64 replies to this topic

[I Am Not Resisting]

Meiliken, on 03 April 2012 - 12:56 AM, said:

You want to show your spouse you're thinking of them?  Don't wait for anniversary or birthday; surprise them with a flower/card at random.

Can you tell this to my husband, please??  

[willowdreams]

I have read most of the responses here.

I think this Christianity/Pagan thing is wearing thin each and every year.

I do not like to think of Christians as being stupid or ignorant. They are perfectly aware that the majority of their 'celebrations' are adopted from Pagan holidays and made to look Christian all wrapped up in a blanket of 'easy conversion' from way back when.

Well, that was way back when, whoop de do and spank me till I am blue.

Who cares? In all seriousness, does it really seriously matter?

People are paying so much attention to 'O M G that pagan or Christian or Commercialism?' and less to what should actually be happening.

I am agnostic. I have lived both the Christian world and the Pagan world and I have found both to be lacking in much of everything and both to be filled with silly attitudes towards one another and the world in general (keeping in mind I am giving my OPINION here based on what I have experienced).

I have found that the best thing to do is keep your belief personal. And bring everything else out in the open. Your belief in whatever god/s you believe in is personal for you. Keep it special, keep it that way. Yes, be with like minded people to get your spiritural food if you are religious/spiritual, no issues there, but today the celebrations should be about something else.

I work. My family works. And when someone in the home does not have a job or is home on layoff (like I am during summer) that person holds down the front by keeping house clean, meals cooked and clothes washed while everyone else is outside the home earning money to KEEP the physical home over our heads.

So when we have these 'celebrations' and it is recognized by the government and we get our day off, we actually use that to our advantage. It is those days we come together as family and friends and enjoy each other. We each make parts of meals and meet together and 'fellowship' and friends and family. We do not care if you are pagan, christian or atheist or agnostic or even jewish (though I admit for one of our Jewish families, they bring their own food due to their eating habits). No one cares.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Good Friday, Labor day, Fourth of July, are days of fellow shipping without religion being discussed, more of getting updated. Picnics, laughter, singing, games, silly arguing, watching some sports game on tv (seriously, what is so fun bout that? Shhhhhhh don't tell any of the male friends of mine that I asked this though, they just look at me like I have grown two extra heads when I ask what is so great about 'the game').

Holidays are the few times of the year when most everyone has a day or two or three off work and we can all actually congregate someplace together and have fun without stress.

Instead of worrying about if something is about commercialism or if it is actually Pagan or Christian, I say be more concerned with making it the one thing it should be about.

Friends and family and getting together, even if it is only on the phone or through computer (seriously, we have some friends who communicate through GAMING! I do not get it, but they seem content).

It is the few times most pple have the day/s off and of course you are always aware these holidays are days off so you can make plans months ahead of time and enjoy knowing it is all being taken care of.

Religion is all nice and stuff, (counting all faiths in that) and non religious life is really nice as well, but they mean nothing if you cannot take advantage of a day here and there to congregate with family and friends without concern of their religious or non religious beliefs.

friends and family trumps commercialism and how a holiday came about.

At least to me anyways, but hey! What do I know? I am just your standard every day boring Agnostic who cares more for people then how some holiday came about.

I learned the hard way a few yrs back, life is short, you can go at any moment. So make your moments count NOW and worry about what is important in your heart and I bet when you think hard about, how a celebration came about 2000 plus years ago is not as important as who you celebrate with today.

[DingoLingo]

willowdreams, on 03 April 2012 - 02:52 AM, said:

So when we have these 'celebrations' and it is recognized by the government and we get our day off, we actually use that to our advantage. It is those days we come together as family and friends and enjoy each other. We each make parts of meals and meet together and 'fellowship' and friends and family. We do not care if you are pagan, christian or atheist or agnostic or even jewish (though I admit for one of our Jewish families, they bring their own food due to their eating habits). No one cares.

Well said.. my family is similar in this.. I'm a pagan my sister is a christian.. my other sister is a atheiest.. my mother was a catholic.. no idea what the old man was.. even had rellies that were Witnesses.. mormons etc..

