JTF.ORG Forum
Save Western Civilization => Save America => Topic started by: admin on October 29, 2006, 09:48:34 PM
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As Jews, we don't celebrate St. Valentine's Day. It is a Christian holiday which things incorporated from Roman paganism such as Cupid. There is a little known Jewish holiday called Tu B'Av, which self-hating Jews hijacked and made it "The Holiday of Love" to make it a "Jewish Valentine's Day". I was thinking, "Did immoral people also hijack the Christian St. Valentine's Day into a day of love?". The way it is celebrated with illegitimate sexual relations and celebrating single life rather than wanting to get married seems anti-religious. Right Wing Hindus who are the Hindu version of Kahanists say St. Valentine's Day inflicts Hindu youth in India with the immoral culture of love. What about the Christian view on this? How did Cupid get into this?
Also, what do Christians think about Halloween? As a kid, I would celebrate it by going "trick or treating" because I didn't know it was a pagan holiday. Now I don't want anything to do with such a holiday being that I am more religious than I was as a kid. My mom must have introduced it to me and she must have known it as a kid. But why is there such an epidemic where people are celebrating things that shouldn't be celebrated? I find it ridiculous that Jews or even Christians would celebrate it. In fact, I am going to ask Chaim to comment about it.
The same goes for Groundhog's Day and other pagan popular culture holidays. The pagans had 8 festivals. One for each solstice, one for each equinox, and one for the mid-point of each season. The Winter Solstice holiday had many things that were incorporated into Christmas and for this reason, many Christians don't celebrate parts of Christmas such as having a Christmas tree. Groundhog's Day was the Mid-Winter holiday. They had one for The Spring which I guess has something to do with pagan fertility rites which is where The Easter Bunny came from which has nothing to do with Christianity. There was one for Mid-Spring and Mid-Summer as well. There was a Summer Solstice one related to Stonehenge. There was a Fall Equinox one and Halloween was the Mid-Fall one. What do our Christian members think about things such as Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and The Easter Bunny? Easter is only the name used in English after the pagan goddess Ishtar, which is also the route of the name Esther (Jews used pagan names in Persian times.)... In all other languages, Easter has the same name as Passover such as Paque in French, coming from the Aramaic Pascha. In Hebrew, Passover is called Pesach and Easter is called Pascha but sometimes Passover is called Pascha in Aramaic. Kimcha D'Pischa is Passover Flour.
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Great question Yacov!
First century Christianity was controlled and run by Jews. Christians were severely persecuted by the Roman empire and by 3rd century Emperor Constantine became a Christian and declared Christianity as the official religion. Then it became a fashion for pagans to embrace Christianty without any true repentance and conviction. They brought a lot of pagan practices into Christianity. By giving official status to Christianity, he brought internal peace to the Empire. A brilliant military commander, he also had the genius to recognize that after declaring Christianity the "state" religion (Constantine forced all the pagans of his empire to be baptized into the Roman Church), there was need for true union between paganism and Christianity. The corrupt Roman Church was full of pagans now masquerading as Christians, all of which had to be pacified. What better way than to "Christianize" their pagan idolatries. Thus, the Babylonian mystery religions were introduced by Constantine beginning in 313 A.D. The Constantine-led Roman Church was more than willing to adapt and adopt pagan practices in order to make Christianity palatable to the heathen. Constantine used religion as a political tool, totally devoid of any true spirituality:
Pagan rituals and idols took on Christian names (e.g., Jesus Christ was presented as the Sun of Righteousness [Malachi 4:2] replacing the sun god, Sol Invictus ).
Pagan holidays were reclassified as Christian holidays (holy-days).
December 25th was the "Victory of the Sun-God" Festival in the pagan Babylonian world. In the ancient Roman Empire, the celebration can be traced back to the Roman festival Saturnalia, which honored Saturn, the harvest god, and Mithras, the god of light; both were celebrated during or shortly after the winter solstice (between the 17th and 23rd of December). To all ancient pagan civilizations, December 25th was the birthday of the gods -- the time of year when the days began to lengthen and man was blessed with a "regeneration of nature." Moreover, all of December 25th's Babylonian and Roman festivals were characterized by 5-7 day celebration periods of unrestrained or orgiastic revelry and licentiousness.
Yes Christmas tree, Santa Claus and Easter Bunny too were borrowed from Pagan cultures. They have no basis in our New Testament. However our Christian leaders generally agreed that even though they have no Biblical basis for celebrating Christmas and Easter these festivals would help Christians to proclaim the message of Christianity to the world.
Even Jesus was not born on Christmas day! However Easter, the day of resurrection is accurate because they calculate according to the Passover festivel at that time.
Christians should not celebrate Halloween and it is strongly discouraged in born-again, Evangelical and fundamentalist Christian Churches.
The following reasons are given why Christians should not celebrate Halloween:
(1) Christians should not celebrate Halloween because its customs and practices come from an ancient, pagan (Celtic) festival of the dead. Therefore to participate in Halloween is to serve the devil;
(2) Christians should not celebrate Halloween because pagans and satanists still observe it today as an un-holy day;
(3) Christians should not celebrate Halloween because it is wrong to participate in something that is used for evil or has evil connected to it.
