As an atheist , I have always been curious why Christians practice pagan religions and not the Judaic ones that Jesus preached. In the bible, Jesus went to synagogues every Sabbath day to teach and ocassionaly heal. (note:  there weren't doctors at the time and priests had the knowledge of basic medicine). My point is Jesus definitely didn't  teach about Easter or Christmas.  It is fairly safe to assume that Christians will most likely say  "Easter and Christmas celebrate his birth and resurrection , he could not have taught about that. " There is some truth to that, he certainly could not have taught or celebrated his own death.

My argument is that both of these holidays (which literally means holy day) were holy in Europe long before Jesus' existence. A quick search on Easter clearly shows that it was originally the name of the pagan goddesses  Eostre/ Eastre (she was the goddess of fertility and sunrise so I can understand where the whole East part of the name comes from) , and her festival was celebrated close to the spring equinox. Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory traditions for the celebration of Jesus'  resurrection. This is why it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox, and not on a set date like it would be if it was his actual resurrection date. You can slap Christ all over the holiday but you can't deny history.

Another thing I would like to point out, is that the word Christ literally means Messiah which literally means "the Anointed King". This special oil baptism was only given to  priests and kings, and occasionally descendants of David. This explains why Jesus started his ministry and teachings after he was anointed, because he was officially a priest at that time. Basically there have been a lot of Christ's before Jesus and probably many after him.

Through out the bible there is  evidence of Jesus telling people to follow the old laws  ( they were just the law then) and he hardly changed anything from the Tanakh.

I would like to hear a Christians(or any one else for that matter) opinion on this subject , as they should have a better understanding of this, I am by no means an expert. I personally believe the European influence is largely due to the Roman empire creating a religion they can control the masses with, but I am open to interpretations.

Also, if you would like more evidence of pagan traditions and symbolism throughout Christianity I would be glad to point more out.

I feel that this is a very general thread and the content is all over the place, but I'll reply.

Jesus obviously did not teach His followers about Easter or Christmas but that does not mean that Christians can't celebrate it. It is something worth celebrating about. The Savior of the world's birth and resurrection are key moments events. These days are not celebrated because they were taught to celebrate, but because they are worth celebrating. (P.S. Technically, He did teach to remember His death. The last supper which is now done through Holy Communion. "Do this in remembrance of me." [Luke 22:14-19])

It really doesn't matter whether something is of pagan origin or not. What matters is what is being represented now. I personally feel that if someone were to make an argument that they don't celebrate Christmas because there are characteristics of pagan origins, they commit a genetic fallacy. However, if it really disturbs their conscience, they don't have to celebrate it.

You are correct about the word "Messiah," but this title is not given to any king. Kings like David, Saul, and Solomon during the Israel-Judea Kingdoms were anointed by oil because it is a representation that God chose them to be King. When you use the term "messiah," you are talking about the one who is the ultimate Savior King at the end of times. The Jewish community don't use that word lightly because they know that title is reserved for the ultimate savior to them. Also, you may have to get your facts straight, Jesus was never a priest or seen as a priest at that time. Sometimes He's just basically known as the carpenter's son. Jesus was never oil anointed except for one occasion when a girl poured perfume on his head, and that was to prepare for His death and that was near the end of His ministry.

Finally, you got to remember that Jesus said that He was the fulfillment of the Law so He does follow the laws of the time. But there are specific laws that were held as traditions rather than defining right or wrong and some people hold these Laws just to make them look better or they are hypocritical with what the laws say. When teachers of the Law try to ask him about keeping the Sabbath, He makes the claim that "the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath" to override traditions and also used the story of David and His followers eating what is only lawful to the priests (Luke 6:1-10). He also made claim that all food are clean and irrelevant to defiling the body when traditions say that they do, and they forget that those laws were made to distinguish themselves from the pagan countries in Moses' time. (Mark 7:14-23)

I don't know if this thread should be in this forum or the Christian Conservative forum, since this is specifically talking about Christianity.

Sorry for being a little bit all over the place, but it is on topic dealing with traditions and holidays. I decided that this board would be better because I would like to debate Christianity/religion and not conserve it so to speak. Christianity is the most common religion in English communities, and since this is an English site it is safe to assume there are more Christians on here. As I mentioned I am not an expert, and definitely don't have the bible memorised.

Now back to the debating. You say it doesn't matter if its a pagan origin, although I disagree. I'm going to assume that you understand and agree that they were originally pagan holidays/traditions as you didn't try to refute my statement in that regard, so please correct me if I am wrong in that assumption.  Essentially nothing changed from the pagan Easter to the Christian variation of it. If they decided to change the celebration of Jesus' resurrection to a different holiday, lets just say to Ramadan, that wouldn't matter at all? The date of the Easter is currently based off of the moon, and I am 100% positive Jesus didn't mention anything regarding a moon, or a equinox for that matter. I am not entirely sure what a genetic fallacy is, so forgive me I may have to google it. By your logic, wouldn't it be a fallacy , if some one decided not to celebrate the goddess Easter's holiday because it was associated with Christ? Now Christmas obviously has a few differences than its pagan origins, namely the mass for Christ. Never the less, many of the pagan traditions of the holiday still occur. Also, the exact year of Jesus' birth is still a highly debated subject, let alone the exact day. So again, it doesn't matter which day I choose to celebrate Jesus' birthday?

