Posted on 10/21/2004 12:48:09 PM PDT by Tamar1973
> They don't celebrate birthdays because that concept isn't really biblical either.
Calculus, computers, airplanes, religious freedom and democracy aren't exactly Biblical concepts either.
Who says? You?
Daniel 2:21 says, "He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;"
Daniel 12:4 says, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase."
1Kings 4:29, "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and largeness of mind like the sand on the seashore,"
2 Chron 1:10-12, "Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this thy people, that is so great? God answered Solomon, 'Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.'"
To compare advances in the knowledge of science, mathematics and governance with Christianised paganism, shows your inability to think about this issue logically.
Ex. 23:24 says, "You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their {sacred} pillars in pieces."
G-d told His people numerous times in the Tanak not to mix the true worship of G-d with pagan ideas, yet when we make Mithra's birthday on Dec. 25, into Yeshua's birthday, that is exactly what we are doing.
>>Calculus, computers, airplanes, religious freedom and democracy aren't exactly Biblical concepts either.
>Who says? You?
Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Point to chapter and verse where the computer is described. Better, show that the Internet is a Biblical concept... or get offline.
> Ex. 23:24 says, "You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their {sacred} pillars in pieces."
Fortunately, those days are past. Religious freedom (i.e. not having to worry about Seventh Day Adventists burning down Catholic churches and the like) is yet another concept unfathomable to those of the Old Testament.
ROTFLOL! I think a cursory study of religious history will show you that the Catholic Church has a very rich history of burning PEOPLE (not simply churches) of denominations they didn't like. Give me one example of an Adventist government persecutiong minority Catholics you might be able to make the argument that all religious groups will persecute if given the opportunity.
Here's a better idea. Show me what computers, calculus, algebra, etc have to do with paganism or worship of any kind of g-d? You can't so your argument attempting to equate Christmas with caluclus as being "equally" unbiblical started from an illogical comparison and got ludicrous from there.
> Give me one example of an Adventist government persecutiong minority Catholics ...
Ahem:
Ex. 23:24 says, "You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their {sacred} pillars in pieces."
So... do you follow that, or not? If not, why not? Is it because you know you wouldn't get away with it (and thus, you are not behaving very much like those much-vaunted selfless early Christian martyrs), or is it because you *disagree* with it?
But this is, of course, a Kerry-esque diversion on your part. Where is your proof that the very computer you are working on is a "Biblical concept?" Where is it written in the Bible that you are *supposed* to spend time chatting and argueing with people you'll never see?
> attempting to equate Christmas with caluclus as being "equally" unbiblical
Non sequitur. Is calculus "Biblical" AT ALL? If so, where is it described?
The only argument which has been non sequitur has been your attempts to lump pagan religious ideas such as Christmas, Easter and birthday celebrations with advances in knowledge and science. The Bible never condemns increasing ones knowledge of the world (G-d actually commended Solomon for asking for wisdom and knowledge)but it does condemn mixing pagan ideas and practices into the WORSHIP of the Al-mighty. I would say the fact that the bible condemns paganism but doesn't mention or condemn calculus, science, etc. is the best proof that your comparison of the two is unbalanced and illogical.
> pagan religious ideas such as Christmas, Easter and birthday celebrations
ERRRR. Wrong, but thanks for playing. None of these are "pagan." The first two are most assuredly Christian. yes, they were taken over from pagan origins, but Christmas is not a worship of Mithras.
> the bible condemns paganism but doesn't mention or condemn calculus, science, etc
And thus, calculus and whatnot are not "biblical" concepts.
And you STILL haven't answerewd why you are disobeying Ex. 23:24. It is quite plainly written, is it not?
I'm sure you'll get replies from others who follow and keep God's sabbath:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates.
As you can see, it isn't a jewish sabbath or a Christian sabbath..it's God's sabbath.
In new testament times there was no new testament. The normative practice was to keep the sabbath. If Paul had actually taught that the sabbath had somehow become inviolate then surely there would have been some mention of it. Yet jews and converted gentiles alike kept the sabbath:
Act 13:42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
Future biblical prophecies confirm that that sabbath is to be kept in the future:
Isa 66:22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
Isa 66:23 And it shall come to pass, [that] from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.
Isa 66:24 And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
God is God, old testament or new testament. The sabbath is God's sabbath. It is holy because God made it holy and it is his. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, declared:
Mar 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Mar 2:28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
God made the sabbath holy for mankind's benefit(the inspired greek denotes "all mankind").
Having religious affiliation respected is one thing, but there are lots of employers who make work demands on various days part of the job. If I am in such a job, I work when the work demands, and my religion understands this committment. People for whom religion does not provide this relief must seek jobs with others of the same belief or jobs where the understanding as to religious priority are respected. The key to religious freedom does not require that all jobs tolerate all religious beliefs. The jobs need to state the job conditions, and the worker must sign on to the contract. The law does say that religious persecution is prohibited. As long as each worker can abide by the work contract, no discrimination in hiring or wages is permitted. This is not the same thing as saying that once hired an employer must accept everything the worker identifies as being part of his religion,. In this case, one supervisor made it possible to never work on the Sabath, there came a new leader who knew not the ways of tolerance. I don't know if this rises to a lawsuit condition. He may just have to seek a different employer.
To say that "taken over from pagan origins" makes something Christian is illogical to the extreme.
