Holiday Trees In The Slope

That sounds about right.

Santa Claus is from a ridiculous source as well. And presents and overspending and outgifting. How come you don't want to rename those customs associated with Christmas?

Ice skating? Nah, not Christmas, just winter and perhaps under a Christmas tree.

booklaw,

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

Sure... trees are for everyone!

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

Yours truly,

JESUS H. CHRIST

Good!

I want a kitten tree to celebrate my kittens. they are cute.

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)

We got our tree last night!!!!!!!!!!! And we're gonna cover that shit in santa clauses and glittery snowflakes and snowmen and reindeer and lights and candy canes whoo hoo!!!!!!!!

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

Yours truly,

ODIN

hitokiri wrote: [quote=Carnivore]
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"

Relevance?

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.

ahahhahahahaha "holiday bush"


ahahahahahahahahahahahah


anyone who wants to may come over and decorate my pagan shrub.

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.

Carnivore wrote: [quote=hitokiri][quote=Carnivore]
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"

Relevance?

Big relevance.
Which pagan religion has used the tree as we use it?

By grouping all pre christian religions into one group (pagans) you can easily by default say that christians stole an idea when that is not the case.

A good 80% of religions and non religious people use a tree for something. Whether it was to symbolize spring or to worhship a god.

Not one religion brought it inside, decorated it and use it how we use it. It's a completely different idea that happens to use something that almost everyone used in the past. (I might give you credit if you name the Egyptians, but they can never be connected to Christianity)

However, you are completely copying our tradition, but just renaming it. Christians did not do that.

So when you say we copied the pagans, I would like you to NAME the pagan religion that did this exact thing that we do. Using "pagans" is too broad a term and groups together many other religions.

It's like the Beatles. They happened to hit America first and almost every other group after was labeled as trying to copy them.

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

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

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.

I'll show you my pagan ritual if you show me yours!!

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.

scarlett wrote: I'll show you my pagan ritual if you show me yours!!

keep your dirty non-christian hands away from my festivus bush!

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"

so keep your slimy hands off my long hard chrisnikamadan pole!

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

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:

Jeremiah 10:1-5 wrote:
[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.

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.

Q: How do you insult the intelligence of an [x]?
A: That's easy; the hard part is finding an [x] with intelligence.

Now just replace [x] with Christian, Atheist, Jew, Ramadanian, Zoroastrian, etc...

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.

By the way, if anyone wants to get me a holiday ornament for my tree, I'd love any of these:
http://www.ornament-shop.com/productList/Star-Trek-All/-s128.html

Except the USS Enterprise ornament. I have that one already.

Come
Come come come let us adore Star Trek?

More history for those interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

Also this show from the History Channel:

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.