When I use the term "Messiah" I am using it the same way it has always been used. It is clearly an individual who has been anointed with a holy oil. If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anointing you will see that it is even a tradition predating Judaism. Although in other cultures it is not always oil, but in this case it is the recipe as seen in Exodus (30: 22-23). This is where I get my reasoning for Jesus being anointed as a priest, as Messiah's can only be a priest or a king. The only exception of this would be that some prophets were also anointed. And there is far mor evidence of Jesus being a priest than of him being a king. Jesus taught in synagogues weekly (Mark 1:21-22 , Luke 4:31-36 , and John 6:59) but there isn't really any evidence of him becoming a king.It is possible that he is a prophet , and this could be supported by the Quran account of Jesus the prophet, although I do admit I have very little knowledge on the Quran. I would appreciate it if you can show me uses of the word Messiah where it clearly doesn't  mean anointed.

Regardless of prophecies of a Messiah savior at "end of days" , he will still be anointed. Your claim in saying Jesus wasn't anointed essentially discredits his title as Christ. As you said "The Jewish community don't use that word lightly because they know that title is reserved for the ultimate savior to them." and that is a very true statement. The Jewish community doesn't believe Jesus is that Messiah as he has not fulfilled all the prophecies attributed to him. Christian's are quick to point to the prophecies that Jesus "fulfilled" but usually don't acknowledge the ones that he didn't fulfill. Passages viewed by Christians as indicating a divine messiah (such as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53) are viewed by Jews as speaking of the people of Israel.


Getting back on topic to my original question, Christians obviously practice European holidays and not the Judaic holidays that Jesus would have practiced. And they don't follow Judaic traditions such as anointing the priests and political leaders (and I'm sure many other Jewish traditions)
Maybe my viewpoint is some what Jaded as I personally feel there isn't enough coherence between the abrahamic religions.

Again my question is, Why are Christians practicing European holidays and traditions and not Judaic ones?  You only answered that it doesn't matter if they do. Celebrating the goddess Eostr , in my opinion, completely goes against the monotheistic beliefs of Christianity.

I asked my Catholic parents the same thing once, and was very satisfied with their answer.  Hopefully, you'll feel the same.

With Easter, you're completely right about it being a pagan holiday...originally.  The thing about converting pagans is that they're used to all these fun holidays rolling around at these times, where feasting and celebration were rampant, and they all had fun/good times.  Even if you succeed at converting some pagans, they might turn tail because they miss the good times they had in their previous religion.  So what you do is find a date as close to the pagan holiday, claim it to be the date coinciding with something on YOUR religion, and then use it as an excuse to party.  Then, take a perfectly logical and explanatory reason for why the date keeps changing.  For my parents, it was "Well, since no specific date in the bible is mentioned, and we can probably safely assume it happened near the beginning of Spring, we just use the first Sunday after each new moon to guess when it happened, and we'll hopefully be right." 

As for Christmas, I don't think that exactly relates to paganism.  True, Jesus never told his disciples to celebrate his birthday, but it would've been one of those things that caught on after the whole "Death and resurrection" deal. 

Also, I thank you greatly for being one of the few atheists to actually do his research for a debate!  Actually citing lines from the bible and maintaining an attitude that isn't condescending on anyone of faith is a very hard thing to find in an online atheist (No offense intended)

 Thanks for replying gamegeek, I take no offence from your generalization of atheists. I notice the same things about them as well.  Personally, I don't think it is fair to debate without understanding both sides of the argument.  It is always nice to have a debate with a Christian (or from any other religion) who is open minded enough to at least address the issues in the debate. Just like atheists it is rare for a religious person to understand other belief systems.

I agree with you on the fact that coupling two religious traditions together would make it easier to convert to the new religion. From the stand point of the Roman leaders that wanted to create one uniform religion, it makes perfect sense to join the two celebrations. If they created a new holiday for Jesus' resurrection, the original Easter would have still been celebrated. So by joining the two they were able to convert the empire to Christianity a lot earlier and easier. It would also help keep the various religions from becoming segregated , and it is well documented that they intended to just have one religion for the entire empire.

Although I can understand why they would have merged to two belief systems, I still think at some degree that it goes against the monotheistic beliefs of Christianity. I also find it strange how none of his apostles would have recorded the date of his death. Mind you, they don't give many dates for the majority of events in the bible.

I would like to touch more on the Judaic traditions. When you are in church (assuming you go to a church) are there any mentions of Jewish holidays? For instance, when it is Hanukkah or Passover do they mention it at all? It just seems like there isn't as much acknowledgement of the father religion as there should be. Although the same could be said of Judaism in regards to ancient Egyptian religion.

I think I am going to do some research on the Roman Empire converting as well as Judaic or prejudaic calendars/time systems. Hopefully I will have more information to share in the next post.  Thanks again to both of you for replying, I am looking forward to more responses!

smotpoker86 : "Christianity is the most common religion in English communities, and since this is an English site it is safe to assume there are more Christians on here."

