Is the christmas tree evil?

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tabcom said:
**Is not the christmas tree the same tree that Jeremiah warns the Israelites NOT to get involved with? **

Did not Ahab bring tree worship into Northern Israel?
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So, your contention is that decades and decades before Jesus Christ was born, the Jews were putting up Christmas trees? And that today Christians worship Christmas trees?

That aside, the answer to the first question is, “No, of course not.” The answer to the second question isn’t relevant to Christmas trees.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
tabcom said:
**

What does this have to do with the tree?

The tree was in the garden. God threw out Adam and Eve for worshiping it.

The tree was in Israel. God led Israel into captivity for worshiping it.

The tree exist today. What do you think God is going to do about it?
**
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Chop all trees down?
Or cause you to have a true course of Bible Study for yourself so you know that Adam and Eve did not sin by worshipping a tree. Especially a Christmas tree. Good heavens, man. That is the first time i have ever heard anyone say that our first parents worshipped trees.

Let this post of tabcom’s be a clear warning for Catholics wavering on sola scriptura or the need for private interpretation. See what happens?
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
 
mlchance said:
So, your contention is that decades and decades before Jesus Christ was born, the Jews were putting up Christmas trees? And that today Christians worship Christmas trees?
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Christmas customs are an evolution from times long before the Christian period – a descent from seasonal, pagan, religious, and national practices, hedged about with legend and tradition. Their seasonal connections with the pagan feasts of the winter solstice relate them to ancient times, when many of the earth’s inhabitant’s were sun worshipers. As the superstitious pagans observed the sun gradually moving south in the heavens and the days growing shorter, they believed the sun was departing never to return. To encourage the sun’s return north (i.e., to give the winter sun god strength and to bring him back to life again), the sun gods were worshipped with elaborate rituals and ceremonies, including the building of great bonfires, decorating with great evergreen plants such as holly, ivy, and mistletoe, and making representations of summer birds as house decorations. The winter solstice, then, was the shortest day of the year, when the sun seemingly stood still in the southern sky. Observing the slowdown in the sun’s southward movement, and its stop, the heathen believed that their petitions to it had been successful. A time of unrestrained rejoicing broke out, with revelry, drinking, and gluttonous feasts. Then, when the pagans observed the sun moving again northward, and a week later were able to determine that the days were growing longer, a new year was proclaimed.
 
well friend, i respect your view point. but i also respect the viewpoints of many others on these forums even if i don’t agree with them. the Christmas tree is not evil to me. While people are certainly entitled to think otherwise, i don’t. did i put my tree up this year?

indeed. if you think iam partaking of a paganistic act, oh well.
i love decorating my tree, and i love the angel blowing the trumpet with the lights in the background that sits on top of my tree.

i honor Jesus in everything in my daily life, and there is nothing to me that is inherently evil about the tree. your welcome to believe otherwise. we all have a riight to believe what we want even if we disagree with what others believe.

so friend, Merry Christmas to you, and God bless you.
 
tabcom said:
Christmas customs are an evolution from times long before the Christian period – a descent from seasonal, pagan, religious, and national practices, hedged about with legend and tradition. Their seasonal connections with the pagan feasts of the winter solstice relate them to ancient times, when many of the earth’s inhabitant’s were sun worshipers. As the superstitious pagans observed the sun gradually moving south in the heavens and the days growing shorter, they believed the sun was departing never to return. To encourage the sun’s return north (i.e., to give the winter sun god strength and to bring him back to life again), the sun gods were worshipped with elaborate rituals and ceremonies, including the building of great bonfires, decorating with great evergreen plants such as holly, ivy, and mistletoe, and making representations of summer birds as house decorations. The winter solstice, then, was the shortest day of the year, when the sun seemingly stood still in the southern sky. Observing the slowdown in the sun’s southward movement, and its stop, the heathen believed that their petitions to it had been successful. A time of unrestrained rejoicing broke out, with revelry, drinking, and gluttonous feasts. Then, when the pagans observed the sun moving again northward, and a week later were able to determine that the days were growing longer, a new year was proclaimed.
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Tab, please indicate your sources when you quote. This appears in several “Bible” web sites. Only one gives the source (*Encyclopedia Britannica *1958) and includes the punch line(s) omitted by all the others:

"Thus, the central idea of the winter solstice - the return of the light - became the hope of the world in the birth of ‘Christ’, the light of the world.