But when we all get together.. our religious views are put aside.. because we look at that time spent together as a family more important then observing a religious holiday.. us religous lot, would do all that before heading out to the family gathering.. or when we got home..

[Salami Swami]

I heard the easter egg comes from the egg of ishtar, an egg like vessel the goddess comes to earth with

[Rlyeh]

Melo, on 02 April 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

Pagan alphabet?

Roman alphabet

Melo, on 02 April 2012 - 08:43 PM, said:

So called Italic, Roman people pagans is little wierd since word pagan came from latin word paganus which means villager and is often used by Romans after they adopt Christianity for Barbarians and their old Gods.

Latin alphabet  =/= Pagan alphabet

By that logic homo sapiens didn't exist either, until the word was invented..

Edited by Rlyeh, 03 April 2012 - 07:57 AM.

[Beckys_Mom]

Jor-el, on 02 April 2012 - 09:31 PM, said:

Passover is the only real time to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, no matter on what days of the week they land on. The church has allowed this situation for ages and then they are surprised when they are accused of almost being paganistic in their rituals...

I see what you are saying... But see that is how irony works...  They will not want to change now...  And a lot of the Christian church  is taken from Pagan faith anyway...  No offence but I cannot see much   with Christianity that is unique, but I  wont get into that...

The only way things can change is - a new church is formed and more follow.. But see we have enough splinter groups  / branches of Christianity as it is  ...Then again on the other hand  a new reformed one would most likely do well..I dunnoo..

Edited by Beckys_Mom, 03 April 2012 - 12:44 PM.

[Paranoid Android]

I'm actually torn on this issue from a theological standpoint.  On one hand we (Christians) are told to turn away from pagan things, but eggs and bunny rabbits are totally and 100% pagan offerings at this time of year (both representing fertility, which is not surprising for a time dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of fertility).  On the other side of the coin, pretty much everyone in the modern world has removed their personal attachment to eggs and rabbits as being pagan signs.  Many may be intellectually aware that they had pagan significance, but when we eat a chocolate bunny we aren't meditating on any pagan ideas.

I think it was wrong for the early church to initially try to appeal to pagan audiences by appropriating their views.  Many early Christians would have associated these practises with pagan roots, hence why many pagans converted, because they didn't have to let go of their views - pagan influences would have been at the front of their ideas.  But in saying that, after the course of more than a millennium between then and now I'm not so certain that this matters today, most Christians don't associate these things with pagan gods and goddesses.

Personally, I don't really think so much on Easter.  It is probably most correct to say I am cautious about it.  It neither appeals to me nor offends me.  I sit on the fence.

It's a tough one for me to say much more than this

~ PA

Edited by Paranoid Android, 03 April 2012 - 03:35 PM.

[Paranoid Android]

Beckys_Mom, on 03 April 2012 - 12:42 PM, said:

No offence but I cannot see much   with Christianity that is unique, but I  wont get into that...

I guess that means I won't be getting into all the reasons why I 100% disagree

[Beckys_Mom]

Paranoid Android, on 03 April 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

I guess that means I won't be getting into all the reasons why I 100% disagree

PA.....don't make me come over there  lol

[the L]

Rlyeh, on 03 April 2012 - 07:49 AM, said:

By that logic homo sapiens didn't exist either, until the word was invented..

I didnt questioned exitence of alphabet. Your logic is wrong.
Its been like you named homo sapiens - homo ryleh.
I hope you understand.

[Rlyeh]

Melo, on 03 April 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

I didnt questioned exitence of alphabet. Your logic is wrong.
Its been like you named homo sapiens - homo ryleh.
I hope you understand.

No one said you did. Perhaps you'd like to read what I had quoted?

Edited by Rlyeh, 03 April 2012 - 03:52 PM.

[Paranoid Android]

Beckys_Mom, on 03 April 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

PA.....don't make me come over there  lol

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.  I'll make it up to you somehow...

Edited by Paranoid Android, 04 April 2012 - 05:16 AM.

[Leave Britney alone!]

We have to celebrate spring somehow and like running water it will find its course wherever possible. Every idea of humanity has been based on previous ideas of others. Inventions, science, literature, and much more is based on this concept so why would religion be different? Certain ideology might claim religion should be stale, unchanging, not borrowing from others, yet like water change is inevitable and natural even when denied through rhetoric, so it will change, will borrow, and when it actually stops to do these things, like languages which are all based on previous ones, they will die.

