Early Christian Religion forums

[quote="Searcher"]Ok here we go:

Jesus is not God
The devil and his/its demons do not literally exist (it's all a personification of our sinful desires)
There's no literal hell (hell is the grave - fire is used as a symbol of utter destruction)
Jesus did not pre-exist
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Up to here I would say you're pretty much in line with the ideas of early Christians.
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There's no immortal soul, thus no spirit real (it's appointed men to die once, then the judgment)
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Not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you believe in a resurrection and final judgment? What is resurrected if not the immortal soul?
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The kingdom of God will be on earth - no man goes to heaven
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This is an interesting one. There seem to have been different Christian ideas about this from the earliest times. But it seems that one of Jesus's key ideas was what we might call the king[b]ship[/b] of God, rather than "kingdom": that is, that God is king in a person's heart, rather than some future divine intervention in the world.
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Easter, Christmas and Sunday worship are all pagan ideas
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At one time I thought of writing some essays on this point, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Easter certainly owes as much to Jewish Passover as to any particular pagan practices. The timing of Christmas may have been chosen to compete with pagan solstice celebrations, but there seems to be little else that is specifically pagan. The origin of Sunday worship is rather mysterious, but I don't know of any pagan sects that practiced it. Do you?
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Angles do not have wings
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Not unless they're "right angles"- hah!

But seriously, angels are usually represented as beings in human form in the Bible, so no, no wings.

(The term "angel" simply means "messenger", so an angel is not necessarily a supernatural being.)
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The forbidden fruit was not an apple
And Adam did not have a belly button :D

I think that's it[/quote]
Thanks for sharing.

Hi Rob

There's no immortal soul, thus no spirit realm (it's appointed men to die once, then the judgment)

[[Not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you believe in a resurrection and final judgment? What is resurrected if not the immortal soul?]]
The physical body is resurrected from death. The dead otherwise know nothing, and have no conscious thoughts.

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The kingdom of God will be on earth - no man goes to heaven

[[This is an interesting one. There seem to have been different Christian ideas about this from the earliest times. But it seems that one of Jesus's key ideas was what we might call the king[b]ship[/b] of God, rather than "kingdom": that is, that God is king in a person's heart, rather than some future divine intervention in the world.]]

I think it's both those things. We are told that Jesus will reign from Israel, on the (as it was then) throne of David.

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Easter, Christmas and Sunday worship are all pagan ideas

[[At one time I thought of writing some essays on this point, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Easter certainly owes as much to Jewish Passover as to any particular pagan practices. The timing of Christmas may have been chosen to compete with pagan solstice celebrations, but there seems to be little else that is specifically pagan. The origin of Sunday worship is rather mysterious, but I don't know of any pagan sects that practiced it. Do you?]]

Easter = Ashterah
The Romans worshipped their gods (not sure which one particularly) on sunday. Hence the day of the unconquerable sun ('Sun' Day). Constantine decided it would be a good idea to celebrate Jesus' birth on that day too.

There seems to be only one known reference to the pagan god Eostre, from Bede, and he doesn't have a lot to say (via Wikipedia):

That's not a lot to go one in equating her with Ashterah - especially since the latter disappeared about 1000 years earlier (I think).


The Romans did indeed worship the "unconquerable sun" as a god, from about 200 AD on. But I don't know of any celebration of this god that took place on a Sunday. Do you have a source for this claim?

There is a calendar that lists the feast of the unconquerable sun on Dec 25, IIRC, so it does seem possible that the date of Christmas was chosen to coincide/compete with the pagan festival. But that doesn't necessarily make Christmas a "pagan holiday".

I'd disagree and ask what tinsel (semen) has to do with Jesus, or the tree (phallic symbol) or the wreath (womb), or the baubles on the tree (testis)? Christmas is a pagan holiday by association, mainly because it adopts all the trimmings. Trimmings of a ferility persuasion. Alos, 25th december was chosen because after the sun dies on the 21 to 22nd, and lasts 3 days in the earth (tomb?), it rises again on the 25th december. The Romans merged the early christian believers with theor already approved pagan beliefs.

Likewise easter and the easter bunnies and eggs (again ferility). The farmers would actually roll eggs around their fields in order to fertilise the lands.

Why do christians have all these trimmings if there are no mention of them biblically? I'd say christmas is ultimately a pagan festivity, and christians (for the most part) associated with all the pagan rites. As we know, Jesus was born around late September early October, and not December. Just no reason for it all.

Sources, I could get but have none to hand right now.

So, what makes you think tinsel has anything to do with semen? According to About.com, tinsel was invented in Germany in 1610 - hardly a hotbed of paganism, I would think. Likewise phallic symbols and testes?


This is complete hogwash (sorry, but it is). The Roman calendar was the Julian calendar, which had an average 365.25 days in the year. They had leap days, but didn't know about skipping the leap day every 100 years, etc, as in the Gregorian calendar we now follow. Thus, the calendar constantly drifted against the actual solstice. When Julius Caesar introduced the reformed calendar in 46 BC, the solstice was on Jan 1. By the time of Constantine, it had drifted to about Dec 25 - hence the coincidence of Christmas and the solar festival. But the calendar continued to drift, and when the Gregorian reform was made, the solstice was once again way out of whack. The Gregorian calendar was set to put Easter on the "right" date (the one on which it was supposedly celebrated in 325 AD - the year of Nicea), and so the solstice ended up on the 21st or 22nd of Dec. So, the timing you suggest didn't obtain until 1563 AD (Council of Trent). Again, hardly a time when coordinating things with pagan fertility rituals was likely to be a big influence on the decision-making.

Again, sources, please?


Without sources you got nothing, buddy, but empty claims. Don't believe everything you read about pagan influences - a lot of it is pure hogwash. I'm willing to believe there were some pagan traditions that got picked up as part of Christian celebrations - but only when I see the evidence.

So, what's the evidence?

Ahhh and now the worm terms.

I'm not here to argue 'buddy'

Do the research

Goodbye