Is the christmas tree evil?

[Zooey]

**
I Corinthians 2:14 – the natural** man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

natural, from the Greek word psuchikos – physical, sensual
receiveth is the Greek word dechomai. The word dech is the word ten, from which we get the word decade (ten years) and the word decalogue (ten words/ ten commandments). This word receiveth means to figuratively reach out willingly with the ten fingers and “accept” an offer that has been made.

???

I’m sorry, but is this for real? Are you seriously suggesting that giving & receiving gifts is wrong, based on the fact that we have 10 fingers? Because this whole thread has been, IMHO, more than a little bizarre, but this passes right over into the Twilight Zone!!

 

[tabcom]

Tabcom,
I would like you to reply to my post 152. . . . .

It seems that even if the Christmas tree is idolatry, it is different than the idolatry you find in the old testament. If you would admit that . . .

**Yes, the christmas tree is idolatry.

IMHO, no. I can not admit that somehow it is different.

Rev. 17:5 – And upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

* harlot - Greek : porne-an idolator; prostitute; " to sell"
* abomination - Greek : bdelgma- detestable; to stink

The Harlot of Babylon, the false world religion has corrupted man throughout history with idolatrous worship.

Gen. 11:4 – “They said, Let us make us a name”

* name - Hebrew: Shem- honour; authority conspicuous position

In Gen. 11:4 Babylon rebelled against God; mothering all idol worship, founding their idolatrous system, when they said, “Let us make us a name.” (honor self).

Pride is the foundation of all idolatry. A man is an idol worshippers (of self), when he says, “I will make a name for myself. I am known as an authority (name) by my idols (cars, houses, lands, things.) My position in the community will cause men to look up to me”. This is an abomination. Pride is a stinking smell to God. Christians are to be living, acceptable, (pleasing) sacrifices. (Rom 12:1). Wicked-Spiritual Babylon, mother of idolatry, is the system of “pride” has always been here. It is what will pollute the world at the end of time.

In addition . . .

Luke 12:15 And he (Jesus) said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Eph 5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Covetousness = Idolatry

covetousness- greek: pleonektes- to want more; greediness

Idolatry = wanting more

Every man is covetous by nature until God deals with him and causes him to repent (turn from self to God). The word devil (daimon) means to distribute fortunes. A covetous man who “wants more” has a devil. Covetousness is the idolatrous worship of self. It is an idolatry as evil as falling down before Baal, the christmas tree, the golden calf, or anyone of the ancient pagan deities of Babylon.

Paul said, “having food and raiment, let us be there with content” (I Tim. 6:8). He also said, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Phil. 4:11).

Men, myself included, are involved in idolatry when they refuse to be content with what they have. Their hearts cry out, “I want more.” **

 

[tabcom]

No. Because you seem to be arguing that giving and receiving gifts denies the spiritual man.

Christians believe that what we do with our material body, how we treat the material world, and how we relate to the created universe, are part of the human life through which we come to God.

**Beware, by living with this belief system, one is in danger of slipping and falling into the abyss.

John gives such warnings in 1 John 2:15-17.

15
Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16
For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world.
17
Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.

That sums up the material world. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Those are the three things that caused Eve to fall when she was sudduced by the serpent and accepted her gift from the first christmas tree.**

 

[tabcom]

Yes He does (reveals Himself to pagans ) - by sending His Son to be immersed in the vomit of our sins by living among sinful men as a man Who “was without sin”.​

I had in mine that God did not appear to the pagans of the Hebrew Bible. The ambiguity was my error. Thank you for clarifying this point.

 

[tabcom]

There are more than two Jesuses in the Bible

There is

• Joshua son of Nun, after whom the sixth book of the Bible is named (see also Hebrews 4.8)
• Jeshua son of Jehozadak (Zechariah 3)
• Jesus Justus, a disciple mentioned in Acts (IIRC)
• Not mention the other well-known one
• And IIRC a few others in the OT
  Jesus is the Greek form of these Hebrew names

**Yes, all of which are correct. However, the other Jesus in the bible that I was refering to is the one Paul speaks of in the 11th Chapter of 2 Cor.

II Cor 11:3,4,13-15 But I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled (exapatao - seduce wholly) Eve through his subtility (panourgia - shrewd, clever, cunning), so your minds should be corrupted (phtheiro - deprave, ruin, defile) from the simplicity (haplos-singleness, implies pure or holy) that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth “another Jesus”-- (this is not the Jesus of the Bible that says we must take up our cross daily, deny (aparneomai - utterly contradict) ourselves, forsake all that we have or we cannot be his disciple - Luke 9:23;14:27,33) --whom we have not preached, or if ye receive “another spirit”, (small s–the Holy Spirit is Truth - John 14:17, 15:26, & 16:13, 1 John 5:6-- They will preach another truth, which is not the truth at all, but a lie disguised as the truth) – which ye have not received, or “another gospel”,–the true gospel is death to the flesh/self and the resurrection daily in our mortal bodies - 1 Cor 15:1-4, 2 Cor 4:10-12,16,17 - The “other Jesus” requires no death to self, no daily cross, no self denial, but rather, this Jesus does not resurrect in us daily – instead he says to us that we can “distribute fortunes” (daemon) to ourselves thus ruling our own flesh, setting our own rules and overthrowing (diabolos) the law of God in our lives – this gospel is no gospel, that fulfills the flesh.) It is the devil’s counterfeit gospel.-which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. For such are false apostles deceitful (dolios- to live by trickery, decoy, guile) workers, transforming (metaschematizo - disguise or change) themselves into the apostles of Christ (It is the devil disguised as Jesus)–but it is another Jesus. And no marvel - for Satan himself is transformed (metaschematizo - disguised) into an angel of light… Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed (metaschematizo - disguised) as the ministers of righteousness: whose end shall be according to their works. (They will pass themselves off as truth-sayers when they are soothsayers.)**