Valentine Day:
Cupid has long played a role in the celebrations of love and lovers. He is known as a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows who would pierce the hearts of his victims causing them to fall deeply in love. In ancient Greece he was known as Eros the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Roman's he was Cupid, and his mother Venus. Therefore it is definitely pagan.
Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young, single men -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.
According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl -- who may have been his jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure.
Again there is no Biblical basis for celebrating Valentines day. In third world countries Christians lovers do not celebrate Valentine. Here in America and in Europe it has become a cultural thing.
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Are you supporting Paganism by going around collecting candy in a costume? No. Christians should celebrate halloween because it's harmless fun for children. You're not supporting the pagan aspects. You're letting kids go around and get candy.
Valentine's Day is just harmless fun as well. It's a secular day that companies use to sell more merchandise. It's meant to make guys buy gifts and deleted for girls and take them out to expensive restaurants. LOL The idea of Eros has pagan roots but are we really worshipping Eros? No.
Don't be so tight-ass, people. There's a difference between celebrating the pagan religious aspects and enjoying the secular non-religious aspects that western society has associated with these days.
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christians in europe used to throw stones at jewish graves on hallowen
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christians in europe used to throw stones at jewish graves on hallowen
A true Bible believing Christian would never do that. No reputed Christian Church leader ever endorsed such a practice. Halloween has no Biblical roots. Torah gives strict warnings about idol worship and getting to know about pagan practices. If Christians start celebrating Halloween how can they love their Lord G-d with "all" their heart, "all" their soul, "all" their min and "all" their strength?
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Wow, what a great question and great answers! I never put any thought into any of these. I knew a little bit of the stories of both Halloween and Valentine's Day, but I never took any of it seriously.
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If your interested, the right-wing christian website harpazo.net has written a detailed article on the orrgins of halloween, and why true chrisitians should avoid it: http://www.harpazo.net/Holidays/Halloween.html
Regarding valentines day, it is associated with christianity only by tradition, as said previously, there is no biblical bases for it, but, unlike halloween, there is no particular reason to avoid it.
Regarding Christmas, again, there is no real biblical basis for it, and, I know the date that is used is taken from pagan festivals, but I personally don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating Jesus coming into the world, and as we don't know when it happened, the 25th december is as good a day as any to commerate it.
Easter, again, there is no biblical basis really, but again, it is good to have days of particular celebration, and it is a worthy thing to celebrate, and this time the date isn't from anything pagan.
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If your interested, the right-wing christian website harpazo.net has written a detailed article on the orrgins of halloween, and why true chrisitians should avoid it: http://www.harpazo.net/Holidays/Halloween.html
Regarding valentines day, it is associated with christianity only by tradition, as said previously, there is no biblical bases for it, but, unlike halloween, there is no particular reason to avoid it.
Regarding Christmas, again, there is no real biblical basis for it, and, I know the date that is used is taken from pagan festivals, but I personally don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating Jesus coming into the world, and as we don't know when it happened, the 25th december is as good a day as any to commerate it.
Easter, again, there is no biblical basis really, but again, it is good to have days of particular celebration, and it is a worthy thing to celebrate, and this time the date isn't from anything pagan.
Christians who are against Valentine's Day lack love in their life.
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The Sabbath-keeping Church of God (who believe the plain truth of the Bible that Herbert W. Armstrong (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=110620) taught) hate and abhor the professing Christian holidays that are merely baptized paganism that would be most foreign and alien to the early Church of God. We keep the biblical ("Jewish festivals") and teach that when King Messiah reigns all nations will - not just the Jews and Israelites - and tinsel traditions, idolatry and immorality, will be history.
THE ORIGIN OF HALLOWEEN (http://beyondbabylon.blogspot.com/2006/10/origin-of-halloween.html)
Valentine? Feb. 14? Cupid? Hearts? WHY? (http://beyondbabylon.blogspot.com/2006/02/valentine-feb-14-cupid-hearts-why.html)
Why I No Longer Celebrate Christmas (http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-I-No-Longer-Celebrate-Christmas&id=102460)
The Plain Truth about Easter (http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Plain-Truth-about-Easter&id=114571)
Hostility Against "Jewish Holidays" to be History! (http://ezinearticles.com/?Hostility-Against-Jewish-Holidays-to-be-History!&id=203343)
The Sabbath (http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Sabbath&id=119026)
History of the Papacy - zipped (http://originofnations.org/books,%20papers/history_of_the_papacy.zip)
or HTML version (http://www.wayoflife.org/papacy/00.htm)
Hyslop's Two Babylons - zipped (http://originofnations.org/books,%20papers/hislop_two_babylons.zip)
Plea to Diehard Catholics & Protestants to Repent (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=133695)
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both were never celebrated in my country; until TV tried to show them down our throats in nighties, to bust the comerce I think; they're western European customs; with no conections to both judaism and christianity even this "traditional" one. ::)