aribell
formerly nicola.kirwan
Had to come in and see what 200+ posts could be about... 
The U.S. has no official language, but on to more important things.
Yes, the Church brought many pagan elements into its worship. But think about the structure of that sentence: "brought into". The fellowship of believers in Christ was alive, well, and flourishing before any of those traditions became incorporated into the Church. A group of people's faith in Christ is not about the days one celebrates Jesus' resurrection or birth or anything like that. You could take away all the things you mentioned and faith in and devotion to Jesus Christ would still exist. The pagan elements you mentioned didn't show up until at least 300 years after Christians had been living and worshiping together.
"Before Jesus, it was not." What does this mean? Before Jesus, there was no Christianity, as people were called "Christians" who followed Christ. Hence, such a thing as "Christianity" could not exist before Jesus, organized or not. Jesus of Nazareth is a historical person. This is attested to by even secular scholars. Those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God and rose from the dead are Christians. The life and worship of those called Christians is Christianity. Maybe you know this, but the above quote sounds like maybe not...
Jesus is a sun god...according to whom? Your "sun"/"son" connection would hold more weight if it weren't completely reliant upon English pronunciation. Those two words have no such connection in the original biblical languages. In Aramaic, Jesus' native tongue, "son" is "bar" and "sun" is "kham". In Hebrew, "son" is "ben" and "sun" is shemesh/chammah. In ancient Greek, the word for "son" is "huios" and the word for "sun" is helios. Closer than the others, but nothing like "son" and "sun".
And again, the Gospel texts were composed very much before the traditions you mentioned were brought into Christian worship.
Yes, the Hebrews who made a cow to worship were worshiping pagan gods. And the worship of false pagan gods is also what made the Lord angry with them. The bible never pretends that false gods were not worshipped. The point is that people are to turn from the false gods to the true and living God, ultimately fully revealed in Jesus. So, I think to point out that Hebrews were worshiping a pagan God completely overlooks the fact that the point of that story was that what they were doing was completely contrary to the Lord's commandments for them. So even then there was a distinction made between pagan Gods and the Lord. The prophets of the Old Testament repeatedly make the distinction between how other peoples served their gods, and how the Lord God was to be served. There was always the call to separation...and explicitly so. So I think you'd have to come up with more than "pagans existed at the time" to say that somehow Judaism and then Christianity are themselves pagan in origin.
You've said repeatedly "this is fact." But a lot of what you've said is very confused. Not confusing, but confused. There are many elements wrapped up together that need to be taken apart.
The U.S. has no official language, but on to more important things.
Yes, the Church brought many pagan elements into its worship. But think about the structure of that sentence: "brought into". The fellowship of believers in Christ was alive, well, and flourishing before any of those traditions became incorporated into the Church. A group of people's faith in Christ is not about the days one celebrates Jesus' resurrection or birth or anything like that. You could take away all the things you mentioned and faith in and devotion to Jesus Christ would still exist. The pagan elements you mentioned didn't show up until at least 300 years after Christians had been living and worshiping together.
"Before Jesus, it was not." What does this mean? Before Jesus, there was no Christianity, as people were called "Christians" who followed Christ. Hence, such a thing as "Christianity" could not exist before Jesus, organized or not. Jesus of Nazareth is a historical person. This is attested to by even secular scholars. Those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God and rose from the dead are Christians. The life and worship of those called Christians is Christianity. Maybe you know this, but the above quote sounds like maybe not...
Jesus is a sun god...according to whom? Your "sun"/"son" connection would hold more weight if it weren't completely reliant upon English pronunciation. Those two words have no such connection in the original biblical languages. In Aramaic, Jesus' native tongue, "son" is "bar" and "sun" is "kham". In Hebrew, "son" is "ben" and "sun" is shemesh/chammah. In ancient Greek, the word for "son" is "huios" and the word for "sun" is helios. Closer than the others, but nothing like "son" and "sun".
And again, the Gospel texts were composed very much before the traditions you mentioned were brought into Christian worship.
Yes, the Hebrews who made a cow to worship were worshiping pagan gods. And the worship of false pagan gods is also what made the Lord angry with them. The bible never pretends that false gods were not worshipped. The point is that people are to turn from the false gods to the true and living God, ultimately fully revealed in Jesus. So, I think to point out that Hebrews were worshiping a pagan God completely overlooks the fact that the point of that story was that what they were doing was completely contrary to the Lord's commandments for them. So even then there was a distinction made between pagan Gods and the Lord. The prophets of the Old Testament repeatedly make the distinction between how other peoples served their gods, and how the Lord God was to be served. There was always the call to separation...and explicitly so. So I think you'd have to come up with more than "pagans existed at the time" to say that somehow Judaism and then Christianity are themselves pagan in origin.
You've said repeatedly "this is fact." But a lot of what you've said is very confused. Not confusing, but confused. There are many elements wrapped up together that need to be taken apart.
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