Why do Christians buy “Christmas” trees when they’re explicitly forbidden?
Jeremiah 10:1-5
1 Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: 2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
If you try googling any of this, you will find a shit ton of christian cope. Reminder, the Christmas tree started as a winter solstice pagan holiday.
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the Christmas tree started as a winter solstice pagan holiday.
I’d always heard that too, but Religion for breakfast put out a pretty interesting breakdown on why that may likely not be the case.
Interesting.
Honestly, given that they are using a narrow definition of specifically an evergreen being decorated I don’t agree. I’m not sure why we wouldn’t include other types of winter holiday trees or bushes like the ones decorated for Saturnalia. There’s also a lot of “probably” and supposition in this video.
I thought the Christmas tree started relatively recently, around the Renaissance.
If you try googling any of this, you will find a shit ton of christian cope
“Cope” is basically the foundation of most religions.
Mostly because 90% of what’s in The Bible is gobblederemoved, twisted and contorted by a wide variety of opportunistic con men over the course of thousands of years, written in such a vague way as to easily be interpreted to mean whatever they want it to mean.
Similar to the way Trump speaks in vague generalities and word salad, and people hear whatever they want to hear, which of course leads to massive problems when you’re the leader or aspiring leader of the free world.
Basically. I once overheard an explanation of the holy trinity and I just couldn’t figure out how anyone could be satisfied with it. They just exhaust the listener with nonsense until they give in.
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Cognitive dissonance in four pictures
The narcissist prayer:
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did…
You deserved it."
You know those days when you have doubts if you are good enough, smart enough to do something? Remember that Sorbo exists and doesn’t live in a tent by the river. So life really can’t be that hard! You can do it!
When people take part in Christmas: “Stop enjoying our holiday!!”
When people don’t: “They’re waging a war on Christmas!!”
Victimhood is their chosen drug…
As far as I can tell, the traditions that surround Christmas have nothing to do with Christianity. Basically most of the stuff was coopted by Christianity at some point from some other belief or religion.
There’s no mention of putting up lights or a tree or giving presents to eachother as part of celebrating Jesus’ “birthday” (which all evidence would suggest, was not in December).
So I would ask, what’s particularly Christian about Christmas trees, lights and decorations, as well as gift giving at Christmas time? What part of the Bible says that’s what you’re supposed to do?
Simply put, it’s not in the Bible.
So I really have up wonder about anyone who criticises an atheist (or literally any non-Christian) about “celebrating” Christmas, since all the traditional stuff about Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity.
Obvious exception for Christmas mass or whatever religious service is happening the same day as Christmas… Going to a church is literally the only Christian thing about Christmas that Christians do… Everything else is simply “tradition” which has no basis in the Bible.
People like Sorbo are over here trying to gate keep celebrating the holidays.
What to the more on all that. Xmas is basically just late to the picture as the real holiday is already over on Xmas eve.
The real bit to celebrate regardless of religion, or even, if not especially, the lackthereof, is that this is the day of the return to the sun in the Earth’s ellipse of varying distance from such.
Actually there is a possible Bible reference to the Three Magi who brought gifts to baby Jesus, some Christian traditions refer to this for gift giving instead of Christmas.
The so called “three Wise Men” or whatever. Yep.
IMO that’s a bit of a flimsy argument. Jesus’ family got gifts on his birthday, so everyone should participate in unrestricted consumerism because Jesus.
… Almost everyone celebrates their birthday with gift giving. Why then, in this case, does it constitute that everyone should give stuff to their friends/family/etc? “It’s someone else’s birthday, so I got you a gift!” What? Why?
The logic is insane.
Why do you expect perfect logic from religious practice and other rituals (ex: national celebrations)? They are just made to strengthen the ties between people. It makes people happy to receive gifts because it makes them feel valued. Consumerism is a phenomenon that adds to this but it’s not specific to religious rituals, it is everywhere. Kids used to just receive simple stuff like oranges.
And it isn’t just the traditions that are borrowed, but the date too. As you said, the 25th of December wasn’t Jesus’ birthday - but it apparently was the birthday of Sol Invictus. (i.e. the sun.)