Never make that assumption. Even if someone labels themselves to be a Christian, does not make them a Christian. A Christian is defined by whether their beliefs are Christian and whether they act on those beliefs. I just think it would be more appropriate in the Christian forum just because it is talking about Christianity. That forum is a place where specific topics of Christianity are being spoken of, but this is not a big deal.

I'll split this into categories so you can read it easier.

Pagan origins in Christian holidays
I mentioned that saying that people should not celebrate Easter or Christmas that is being celebrated now because they are of pagan origin is a fallacious argument. This is a Genetic fallacy. I actually made a thread on the top of this debate forum that has a list of informal fallacies so that people can know them. There are other people who added to the list so that it can be more complete: https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=23177. Here's a good example of a genetic fallacy from Wikipedia: "You're not going to wear a wedding ring are you? Don't you know that the wedding ring originally symbolized ankle chains worn by women to prevent them from running away from their husbands? I would not have thought you would be a party to such a sexist practice." Now whether that is the origin of the wedding ring or not, it does not mean that the person supports the original practice because of the fact that the meaning of the wedding ring is different now. The person could be wearing it for reasons other than the ankle chain symbolization as well, so it is illogical to associate the beliefs of the person based on the origin of a certain practice.

Now, you asked "By your logic, wouldn't it be a fallacy , if some one decided not to celebrate the goddess Easter's holiday because it was associated with Christ?" Yes and no...no, in that that is a valid reason to not celebrate Easter because it is the day Christians celebrate Christ's resurrection. And yes, in a sense it is. It is a false dilemma, because it is suggesting that there are only two options to deal with this: Celebrate Easter, or not celebrate Easter, which is not true. They can practice their own pagan holiday of the Spring Equinox on their own if they want, whether if it is on the same day or not. It's not going to conflict with Easter because they are celebrating two different things. I don't exactly know how the date of Easter was decided from the early church (specifically the conflict between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar and its association to the Passover) and we don't know when Jesus was born, and we know it was definitely not December 25, but it was decided to be on that day that we celebrate Christmas.

Whether they are of pagan origins or not really does not matter. Some are true, and some are so minuscule that you can associate anything to be of pagan origin. What matters is what they are being represented now.

Messiah, the Anointed One
I was not denying that the title "Messiah" means "the anointed One." I am only saying that Jesus was never publicly anointed in oil except from the sinful woman in the book of Mark. He was never publicly seen as a priest, but a rabi or a prophet. the ONE specific person that will save and rule Israel at the end of times. He is "the Anointed One" but oil anointings were not really done by that time because Israel was ruled by Rome and so there is not really a king in Israel.

"And there is far mor evidence of Jesus being a priest than of him being a king. Jesus taught in synagogues weekly (Mark 1:21-22 , Luke 4:31-36 , and John 6:59)"

But that's not even the priest's role. Any rabi can preach in the synagogues. The main role that priests have is that they are able to perform religious rites and sacrifices in the temple.

"but there isn't really any evidence of him becoming a king."

The entire Book of Matthew screams that. The main theme and the purpose of the Book of Matthew is to show the Jewish community (and everyone else) that Jesus was the King that they were waiting for. That is why there is the genealogy that leads to Abraham and King David in the lineage; that is why the magi came and one of the gifts was gold, which represents His place as King; that is why Matthew had the most recordings of the preaching of "the Kingdom of God;" that is why His victory of Satan's temptation was recorded to show His worthiness of being King; and that is why miracles were recorded to show His power.

But you are right as well, He is also the High Priest. The Book of Hebrews talks about Jesus as the High Priest because he was the offer-er of the sacrifice of the sins of the world and He IS the sacrifice for the sins of the world. So Jesus is both King and High Priest, but also much greater, the Messiah and God of the universe.

Jewish Prophesy
"The Jewish community doesn't believe Jesus is that Messiah as he has not fulfilled all the prophecies attributed to him. Christian's are quick to point to the prophecies that Jesus "fulfilled" but usually don't acknowledge the ones that he didn't fulfill. Passages viewed by Christians as indicating a divine messiah (such as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53) are viewed by Jews as speaking of the people of Israel.""

Yes I know about that. Everything that He is suppose to fulfill has been fulfilled, but there is a small selection of prophecy that is suppose to be fulfilled on the Last Days, and since it's not the End of Times yet, the prophesies are not fulfilled yet.

If I were to quote a portion of Isaiah 53, you already see that it is a picture of Jesus.
"Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Now if they seriously think that this passage is talking about the people of Israel, they are either full of themselves or misunderstood. How can they say that the people of Israel "pierced for our transgressions" "crushed for our iniquities." It is clearly talking about Jesus just by the fact that His death is to die for the sins of Man.

Why not Judaic holidays
"Getting back on topic to my original question, Christians obviously practice European holidays and not the Judaic holidays that Jesus would have practiced. And they don't follow Judaic traditions such as anointing the priests and political leaders (and I'm sure many other Jewish traditions)"

I think there is a very simple answer to this. The main answer is this: I'm not a Jew, I'm a Gentile. Many of these traditions are related to the Jewish community and some are actually exclusive to them and not to the Gentiles. The reason Jesus follow and preached about Jewish tradition is because He was a Jew and His audience were Jews. There are Christians who are Jews who still follow specific traditions and holidays of the Jewish community, but Christians are not really required to do such things.

This problem has happened before during the Apostle Paul's time. When the message of Christianity was spread to people who were not Jews, there are these followers called Judaizers that want to impose Jewish laws and traditions to the Gentile followers, or else they will reject them to be Christians. That is why Paul wrote the Letter to the Galatians (or simply Galatians) to tell them that Jewish traditions (circumcision, Jewish laws) does not define what it means to be a Christian, but the fact that Jesus died on the cross, and those who follow Him are saved by Grace that defines a Christian. The letter was written to stop such actions and to reaffirm that the gospel is for all people, both Jew and Gentile.

So again, Christians can follow those traditions if they want, but it's not a requirement. Overall this is not a big deal and besides, Christianity have their own Western and Eastern traditions as well (Lent, Advent, Pentecost, etc).

gamegeek : Christmas is celebrated shortly after the Winter Solstice... or Yule as we pagans call it. Where do you think the tree came from? Yule logs, egg nog, presents... pagan Yuletide celebrations as well as some stuff from the Roman Saturnalia festival (though you see more of that in Mardi Gras and Halloween).

The neopagan religions celebrate 8 holidays taken from ancient traditions: Imbolc/Candlemas (Feb 2nd), Ostara (Spring Equinox), Beltane (May 1), Litha/Midsummer (Summer Solstice), Lammas/Lughnasadh (Aug 1), Mabon (Fall Equinox), Samhain (Oct 31), and Yule (Winter Solstice). If you look, there is a major holiday or Saint's Day near every single one.

play4fun : Sorry for taking so long to reply, you always put up a good debate and I am forced to go do more research. So thanks for aiding me in my quest for knowledge! Also you should teach me how to do all of those  fancy text colors and what not. You make your posts very easy to read and I appreciate it.  Note- I think I figured out how to use the colors, but we shall see if it fails when I submit haha. And yep it was an epic fail, everything looked like I took a bright orange highlighter to it!



"Even if someone labels themselves to be a Christian, does not make them a Christian. A Christian is defined by whether their beliefs are
Christian and whether they act on those beliefs."

Could you elaborate on this more? What exactly determines if some one's "beliefs are Christian" ? Are you indirectly talking about the different sects of Christianity or are you just generally speaking about Christians ?

I still believe there are more Christians on this site than there are members from any other religious group. I don't see an Islam board or a Hinduism board. Maybe I will make a poll on a general board asking what religion people are just to verify this.



Pagan origins in Christian holidays

Your analogy with the wedding rings and ankle bracelets does have some similarities but I find that it contrasts the topic very much. The analogy would be more correct if people called wedding rings "ankle bracelets of imprisonment" but they wore them on their finger and the women were still confined they just failed to realize it. As you see the name of Easter still used and so are a lot of the traditions of that celebration. Sure , I understand Christians don't have a feast in a goddess's name , but you have to realize that a Christian Easter celebration would not be possible without the previous tradition. In my opinion, the most likely reasoning behind the church giving pagan traditions Christian attributes is to convert a vast population easier.

"I don't exactly know how the date of Easter was decided from the early church"
The First Council of Nicaea chose to have Easter on the first Sunday, after the full moon, on or after the vernal equinox. Prior to this decision  "Easter" wasn't practiced by Christians , and instead Jesus'  crucifixion and resurrection was celebrated during the observance of Passover.  So there were no Easter bunnies or Easter hams in Christianity until the year 325 when the council decided on Easter. Like I said in the previous paragraph, they likely chose the date of Easter to help convert the population to Christianity.

"Whether they are of pagan origins or not really does not matter. Some are true, and some are so minuscule that you can associate anything to be of pagan origin. What matters is what they are being represented now. "

I am going to use a hypothetical analogy to explain why I think it does matter.

Lets say there was an ancient Greek tradition of Hades' Day. During this celebration they sacrifice the strongest young man and most beautiful young woman in the community to the god of the underworld Hades. They do this traditionally to please the god and to stop him from taking more people to the underworld. Now during the Council of Nicaea in 325 they decide to celebrate Jesus' death on Hades Day. They decide to call it the original name and to practice the sacrifices, but instead of sacrificing to Hades they are sacrificing to Jesus. The name Hades is gone from all but the name of the day, but all the traditions are still there. You are only considered Christian if you partake in the sacrifices and you will go to hell if you don't.

Now, in my opinion, it matters greatly because this celebration has nothing to do with Jesus other than replacing his name in a couple of ceremonies. In fact, this ceremony would not have been practiced by Christians if the Emperor backed Council had not randomly chose it hundreds of years after Jesus' death.

I apologize for making up a ridiculous analogy (I'm sure every one reading this is saying "WTF"), but I felt it was necessary to make my point. I decided to use and extreme example but the reality is Easter and other Christian holidays are similar as far as being relative to Christ.


