I can't imagine caring about the timing. Pick any day out of the year to celebrate what you believe is the incarnation. If I didn't know my own birthday, I'd pick a day out of the year and use it to celebrate, anyway.
True, I can't see it being wrong to celebrate His birth at any time. It's just sad that Christ wasn't always part of what we know as Christmas. Even today (in this thread even) you can see there are people that enjoy the festivities and couldn't care less about Jesus.
they're celebrating something else...and there are good things about that something else that are worth affirming. the Church needs to be celebrating what they call Christmas in a different way, though.
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Yeah but the church decided to choose the date of a pagan festival to please the masses who also wanted to celebrate something. I just can't see Jesus coming today and being happy with what "his birthday" is.
Not since I've been out of the US. Christmas was definitely a lot of fun as a kid though, as my family celebrated it. And I'd imagine it'd be great again when I actually have my own family. But as a single, atheist man who currently don't live in a country that celebrates Christmas(China), it's really just another day of the week.
I don't see anything wrong with picking a day out of the year to celebrate the incarnation. Yes, a long time ago, the Church chose to co-opt Saturnalia. That does not affect in any way the Advent season or Christmas for me. I agree with your last sentence....consumermas doesn't seem like something Jesus would be cool with.
Christians do that. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting aside one day to mark it as the day, however. The nitpickiness over this stuff smacks to me more of religion than Jesus.
I celebrate by drinking heavily while participating in the pagan-like traditions of Santa Claus and gift-giving/receiving. I do this because my family forces me into these situations. I think the commercialization of this holiday is one of the most disgusting side-effects of our capitalist society. I was raised as a Christian (Southern Baptist), but I have no connection to the church nor the followers of Christ at this time. I believe Jesus was way cool, though.
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Usually, but it's getting a little cold outside, so I need to come up with new ideas. Like I said, I'm not going out and trying to tell people not to do something, or what they should do, that's between them and God, I just wanted to see what people thought on the subject.
My step dad and the Christian cult he was involved in didn't believe in celebrating Christmas, as Jesus would never want his birthday celebrated, because he never instructed us to do so in the Bible, so we didn't celebrate Christmas from the time I was 8 until I was 18. Yay religion.