In past times some religions actually welcomed new ideas, change, and borrowing from others. Christianity was adopted by so many Pagans because they just included Jesus as another one of their deities. Initially that is how it was. Today it can be this way again, understanding and welcoming this on a conscious level, judicious even as to filter in exactly what works for us and discard what does not. Religion cannot be defined as it is just today but how it has been and will be and that is a totally different definition than most currently consider.

[ChloeB]

Jor-el, on 02 April 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

The pagan festival of Easter originated as the worship of the sun goddess, the Babylonian Queen of Heaven, who was later worshipped under many names including Ishtar, Cyble, Idaea Mater (the great mother), or Astarte for whom the celebration of Easter is named. Easter is the celebration commemorating the death and ressurection of Tammuz the "sun god." As legend has it, Tammuz was out hunting, when he was killed by a wild boar. He is said to have been in the ground three days and then ressurected to ascend into heaven to become the "sun god." (Does it sound familiar?) Easter is not another name for the feast of Passover and is not celebrated at the Biblically prescribed time for Passover. This pagan festival was given a "Christianized" theme 100 years after Christ.

History records the words of Hyginus, an Egyptian, who was a librarian at the Palestine library in Rome during the time of Ceaser Agustus: "An egg of wonderous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess." That Syrian Goddess, supposedly hatched from the egg, was Astarte, from whom the title "Easter" came from. After Easter/Astarte ascended to heaven she is said to be escorted by rabbits laying colored eggs. The rabbits being a pagan fertility symbol because of their procreation habits, and are also a pagan symbol for spring and the eggs being traditionally a symbol of new life.

Easter vs Passover

We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship follows a more legitimate and more convenient course [the order of the days of the week]; and consequently, in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews.

Constantine I

From the Letter of the Emperor to all those not present at the Council. (Found in Eusebius, Vita Const., Lib. iii., 18-20.)

When reviewing the historical record of the “Passover/Easter” controversy, it is undeniable that the early New Testament Church did not observe Easter. They continued observing Passover, but with a new significance and understanding. In fact one can state that as the church became more gentile and less Jewish in substance, that gentile christians started repudiating all things jewish, until they in fact initiated a trend that culminated in direct anti-semitism, thereby cutting off their own roots.

"Neither the apostles, therefore nor the Gospels, have anywhere imposed…Easter…The Savior and His apostles have enjoined us by no law to keep this feast [Easter]…And that the observance originated not by legislation [of the apostles], but as a custom the facts themselves indicate"
Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History V, chapter 22).

So, shouldn't we as christians do the right thing and repudiate this false celebration, and return to our roots, celebrating Passover?

Constantine, what a prick!  I went to an Ostara ritual once, Jorel.  It didn't feel evil or bad, they even gave us bubbles.  But I'm not a Christian, but there's a part of me that kind of likes that you admit Easter is what it is, but do feel the same about Christmas?  He wasn't born then.  You know to me, if they were going to put the birth and crucifixion on Pagan holidays, they should have put the birth on Easter and the crucifixion on Christmas, the death of the sun, but that's just me.  This is to me my impression of the differences in Christianity and Paganism.......Paganism is about life and this life and appreciating and celebrating the cycles of it, and Christianity, well it's about death and shunning this world that is Satan's world and all it's temptations and allure and to focus on death, what happens after death, all the good stuff and treats come then.  Pagans get chocolate bunnies now, Christians get infinite endless chocolate if they don't get too hung up on the earth and it's people and just try to think about Jesus and God all the time.  So Easter is a celebration of life and mother earth and her cycles, probably not what Christians ought to be doing, which is a shame, but you guys know what I think about it.  I think the way the Pagans have the Mother Goddess is awesome, probably the most spiritual connected I've ever felt is with that.

Edited by ChloeB, 03 April 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[JayMark]

What in God's name is a "Homo Rlyeh"?

Is this some kind of newly discovered fundamental particle?

If so, is it BBQ flavored? Like a BBQ quark?