Nicea - where all the other BS about Christ comes from.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=council%20of%20nicea%20trinity&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religionfacts.com%2Fchristianity%2Fbeliefs%2Ftrinity.htm&ei=cJWKUrGCEob9iQL45oHgCg&usg=AFQjCNGRtL0V64L1iZDSBSxuG6NZWclisg 

Basically, what we are taught to believe was a merging of different religions. What one chooses as "facts" can be debated at length by people a lot smarter than any of us are, and has been thoroughly. What I know is that I attend the Catholic Church, but my heart is not in it because of what I know about the corruption of the Church throughout the centuries. Now if the vast fortune hoarded by the Vatican was to start being used for world hunger, my heart and mind might change. I feel about the Catholic Church about the same as I do the US Government.

Originally Posted by: DakotaT 



I lecture you on faith, not on religion. Religion is just another human institution we use to try to make sense of the divine. (IMO)

Frankly, I could care less about what specific day Jesus was or was not born on. I could care less about how my belief in the stories of the Bible matches or doesn't match other religions.

For me, Christmas is all about one thing. I believe it was important that Jesus was born (because if he were not born man, he could not die as a man for man on the cross). That is what I believe, and that is what -- and why -- I celebrate.

The actual day is just a bit of human record-keeping. ("History", too, is a human institution.) As a historian, I'm interested in the chronology of the ancient world; but, in this, my faith has to trump my vocation. Because I still believe that history and other tale-telling is limited by the abilities of the tale-tellers. But this is about God, and God is not limited by human political, religious, or scholarly shortcomings. To think we can reduce Him into "what we know" is nothing less than idolatry of ourselves.

That is why I resist the "religion" tag. Religions are in the business of trying to reduce God into something consistent with them. That was true at Nicea, and it was true at Worms, it is true at the Vatican, and it is true in every other denomination that has ever claimed the authority of God for their own rules and practices and limitations and restrictions.

I don't believe Peter was infallible -- for Pete's sake, he denied Christ three times -- and I sure as heck don't believe there's ever been an infallible Pope. Despite my personal admiration for Paul, I don't believe Paul the man was capable of infallibility. (I do believe that Paul-as-inspired-amanuensis was striving to put God's Truth into human words. Despite calling myself a Luther-an, I don't even believe Luther got God 100% correct. (In fact he explicitly denied that he could over and over again. It wasn't "by Scripture alone as I have interpreted it," it was "by Scripture alone." Period.

If it helps you make sense of God and strengthens you in your faith to believe that the exact date (or even a more accurate one) matters, then by all means try to get the history right. But don't let the historical scholarship lead you to rejection of the faith.

That is the problem of the "higher learning." We who study for a living are always risking ourselves under the foot of pride; for we being critical toward the arguments of human beings we start insisting that everything -- including the irreducible Savior -- must be reduced that way. We start glorifying our own capacities as a species for reason, and we forget that what we have managed to reason in the brevity of our existence on one single planet is a trivial fraction of the universe (or universes) out there. We pride ourselves on our deductive ability when we cannot get anywhere interesting regarding the cosmic questions of life, the universe, and everything, without use our fallible powers of induction to choose our assumptions and what we will not contest today even when we dig down to "first principles". We forget that a first principle is never provable by deduction. A first principle is merely what we admit that we can't contest as truth/non-truth.

In short, man cannot reason without a stance of faith. You want to call your stances of faith better as you interpret the Old Testament and New Testament's relative importance in determining our salvation, fine. You want to emphasize Peter more than Paul, or John more than Jeremiah, I'm not going to contest that because I know my understanding of His meaning is going to be incomplete and you may well have better insight into the incomplete bits than I do.

But if you (or anyone) tell me that God isn't real, or if you tell me that Jesus was just a carpenter with a high moral code, then I'm going to dispute it to my dying day. Because that, my friend, is reducing God and Jesus to a religion, to something that is only real if the human mind can be encompassed by it. There may be or have been a million people in the world, ten million, a hundred billion, of people who are better at the history of the Biblical world than I am. Heck, maybe people like Ayn Rand, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, and all the other great atheists and believers in "reason" are all among them.

And that wouldn't change a thing. Because you could line up all of the greatest practitioners of reason in human history, from Galileo to Ricardo to Huxley to Popper to Einstein to Hawking, and all the results of their reason together, and you still can't debunk God without taking some stance of faith in those giant's sampling ability and in the uncertainties of sampling.

That's why I will celebrate Christ's birth as I've tried to do every year since I became more serious about my faith. Not because I know when the right day is. But because it's important that I celebrate that birth as having happened as the third most important anniversary in human history.

(There I go lecturing again. Argh. But whatever else the above lecture is, I believe it not a lecture on religion. I believe it a lecture on faith.)
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
gbguy20
10 years ago
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DakotaT
10 years ago



If it helps you make sense of God and strengthens you in your faith to believe that the exact date (or even a more accurate one) matters, then by all means try to get the history right. But don't let the historical scholarship lead you to rejection of the faith.

Originally Posted by: Wade 



Do you actually believe I struggle with faith in God with the life I've had? If that were true - I would have left this world a long fricken time ago. I question if all you thumpers measure up to the faith I've proven day in and day out. I'm an admitted vulgar man, but I know right from wrong and good from evil cause I've walked on both roads and I know each side when I see it.
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PackFanWithTwins
10 years ago

Christmas isn't celebrating Jesus Christ's birthday, but rather celebrating his birth, period.

That makes me ask ... when was Jesus Christ (or YAHWEH) born?

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 



Wouldn't that be a 1 Christmas statement, and 1 Christmas question?

:-k
The world needs ditch diggers too Danny!!!
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