Sometimes I wonder what it must feel like to give yourself permission to be permanently offended before attacking other people for what you view as cultural appropriation so then you can claim you are being persecuted when people get pissed off at your entitlement. It is both fascinating and also infuriating.
You mean putting up a Yule tree and trading presents like the Romans did, two traditions stolen by Christianity?
As others have said, pretty much co-opted from existing traditions https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2013/05/05/episode-24-germanic-mythology/
Christianity/Catholicism and Pagan traditions basically absorbed each other, even within Christendom power struggles concessions were made to accommodate and consolidate power. Can see this today more obviously in South America where Catholicism and animist indigenous beliefs have blended together, Peloponneseia as well.
Frankly, Christmas right now has very little to do with actual Christmas.
Besides the well known tidbit that Christmas tree that was adopted by Christians.
The actual Christmas was about having a family dinner (like Thanksgiving) and then waiting until midnight for the birth of Christ.
The Santa Claus originates from Saint Nicholas, who was celebrated on December 5th. The legend was that he secretly was making and bringing toys to orphanage.
The current Santa Claus is just bastardization of Saint Nicholas in order to sell shit. Same thing with St Valentine. It is Christian in the name only at this point.
Even worse
Modern red suited Santa was reimagined and heavily commercialized by Coca-Cola and Christmas was appropriated from Sol Invictus. Nobody even knows when Jesus was born.
Colonization and commercialization at their best.
That’s a very US-centric description though. There have been decades of slowly secularizing Christmas in the US (although I did notice a comeback of religious themed Christmas songs on the radio in the last couple of years).
In my native country we celebrate Saint Nicholas on December 6th, and we get presents from him in our boots on that morning.
Christmas is focused on the birth of Christ, not on Santa (who is not considered the same as St Nicholas and there are several legends about the origin of Santa, generally all connected to the birth of Jesus). Christmas dinner is a time for families to get together, similar to Thanksgiving in the US (but not waiting until midnight for the birth of Christ, we don’t have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, we have it on Christmas Day, celebrating the birth of Christ; Christmas Eve is the last day of fasting before Christmas).
Also the 25th is just the first of 3 days of Christmas.
yeah if you don’t believe in jesus then you can’t be part of anything about him. The yule log, santa claus, him being born close to the winter equinix, mistletoe, holly, etc. all good christian things and not something totally anti christ like jew holidays or something. totally not pagan and so biblical. anyway the tree and the gifts are for saturnalia. I didn’t really want to get involved in the satanic holiday but xstians don’t like athiests doing their thing but the satanists are way cool with it.
Here in Sweden (and presumably our Nordic neighbours) the gift giving began as a sort of jocular thing.
We have a specific word used uniquely for Christmas gifts, and it bears no relation to our other words for gifts, like “present” (birthday gift being födelsedagspresent) or gåva.
A julklapp (Yule clap) began as a rural tradition where youths would sneak around the village and, knock (clap) on the houses and toss in a wrapped bundle, containing a jocular gift, like a straw doll or some firewood. They’d often attach a note with a (usually crude or even mean) rhyme on it, thus you’d do this anonymously and sneaky like.
This has translated to modern tradition. Some keep the giver of gifts anonymous (my mother did this for some gifts despite it being just us two), and it is still really common to attach a note or a label on the outside with a rhyme on it. The rhyme tends to pertain to what the gift is, but etiquette around rhyming differs. Some prefer to keep the gift a mystery for the person to guess, others include what the gift is in the rhyme.
Examples: “For when you’re outside and struck by a breeze, wear these that you may avoid to freeze.”
“Please don’t think me dated or old, but I got you these gloves to keep you from cold.”
Oooh… Kevin would hate this so much.
nice.
It’s doubtful a single historical figure was the legendary Jesus, but I’d there was, he was about the Age of Pisces, so probably piscean, so March maybe.
I always heard spring because of the time when shepherds were moving their flock or such but that assumes a true tale.