Judaic Holidays

"The main answer is this: I'm not a Jew, I'm a Gentile. Many of these traditions are related to the Jewish community and some are actually exclusive to them and not to the Gentiles. The reason Jesus follow and preached about Jewish tradition is because He was a Jew and His
audience were Jews."

I guess I will just have to accept this answer, as there is really no other explanation. I mean this is the reason why you don't practice Hindu or Islamic traditions as well.  I'm sure the Roman Empire / Church played a big part in Judaic traditions being absent in modern Christianity, this is another area I need to research more. I will definitely try to find out about this letter Paul wrote as well.


The Anointed One

Jesus may not have been publicly anointed but he definitely was anointed. It is impossible for him to become a priest or high priest without it. His anointing would most likely have happened directly after his baptism, according to tradition. So it would only have been as public as his baptism was. I would like to add there were many high priests through out the centuries. For example , Aaron was the High Priest,and many of his lineage,  and some scholars believe John would have been the High Priest if it wasn't for corruption in the temples (which is likely due to Roman influence)

As far as Jesus being both a king and a priest, the Judaic tradition at the time would not allow this. From moses' time on a king could not be a priest, but could be a prophet, and a priest could be a prophet as well but not a king. Now one could argue that before Moses in during the time of Abraham the priests were kings in a sense. Now there were not kings at the time, but leaders (and many of them) instead. The eldest male in a family, so the father or grandfather, were considered both the leader and the priest of the family.


Another possibility, though I must say I am thinking of this myself and not reading it anywhere and is purely speculation, comes from his blood lines. His father gave him the Davidic bloodline of the kings and his mother gave him the Levi bloodlines of the priests. Thus making him eligible for both of the titles. Now both of these bloodlines are a hot topics among debates for a few reasons. First of all, since Christians believe he was born of a virgin (and not a young woman as the mistranslated Torah prophecy says) he does not have the Judea blood line of David. And on his mothers side, scholars can't agree that Mary was related to John. Also, the priest/king title isn't traditionally passed on by a female's bloodline.

Basically, it is unlikely that he is both a King and a High Priest.


Jewish Prophesy

Now Isaiah 53 might not have been the best example as to unfulfilled or false prophecies, but there are a few others.

Of course there are the unfulfilled, which you all ready argue they will be fulfilled during the second coming , so there isn't much of a need to go over those ones. What I am more interested in are the prophecies that are contradicted in the NT.

1. Christians believe in the Virgin birth, which goes against the prophecy of being from the house of Judea.
2. The virgin birth is actually a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 where he says he a young woman will give birth to him.
3. Also in Isaiah 7:14 that young woman is to "call his name Immanuel"
4. In Deuteronomy 13:1-4, it says any one who goes against the Law is a false prophet.
   
   

There are probably more but this is all I have for now. On a personal level, the fact that the bible mistranslates prophecies is enough of a reason not to believe it. I think that if they would have got that translation correct Isa. 7:14 there wouldn't be a virgin birth or a son of god in the NT. I mean they are basically fulfilling a prohecy that wasn't even prophecised  while at the same time contradicting another one. It leads me to seriously doubt anything in the bible as true. All though I'm an atheist and all ready thought that way in the first place ; )

Also where is the prophecy of the second coming, one would think it is a fairly important aspect of the "Messiah" . Mind you, they did leave out that whole son of god holy trinity part too...

smotpoker86 : Sorry that I did not reply earlier, I have been working on a project on YouTube (which I may announce on Christian forum if anyone is interested or help get more views and subscribers )

You have a quality that many atheists (and Christians) should have, and that is to actually look into the material. There are so many who would just make one liner objections or questions that have been answered, but not having an open mind to swallow that uncomfortable pill. They are not trying to seek truth, but just want to find reasons to reject a belief in God. The "Christian" version of this is that Christians should be like the "Bereans" in the Bible, who do not just take people's words for it, even the Apostles, but they study scripture to make sure it all checks out.

I believe that Christianity is true, and I know that truth can defend itself and have no need for anyone to sugar coat it, or make it look more convincing or appealing. Truth will win in the end, and if you are to look into it and research the claims that Christians give to you, I know that you will come to the conclusion that Christianity is true. In fact, Lee Strobel is a good example of an athiest-turned-Christian because, as a journalist, he looked into the facts further, and through a hard journey, he ends up admitting that Christianity is true and cannot reject that facts that he found.

Either way, this is a good quality to have, in talking about spirituality and in life itself, and I commend you for it.

"I think I figured out how to use the colors, but we shall see if it fails when I submit haha. And yep it was an epic fail, everything looked like I took a bright orange highlighter to it! "

hahahaha...yeaaah, I had to preview my post a couple of times before posting. I think I'm more used to the old editor and type all the codes myself. Color can be messy because the posting is light gray font when the editor is black font. Looks like you did fine though.

