There is an article featured on the Watchtower official site about how Christmas has lost Christ. What exactly is their problem with this? They have been trying to tell people for years that Jesus wasn't born at Christmas time, and then they get upset when other people behave the same way. Is it just sour grapes about not being able to join in the festivities?
The Watchtower's view of Christmas
by Jeffro 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
MidwichCuckoo
Ooooooh - 666 (did you spot that Jeffro?)
I think JW not only like telling us that we shouldn't celebrate 'Pagan' festivals, but if we must celebrate them the Society can dictate how, lol.
-
A Paduan
There is an article featured on the Watchtower official site about how Christmas has lost Christ. What exactly is their problem with this?
They don't own it - that's the problem - owning 'God' is their thing - but the rest of the world celebrate Christmas - so "they must all be ebil" - hence, Xmas must be 'ebil' too. -
gumby
Non Christians have been celebrating Christmas LONG before Christmas lost christ......but they wore that idea out, so it's time for some different kinda smut on Christmas. Scrooge bastards!
Gumby
-
oldflame
The WTBS say's that Christmas is a pagan holiday, but the truth to that is, it once was a pagan holiday but did the pagans change their own holiday ? I don't think so. It was changed by Christians.
Now for me Christmas is just another day not so much because the scriptures don't teach anything about celebrating holidays except for weddings and passover but because it is so commercialized it makes me sick. this time of year is disturbing for me because of how people react when shopping for gifts. I have heard many of horror stories about fighting and foul language towards others when shopping because of a stupid little toy.
I don't put up a tree or hang lights around my house mainly because I have no wife or children in my home, and I might change that if there were others here, but I find it pointless to do so for myself. The only thing I find good out of Christmas is the FOOD !!!!
-
gumby
I don't put up a tree or hang lights around my house mainly because I have no wife or children in my home, and I might change that if there were others here
How bout if I wear a diaper and move in with you through December......will you hang some lights and buy me stuff??? I want a new set of Calloway golf clubs btwGumooch
-
Super_Becka
I don't know about anyone else here, but I read that article and I didn't see any good reasoning in it as to why "Christians" shouldn't celebrate Christmas. I saw lots of questions and pointing out of the various "hassles" of Christmas, like decorating and parties, but I didn't see anything that specifically said, "Christmas is evil, good people don't celebrate it".
I think that the WTS is just trying to keep its members in line and away from anything that ressembles mainstream Christianity. You'd think that if all JWs believed everything that the WTS said and that these things made sense, then the WTS wouldn't need to keep posting articles that dissect Christmas without really saying anything against it. Sure, lots of people get annoyed at the last-minute Christmas shopping, lots of people get tired of going to those awkward Christmas parties where you have to mingle with all of the people you're forced to spend 40 hours a week with anyway, lots of people are sick of the incessant advertising and consumerism of Christmas, so for me, these things don't make good arguments against Christmas in general. I mean, really, if you don't like these things, you don't have to do them - nobody is going to force you to go to that office Christmas party, and if you really like giving gifts for Christmas (I know I do!!), you can avoid the rush by starting your shopping early. After all, if the WTS is going to complain about the selling of things related to Christmas and the notion that Christmas is "forced" on everyone, then maybe they should look at their own practices and STOP FORCING THEIR BELIEFS ON US AND TRYING TO SELL US THEIR DAMNED MAGAZINES!!
And of course, if they don't believe in Christmas and think that it's inherently evil, when WHY THE HELL ARE THEY STILL RAGGING ON IT?!?! Can't the WTS and its GB and whoever else just GET OVER THEMSELVES and get used to the fact that the rest of the Christian world can actually enjoy their faith and celebrate it and let the holier-than-thou JWs get on with that oh-so-much-fun field service and 5 hours of meetings a week?? STAY OUT OF MY LIFE, I'M HAPPY WITH MY FAITH!! Excuse me while I head off to church for the Christmas Eve service and hymn sing. (Ahh, gotta love church, it's the one place that the JWs can't get you - after all, won't they "die at Armageddon" if they go to a real church service?? )
Ooo, sorry about the mild outburst, it's just that the WTS frustrates me sometimes, their arguments make no sense to me (maybe that's because I have my free will and independent thinking still intact, my faith hasn't robbed me of those things), and it's even worse that my inactive-JW boyfriend echoes the same arguments as the WTS for not practicing Christmas - "it's everywhere and it's all about buying things". Argh, I can't stand how this organization puts a twist on everything to make it look bad. *pulls hair in frustration* I think that they just don't like it when people actually have some FUN!!
-Becka :)
-
oldflame
Gumby,
Tell us all the truth now, You do wear depends right ? LOL My only question is do you wear the ones in the pink package or the blue package ?
-
peacefulpete
"I have never been able to reconcile myself to the gaieties of the Christmas season. They have appeared to me to be so inconsistent with the life and teaching of Jesus."—Mohandas K. Gandhi.
