Would Jesus Cringe seeing what Christmas has turned into?

[2322]

Well it does have his name in it. I think a lot of people don't know that, and would probably be offended if you pointed out that fact.

So Jesus would probably think "What is Christmas?" Then he would find the craftsman auto-hammer and think "Holy shit this is fucking awesome."

I also thought that everyone believed in evolution because it makes sense.

What? Doesn't everyone believe in evolution?

Christmas and Easter are so fucking loaded with pagan symbolism I'm amazed that it isn't obvious but then I don't think JLo's Louboutin song is any good either.

 

[nudeyorker]

OK I'm jewish so I think you all know how I feel about Jesus. That aside I respect the beliefs of others. We put up a tree and celebrate Hanukkah for me and Christmas for my partner who was raised Serbian Orthodox.
I have come to view the period between Thanksgiving and the New Year as The Winter Holiday's. I really truly enjoy the spirit of this holiday season. I like the special foods and music and celebrating with family and friends.
Isn't that what it is supposed to be about?

 

[Nrets]

JP Morgan would cringe to see what Christmas has turn into. Jesus would straight up spontaneously combust!

 

[buck_naked]

religion is what scared people cling to to try to make sense of it all, i don't need a book of stories to tell me that i should accept, appreciate, and respect everyone or what is and is not morally acceptable

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I tend to think that Jesus did exist. He's mentioned outside of the Bible a few times by contemporary historians. Whether he's a prophet or messiah or simply a wise man or an uppity carpenter with radical ideas depends upon your faith.

Personally, I think he'd be shocked that anyone was celebrating his birthday to begin with and then terribly sad that so many have misunderstood the message which is still, despite great effort to the contrary, ever so clearly beneath all the commercial dreck. Ultimately, I think he'd be compassionate toward those who don't get it:

Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways. -Thomas 28​

Thomas may not be Q but it's likely damned close.

There were a lot of Jesus's in Judea and Galilee in the first century and there were an awful lot of odd religious revivals lead by prophetic leaders, some of them called Jesus. There are few enough alternative references to a Jesus who can be difinitively tied to the Biblical account. Those which are generally thought to be most likely references to the actual model for Christ are more contradictory than clarificatory.

In any event we know, since the early Church made no effort to hide it, that even the Biblical jesus was not born on the current feast of Christmas and that as Big B points out the feast was a actually located at its current date to usurp the popularity of a number of pagan festivals and probably also of Hanukkah, which also had the benefit of associating Christ with the liturgical calendar of Judaism.

There was completely open admission within the early church that Christ had of course not been born in december but that it was necessary to place his birth at this time of year to compete for sacred calendar space with Mithras, Saturn and a number of other important religious figures of the first few centuries of Christianity. Of course this is the case with a variety of Christian holy days and festivals, and when one considers how closely bound the story of Christ is to events placed in the calendar of holy events it becomes clear that in fact a lot of that story is either completely fictionalised or at least so redacted and edited and reformed that it likely bears no resemblance to the story of the life of whoever the prototypical Jesus actually was.

So would Jesus cringe at what Christmas has become ? I'm sure he would be turned off by the gross consumption of it all, something which he seemed to regard as sinful no matter who you think he may have been, but I don't think he would regard it as having anything to do with him or his teachings or even the reforms he had intended to introduce to Judaism, since there is no evidence he actually intended to found a new religion at all.

I think over all, whoever the real Jesus was would be as non-plussed and turned off by Christmas as he would have been by any gentile festival of excessive licence and consumption.

 

[Calboner]

I am disappointed that no one in this thread has made reference to the definitive treatment of this topic by Trey Parker and Matt Stone: "The Spirit of Christmas" (also known as "Jesus versus Santa Claus").

 

[B_Hickboy]

The worst thing that has ever happened to Christianity was when it became legal and safe.

 

[MickeyLee]

Well it does have his name in it. I think a lot of people don't know that, and would probably be offended if you pointed out that fact.

So Jesus would probably think "What is Christmas?" Then he would find the craftsman auto-hammer and think "Holy shit this is fucking awesome."

I also thought that everyone believed in evolution because it makes sense.

i don't know... i suspect Jesus' relationships with hammers took a sour turn right after the crucifixion :smile:

 

[jeff black]

What if I bought him a sweater?

 

[B_Stronzo]

I'm of the firm conviction that were Christ to appear (cameo) on the planet he'd walk up to each and every fundamental Christian (am leaving out another rather well-known denomination in an effort at board peace) and slap them upside the head saying "IDIOT! That's not what I meant at all!!"

Oh and yeah... the fellow would (were he to hold true to form) be horrified at what is celebrated (loosely speaking here) for his namesake.