"Could you elaborate on this more?"
What I mean is that there are people who think being a Christian means that they live in a Christian home (aka "born Christian") or that they go to church every sunday that makes them a Christian, which it doesn't. It matters on where the heart is, on whether they are thinking and living in their faith, and what I'm saying is, there are a lot of those in America. Sometimes I would go on the streets to talk to strangers and share the Christian gospel to people, and there are people who would come to me saying that they are Christians, yet when I ask them how do I become a Christian, or I ask what is the main message of Christianity, they would be wayy off (like not even close to being biblical), and their actions and their lifestyle contradicts what they believe. Yes, "Christian" is a title that means "Christ-follower," but there are people who are not followers and fakers, and don't represent what a Christ-follower is. Here's a clear example: Oprah says she's a baptist, but what she believes is contradictory to what Christians believe, and that makes the word "baptist" a title, but not who she is.

Pagan Origins
I understand what you are trying to say, and I also understand what you are trying to illustrate in the analogy. The problem is that the practices in Easter now (no matter if it is of pagan origin or not) mean something that is not pagan. What you propose (to make conversion easier) is possible, or it also can mean that they do it to eliminates the link to paganism. Some traditions are there because they are commercialized. Either way, Easter now still represents Jesus' resurrection, and to say not to celebrate it because of pagan origin is still a logical fallacy. The name itself does not matter, as that also means something different now.

One huge reason this differs from your analogy is that not celebrating Easter does not make someone not a Christian or condemn them to hell. No one deconverts due to not celebrating a holiday, but it's because it means something important to Christians that Christians celebrate Easter. That is why my response is this: "if it bothers your conscience for celebrating Easter because of pagan origins, then don't celebrate the way it's being celebrate, but still remember Jesus' sacrifice for the world." Like I said, it's not a big deal.

The Anointed One
Again, no records show Jesus being "publicly" anointed. No records at all, even if that would make Jesus look more like the Messiah, there is no recording of it. What the Jews did not understand is that Jesus being a priest is not a priest to Israel, but to all mankind, and Jesus is King not just Israel, but to the entire universe. In the same way that you see it, they saw the Messiah to be someone who is a person that would be fulfilled by traditions, like oil pouring, when they forget that oil pouring is a representation that means that God chose who to anoint, and God can just do it directly. He is king because he fulfills everything that needs to be fulfilled in prophesy and he will come back again someday and form the Kingdom of God and judge the world in righteousness, and He is the Great High Priest (Ref: Book of Hebrews) because he is the mediator between God and Man, the one who offers the sacrifice that fulfills the forgiveness of sins to the world, which is Himself. They think of it as an actual worldly king or priest that will be anointed by traditions and practices, when God declares in the Bible that He will be the King, and He is anointed, not through oil pouring but through God directly. Because of this, it is easy for Jesus to be the King and the High Priest. Not A king or A high priest, but THE King and THE High Priest.

Jewish Prophesy
The list that you gave is actually fairly simple to understand if you have an open mind to understand.

"1. Christians believe in the Virgin birth, which goes against the prophecy of being from the house of Judea.
2. The virgin birth is actually a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 where he says he a young woman will give birth to him."
I'm putting these together, since they are related. I don't recall it being a mistranslation, but I double checked it using a concordance(www.BlueletterBible.com) and compared different versions of literal word-for-word versions, almost all of which translate "`almah" to be "Virgin". The reason is because the usage of this Hebrew word has only been used to translate virgin. An example of this usage is in Gen 24:43 where Isaac find his wife who is a virgin. Even if it is a mistranslation (which it's not), Mary...is...still a...young woman...last time I checked.

Being a virgin birth does not make Jesus not part of the house of Judah (I'm assuming you meant Judah, since Judea is not a house, but a territory). That is the whole point of the Genealogy, showing that Jesus' family tree to link back to King David, who is from the tribe of Judah. The prophesy would not be fulfilled if Jesus was born by someone of a different tribe. To put the icing on the cake, Jesus was also born in Bethlehem, the city of David, belonging to the house of Judah.

"3. Also in Isaiah 7:14 that young woman is to "call his name Immanuel""
Yeah, this is not a contradict. In fact, if you read Matthew 1:22, the author requotes Isaiah 7:14 affirming that it is the fulfillment of the prophecy. So why did Mary name Him Jesus and not Immanuel? First, it's because both Jesus and Immanuel have similar meanings: Jesus means God saves, while Immanuel means "God with us," both are His name, making a subtle declaration that He is God. Jesus has more than one name. In fact, if you look Isaiah 9:6, it talks about this child: "For to us a child is born,to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." So, all of these are Jesus' name. And there are many more. Just because Mary did not call Him Immanuel, does not mean that His name is not Immanuel.

"4. In Deuteronomy 13:1-4, it says any one who goes against the Law is a false prophet."
You may need to clarify what you mean about this. Jesus did not go against the Law. He went a step further and fulfill the law. (Matthew 5:17)

All in all, the Bible does not mistranslate prophecies. Can people misinterpret prophesies? Definitely, but the one that you mentioned is one of the obvious prophesies that just by reading it, one would know that it is talking about Jesus, because He did fulfill it. From this, the Bible is reliable and has not failed a prophecy yet, which demonstrates its supernatural-ity (not a word)

"Also where is the prophecy of the second coming, one would think it is a fairly important aspect of the "Messiah."
The Books Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc in the Old Testament, and Revelation, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and even some of Jesus' own words in the Gospels in the New Testament.

play4fun : Thanks again for replying, and sorry about the long wait for my response.

