Well, the joyous celebration of spring and nature in all its bounty and celebrating fertility may lead some to have impure thoughts, you know ...
Party-Poopers!
Betcha I Know Something Else The Dubs Won't Be Doing Today..
by Englishman 19 Replies latest jw friends
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blondie
Summer solstice is the maypole time around here.
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tijkmo
A Christian Holiday?
"Pope Backs May Day as Christian Holiday" was the title of an article in the New York Times of May 3, 1953. The article said: "In a May Day speech he delivered to 4,000 workers gathered in the Vatican from many parts of Italy, the Pope endorsed the celebration of the day as a Christian holiday for labor." The Times then quotes the pope as asking concerning May Day: "Who better than the true Christian can give to it a profound significance?" Do true Christians celebrate May Day as a Christian holiday? You are invited to be the judge.
so there you goMay Day?s origin? The New Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia says on page 8294: "May Day festivals probably stem from the rites practiced in honor of a Roman goddess, Maia, who was worshiped as the source of human and natural fertility." A conspicuous feature of this celebration has been (and still is, especially among school children) the dancing around the Maypole. The same encyclopedia states: "This Maypole is believed by most scholars to be a survival of a phallic symbol formerly used in the spring rites for the goddess Maia."
Did early Christians celebrate pagan festivals as Christian holidays? No! "To keep themselves free from idolatry they refused to associate with others in social and public festivities." (A History of Rome, by George Willis Botsford, page 263) Another authority speaks of "the absolute refusal of the Christians to join in any religious festival."?Christianity and the Roman Government, by E. G. Hardy, page 36.
In view of the above-mentioned facts, Do true Christians give May Day "a profound significance" by celebrating it as a Christian holiday? You be the judge.
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candidlynuts
i dont care what religion i happen to be..i'm a fertile mertyl.... i got pregnant everytime my ex sneezed!
if it involves fertility i avoid it like the plague..
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Sirona
This time of the year is Beltaine for us pagans.
We do dance around a maypole and yes it is a fertility symbol. The pole is the phallus and the ribbons wrapping around it are the vagina.
We have a whole ritual surrounding this may festival. I'm really looking forward to this coming weekend, we would have normally had it this weekend but its next week... about 50 of us get together and do a full ritual including the maypole..... it is great!
Sirona
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Mary
They won't be dancing around the maypole!
Didn't Oliver Cromwell have all the mapoles chopped down when he became the "Protector" of England in the 1650s?? And the reason cited was the same nonsense as what the Borg's view on the maypole? Is the WTS following the lead of someone who had worldly aspirations and got involved in politics? Tsk, tsk, tsk.........maybe this should be brought to their attention.............
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Undecided
I was kidding my non-JW wife about easter being in celebration of fertility and she said," I like fertility, fertility is good, without it the whole world would die out in 100 years." She has a point I think, why shouldn't we celebrate it?
Ken P.
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Englishman
I
like fertility, fertility is good, without it the whole world would die out in 100 years.
Ah! The lady has intelligence indeed.
Englishman.
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diamondblue1974
We do dance around a maypole and yes it is a fertility symbol. The pole is the phallus and the ribbons wrapping around it are the vagina.
We have a whole ritual surrounding this may festival. I'm really looking forward to this coming weekend, we would have normally had it this weekend but its next week... about 50 of us get together and do a full ritual including the maypole..... it is great!Well I stand utterly corrected; really didnt realise there was any truth in it.
DB74