MANY would completely disagree with Gandhi. 'What,' they may wonder, 'could a Hindu statesman really know about a Christian holiday?' It must be admitted, though, that Christmas has spread all over the world, affecting all manner of cultures. Each December, the holiday seems all-pervasive.For example, some 145 million Asians celebrate Christmas, 40 million more than a decade ago. And if by "gaieties" Gandhi meant the secular side of modern-day Christmas, the frenzied consumerism that we all observe, it is hard to deny that this aspect of the celebration is often the most prominent. Asiaweek magazine notes: "Christmas in Asia—from the festive lights in Hong Kong to towering hotel Yuletide trees in Beijing to a creche in downtown Singapore—is largely a secular (mainly retail) event."
Has the modern-day celebration of Christmas lost sight of Christ? Officially, December 25 has been observed since the fourth century C.E., when the Roman Catholic Church designated that day for religious observance of Jesus' birth. But according to a recent poll taken in the United States, only 33 percent of those polled felt that the birth of Christ is the most important aspect of Christmas. What do you think? Do you at times feel that in all the insistent advertising, the harried buying of presents, the decorating of trees, the organizing and attending of parties, the sending of cards—Jesus has somehow been left out of the picture?
Many seem to feel that one way to put Christ back into Christmas is by displaying a Nativity scene, or crèche. Likely you have seen such groupings of figurines, representing the baby Jesus in a manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph, some shepherds, "three wise men," or "three kings," some barnyard animals, and some onlookers. It is commonly felt that these crèches serve to remind people of the real meaning of Christmas. According to U.S. Catholic, "a crèche gives a more developed picture than any single gospel can give, though it also emphasizes the nonhistorical character of these narratives."
How, though, would a Nativity scene suggest that the narratives in the Gospel accounts of the Bible are nonhistorical? Well, it must be admitted that quaintly painted little sculptures lend an aura of legend or fairy tale to the birth of Christ. First popularized by a monk in the 13th century, the Nativity scene was once a fairly modest affair. Today, like so many other things associated with this holiday, Nativity scenes have become big business. In Naples, Italy, rows of shops sell figures for Nativity scenes, or presepi, year round. Some of the more popular figures represent, not characters from the Gospel accounts, but modern-day celebrities, such as Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, and clothing designer Gianni Versace. Elsewhere, presepi are made of chocolate, pasta, even seashells. You can appreciate why it is hard to see history in such displays.
How, then, could such Nativity scenes give "a more developed picture than any single gospel can give"? Are the Gospel accounts not truly historical? Even hardened skeptics must admit that Jesus was a real, historical person. So he must at one time have been a real baby, born in a real place. There should be a better way to get a developed picture of the events surrounding his birth than merely gazing at a Nativity scene!
In fact, there is. Two historians wrote independent accounts of Jesus' birth. If you sometimes feel that Christ goes largely ignored at Christmastime, why not examine these accounts for yourself? In them, you will find, not legends or myths, but a fascinating story—the real story of the birth of Christ.
When I was a JW articles like this introduced skeptical ideas to me that I alone had never questioned. For instance this line: "According to U.S. Catholic, "a crèche gives a more developed picture than any single gospel can give, though it also emphasizes the nonhistorical character of these narratives." Why did the Catholic publication describe the nativity story as nonhistorical? I would have wanted to know.
This line: " Even hardened skeptics must admit that Jesus was a real, historical person" Makes it very clear that the WT writers did not read the earlier WT that tried to argue that Jesus was an historical person counter modern 'skeptics'. In fact the iconoclastic 'Jesus Myth' scholarship is slowly gaining credibilty as the evidence piles up.
-
Super_Becka
If I actually believed any of the BS that the WTS spews on a regular basis and I read that article, two things would come to mind:
1.) What was the context in which US Catholic described the Nativity as nonhistorical??
and more importantly...
2.) WHY THE HELL IS THE WTS USING A CATHOLIC SOURCE TO BACK UP ITS ARGUMENT?!?!?!?!?! Shouldn't the WTS have its OWN sources and research to back up its ideas rather than pulling some quotes from other Christian denomination's publication and using it out of context??
But again, I have my independent thinking and I am free to question anything and everything that I'm told, so I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that JWs just blindly accept all of the poison that spews forth from Brooklyn. It just blows my mind that intelligent people can accept, at face-value, everything that a bunch of decrepid old men in an office in Brooklyn tells them, no matter how often the rules changes. "New Light", my ass.
Ooo, more with the rage here. Sorry if I seem a little pissed off, but I am, I can't help it, this stuff just really irritates me. It's good to have a place to vent it and get some other views on these things. I'm not a hateful person, I don't harbour any ill-will towards JWs themselves, it's their organization that all of my anger and frustration is aimed at. I just think that the JWs are horribly misled.
-Becka :)