The exact day and YEAR of ‘Christs’ birth has never been satisfactorily settled, but when the fathers of the church, in AD 440 decided upon a date to celebrate the event, they WISELY chose the day of the winter solstice which was firmly fixed in the minds of the people and which was their most important festival."

What boggles the mind is that so many of these supposedly “biblical” web sites (including one dedicated to our old friend, the delirious Alexander Hislop :whacky: ) claim that Christmas is not biblical because December 25 is not mentioned in the Bible notwithstanding that the Nativity takes up several chapters of the Gospels. Give me a break.

Why not look at a lengthier, carefully annotated discussion of the subject? newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

Tab’s quotation gives the date of establishment of the December 25 date of Christ’s birth as 440 A.D. This date does not appear in thelengthy Catholic Encyclopedia article on the origins of the Christian observance, although it is clear that the development of a feast in honor of the Holy Nativity was prompted more as a counter to heresy than as an accommodation to paganism.

Look at the timing: in 431, the Council of Ephesus defined the true personal unity of Christ and declared Mary the Mother of God (theotokos) against Nestorius, who rejected the divinity of Jesus. Then, in 451, the Council of Chalcedon defined the two distinct natures (Divine and human) of Christ against monophysitism. This was a period in which details of the Nativity needed reinforcement in the public sphere because of widespread heresy.

As usual, the supposedly “non-Biblical” theology or observance derives from the Church’s defense of a biblical Truth.

As for pagan origins, at least some scholars agree that because of the symbolism, even a baptized pagan feast should be seen as no more than the astute placing of the date. As early as the 380s St. John Chrysostom wrote of the pagan concurrence with the Nativity feast:

“But they [the pagans] call it the ‘Birthday of the Unconquered’. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice.”
 
tabcom said:
Christmas customs are an evolution from times long before the Christian period – a descent from seasonal, pagan, religious, and national practices, hedged about with legend and tradition. Their seasonal connections with the pagan feasts of the winter solstice relate them to ancient times, when many of the earth’s inhabitant’s were sun worshipers. As the superstitious pagans observed the sun gradually moving south in the heavens and the days growing shorter, they believed the sun was departing never to return. To encourage the sun’s return north (i.e., to give the winter sun god strength and to bring him back to life again), the sun gods were worshipped with elaborate rituals and ceremonies, including the building of great bonfires, decorating with great evergreen plants such as holly, ivy, and mistletoe, and making representations of summer birds as house decorations. The winter solstice, then, was the shortest day of the year, when the sun seemingly stood still in the southern sky. Observing the slowdown in the sun’s southward movement, and its stop, the heathen believed that their petitions to it had been successful. A time of unrestrained rejoicing broke out, with revelry, drinking, and gluttonous feasts. Then, when the pagans observed the sun moving again northward, and a week later were able to determine that the days were growing longer, a new year was proclaimed.
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Wonderful Tabcom. You have given us a brilliant justification for daylight savings time!😃 Have a beer on me.
 
mercygate said:
Why not look at a lengthier, carefully annotated discussion of the subject? newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm
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**Thank you for providing this link.

Why didn’t early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen feel a need to celebrate the birthday of Christ?

