I am not interested in celebrating ANY MAN MADE Holy Day  in my relationship with God - That is why I have left the Catholic Church.  I have been lied to and taught direct misleading information regarding EVERYTHING I was practicing for 47 years.  \n\nThank You for the information in the Lent question but I still need a clarifcation on Easter & an understanding of what the REAL, celebrated, from the Bible Holy Days really are.   \n\nThank So Much for helping me erase my wrong teachings.
122326
The actual word in that verse is "Passover" it was the King James scribes that put the word "Easter" in since it had come after Christ's resurrection.
473899
That's because now that it's a federal holiday, it has turned into a secular celebration. Christians have stolen practically all of their holiday traditions from pagan ritual.\n\nDo you honestly think Jesus was born on December 25th?\n\nChristmas isn't an exclusively Christian holiday, little miss possessive. Do you want us to stop eating, drinking, having parties, and being merry simply because you don't like the idea of us non-believers celebrating a pagan holiday?\n\nFor a Christian, you sure are spiteful. Tsk tsk.
114630
I feel your pain . . . I am a Catholic, a convert, actually, and I see this as well.  But, it is not only in the Catholic faith . . . I see it among all Christians, and I suspect it is the case with most religions (I'm just not exposed to much outside of Christianity).  Many Catholics are what I consider to be "cultural", like people talk about cultural Jews . . . they were born into a long line of Catholics, they follow the teachings of the church on the outside, but on the inside the Devil has free reign.  Not eating meat on Fridays has, unfortuanly, become a way of showing that we are "good" Catholics.  It's like Jesus told His disciples . . . pray in your inner chamber, make sure you look well when you are fasting, so that only God knows your sacrifice (sorry, my concordance is packed away, and my Bible quoting skills are lacking, but it's in there!).  Many, many people do exactly what the Jews in Jesus time were doing . . . making a show out of serving the Lord.  Just as then, we are called to sacrifice in private while preaching the Gospel. But we often fail.  It's very frustrating to me as well (not that I'm all that holy either).
460046
Considering that Christmas really has nothing to do with the birth of Christ, or Christianity, why are you ranting. Check out what I'm saying. The Christians just gave it a new name. They adopted the holiday that is originally from Pagans. As far as Santa and the reindeer and the elves and the sleigh rides, I've never taught my children to believe in such lies, because if I lied to them about that, then they may just think that I would lie to them about God. I don't celebrate the holidays because of their origins. Try reading Exodus 32:4-10
35589
Sunday Sabbath is heresy\nEaster Sunday is heresy\nHeresies (all iniquity) is an abomination to God.\n\nThose who love God with all their heart, soul, mind, might, also love His Law, the Torah - His will circumcise their heart with His will written on it.\n\nOne-hour and then back-to-worldly- pleasures won't make the mark. Begrudgingly observing the Sabbath won't cut it. If you love the holiness of the Sabbath, you've got it! :)\n\n[See "How to test a prophet...?"]
192277
Then you should ask those who are Roman Catholics, maybe they know more about it. But why do you ask?\n\nI overheard my friend said that holy Friday celebration begin after the God's rebirth but I forgotten the details about it. Maybe it could be wrong because I wasn't quite listening when he was telling the other person about it.
84211
Dear friend ,\n      It is time that matters in our religious persuit.Because awareness of time is extremely necessary to make us responsible.\n       Lent is not just avoiding meat eating.It is the resemblance of our sacrifice to get prepared for a life with God.What has a rose or choclate or a kiss to do with our love life???\n  It represents our love.Like wise Prayer and Lent represents our wish to be with God!
194083
Easter Facts (my parents & pastor didn't tell me)\n\n1 Neither the Bible nor secular history tells us the time of the Resurrection. (Not even the day of the week.)\n\n2 We have God's Word for what days are Holy (to Him) and we know that the NT does NOT say to celebrate Easter (nor does it tell us God wants us to celebrate Christmas).\n\n3 We know that God has NEVER tolerated paganism mixed-in with His worship - it is an abhorrent abomination to Him.