Jereboam in the OT got into a lot of trouble for doing the exact same thing and heaping a lot of judgment on the people of the 10 Northern tribes.
1 Kings 12: 25-32
25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel.
26 Jeroboam said in his heart, "Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
27 " If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, {even} to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah."
28 So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt."
29 He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
30 Now this thing became a sin, for the people went {to worship} before the one as far as Dan.
31 And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi.
32 Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
33 Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense.
Note in v. 28, Jeroboam didn't give them a new g-d. He simply said that his statutes were representations of the true G-d who delivered them from Egypt.
Note v. 31, Jeroboam changed Torah rules about priesthood.
Note v. 32, Jerooboam set up new feasts which were different from the feasts in the Torah.
This is EXACTLY the same thing the Church has done. It has replaced Yeshua with Mithra by co-opting Mithra's birthday and putting Yeshua's name on it. Christians have presumed to replace G-d's holy days with pagan "holidays" dressed up in Christian garb and then calls those who defend the Bible "judaisers" and those who defend the paganized Christian days "true believers". What a line of baloney is that?
You still didn't answer MY origiinal question and that was to give me one example of an Adventist government persecutiong minority Catholics or people of any religious minority for that matter. I'm waiting.
> To say that "taken over from pagan origins" makes something Christian is illogical to the extreme.
Indeed it is. However, YOU are the only one argueing about that. I really wish you could stick to the debate at hand.
> This is EXACTLY the same thing the Church has done. It has replaced Yeshua with Mithra by co-opting Mithra's birthday and putting Yeshua's name on it.
Ah, I get it. Like how the Bible was paganized when it was translated out of Greek and Hebrew into the heathen languages of Europe.
>Christians have presumed to replace G-d's holy days with pagan "holidays" dressed up in Christian garb and then calls those who defend the Bible "judaisers" and those who defend the paganized Christian days "true believers". What a line of baloney is that?
Probably the same kind of baloney that leads people into getting seriously upset about other people having holidays that aren't mentioned in some book or other. Or quite similar to the baloney of those who claim to defend the Bible, yet who do not follow the Bibles plainest tenets.
Speaking of which... you *STILL* haven't answered why you are disobeying Ex. 23:24. It is quite plainly written, is it not?
It there some reason why you are avoiding answering this rather simple question? If you choose to judge other Christians for not followign the Bible as you do, then you should account for why you disobey it. Yes?
> You still didn't answer MY origiinal question and that was to give me one example of an Adventist government persecutiong minority Catholics
There was no point in answering the question, since I had never implied that such had occured. Now, answer the question: why do you refuse God?
You implied it by your response when you said, "Ahem" and then directly quoted the text in Exodus.
I implied that that text - WHICH YOU STILL HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO - argues for you to go out and burn down the temples of the pagans. Since you see Christmas and much of what is currently seen as "Christianity" as pagan, that means you should be out there burning down "pagan" (i.e. Catholic, Baptists, Methodist, etc.) churches. But you have, I presume, not done so.
Then again... maybe you have. That would explain your silence on answering the question. Either that, or you are refusing your own God, and you know it. Which is it?
Ugh...the last time I checked I lived in America. America is not a theocracy set up by G-d. G-d didn't tell people to tear down the idols in other people's country only in His Holy Land, the land of Israel. So your misquoting of scripture is not relevant to the issue of American religious liberty.
Titus 3:1 says, "Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed"
Rom. 13:1 says, "Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist are instituted by God."
Paul said in his own defense in Acts 25:8, "I have committed no offense either against the Law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar."
Ultimately, I could care less if pagans celebrate pagan holidays, at least they are being honest with their religious tenets(even if they are not being honest with G-d). However, it is disingenuous and dishonest for people who claim the bear the name of Yeshua to co-opt these pagan days and put a Christian veneer over them and then say that the holidays are totally Christian. That is intellectally dishonest and an insult to the One who died for our sins.
>G-d didn't tell people to tear down the idols in other people's country only in His Holy Land, the land of Israel.
Well, actually....
Exodus 23:23: "For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off."
Seems God wanted the Israelites to invade the lands of others, and kill them and tear down their temples.
> So your misquoting of scripture...
Oy vey. I quoted YOU quoting scripture.
But I guess that old time religion ain't for you, eh?
> That is intellectally dishonest and an insult to the One who died for our sins.
Yeah, I'm really sure Christ is pissed off that people celebrate their friends and loved ones birthdays...
Seems God wanted the Israelites to invade the lands of others, and kill them and tear down their temples.
There you go misquoting scripture again. The area where all these people's lived is what is now called the land of Israel. This is the only place G-d ever told His people to clear out the pagans from the land.
Genesis 13:14-18, "14 The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, "Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15, for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. 16 "I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. 17 "Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you." 18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.
Gen 15: 12-21, says, "12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror {and} great darkness fell upon him. 13 {God} said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 "But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete."18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite."
G-d gave the Amorites and the other peoples living in the land over 400 years to repent of their iniquity but they refused to do so therefore G-d gave the Israelites their land and he gave them the right to drive them out by any means neccessary.
Yeah, I'm really sure Christ is pissed off that people celebrate their friends and loved ones birthdays...
I wouldn't be surprised if it made him unhappy. The entire tradition of celebrating birtdays comes from the pagan belief in astrology. As you know, one's date of birth is pretty important to know as a starting point for astrology. Anything which doesn't come from G-d comes from somewhere else.
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