You mentioned that if I researched "the claims that Christians give to you, I know that you will come to the conclusion that Christianity is true." but I highly doubt this.  When I first started researching religions aproximetly 5 years ago, I was coming from an agnostic view point and was looking for proof of a God. I would say it was an unbiased viewpoint or if anything biased towards religion because I wanted to believe in a god. Yet, I went from being agnostic to becoming an atheist. The chances of me becoming a Christian are about as slim as you becoming an atheist, I am very passionate about atheism.  Personally, I believe that if Christians spent as much time researching other religions as they spend on Christianity, they would convert to another religion or to atheism.


I would have to agree with you that there are many "false Christians", although I would say that the definition of what it is to be a Christian is different for most people. When I say false Christians , for the most part I mean they just believe in Christ and don't follow much of what he said or did. For instance, in Matthew 19:20 a man tells Jesus that he obeys all the commandments and then asks him what else he lacks in order to get into heaven. Jesus responds by saying "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. "  and then in Mattew 19:23-25 "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."" 


I have personally never met any Christian who has done this, and would consider them to not be true followers of Christ. It is imposible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, yet it is still easier than a rich man to get into heaven. So Jesus' basically says it is impossible or nearly impossible for a rich person to get into heaven.

There are other examples I could point out which bring me to the same conclusion such as "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone" yet most Christians still judge other people to some extent. The point is most Christians don't follow what Christ taught and just go along with the fact that recognizing Jesus as their savior gets them a 'Get Out of Hell Free' card.



Pagan Origins

By no means am I saying  that some one isn't a Christian because they don't celebrate Easter.  My original question was more along the lines of "Why do Christians celebrate Pagan holidays?" and now I realize that is because that is what the the Roman Empire / Church deicded.  Now a better question would be "why did they chose to use a different holidays name and traditions?"  A celebration of Jesus was allready held during Passover by early Christians, but the Romans still felt it was necessary to change it. In other words it has nothing to do with 'if Jesus resurection was being celebrated' as much as it was about 'when Jesus resurection was being celebrated'.  The only reason I can find for them changing it from a middle eastern date to a European date is to eaze along the conversion process to their European empire,  but if you think they had a different reasoning behind this than please explain it.


 The Messiah

Well we both agree there is no direct reference to Christ being publicly anointed but that doesn't rule out the possibility. It's not like the bible is a biography of Jesus' life. There is 20+ years of Jesus' life missing from the bible and who knows what happened during those years. I said this in another thread, it is rather crude so I apologize for that but I think the meaning is true...there is no mention of Jesus wiping his ass in the bible, but he definetly did.

Jesus him self mentions he was anointed in Luke 4:16-20 , he says the prophecy is fullfilled when he reads part of Isaiah that says "“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me"

This is very similar wording to when David is annointed after God chooses him. In Samuel 1:13 it says "“So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David."

"they forget that oil pouring is a representation that means that God chose who to anoint, and God can just do it directly."
You are right, anointing a messiah does mean god chose them to be anointed. This is clearly seen in both Aaron's anointment and David's anointment. My argument is that if god could do it directly, he wouldn't have sent Samuel on a hunt for the next Messiah he would have done it himself, the same thing can be said for Aaron and his priests anointment. If God can directly anoint Jesus, then why doesn't he directly baptise him aswell. I mean really, he gets a priest to baptise him then he anoints him himself? This can be said on almost any topic, such as why do priests heal people and not god himself? I could keep stating examples of my argument but I think you get the picture.

"They think of it as an actual worldly king or priest that will be anointed by traditions and practices, when God declares in the Bible that He will be the King, and He is anointed, not through oil pouring but through God directly. "
Yes they think that he will become a ha-Kohen ha-Gadol (Heb.כהן גדול "Great Priest")  because that is tradition from what God had said and a prophecy. There have been many Great Priests ( I counted over 50 before Jesus' life on  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_High_Priests_of_Israel) and as you mentioned the main difference between these high/great priests and a regular priest is the ability to perform a sacraficial ritual. Again, God directly told Aaron and Moses who is going to be the high priests and he directly told him that they need oil poured on them.

I have said this many times in the thread but anointed clearly means "smeared with oil" and the Messiah means "smeared with the oil of the holy spirit".  It goes against what God himself said when he told Aaron and Moses that priests/kings are to be annointed with the sacred oil.
I want to link to the scripture that says "my word will not change a single dot, not an iota" (may not have worded that correctly sorry) but I am unable to find it at the moment.


Jewish Prophecies

The virgin birth

The word alhma means young woman or maiden in hebrew and the Jews had a different word meaning virgin. Bethulah , in hebrew, is the word meaning virgin. The best piece of scripture that shows the contrast of the two terms would be Genesis 24:16 where it says "Now the young woman [*alhma*] was very beautiful to behold, a virgin [*bethulah*]; no man had known her. And she went down to the well, filled her pitcher, and came up."