154583
I must tell you that it saddens me to hear that your experiences with Christianity have left you disenchanted with the whole thing. As a "christian" I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for any thing that anyone who calls themselves a christian has done to hurt or anger you.\n  I would like to say that i agree with one of the other posts in the fact that not everyone who calls themselves christian truly knows Jesus Christ.  You see "Christianity" has become just another religion where we humans try to reach God on our own terms.  That's where all the "bible thumping" comes from.  Jesus is Gods attempt to reach us humans through His love, unfortunately most Christians never fully experience His love and therefore can never love themselves.  They think that by being super zealous for the laws that God has set for us, and "taking a stand" for what they believe that they will some how please god more.  The bible teaches that we can do nothing to please God, outside of having a relationship with His son Jesus Christ.\n\nI would be honored to share with you how you can truly experience Gods love if you want.\n\n\np.s.  I didn't get the stamp of approval from my church or minister but that's OK cause I AM one of the ministers!:)\n\ncrazy that one of us guys would read something that challenged Christianity huh?  Hope i am up to the challenge
177324
here is a good website explaining it.\nI am not Catholic.
511971
WoW! It's unbelievable how some get so angry over this question.! I don't actually care what it's called; winterval or otherwise. I know it's not popular, but...here goes anyway.....\nDecember 25th, according to the Bible, (which is the ultimate and true word, on this subject and all others,) This date, has Pagan origins, and was declared to be Christ's birthday, by humans. The truth, which as Christians, we should be seeking, is that Christ was actually born in the Fall of the year, (Feast of Trumpets and Feast of Tabernacles Holy Days, are the time of the year when Christ was actually born.) Dec. 25th is the date that Mary was Immaculately conceived, BTW)\nMost people dont want to hear this; it's too hard to change some beliefs. BUT God does tell us to worship in Spirit and in Truth...soooo.... I guess it will be offensive to some! That's the way the Christmas cookie crumbles!\nThese facts about Jesus' real birthday have absolutely nothing to do with being politically correct...They were Biblical and true, before all this nonsense about stuff like that. \nAnyone who seeks the truth about Jesus' birthday, can read it in the Bible; those of us who know that December 25th is not His birthday, have already proved it to ourselves, and find comfort in knowing the truth that Christ has allowed us to know. \nIt's not about taking away a "religious" holiday....It's fine with me if people celebrate Dec 25th, no matter what it's called...but....in reality, since it's not Christ's birthday, it's just a tradition, a fun one perhaps, once you get thru all the hassles involved with shopping, the greed of the merchants, the expectations of what you're going to receive, the stress, not to mention the bills and the cookies that didn't turn out, and the commercialism! \nSo...call it anything...doesn't matter anyway...and I hate to be a party pooper..but Christ doesn't belong in it to begin with...\nWhy not just call it a WinterFest, and be done with it ? That's all it is, anyway!!!
40780
I was raised Catholic, and I loved it, and I stayed Catholic until I was about 24 years old. At that time, I started questioning other religions, which led me to the Church of God. I remained in that church for about 10 years. Worship in that church was singing, hearing sermons, fellowship, and Bible study. It was quite different from what I was used to in the Catholic church. There were no statues, no Rosary, no Communion, no confession, no Holidays like Christmas or Easter, etc. Instead of those days, we had Sabbath on Saturday, there was Baptism by immersion, and we celebrated God's Holy Days, Pentecost, Trumpets, Passover, etc...Regular Sabbath was like a social gathering after the service. We stayed and visited with each other, ( there were about a thousand people then) We sang a few hymns, and sometimes there was special music, where someone would sing a solo.\nIt was very nice, and I enjoyed it, but I have moved on...and the most important thing is that I am still a Christian. A person can be a Christian in any church; it's what's in your heart and it's that you are close to your Creator.
