Origin Of The Cultrial Holiday Essay, Research Paper
The True Meaning Of Christmas
Except for Christ in the name, Christmas is pagan. The word mass is pagan and the customs surrounding it and Christmas are pagan. The very celebration without the rituals surrounding it is pagan. Pagan simply means that it is not from God. What is from God is easily proven. You can find it in your own Bible. The only mention of a yearly birthday celebration other than the actual day of birth is in the book of Job. Even then it is somewhat speculative. Jobs children it is said celebrated each their own day. They were all put to death and Job was sorely tested for his self-righteousness. I believe that the testing was because Job allowed his family to practice a pagan observance.
Satan originated by man or all pagan observances through man. The origins of these traditions and the customs that surround them are often very difficult to trace. Because a specific custom or tradition cannot be traced is no reason to attribute it to God. God’s commandments and ordinances are easily found in the pages of the readily available Bible. It is interesting to note that the word tradition is one of only two words in the New Testament that adds up to 666, the number of the beast and of the mark of the beast spoken of in the book of Revelations chapter 13. The other word is wealth. As far as wealth goes the Roman Catholic Church does not need charitable contributions. It is self sufficient. It is wealthy. It is deeply entangled in politics, business and monetary ventures and schemes throughout much of the world. It has roots in the old Holy Roman Empire.
Jesus was a simple man who lived a simple righteous life. He dressed in the fashion or custom of his day and was easily lost in a crowd. It took someone who new him well to distinguish him from other men. You have undoubtedly heard the story of Judas and his betrayal. Jesus was a Sabbath observer and He is Lord of the Sabbath. No man has the power nor the right to change what God has established. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath is calling Jesus a liar and of no significance. Such a person is a liar and a deceiver. The Sabbath was established in the first week of creation according to the book of Genesis. There is absolutely no God approved abolishing of the Sabbath in the Bible. The Vatican itself has put it’s seal of approval on a book by Samuel Bacchiocci entitled “From Sabbath to Sunday” which was published by the Vatican Press in the Vatican in Rome, Italy. This book clearly shows the arrogance of man in the conversion. It has caused thousand to convert to Sabbath observance, much to the embarrassment of the Roman Catholic Church. People who teach that the Sabbath is no longer a Christian observance are deceivers and liars.
Jesus is returning soon to save a world that will be on the brink of self-destruction, destruction primarily by the doings of man. By then man will also have stirred God to wrath by unholy practises. (Heed to the warning of AIDS.) Much war famine and disease has been prophesied and growing tension in many parts of the world is evident today. With nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, man is able to cause tremendous harm if not complete removal of life from the face of the earth. Man can probably remove the face of the earth. Jesus will return with great indestructible power and will resurrect His saints to accompany him. Those are not the saints appointed by the Wholly Roman Catholic Church. They are people who gave true testimony of Jesus and of God, not liars for personal gain, for personal recognition and for power.
Most people in this western civilization have heard of Jesus and of His resurrection from the dead. The Bible is readily available for anyone who makes an effort to get one. You can get a brand new one for about five dollars. What is difficult to find though is someone who will help you without introducing blatant lies, false conclusions and deceitful delusions. There is a good size hill of concepts and knowledge found in the Bible but it was written for man and can be deciphered by anyone who can re ad. You don’t have to be a scholar to learn the ten commandments (Exodus 20) or the fruits of the spirit, found in the book to the Ephesians chapter 5. You don’t need a lot of help to learn to apply those commandments and good habits in your life.
Speaking of scholars, it is a well-known fact among Biblical scholars that Jesus was born in the fall. It is believed by many that he was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles as He tabernacled with us for a little while. A tabernacle is a temporary dwelling such as a tent, igloo or human body. It is believed also that He was circumcised eight days latter, as is the ordinance, on the Last Great Day. The Last Great Day is the seventh of God’s appointed yearly Holy Days. The other Holy Days are The First Day Of Unleavened Bread, The Seventh Day Of Unleavened Bread, The Day Of Pentecost, The Day Of Trumpets, The Day Of Atonement and The First Day Of The Feast Of Tabernacles. Of course the Sabbath is a weekly Holy Day.