 

[D_Doewell Dadong]

I think he has come back already and gone "this place is fucked, even i Can't fix this" then went to the pub.

 

[Catchoftheday]

I think he has come back already and gone "this place is fucked, even i Can't fix this" then went to the pub.

Let's hope it wasn't too crowded and he could find a seat

 

[798686]

I tend to think that Jesus did exist. He's mentioned outside of the Bible a few times by contemporary historians. Whether he's a prophet or messiah or simply a wise man or an uppity carpenter with radical ideas depends upon your faith.

I agree - there are mentions of him in Josephus (one accepted, one disputed) and also Tacitus (and Lucian?). Also, I doubt the whole movement would've got started without his existence. He was alive at a time when they were expecting the prophecied Messiah - whether he fulfilled those prophecies, or whether people convinced themselves he had, is up to you.

I also think he wouldn't be interested in Christmas at all. He never instructed people to keep it - and his birthday was slapped on Dec 25th (when it was more likely Autumn time) so people could continue keeping their previous pagan festivals at that time of year, after converting to Christianity.

 

[funnyguy]

I tend to think that Jesus did exist. He's mentioned outside of the Bible a few times (?) by contemporary historians. Whether he's a prophet or messiah or simply a wise man or an uppity carpenter with radical ideas depends upon your faith.

Personally, I think he'd be shocked that anyone was celebrating his birthday to begin with and then terribly sad that so many have misunderstood the message which is still, despite great effort to the contrary, ever so clearly beneath all the commercial dreck. Ultimately, I think he'd be compassionate toward those who don't get it:

Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways. -Thomas 28​

Thomas may not be Q but it's likely damned close.

Jason, read In Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer and many of his Biblical contemporary scholars. I had to read them way back for classes. It does shed a different light on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth as he is only mentioned one time in historians of his time-by Josephus. ( Unless I am incorrect on this fact from my studies.)

 

[Drifterwood]

the horse was long out of the stable.

Ass.

I am fairly sure it was an ass in the stable.

Anyway, actions speak louder than words, he hasn't come back.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Jason, read In Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer and many of his Biblical contemporary scholars. I had to read them way back for classes. It does shed a different light on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth as he is only mentioned one time in historians of his time-by Josephus. ( Unless I am incorrect on this fact from my studies.)

You're correct the only un controversial reference to Jesus left is in Josephus, but again this Jesus probably bears absolutely no similarities to the Jesus of the Bible.

 

[naughty]

I am sure he wouldnt like it, but he would not be shocked. I am sure he saw comparable things when he was here....

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I agree - there are mentions of him in Josephus (one accepted, one disputed) and also Tacitus (and Lucian?). Also, I doubt the whole movement would've got started without his existence. He was alive at a time when they were expecting the prophecied Messiah - whether he fulfilled those prophecies, or whether people convinced themselves he had, is up to you.

Without who's existence ? There are at least a dozen viable candidates for who the very earliest Jesus followers were actually following.

Plenty of religions were founded by either completely mythological or semi-mythological people, Judaism for instance, Abraham cannot be attested historically and his life reads like half a dozen other morality tales told in Mesopotamia about other mythological characters.

Or ancient Roman religion, founded by the clearly mythical King Numa Pompilius, second King of Rome after the equally fictitious Romulus.

Or Mithraism, an very serious competitor of early Cristianity, founded by a mythological character who in a supreme act of sacrifice was slaughtered to cleanse the world of sin and whom it was prophesied would return to bring about the end of time e.t.c.

I also think he wouldn't be interested in Christmas at all. He never instructed people to keep it - and his birthday was slapped on Dec 25th (when it was more likely Autumn time) so people could continue keeping their previous pagan festivals at that time of year, after converting to Christianity.

ON this I certainly agree with you :wink::tongue:

 

[D_Ireonsyd_Colonrinse]

jason els writes:

When the Bible was put together by Origen there was no such thing as a middle class as we know it. By the time the Council of Trent finalized the thing (at least as far as the Catholics were concerned), the horse was long out of the stable.

--------------------

In his book "The Age of Reason" (1794), american revolutionary Thomas Paine, addressed the Council of Trent, I believe, when he wrote:

"They decided to vote which of the books of the collection they had made should be the WORD OF GOD and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God."


Paine was no fan of Christianity nor any other religion. While discussing the Old Testament, he interjects with:

"Whenever you read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelentling vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

All 50 pages of "The Age of Reason" is an attack on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It's no wonder his role in the American Revolution was diminished & written out by future historians -- and his reputation suffered.

 

[798686]

ON this I certainly agree with you :wink::tongue:

One out of two, ain't bad! :biggrin1: