Posted on 12/24/2007 5:35:07 AM PST by Invisigoth
Focus on the Family has never seen a pointless war it wouldn’t wage.
So the purported War on Christmas was made for Dr. James Dobson’s crew. Jesus Christ overturned the moneychangers’ tables and excoriated them for turning God’s house into a den of thieves. Dobson just wants the thieves to wish you a Merry Christmas.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
Amen!
However, I would quibble even with the fact that Christmas was EVER about the birth of Christ. There is no evidence Jesus was born December 25th. The best available evidence is that he was born in the Fall, not in the Winter near the Solstice.
For Christians, Easter is the truly sacred holiday. So if Christmas becomes secularized, it’s not a big deal. Dobson needs to find more important causes to worry about.
Anything from Dobson’s mouth (or pen) should be taken with a grain of salt and a dose of Alka Seltzer.
For decades there has been a relentless drive to secularize this society at all levels in all ways. Atheism or Secularism is merely a different form of religious believe. It is every bit as aggressive at pushing it's dogmas as they accuse the religious Conservatives of being.
For decades now the secularists have been waging relentless war on the Christian values and traditions of this society. Now some people are finally fighting back so, of course, the pseudo intellectual in the Conservative movement, as usual, rush to frag their own political allies rather then take on the secular aggressors.
Be really nice if the pseudo intellectual among the Conservative movement tried occasional attacking the Left on anything instead of relentlessly manufacturing really stupid reasons to yet again whine hysterically at their own side.
Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas!
Anything from Dobson’s mouth (or pen) should be taken with a grain of salt and a dose of Alka Seltzer.
More like Epsom salts!!!
No its not. Its on a different day every year. how sacred is that? You remember what date JFK died on, No one knows what day the son of man died on.
What kind of east-coast, secular-worshiping, politically-correct, thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, frilly-girly-pants-wearing, socialist-worshiping tripe is this.
So who here thinks business is a sin, sounds like a hillary sound bite to me.
I’ll grant that Christmas has not been a particularly spiritual holliday in this country, but the reason to fight is that the same people that want to take Christ out of Christmas are the same that want to reeducate our children, take our guns, lose in Iraq, tax us into submission, and at the same time build prayer rooms for the ROP.
Think of Dobson what you will, but he is on the right side.
Hey, wait a minute - Easter Sunday is the first Sunday following the first full moon following the Spring equinox; a combination of lunar and solar markers.
Unlike every other Christian holy day, Easter is still based on the lunar calendar. That's why it falls on different days every year, and why it almost always coincides with Passover.
If Dan Calabrese is against, then I’m for it. There really is an effort to stamp out “Christmas” because it is the biggest holiday of the year. It doesn’t matter that it was not the date Christ was born. It is the date that Christians have decided to celebrate Christ’s birthday. If it were not, it would not be a holiday at all. Secularists are horrified at the success of Christmas in trumping the importance of Christ’s birth and want to stamp out the source of its meaning. The good news is that the leftists are losing the war on Christmas and that’s why Dan Calabrese is crying like a little baby who has soild his diaper.
If they were playing Bingo! in that Temple, Jesus probably wouldn't want to get a bunch of women worked up at Him. And that Temple would still be in operation today, because nobody would bother those women.
Excuse me, we are not talking about ‘psuedo-intellectuals’- we are talking about private merchants who sell to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists and Pagans.
They don’t care one whit about ‘secularizing society’. The only thing they care about is selling to the maximum number of potential buyers. So they go out of their way not to offend anyone.
It is completely their choice. In a free society operating under a free market, we should respect their choices. And if you feel offended, feel free to shop somewhere else.
I disagree, as you see.
“I would quibble even with the fact that Christmas was EVER about the birth of Christ” .... CHRISTMAS HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. A holy God invaded an unholy world.
Easter, termed Easter, is sort of a bastardization of the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Alot of Celtic pagan traditions worked their way into some Chistian celebration in order to more smoothly assimilate pagans into the church after they heard the Good News. The Easter Bunny and the name Easter (a modern pronunciation of the name of a pagan spring goddess) are leftovers from this assimilation. However, as far as scholars can tell, the resurrection of Christ was celebrated by Christians as early as a hundred years after the event took place.
The fact is is that our salvation is dependant on the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday (which is, by the way, why most Christians worship on Sunday instead of the Sabbath) making Easter - or Resurrection Sunday - the most important holiday on the Christian Calender.
Our ancestors were not always Christian.There were people in Europe who were there before Christianity spread across Europe. These folks were pagans. A tip of the hat to our pagan ancestors implies no disrespect for Christianity.
I have no problem with Christmas trees or the Easter Bunny. They are extras to be enjoyed and not “anti” anything.
I have never in my life had someone tell me that I couldn’t say “Merry Christmas.”
Not all Christians celebrate Christmas as Christ’s birthday. The purest Christians refuse to do so, because they believe Christmas has pagan roots.
The Christmas tree, the mistletoe are all pagan rituals.
Many people have many different ideas about Christmas and the Holiday Season. I don’t blame large corporations for wanting to duck the controversey and using “Happy Holidays”.
“Purported”? The war on Christmas is quite real.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1943786/posts
“Christianity many centuries ago chose December 25th for whatever reason”
It wasn’t ‘christianty’ that chose it, it was the Pope.
