Yule vs. Christmas

Author: Polytheist-Witch

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Plisken
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@Mopac
The church doesn't hold that December 25th is the birthday of Jesus though, at least not to my knowledge.  How was that decided?
Mopac
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@Plisken
It is whwn we celebrate it.

The entire year is built around a liturgical calendar. If you were to pay attention to the calendar, it mirrors the story of the gospel. To some people, this is how they learn the gospel.

It is easy to take for granted literacy, but to those who are not literate, this is another way of teaching. To those who can read, it is a way of keeping these things in memory.

December 25th in the liturgical year celebrates the nativity.


Most Christians in the west seem to make this the most inportant holiday, but for us Orthodox Pasche is. It is the feast of resurrection. Protestants may know it as Easter.
Castin
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@Mopac
And this is one of the big differences between Orthodoxy and protestantism.
The protestants base everything off of scripture, and so they are stuck with just that.

The Orthodox Church has church tradition and scripture, which the church itself compiled.

In other words, Orthodoxy does not base its doctrine on scripture. The church knew what it believed before the New Testament was canonized.

But we certainly celebrate Christmas.
Yeah, I grew up among Protestants who are undeniably and proudly sola scriptura. They believe anything outside the Bible is just the claims of men, not the word of God. It seems to be a question of where you choose to place authority. They place authority in the book, you place authority in the church.
Mopac
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@Castin
Church tradition and scripture. It is really both.

But not these things alone. Without The Spirit of Truth, what is it? The authority is really God.


And the faith is not in men, but God The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
disgusted
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@Castin
Tell that to the Irish.
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@Castin
Biblicist Christians place authority in the words of men, they just lie to themselves about it.
Castin
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@Mopac
Church tradition and scripture. It is really both.

But not these things alone. Without The Spirit of Truth, what is it? The authority is really God.
And the faith is not in men, but God The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Well in both cases the authority is ultimately believed to be God's, but sola scriptura Protestants believe only scripture is an authority on what God's will is, whereas you seem to acknowledge extra-biblical sources as authorities on God's will and how it should be interpreted.


Mopac
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@Castin
The scripture is inseparable from church tradition because it is a part of it.

Protestant churches also have amnesia in a lot of other ways, because as far as they are concerned, there is the church in The Book of Acts, then a stretch of about 1,500 years of church history and tradition that might fill 3 pages in a text book, then Martin Luther, John Calvin john Wesley, Henry VIII or whatever. They call this stretch of church history the dark ages or something.


But no, there is actually a great deal in that missing part.


But it is still important to realize that the church compiled The New Testament centuries after the church had been around. There are a lot of things not in scripture. Instead you only have hints of these things in scripture. The liturgy of temple worship isn't in scripture. Things like that are part of Church Tradition.

You say things like, "authorities on God's will". That's not really how the church looks at things.


Castin
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@Mopac
Well I'm an outsider obviously, so you'll have to make some allowances for me. Well, you won't "have to", but it would be cool if you did.

But it looks like quite a good point that it was the nascent church that originally compiled the New Testament.
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@Polytheist-Witch
The god Wodan/Odin was the god of Yule

Where does "Wodan/Odin" exist ?

Holle in the German tradition shares the lead of the Hunt and the Yule celebration. 

Who is "Holle" and where does Holle exist?

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@Castin
The "sola scriptura" idea is a protestant thing, which is quite natural because the protestant churches don't really have church history or tradition.


We Orthodox pray that they find their way to Orthodoxy.

Castin
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@Mopac
We Orthodox pray that they find their way to Orthodoxy.
Lol. I know so many Protestants that would drive nuts.

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@Castin
Let the demons come out.
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@Mopac
😄 Sure, I'll fetch my trephine and get to trepanning.

Man, was that not a horrific practice?