Ten percent of your income should be saved regularly for the observance of these Holy Feasts. That is called the second tithe. The first Tithe should go toward helping your neighbors in need and toward the ministry of truth.
Who you believe and what you observe during your lifetime is your decision and your responsibility. Each person on the face of the earth is free to decide what he or she believes. The responsibility of God’s ministers is to teach truth so that others will hear. A minister’s role is much like a farmer who plants seeds or a fisherman who throws out a net or a miner who digs for minerals or precious stones or a salt shaker that adds flavor to a meal. Computer programmers have an expression GIGO, garbage in garbage out. Good honest programming yields good honest results. The programming of a virus may be exceptionally brilliant programming but it is not good nor honest even though it creates a lot of business. It is your time of salvation and it will be your final judgment some day. It is for you to decide whether you will follow Jesus and receive His promise of eternal life or to die with the rebellious.
With pleasure in the love the joy and the peace of Christ,
Jacques Gauvin
Overview:
Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one Judeo-Christian and the other Pagan. Both Christians and Pagans have celebrate death and resurrection themes on or after the Spring Equinox for millennia. Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier Pagan celebrations.
The equinox occurs each year on March 20, 21 or 22. Both Neopagans and Christians continue to celebration religious rituals in the present day. Wiccans and other Neopagans usually hold their celebrations on the day or eve of the equinox. Christians wait until after the next full moon.
Origins of the name “Easter”:
The name “Easter” originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similar “Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [were] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos.” 5 Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: “eastre.” Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:
Aphrodite from Cyprus
Astarte, from Phoenicia
Demeter, from Mycenae
Hathor from Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara, a Norse Goddess of fertility.
An alternate explanation has been suggested. The name given by the Frankish church to Jesus’ resurrection festival included the Latin word “alba” which means “white.” (This was a reference to the white robes that were worn during the festival.) “Alba” also has a second meaning: “sunrise.” When the name of the festival was translated into German, the “sunrise” meaning was selected in error. This became “ostern” in German. Ostern has been proposed as the origin of the word “Easter”. 2
Sunday is named after a Pagan sun god, Solis.
Pagan origins of Easter:
Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a fictional consort who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. He was Attis, who was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25. “About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis ([the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection." 15
Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians "used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation."
Many religious historians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus' life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans. Ancient Christians had an alternate explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity. 11 Modern-day Christians generally regard the Attis legend as being a Pagan myth of little value. They regard Jesus' death and resurrection account as being true, and unrelated to the earlier tradition.
Wiccans and other modern-day Neopagans continue to celebrate the Spring Equinox as one of their 8 yearly Sabbats (holy days of celebration). Near the Mediterranean, this is a time of sprouting of the summer's crop; farther north, it is the time for seeding. Their rituals at the Spring Equinox are related primarily to the fertility of the crops and to the balance of the day and night times. Where Wiccans can safely celebrate the Sabbat out of doors without threat of religious persecution, they often incorporate a bonfire into their rituals, jumping over the dying embers is believed to assure fertility of people and crops.
Judeo-Christian origins of Easter:
The Christian celebration of Easter is linked to the Jewish celebration of the Passover. Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were observed by the ancient Israelites early in each new year. (The Jewish people followed the Persian/Babylonian calendar and started each year with the Spring Equinox circa MAR-21) "Equinox" means "equal night;" on that date of the year, the night and day are approximately equal.. The name "Passover" was derived from the actions of the angel of death as described in the book of Exodus. The angel "passed over" the homes of the Jews which were marked with the blood obtained from a ritual animal sacrifice. The same angel exterminated the first born son of every family whose doorway was not so marked - one of the greatest acts of mass-murder mentioned in the Bible.