Porque no los dos? (I don’t have the inverted question mark)
¿, here, I have an extra. ⸮¿‽
Thanks!
Why Sorbo always gotta double down on cringe. Dude needs to get off twitter and smoke some dope.
A lifetime of eating lead paint chips will do that to a person.
Looks like I’m happy I literally only know him by Andromeda (not even Hercules), he’s great there, and I know nothing else about him
Why do Christians buy a Christmas tree and gifts for their kids? It has nothing to do with the birth of Christ and isn’t a Christian tradition.
To be fair, after McClellan’s notes about the lack of primary data linking Christmas to non-Christian holidays I would gleefully support divorcing government observances of Chrismas in favor of generic winter or end of year festivities.
Republicans in the US have really soured me to anything Christian, which I now associate with property rights of the rich, authoritarian autocracy and white power movements. (That these might conflict with scripture is irrelevant to the policies lobbied by ministries and pushed by Christian-identifying officials.)
Christmas was on its way out when Charles Dickens wrote his potboiler and changed how we saw and celebrated Christmas in the following century. It might be time to put it to pasture and forge anew new winter traditions that mean something to who we are today.
Being raised christian really soured me to anything christian. ;-)
I’d ask, do we even know that actually happens?
Then, why did Christians turn Christmas into a commercial spectacle?
Next, what does he think about things like Christmas in Japan where it’s celebrated, but more as a cultural tradition of romance, family and friendship than a religious event (which basically is what he’s upset about here, when people do that, even though that’s also how most ostensible ‘christians’ act)
These heathen atheists, not even buying a traditional bucket of KFC for Christmas!
I don’t celebrate Xmas. I celebrate Sol Invixtus. It’s still got the gift giving, but the parties are way more fun
Answer - the same reason Christians celebrate Christmas: so I can co-opt someone else’s rituals for my own purposes. If they can steal solstice celebrations, I can celebrate Christmas.
Does Kevin acknowledge that he committed blasphemy when he played Hercules?
Considering the lore where stars are literal living anthropomorphic beings, I’d say Andromeda was pretty blasphemous too. I guess a paycheck trumps Jesus.
Just like Christmas! Somebody should tell him.
The thing is, as shitty a show as Andromeda was, the lore is still better than what Jews and Christians came up with.
It’s based on the Sumerian tales, which are pretty cool, actually. Then Babylon/Chaldea, Egypt reworked it a bit, then the Abramic, patriarchal bs came along. Jesus myths are pretty cool, but you know, they don’t like that part, except for the passion. They think that part was cool, but only the suffering, not the freedom of atonement and redemption, let alone ascension. It’s all true in the metaphorical/philosophical sense which is basically done be an ass, give it away to retain it.
Look around you at talibangicals that worship money, and all the worldly pleasures, hoard it and use it to harm, rather than help others.
Someone doesn’t remember how the series ended. Spoilers: it becomes a blatantly xtian show for no reason.
Did it?
TBF I don’t think anyone actually tuned in to watch Hercules or paid much attention. I remember it being something that was on before the show you did actually want to watch, in a time of limited alternatives and channels.
I have been wondering if I should try to rewatch Xena. I seem to remember that being a better show, although I was a horny teenaged boy in a time before internet pornography, when I last watched it.
It did, and to quote the asshat himself it can be summed up thus: Disappointed!
Also, Callisto 🔥
This is bringing back memories. Maybe I will have to download Xena and give it a go. LOL
Dewww eeeet! Lmk what you think!
mmmm…Lucy Lawless…
Xena was cooler than Hercules; but He-Man was better than She-Ra.
I was more of a Cheetara fan, tbh.
Didn’t see it! But even if you hate Xena and I hate Cheetara, it doesn’t matter! What a boring world it would be with a bunch of paper cutouts.
Ofc not; that would take self-awareness.
Like, does he want fewer people participating in Christmas? I don’t understand the motivation behind his post.
Shit stirring is the mating call of the aging, dimwitted d-lister, grasping desperately at hot button issues in a vain attempt to remain relevant