If a virgin birth was prophecised than they would have used the word bethulah as that was the most descriptive word for virgin.

In the second century B.C., the Jewish scholars pointed out these errors in the Septuagint to the Roman priests, but had no success getting them to change it. The most notable account of this would be from St. Jerome who wrote a book on the topic called 'The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary'.

Here is a quote from that book, "I know that the Jews are accustomed to meet us with the objection that in Hebrew the word Almah does not mean a virgin, but a young woman. And, to speak truth, a virgin is properly called Bethulah." Now St. Jerome was one of the people who translated the hebrew into latin, and he supported his translation errors by saying "For who at that time would have believed the Virgin's word that she had conceived of the Holy Ghost"

He is basically saying that if prophets actually thought it was a virgin birth but changed it to be more believable...So apparently the word of god doesn't matter in relation to how believable it is.

Now Mary being a young woman doesn't specify whether she is a virgin or not, as that is not the meaning of 'alhma'. So she could be a virgin or she could be sexually active, the prophecy does not say.

Now , Jesus  being from the bloodline of David (ie. his father is Joseph and not god)  this prophecy also goes against the idea of a virgin birth.  This is also portrayed by Jesus disciples and not just found in the OT. In Romans 1:3 paul says "concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh" which means that Joseph physically gave Mary his seed. Earlier translations have the word "sperma" instrad of "seed"

So we have Saints who translated the bible saying they messed up, and we have apostles saying that David is his father.

And yes I meant Judah and not Judea haha. There are so many words that start with Ju in semitic culture and it can be confusing!


 "call his name Immanuel"
The meanings you stated (God saves, God with us) are accurate, but they don't mean that he is god.  Jews take the meaning of Immanuel to mean  God is on Israels side. Also Hachlili , a well known Jewish archaeologist and researcher, says that Jesus (or Yeshua as his hebrew name would be) was the 6th most common name in Israel.  Im not sure what the other 4 names ahead of 'Jesus' were, but 2 of them are Jospeh and Simon. Now all of these people named Jesus arn't Gods saving people, and there is no indication that because his name is Jesus means he is actualy God either. The difference would be with his title Christ, which would imply divinity or being chosen by god.

Again, his name was not the one prophecised , and having the word God in the meaning does not make it similar enough to be considered a fullfilment. Many names had the word God in them such as Jacob meaning "may God protect" or even the names of towns like Bethel meaning 'house of God". Most of these names shouldn't be taken literaly and Jewish people didn't take them literaly. They didn't think Immanuel meant that God walked among them and they didn't think Bethel or Bethleham (think I spelled that wrong) was Gods actual house.


Going agianst the Law
I will be honest I was looking up Jewish prophecies and this one stuck out in my mind. Although I don't know of evidence that suggests Jesus went against the law, and actually most accounts say he preached about maintaing Judaic law and culture. I could have sworn you mentioned something about Jesus not following the Law, but after re-reading the posts I am mistaken. Sorry about that.

Actually if you look at my first post I say "Through out the bible there is  evidence of Jesus telling people to follow the old laws  ( they were just the law then) and he hardly changed anything from the Tanakh. " But I was coming from the standpoint that you didn't think this way . But again, I was mistaken and I apoligize...now I look like an idiot hahaha.



Second coming (lack of prophecy)
Altough there is mention that Jesus will return in the NT I was more refering to the original OT prophecies. Now they did believe the Messiah would come close to the end times , but they don't say he will come and complete some prophecies, die, return later to complete the rest of them. In fact they believed that they were close to the end times and this is even evident in the NT.  Matthew 24 talks about the destruction of the temple and of the end times. He states in 24: 34 "Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."
So end times were prophecised to be during that generation, which obviously did not happen. I am not sure where modern Christians get the idea that the second coming of Christ will happen now, as the only mention of when it will happen was during Jesus' generation.

Surely you will mention The Book of Revelations, as that is really the only section of the bible that says the end times is yet to come. But the problems with that is it wasn't added until the second century. Revelations is often attributed to have been writen by the Apostle John, but critics suggest that it couldn't be written by him. The style of writing is completely different than the Gospel of John. I will give a fairly lengthy quote from the wikipedia page on the book of revelations.

"More recent methods of scholarship, such as textual criticism, have been influential in suggesting that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist and John of Patmos were three separate individuals. Differences in style, theological content, and familiarity with Greek between the Gospel of John, the epistles of John, and the Revelation are seen by some scholars as indicating three separate authors.[16]

The English Biblical scholar, Robert Henry Charles (1855–1931), reasoned on internal textual grounds that the book was edited by someone who spoke no Hebrew and who wished to promote a different theology to John's. As a result, everything after 20:3, he claims, has been left in a haphazard state with no attempt to structure it logically. Furthermore, he says, the story of the defeat of the ten kingdoms has been deleted and replaced by 19:9-10.[17]  John's theology of chastity has been replaced by the editor's theology of outright celibacy, which makes little sense when John's true church is symbolised as a bride of the Lamb. Most importantly, the editor has completely rewritten John's theology of the Millennium which is "emptied of all significance"."