Steve, my point on Halloween and Christmas is that neither holiday can be claimed either by pagans or Christians. Halloween essentially started as a harvest festival, and Christmas as the winter solstice. Are you aware that almost all the pagan sun gods have birthdays of December 25? This is because it is the beginning of the sun being more prominent in the sky, after the darkest, shortest days of winter.
The difference between the pagans and Christians is that pagans still celebrate all their holidays without trying to drive the johnny-come-lately Christians away from the feasting. The Christians, on the other hand, do often object to the pagan underpinnings of the holidays. I personally think this is very rude!!
Pagans have a different concept of sin than Christians do. They believe that babies are born perfect and innocent, for example. There definitely are codes of ethical conduct which run through all the major belief systems, which include not killing, not stealing, abiding by the Golden Rule, etc. It is not necessary, or even preferable, that one be Christian in order to lead a spiritually good and positive life.
Jesus loves me, this I know! I do believe he would be absolutely repulsed if he came back and saw what others have done in his name during the last two thousand years, however. |
