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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Wouldn't it be great if the sorbo account is a parody account and he's just a harmless luddite in real life, surprised and frustrated to eventually find out someone is using his likeness to say the absolutely dumbest things anyone can say?
And the news always acts like the entire stupid consumer driven economy is riding on it. I actually don't care about that. But I bet if we did all choose to ignore it, they'd complain that we're tanking the economy on purpose. You can't win with trolls.
Day 7250 of me begging Christians to understand that Jesus is not the patron deity of capitalism, and that Christianity did not invent winter solstice celebrations.
As someone who used to be facebook friends with this joker, you have to be a special kind of stupid to make McAfee look like the voice of reason in comparison.