What was significant about the mid-three hundreds that the Church felt it was necessary to take the pagan festivals and amalgamate Christ into it?**
 
tabcom said:
**Thank you for providing this link. **

**Why didn’t early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen feel a need to celebrate the birthday of Christ? **

What was significant about the mid-three hundreds that the Church felt it was necessary to take the pagan festivals and amalgamate Christ into it?
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I guess you posted this response before you read the whole of my post? The mid-300s were a time of great turmoil with antithetical heresies denying either the humanity or the divinity of Christ. Adding a feast to commemorate the Holy Nativity was a way of making a public obsevation of the birth of Christ which highlighted the true teaching in the minds of the faithful. Every feast has a catechetical feature in addition to the praise and worship it offers from the Church.
 
Lion said:
I guess I’m a pagan/heathen… I adorned my walls with paint and wallpaper (gold tones at that); i furnished my place with furniture and i even put in a chandelier (in the dining room (it was pretty cheap); I placed lush carpet throughout; have some pictures and adorned my place with other decorative items. Does this mean I worship my house???
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No. It means that you like a nice place to live. The Christmas Tree may have originated with the Druids, but I have one anyway.
I am not a Pagan.
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

It gets worse 🙂 - several temples of the sun-god Shamash (AKA Utu) in Mesopotamia were called “White House”: the very same name as that building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.​

Don’t tell the Fundamentalist Republicans - they won’t vote otherwise. 🙂 ##
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If you can keep the Fundamentalist Republicans from voting I’m all for it.
 
tabcom said:
**Christmas customs are an evolution from times long before the Christian period – a descent from seasonal, pagan, religious, and national practices, hedged about with legend and tradition. **
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You know, even if every single word of what you wrote is completely true, what does it really matter? How is the question even relevant to the holiday that we celebrate as Christ’s Mass/Christmas?

Jesus Christ gave the authority to bind and loose to His Church.

His Church decided to celebrate His birth with a liturgical feast day. It had (and has) the authority to set such feasts.

His Church had the authority to choose the day for feasts - and what better day than one that had previously been devoted to pagan worship?

Who but pagans are offended that the Church Christianized formerly pagan customs? Jesus Himself sanctified aspects of life that were not previously considered covenantal or sacramental. His endurance made even suffering - a great evil - into something elevating and salvific.

The Church is the body of Christ, given His promise of protection forever. She has the authority to decide these matters for Christians. If you or I don’t like it, then we need to pull our thinking into line with His, which is expressed to us primarily through His Church.

Our rejection of her authority has absolutely no bearing on whether she has it or not.

If we believe in Jesus Christ, the Church is our mother and she is responsible and accountable to Jesus for our immortal souls - whether we accept her or not.
 
tequilamac said:
Admittedly the large fonts are extremely irritating and lack charity in my eyes, but I’m afraid they are easier to read then your small font was for the elderly. Is there no middle ground?
Is there no peace on earth?😃
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I hate large fonts - so I try to choose a readily visible colour that I like 😃​

 
tabcom said:
No.

**And what exactly is being underminded? **

Perhaps the moral relativism philosophy that you are describing?

"Moral Relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory.

Some moral relativists — for example, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre — hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies or ought to lie at the foundation of individuals’ moral acts. In this view public morality reflects social convention, and only personal, subjective morality expresses true authenticity."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
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Which is interesting, but irrelevant to this thread. However, since you raise the issue: there is no virtue in absolutising subjectivity or objectivity - they both distort moral judgements; I’m not interested in either without the other: I think both are needed.​

**Now that is out of the way, normal service can be resumed. **

**What is being undermined, is the Christian’s fredom in Christ: you make him no longer free from the Law; he is brought back into bondage to it. St.Paul warned the churches against exactly this neo-Judaism (so to call it). **

**Besides, why should Christians have to pretend that they live in the very same circumstances as the Israelites who were given the Law ? We don’t - we can’t reduplicate the circumstances they lived in, because we live in wholly different circumstances. The Church can’t be frozen in the year 1200 BC or so - this is 2000 AD, & nothing is gained by pretending otherwise. Christian obedience is not to the Law, but to Christ. Christ, not the Law, is our way of avoiding idols. To re-erect the Law which Christ has annulled in His own Person is Judaising, not Christianising. To revive the Law which has died with Christ undermines the Gospel. If St.Paul could regard it as dead - certainly we can. **
 
tabcom said:
**Thank you for providing this link. **

**Why didn’t early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen feel a need to celebrate the birthday of Christ? **

