Holiday Trees In The Slope

booklaw,

You left out Ramadan tree. Can't Ramadanians have trees too?

You shits better be PecaNS if you want to steal my Tree.

Yours truly,

JESUS H. CHRIST

Carnivore wrote:
I don't see you crying over the fact that Christians did THE EXACT SAME THING to the pagans.

NAME the pagans

PAGANS are not a specific GROUP. It's a general name for any religion pre-christian Europe.

So when you say pagans, you are saying EVERY religion ever made before Christians had a "holiday tree". So lets be specific. Which pagans did we "steal" it from and copy exactly, then change its name to what we liked?

Actually, those "pagans" barely used the tree for anything or just had to it symbolize the oncoming spring season.

But by your mentality, pagans worships Gods, which means Christians stole that idea as well and made their own God. So in hindsight, everyones religion is stolen from someone else and no one should celebrate anything. (if you want to get extreme)

Don't let these heretics tell you what to do.

Yours truly,

ODIN

Carnivore,

if you come over and help decorate my Christmas tree, i will come over and help you decorate your holiday bush/festivus pole/candelabra, menorah.

LongTimeSloper wrote: Carnivore,

if you come over and help decorate my Christmas tree, i will come over and help you decorate your holiday bush/festivus pole/candelabra, menorah.

I appreciate the peace offering. Although Festivus poles and Channukah menorahs are traditionally unadorned, I'll definitely PM you when I get my tree. If you're decorating it on 12/13, I can help you out with your Christmas tree.

Which pagan group you copied it from is irrelevant.

No one is copying your actual holiday (the celebration of Christ's birth). We've joined in celebrating the pagan traditions that have absolutely nothing to do with your actual holiday.

But since you asked...
http://tinyurl.com/6xovxq

And this isn't exactly a scholarly resource, but it goes over the highlights pretty well:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15719_pagan-orgies-human-sacrifice-bizarre-origins-christmas.html

scarlett wrote: I tried to read the wikipedia entry but kept stumbling over fun words like erect and tool and bush.

teehee teehee. We are the non-adults in this thread.

Carmen wrote: [quote=scarlett]I tried to read the wikipedia entry but kept stumbling over fun words like erect and tool and bush.

teehee teehee. We are the non-adults in this thread.

I don't think that's fair, since you were smart enough not to argue about religion. On the Internet.

Carnivore wrote: Which pagan group you copied it from is irrelevant.

No one is copying your actual holiday (the celebration of Christ's birth). We've join in celebrating the pagan traditions that have absolutely nothing to do with your actual holiday.

But since you asked...
http://tinyurl.com/6xovxq

And this isn't exactly a scholarly resource, but it goes over the highlights pretty well:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15719_pagan-orgies-human-sacrifice-bizarre-origins-christmas.html

For your first link - a TREE isnt even mentioned in that. So I think you are trying to spin the topic into a different direction

The second link is a history of christmas, where a tree is only mentioned as one of the inanimate objects many pagan religions worshipped before christianity. (also some orgies and human sacrifices are mentioned)

Where is the relation to what we do?
(bring in a tree, decorate it and put presents under the tree?)
We dont even worship the tree. It in itself is a decoration.

It seems you are trying to spin the topic into how we stole a religion and made it into christianity as opposed to "stealing a tree and calling it a christmas tree"

O Holiday Pole, how long and hard your shaft is!!!!!!!! I love to stroke you gently...........

Carnivore wrote: H, the pagans did decorate a tree with bits of metal, etc for Saturnalia. The link is posted several pages ago.

Furthermore, many of your fellow Christians argue that Christmas trees are explicitly forbidden by the bible:
[quote=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.

And no one is saying you "stole a religion." I'm saying you stole a custom that has nothing to do with your religion, and that you have no grounds to be outraged if others outside your religion also enjoy observing that custom.

First off, the bible is never meant to be taken literally.
Secondly, that is in regards to worshiping a tree. We simply use it as decoration.

And what I am trying to explain is that we did not steal a custom. If anything, i will give you the benefit of the fact that we ADDED to a custom. However, we added to a custom that many other cultures already had as well. But in doing so, we made it different and into our own.
Much like how Latin is the root of al languages. Language changed and evolved.

It become a christmas tree for the christmas holiday.
You, specifically, are doing the exact same thing we are doing with the tree, but decided to call it a holiday tree. No changes at all. If you did something different with it, then fine.

Make it into your own, start your own tradition. Hell, even though Festivus is a joke from TV, it's still a different tradition with roots taken from christmas trees, that in turn have roots taken from other traditions. But it was CHANGED. So it is a valid tradition if you want to use it.

It's that simple.
But dont insult our intelligence and copy the christmas tree to the "T" and then call it something else.

hitokiri wrote: First off, the bible is never meant to be taken literally.

I think you'll find many of your fellow Christians disagree with you on that.

hitokiri wrote: Secondly, that is in regards to worshiping a tree. We simply use it as decoration.

Are you sure you're reading the same passage as me? It doesn't say anything about worshiping it.

hitokiri wrote: And what I am trying to explain is that we did not steal a custom. If anything, i will give you the benefit of the fact that we ADDED to a custom. However, we added to a custom that many other cultures already had as well. But in doing so, we made it different and into our own.
Much like how Latin is the root of al languages. Language changed and evolved.

It become a christmas tree for the christmas holiday.
You, specifically, are doing the exact same thing we are doing with the tree, but decided to call it a holiday tree. No changes at all. If you did something different with it, then fine.

Make it into your own, start your own tradition. Hell, even though Festivus is a joke from TV, it's still a different tradition with roots taken from christmas trees, that in turn have roots taken from other traditions. But it was CHANGED. So it is a valid tradition if you want to use it.

It's that simple.
But dont insult our intelligence and copy the christmas tree to the "T" and then call it something else.

Well I would argue that the non-Christian's tree is different than the Christmas tree, in that it features secular decoration rather than angels and crosses, and that it is not put up in celebration of Christ's birth, but in celebration of the fun of the winter season and exchanging presents.

Come
Come come come let us adore Star Trek?

Carnivore wrote: [quote=hitokiri]First off, the bible is never meant to be taken literally.

I think you'll find many of your fellow Christians disagree with you on that.

Very few Christians take the Bible literally. That is a lazy man's argument in order to equate Christians with other fanatical elements of other religions. Some aspects of Islam comes to mind.