Picture Thread

[Shogun Gunner]

I guess don't give a crap if the Pope thinks its okay for me to put an evergreen tree in my house during December. He can go to hel..... oh, maybe I shouldn't say that.

[bayraven]

alas, you are right.
BTW, what is a flaneur?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by bayraven
Last week i saw a clip of The Pope explaining the perpetual green color of the Christmas Tree as representing the ever-presant value of Christ in our lives. I think we're ok.

How very sanitised- he skips over the obvious pagan connections with fertility and life.


Exactly what would a fir or pine tree have to do with Bethlehem?

[bayraven]

Last week i saw a clip of The Pope explaining the perpetual green color of the Christmas Tree as representing the ever-presant value of Christ in our lives. I think we're ok.

I'm Baptist, but i seem to recall Paul asking why we had devided ourselves up like that.

[Dr. Nick]

I remember reading somewhere that the first actual Christmas tree was used by Martin Luther... which makes you a heretic, ChP.

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Well I'm a Catholic (which means that I'm a pagan in the eyes of Christian fanatics ) and I don't consider the tree a pagan object. I mean sure the whole thing started that way but with the years it was absorved by the Christian heritage, so no harm done. Right?

[Shogun Gunner]

We have a christmas tree...if that makes me pagan...well, okay then.

I'm going to draw the line at painting my face, getting naked and dancing around the tree while chanting some black magic.

[bayraven]

i might be fuzzy on the details, but here goes. In an effort to convert the pagans early in Christendom, church occasions were overlaid upon existing pagan festivals. For example (the occasion of) the Ressurection was planted upon the pagan festival of fertility honoring the goddess Ishtar. We call her Easter now (but we kept the fertile rabbits.)
Most interesting to me was the Festival of Saturn celebrated on December 25. It seems the biggest, roundest priest of the temple would be adorned in a red toga and stand on the portico of the temple to proclaim "Ho Saturnaillia, Ho Saturnaillia, Ho, Saturnaillia"
with this in mind, the whole evergreen tree thing is a minor infraction.
With all respect to my Pagan friend, it worked. The ACLU hasn't tried to remove a bust of Saturn from any Nativity Scenes...

[Dr. Nick]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Me and my sister.

And trees are still pagan! I'm a pagan too.

[bayraven]

40%? that's no game.

One demographic i'm interested in is age. I'm grateful for Paddy, keeping me from believing i'm the only other grandpa here.
Of course, i'm a very young grandpa...

[Heresson]

I think there were polls like this, and there's an active poll at CFC which shows suprisingly big 40% atheist minority

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Hmmm... this is interesting. We should do a religious poll to see how many Catholics, Anglicans, Islamics, Jews, etc, people we have in Poly.

[Nikolai]

Thanks. It's nice to see a fellow Christian, I have the feeling sometimes there's not too many of us on places like this. The Isaiah verse in my sig is one of, if not the, Bible verse that means most to me. I come back to it over and over again.

[bayraven]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Pagan? Nah, I consider myself as a Christian thank you...

Nikolai,
I'm glad i found this post. I wanted to ask you about the reference to Isaiah, but the CIV forum wasn't the right place.
It does my heart good to find Christ reflected in places i wasn't looking...:

this is the third time i've tried to send this, i hope i get it right this time

[bayraven]