i think the point of pagans bringing up the tree is to show the historical inaccuracies with christianity, mainly being that christmas not only has nothing to do with the bible but the dec 25th birth date came from multiple pagan deities from egypt, persia, greece... not just the holidays but the resurrection, baptism, passover beliefs all come from pagans. Why would an all powerful creator show his son to the world after millennia of pagan existence and not before? Why only show his son to a small corner of the levant region and not north america or asia or russia till hundreds of years after the fact? Seems like paganism actually reflects creation and nature and christianity was invented by flavian romans for political reasons.
My mind ventured here too. Why did aaaaallll that came before, came before then? And what about the Islamic faith that came after? The "other" one and only faith (according to them). What's the point? I mean, I do get a lot of what's said, and it rings true, but some things are not so easily twisted to fit the Christian narrative. Sounds a bit like retconning (I believe it's called). I'm from the Netherlands, and the Romans invaded around the year 0. Their culture didn't fully replace the old Iron Age Celtic culture, pantheon/religion, and society, but merged with it. It became a hybrid, old local gods/forces were revered in Roman "jackets". Very much rooted in the native and local sphere. The same happened within the Roman empire, with Constantin converting to Christianity, although monotheism was a bigger change (Romans were also heathens). After the Roman Empire fell, my country became desolate. The culture collapsed, only to be rebuilt in early Medieval times, by Vikings, with Christianity as its foundation. Well, the rest is history ;). Christianity is my cultural foundation, even though I was raised atheistic. I am interested in following/reading more of these perspectives, though I remain very discerning....I guess that's very Christian ;P
If all things good are created by God, where do all bad things come from?
Great question. Evil is not a thing to be created but rather a lack, a privation of the good. CS Lewis explores this: https://www.theascent.io/p/cs-lewis-best-lesson-on-evil?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks for this!! I whole heartedly agree and am so so so tired of people saying Christmas is bad because it's not strictly "biblical"!
Reverse this and it become true
i think the point of pagans bringing up the tree is to show the historical inaccuracies with christianity, mainly being that christmas not only has nothing to do with the bible but the dec 25th birth date came from multiple pagan deities from egypt, persia, greece... not just the holidays but the resurrection, baptism, passover beliefs all come from pagans. Why would an all powerful creator show his son to the world after millennia of pagan existence and not before? Why only show his son to a small corner of the levant region and not north america or asia or russia till hundreds of years after the fact? Seems like paganism actually reflects creation and nature and christianity was invented by flavian romans for political reasons.
My mind ventured here too. Why did aaaaallll that came before, came before then? And what about the Islamic faith that came after? The "other" one and only faith (according to them). What's the point? I mean, I do get a lot of what's said, and it rings true, but some things are not so easily twisted to fit the Christian narrative. Sounds a bit like retconning (I believe it's called). I'm from the Netherlands, and the Romans invaded around the year 0. Their culture didn't fully replace the old Iron Age Celtic culture, pantheon/religion, and society, but merged with it. It became a hybrid, old local gods/forces were revered in Roman "jackets". Very much rooted in the native and local sphere. The same happened within the Roman empire, with Constantin converting to Christianity, although monotheism was a bigger change (Romans were also heathens). After the Roman Empire fell, my country became desolate. The culture collapsed, only to be rebuilt in early Medieval times, by Vikings, with Christianity as its foundation. Well, the rest is history ;). Christianity is my cultural foundation, even though I was raised atheistic. I am interested in following/reading more of these perspectives, though I remain very discerning....I guess that's very Christian ;P