 

[mercygate]

**Beware, by living with this belief system, one is in danger of slipping and falling into the abyss. **

John gives such warnings in 1 John 2:15-17.

15
Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16
For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world.
17
Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.

That sums up the material world. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Those are the three things that caused Eve to fall when she was sudduced by the serpent and accepted her gift from the first christmas tree.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became man: matter, for my sake. God made the world and all that is in it and declared it “good.” To insist that the material world is, in essence, evil borders on the gnostic and the Manichaean.

Eve did not accept a gift from a Christmas tree. Christmas trees, “evergreen,” symbolize the everlasting life of Christ. The lights symbolize his light, shining in the darkness of the world (at the darkest time of the natural year in the northern hemisphere). The cross itself is called a “tree” because it is the antidote to the tree from which Eve took the forbidden fruit.

'Night folks. That’s all.
All I have to say on this subject now is that

 

[tabcom]

To insist that the material world is, in essence, evil borders on the gnostic and the Manichaean.

**What then was John refering to when he stated ‘do not love the world or the things of the world’?
**

 

[mercygate]

What then was John refering to when he stated ‘do not love the world or the things of the world’?

The word “world” has two distinct meanings. The world of matter, created by a good and loving God, which Christ affirms and redeems in the Incarnation, and the “world of the flesh” to which the mind darkened by sin attaches its affections as if it were the only world: the world of here, now, and nevermore.

If the created world were intrinsically evil, then the Resurrection would be Hell.

 

[tabcom]

The word “world” has two distinct meanings.

**
For which world is John describing?**

 

[deb1]

. Those are the three things that caused Eve to fall when she was sudduced by the serpent and accepted her gift from the first christmas tree.

Could you clarify this for me? Some of your post make it sound as if you percieve the use of any tree as evil because some ancient pagans carved idols from their wood.

But wouldn’t this logic mean that I couldn’t have anything wooden in my house?

I don’t think that you are being consistent with your arguments.

If the evergreen tree is evil because Eve ate the fruit from a tree, and if the evergreen is evil because pagans used a tree to carve their wood, then it follows that using any tree must be evil. So, I would have to give up eating fruit as that comes from trees.

 

[mercygate]

For which world is John describing?

John has a pretty good handle on the distinction between the two “worlds.”

You do not distinguish the “world” coveted by the lusts of the flesh from the divinely created universe.

If the material world were essentially evil, could Jesus have used its bread and wine to bring us his Body and Blood? All through the Bread of Life Discourse he refers to “my flesh” – eating “my flesh” as the condition of life. Then he refers to “the” flesh – the worldly flesh – as being futile while the spirit gives life. He comes to us in “his flesh” through the matter of bread and wine. His Incarnation and Resurrection validate the ultimate goodness of the creation.

Many non-Catholics reject these overarching implications of the Incarnation as a result of their rejection of Christ’s Church as a sacramental entity.

These lengthy and tortured explications you offer have only affirmed my belief in the simplicity of the Catholic faith. These excruciating agonies of eisegesis affirm the wisdom of reading Scripture in its proper context: the Church for which it was written, where the lights are turned up, and to which the Communion of Saints witnesses to Jesus Christ in eternal fidelity.

 

[tabcom]

So, I would have to give up eating fruit as that comes from trees.

**I’ve attempted to outline the metaphorical representation of the tree and the fruit throughout this thread.

Literal trees and literal fruit are not evil.**

 

[Church_Militant]

Yes, the christmas tree is idolatry.

IMHO, no. I can not admit that somehow it is different.

Bunk… Fallacious reasoning and passages of scripture twisted to have meanings outside what they say outright.

Rev. 17:5 – And upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

* harlot - Greek : porne-an idolator; prostitute; " to sell"
* abomination - Greek : bdelgma- detestable; to stink

The Harlot of Babylon, the false world religion has corrupted man throughout history with idolatrous worship.

And just precisely what false world religion might that be?

Gen. 11:4 – “They said, Let us make us a name”

* name - Hebrew: Shem- honour; authority conspicuous position

In Gen. 11:4 Babylon rebelled against God; mothering all idol worship, founding their idolatrous system, when they said, “Let us make us a name.” (honor self).

Pride is the foundation of all idolatry.