What was significant about the mid-three hundreds that the Church felt it was necessary to take the pagan festivals and amalgamate Christ into it?
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Two things:​

1.The Nativity of the Lord was first kept at Rome, in 336, as a liturgical support to the anti-Arian teaching of the Council of Nicea in 325
  1. To stop false gods taking up space & time, let the faith of those who believe in the Living & Incarnate & Historical God squeeze them out 🙂 Instead of using up God’s time, God’s space, God’s creation - let them no longer have time or space (to which they are not entitled in any case :D) Christ is the Real, True, Unconquered Sun - so out goes the unreal, non-Christly, “Unconquered Sun”; which is a creature, not its Creator: so it is wholly unfit to be adored
On the issue of paganism in general: Mary, not Isis, is the Mother of God - Isis is a “good dream” of something better yet to come, at best; so out goes she, a non-real “mother of god”, & in comes the real Mother of God, the only one who can truly & rightly be so called.

Out goes Hadad of Damascus - & over his temple, taking up its space, goes a church in honour of St John the Baptist.

Out of the calendar go the gods - in come the saints & martyrs, who are “sons of God” in the “Son of God”

IOW, the Church was not corrupted by the heathen - it was depriving heathenism of oxygen, by taking up what heathenism had no right to in any case. It was carrying war into the enemy’s camp - not succumbing to it.

Don’t people believe that God is great enough to take what men spoil, redeem it from evil, & use it for his own gracious purposes ? The world is not the devil’s - it is Christ the King’s: His, & His Alone. If He redeems it at all - how does His redemption not include time & space, & all that fill them ?

And how does any of this deform Christ or His Gospel ? For a corrupted Church, Christians were very busy destroying temples & shrines.

If the Church was paganised - why did it not keep the Saturnalia ? Why did it fight the feasts in honour of Tammuz, Adonis, Cybele Mother of the Gods, Zeus Marnas, & many, many more ? People do not usually show their zeal for a religion by forbidding it, preaching against it, vandalising its shrines, profaning its holy places, referring to its gods as “devils”, defiling its oracles, etc. The Church can reasonably be accused of anti-pagan bigotry, intolerance, violence, persecution - but not of favouring it in any form.

For more details see (among others):
  • Marta Sordi, The Christians in the Roman Empire
  • H. Trombley, the Christianisation of the Roman Empire 370-529 ##
 
The Christmas tree isn’t evil. There will be a lighting of the Christmas tree in Saint Peter’s Square on Wednesday the 20th. (1)

*The inauguration of the Christmas tree. This event also offers an opportunity for family prayer. Apart from its historical origins, **the Christmas tress has become a potent symbol **to-day and is very diffuse amongst Christians; it evokes both the tree planted in the centre of Eden (Gen 2, 9), and the tree of the Cross, which lends it a Christological significance: Christ is the true tree of life, born of human stock, of the Virgin Mary, the tree which is always green and productive. In the Nordic countries, the tree is decorated with apples and hosts. “Gifts” can be added; but among the gifts placed under the tree, something should be included for the poor since they belong to every Christian family; *( CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENTS–DIRECTORY ON POPULAR PIETY AND THE LITURGY
PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES, Vatican City December 2001)
  1. vatican.va/news_services/television/multimedia/live-week_en.html
  2. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20020513_vers-direttorio_en.html
It took me four hours to decorate my little, sparkling Xmas tree filled with nearly three hundred tiny ornaments.🙂 Some of them were handmade by me. Don’t forget to put a Christmas present under your tree for someone poor. I’m giving that present to the man who rings the bell outside my grocery store. He collects money for the poor. Last night when I went to the store, it was freezing cold but he was there smiling and saying “Hi, wishing you a Merry Christmas!”😃
 
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