570422
"One can ask the question of why the miracle of the Holy Fire is almost unknown in Western Europe. In Protestant areas it may, to a certain extent, be explained by the fact that there is no real tradition of miracles; people don't really know in which box to place the miracles, and they rarely feature in newspapers. But in the Catholic tradition there is vast interest in miracles. Thus, why is it not more well known? For this only one explanation suffices: Church politics. Only the Orthodox Churches attend the ceremony which is centered on the miracle. It only occurs on the Orthodox date of Easter and without the presence of any Catholic authorities."\n\nHmm... that seems a tad bit suspicious to me. I mean not to trump up catholisism, but I'm willing to bet that if *anyone* who might have an interest in proving or disproving this phenomena attended the ceremony, this "miracle" would likely mysteriously fail to present itself. Very convenient.
645482
WE WEREN'T THERE SO WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT DAY IS WORSHIP.  AFTER ALL THEY DECIDED TO LEAVE OUT ALL THOSE OTHER BOOKS FROM DISCIPLES THAT WERE THERE WHY COULDN'T THEY MAKE UP THEIR OWN DAY OF WORSHIP. AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE AND WORSHIP.
147239
As a matter of fact, there were various ways for celebrating these events in the early centuries of the church.  Some did actually celebrate this whole series of events --including Jesus' death and resurrection-- according to the Jewish calendar, at the time of Passover, since that is when Jesus died.\n\nBut in other parts of the church the custom grew of celebrating the resurrection on the FIRST day of the week, to recall that it was on the first day that Jesus rose.\nIn fact, fairly early the churches had shifted to holding a regular weekly assembly on this day of the week, largely BECAUSE that was the day of the week on which Christ was raised (as well as the day of the week of another foundational event for the church -- the church's first Pentecost [Acts 2]).  \n\nSo, in honor of the resurrection, the first day made a lot of sense, and ultimately at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) the various branches of the church agreed to ALWAYS celebrate the Day of Resurrection on the first day of the week.   But they determined WHICH Sunday by a formula derived from the date by which the Jews determined the yearly of Passover (that is, by the beginning of the Jewish religious year), though also 'freed' from it by using the vernal equinox as its starting point.  \n\nThus the church sought to keep TWO connections with the events of the first Easter\n1) celebrating the FIRST day of the week (thought of, also, as parallel to the creation -- the resurrection being the first day of a NEW creation)\n2) maintaining the understanding that Jesus was fulfilling the PASSOVER feast's celebration of God's redemption of his people (including his initiating "the Lord's Supper" at the Passover meal, indicating that he was fulfilling it)\n\nAs for your proposal, which would tie it to a specific date in the ROMAN calendar.  There is no evidence any in the early church ever considered doing it that way.   This may be, in part, because of some uncertainty about which year and so which precise days by the Roman calendar these things happened.   But I'm not sure they even cared about that even if they DID know the Roman date(or thought they could calculate it).  The fact is they were NOT trying to institute some new ROMAN holiday.  The connections they were interested in related, as noted above, to the first day (day of resurrection/new creation) and the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover.
176065
In the days of the early Christian church, only Easter Sunday was celebrated as a holy day.  By the fourth century, each day of the week preceding Easter were established as holy days including Good Friday.  To most Christians, Good Friday is really a misnomer in that it was a "bad" Friday—the crucifixion day of Jesus.  Some believe the term "Good" evolved from "God" or God's Friday.  Others believe "good" represents the good gift of salvation brought forth by the martyrdom.  Regardless, it is a holy day throughout the Christian world.\n\nCeremonial worship of the holiday follows closely to the events described in the scriptures.  Some congregations still hold a three hour service on Friday representing the three hours He hanged on the cross.  A typical service includes seven distinct elements representative of Christ's seven utterances while on the cross.
170369
dude give us a break, or at least a date for judgement day so i can prepare an answer\n\nand are u putting words in gods mouth....how does ur priest/minister/pastor feel about such blasphemy??