A man is an idol worshippers (of self), when he says, “I will make a name for myself. I am known as an authority (name) by my idols (cars, houses, lands, things.) My position in the community will cause men to look up to me”. This is an abomination. Pride is a stinking smell to God. Christians are to be living, acceptable, (pleasing) sacrifices. (Rom 12:1).Pride, the foundation of idolatry? What about outright ignorance? St. Paul spoke of this to the Athenians when he preached to them in Acts 17:23.

Certainly we are called to be living sacrifices (the very term actually seems to speak of penance, I just noticed.) and pride is inconsistent with Love according to 1st Corinthians 13, but I think that your interpretation exceeds what is written.

Wicked-Spiritual Babylon, mother of idolatry, is the system of “pride” has always been here. It is what will pollute the world at the end of time

. Again, what precisely are you referring to here? What religion are you speaking of?

In addition . . .

Luke 12:15 And he (Jesus) said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Eph 5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

So suddenly this is not about Christmas trees anymore but something else. Do you feel that you have been especially covetous in your life?

Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Covetousness = Idolatry

covetousness- greek: pleonektes- to want more; greediness

Idolatry = wanting more

Every man is covetous by nature until God deals with him and causes him to repent (turn from self to God). The word devil (daimon) means to distribute fortunes. A covetous man who “wants more” has a devil. Covetousness is the idolatrous worship of self. It is an idolatry as evil as falling down before Baal, the christmas tree, the golden calf, or anyone of the ancient pagan deities of Babylon.Again, you lump the Christmas tree in with things that are totally unrelated to it. It has no connection at all to any of the other things that you mention. And again, you are exceeding what is written.

Paul said, “having food and raiment, let us be there with content” (I Tim. 6:8). He also said, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Phil. 4:11).

Men, myself included, are involved in idolatry when they refuse to be content with what they have. Their hearts cry out, “I want more.”

I think that here you make presumptions upon what others think and do, when in fact you do not and cannot know their hearts. I know that in my own life there is no such covetousness and idolatry, so I think you’re largely moralizing out in left field somewhere, though our nation could certainly do with a dose of such moralizing to make them seek to take better care of the poor, but again, it is not the meaning nor the fault of the simple Christmas tree.

Here is an actual history of the Christmas tree for those who might be interested.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Well, then, since the Christmas trees (in my German Catholic tradition) were nice LITERAL trees which my Oma loved to decorate with nice LITERAL fruit (cranberries), as well other literal things (literal paper, literal popcorn, literal tinsil, literal bread dough stars), we don’t have a problem with them being evil, do we?

 

[corvidae]

You know tabcom,
I think that many people would agree with parts of what you are saying. For example, I think many would agree that Christmas has become too commercialized, and has become for some an idol to prosperity. I think all would agree that pride is an abomination to God.
Now, I think you take it too far. I think that you are taking something that could be idolatry, and saying it always is. I think you assume that anything connected to this world is inherently evil, but in fact, that was a proposition of the gnostics, who John comments against. I think you take many different sins, and say they are the same. I do not think that giving and recieving gifts period constitutes idolatry. I think covetousness means idolatry because you are saying that what you are coveting is your god.

People would agree with many things you are saying, but some of the things which seem ridiculous (being a tree makes it an idol) keep people from seeing the things they would agree with and may simply turn them off of the thread.
A lone Raven

 

[tabcom]

John has a pretty good handle on the distinction between the two “worlds.”

You do not distinguish the “world” coveted by the lusts of the flesh from the divinely created universe.

In the original greek text, the word for world that John used in 1 John 2:15-17, is the word cosmos. It means orderly arrangement. He goes on to quantify this particular world. The world, the cosmos, the orderly arrangement is what one sees, what one consumes, and what makes one feel prideful. All of which is not spiritual in nature.

 

[tabcom]

Well, then, since the Christmas trees (in my German Catholic tradition) were nice LITERAL trees which my Oma loved to decorate with nice LITERAL fruit (cranberries), as well other literal things (literal paper, literal popcorn, literal tinsil, literal bread dough stars), we don’t have a problem with them being evil, do we?

But what did all of those things represent to your beloved Oma. btw, I had a great aunt that was german, her name was Oma too.

 

[Church_Militant]

But what did all of those things represent to your beloved Oma. btw, I had a great aunt that was german, her name was Oma too.

Gee…they always meant small gifts of love to their family.

 

[Genesis315]

While Christmas trees are perfectly fine, those “holiday trees” are pure evil

 

[corvidae]

Tabcom,

Have you ever heard of the gnostics?

They were one of the first heresies. They believed in the necessity of a secret knowledge from God in order to be saved. Also, they believed in the innate evilness of the material world. Now the Catholic Church has fought the gnostics in every incarnation of that heresy since they first cropped up. John in his epistle warns against them.

It is a Catholic Idea that Creation was good, and was corrupted with the fall of man just as man was corrupted. To Catholics material does not equal evil. In fact, in much Catholic thought, the creation reveals the creator. That is why Catholics trust so much in natural law.

This may be why it is so hard for Catholics to accept your proposition that because it is a tree it is an idol.

A lone Raven