Liberal theologians trace Passover to an ancient pre-Israelite Pagan ritual practiced by wandering Semitic shepherds. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was originally a traditional Canaanite agricultural harvest which was adopted by the Israelites. It marked the start of the barley harvest; barley was the first crop to ripen. Because they occurred at about the same time each year, the two celebrations became merged into a two day observance. The Passover became associated with the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
Conservative theologians generally believe that these observances were originally created by God as described in Leviticus 23:5-14, and recorded by Moses.
Passover was the most important feast of the Jewish calendar, celebrated at the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. (The Equinox typically occurs on March 20, 21 or 22 according to our present calendar.) Most Christians interpret the four Gospels of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) as implying that Jesus Christ was executed and buried just before the beginning of Passover on Friday evening. A minority believe that the execution occurred on a Wednesday or Thursday. Various dates have been suggested:
30-APR-5 CE, a Wednesday
30-APR-6 CE, a Thursday
30-APR-7 CE, a Friday; this is perhaps the most common date
31-APR-26 CE, a Thursday
32-APR-10 CE, a Thursday
33-APR-3 CE, a Friday.
The truth about Halloween
A little History
The ancient Druids in Britain, the pagan Romans, Greeks, the Babylonians and others kept the Halloween Festival.
Halloween antedates Christianity by many years! It was introduced into the christian world hundreds of years after the death of the apostles.
Perhaps the earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, the so called lord of the dead, whose festival fell on November 1.
It was a Druidical belief that on the eve of this festival Samain, lord of death, called together the wicked spirits that within the past 12 months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals.
"In ancient Britain and Ireland, the Celtic festival of Samhain was observed on October 31, at the end of summer. This date was also the eve of the new year in both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times and was the occasion of one of the ancient fire festivals when huge bon fires were set on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits.... The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day, and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marraige, luck, health and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes. The pagan observances influenced the christian festival of All Hallows Eve." Ency. Brittanica Vol. IV p862.
It was a pagan belief that on one night of the year the souls of the dead return to their original homes, there to be entertained with food. If food and shelter were not provided, these evil spirits would cast spells and cause havoc toward those failing to fulfill their requests.
Literal sacrifices were offered on this night to the spirits of the dead, as they supposedly visited their earthly haunts and their friends.
"There was a prevailing belief among all nations that at death the souls of the good men were taken possession of by good spirits and carried to paradise; but the souls of the wicked men were left to wonder in the space between the earth and the moon, or consigned to the unseen world. These wandering spirits were in the habit of haunting the living...But there were means by which ghosts might be exorcised." Folklore, James Napier p11.
To exorcise these ghosts that is to free yourself from their evil sway, you would have to set out food and provide shelter for them during the night. If they were satisfied with your offerings, they would leave you in peace. If not, they were believed to cast an evil spell on you.
Halloween Christianized
It was a general practice of the Christianized Roman Empire and the church at Rome to convert the pagans within the empire as quickly and on as large a scale as possible.
Ever since the time of Constantine, who made catholicism the state religion, the Roman Emporors realized how essential it was to have a unified empire, where as many as possible would have one mind. The civil and religious leaders saw how important it was for the for the sake of unity to allow only one religion within the Roman realm.
It became a state policy to force all non-Christians to accept the orthodox faith. The conquered pagans had a profound influence on the affairs of the church. These pagans brought with them many pagan practices and celebrations. Halloween was merely one of many. The pagans were fervent in clinging to their past ceremonies and observed them openly, yet they were supposed to have been converted to Christianity.
Now notice a prophecy found in Daniel 7:25 "He shall speak great words against the most high, and shall wear out the saints of the most high and think to CHANGE TIMES AND LAWS..."
Satan will do anything to pervert the truth. Now if a pagan practice or festival could not be forbidden, the church felt, then let it be tamed. So the church persuaded its followers to TRANSFER the devotion of these former heathen from their gods to the Christian God.
By changing these pagan festivals (Halloween among others) to "Christian Festivals" the "church" was being used to change times and laws. Let's take a look at some of these changes;