Many Christians to this day refuse to celebrate Christmas, because they believe it has Pagan roots. Are they also part of the ‘war on Christmas’?
Look carefully at the leftist rhetoric this year. I think they now know that a vast majority of Americans are sick of their attacks on Christmas, so they have now shifted to attack the “commerciality” of the holiday, which is safer. They are urging (in the same insincere way they used to opine that they “support the troops”) that Americans get back to the “real meaning” of Christmas and stop all this nasty gift-buying.
In short, they’re after the same thing they always were — attacking the capitalist system, using Christmas as a vehicle.
Where else do children who’s parents don’t take them to church learn about God and Jesus? Our holiday’s like Christmas.
The liberals are going after Christmas now. They’re trying to take every mention of Christ out of Christmas. Next it will be Easter.
It’s not enough that they teach their children to be good little socialist’s. They want to indoctrinate as many children as they can.
One would do well to recall the warning in Ecclesiastes 7:16
"Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself overwise; why should you destroy yourself?"
In other words, it is possible to take legalism to preposterous limits. Anything that has its roots in human culture can be purified and re-signified and enjoyed.
And a toast--- wassail --- to Jesus Christ, the Master of All.
You are mistaken. I am a Christian. And I did not attack Dobson. I just don’t feel that there is any ‘conspiracy’ against Christmas, at least as far as private businesses go. Capitalists want to sell as many products as possible to as many different people from different religions.
As a supporter of capitalism and free enterprise, I sympathize with the desire of merchants to advertise with a phrase that they feel will not offend anyone. I come from a community that is heavily Jewish. Why should my local Macy’s risk losing one customer by displaying a sign that says “Merry Christmas”?
If I owned the store and it were my money on the line, I certainly would not risk diluting my profits to make Dobson or anyone else happy.
Amen.
Great post...I could not agree more!
Constantine never knew anything of "Easter". The holiday to him was "Pascha", the same Greek word used for the Passover of the Jews and obviously derived from the Hebrew pesach. (The same word is used in Latin and all languages derived from it.) You can prove that simply by reading the decree of Nicaea on the dating of Easter in the original Greek; it's online.
The Anglo-Saxon word "Easter" came to be applied to a Christian religious holiday in England and Germany long after Constantine was dead and buried.
Easter, coming from the pagan religions of the east
It had nothing to do with any "pagan religions of the east".
is tied to the solar calendar. Passover is based on the lunar calendar
The calculation of the date of Pascha/Easter is complicated, but it isn't strictly solar. It's a hybrid system that involves both the solar calendar (Gregorian in the west; Julian in the east) and a heuristic lunar equivalent. That's why it falls on different dates each year.
(It's the first Sunday after the first new moon after the vernal equinox, March 21; however, the date of the "first new moon" is calculated using a system of tables, not by actual astronomy.)
Merry Christmas
must we credit pagans with all those things>?>?
I’m a Dobson fan. BMFLR.
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According to Intrade, the winner of the December 12th GOP debate was... Duncan Hunter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938773/posts
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
"Happy Holidays" etc is foolishness, a surrender to the secularization of society.
If you want to be inclusive, wish Christians Merry Christmas and Jews Happy Chanukah.
Yes.
And to cut off anything tainted by paganism, the Puritans banned ALL that stuff. For an example of Puritan legislation:
"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."
From the records of the General Court
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659
Taliban-ish, hey? Reminds me of Narnia under the Witch: "always winter and never Christmas."
But then again, the greatest Puritan poet, Milton, incorporated Paganism and classical Greek references in his greatest Christian works, like "Paradise Lost." He greatly admired the classics but intended this work to surpass them.
So -- beyond Paganism--- I am glad to incorporate even the nicest bits of Puritanism to the glory of God.
A toast --- Wassail! ---to Mr. Milton.
And a Merry Christmas to you!
And a very Merry Christmas to you and a Blessed New Year of Our Lord 2008.
and to you, dear lady
What's BMFLR?
“This holiday....buy here”
“Include this on your holiday gift list..”
It’s redundant. They say that stinking word “holiday” over and over again. I mute their commercials even during football games. You bet your boots it’s organized, or they wouldn’t all be doing it at once. I counted the word “holiday” used forty times in ten minutes the other day.
I’m fed up. I’m sick of it. This political correctness insanity is now descending upon the birth of the Saviour. They are intent on turning Christmas into an empty day of merchandise. You can defend it if you want, but I never will.
Merry Christmas.
And feel free to let them know, right?
Absolutely. But the Jewish money in my community will be a slam dunk for the merchants. They will keep to ‘Happy Holidays’. In your community, it may be different.
Once again, I think you’re confusing ‘political correctness’ with ‘business correctness’.
But have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakah and Happy New Year.
Wise words.
Pick up a copy of Eugene Peterson’s “Pagan Christianity.” That’s an eye-opener.
Of course there’s a conspiracy against Christmas. Haven’t you seen the enhanced photos from the Grassy Noel?
From the first sentence of this article, the author expounds upon a premise that he does not prove.
Just one big slur against FOTF, James Dobson, and the real work they have done to help families in the last thirty years.
And that Jim Dobson, he’s just full of scandal, you know,getting rich off of buttons and some such.
I know one author I will not be wasting my time on in the future.
As for Jim Dobson, he’s welcome—anytime.
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