Further. Every. Day.

Find the article at provokedtoreason.com

Today, let's look at the common arguments for a Pagan Origin of Christmas. Let's put them into 3 categories:

1. The 25th Date coincides with other pagan holidays like Saturnalia and Sol Invictus

2. The gods who were born on the 25th make Christ look like a copycat in a long line of copycats.

3. The Christmas Tree appears to be the Asherah Pole from Jeremiah 10:1-5.

So let's start with the date of the 25th. Where did the date come from?

Some sources attribute Theophilus of Antioch circa 171-183 AD as the first to use the 25th of December date as the date of Christ's birth, due to the notion that prophets are conceived on the day they die (Christ's death being attributed here as the 25th of March). Some even attribute Pope St. Telesphorus in circa 125-136 AD as having ascribed the December 25th date decades earlier. The dates of Saturnalia were the 17th-23rd , never on the 25th. A Pre-Christ Sol Invictus is only referenced in 1 manuscript, the Chronography of 354. This manuscript was written over 100 years after Hippolytus of Rome's Commentary on Daniel (circa 202~211 AD), which references the December 25th Birth of Christ. It is entirely possible that the observance of Sol Invictus's birthdate may have even been a mimicry of the December 25th date! There go those two points, showing a crippling lack of scholarship on the part of the proponents of a Pagan Origin of Christmas.

As for other gods who have held or picked up the 25th, some of these have resurrection stories and other vague similarities of Christ's story. I'll have to quote Lewis here on this general contention as Lewis said it better than I could: “And what did God do? …He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.” If one takes the proposition that man came from Noah, and Noah expected the redeemer of the Genesis 3 covenant, would not man expect such a redeemer? Also, would not the Devil himself love to abuse this desire for a Savior and propagate such false religions for the Devil's own gain? This view, even if you believe it to be wrong, is at least consistent.

On a side note, I do not believe, like many that Christ's birth was on the 25th of December. It was likely on the feast of First Fruits in April. This would better fit the prophetic timeline and The Christ Comet is a theory of the Star of Bethlehem that plots the activities of a specific comet to that timeframe. This comet would have behaved in such a way as to lead the Magi to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem, but this is neither here nor there for this discussion.

On the note of the Christmas Tree, the Asherah Pole of Pre-Christ Iran is often connoted with the Tradition of the Christmas Tree, which was started around the 1500s by the French and Germanic Christians, the better part of two millennia separated from Jeremiah's words in Jeremiah 10:1-5:

1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: 2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

On that note, how would uncarved trees have anything to do with carved wooden idols? Just because heathens used trees in false worship, does not mean that trees are somehow pagan. If pagans doing something or celebrating in a certain way makes any association with the item or practice anathema, stop singing, stop praying, and while you're at it, stop breathing! This extreme is almost a strawman, but the point of this should be why are we doing what we do? Some traditions are valueless, granted. Some are even dangerous, agreed. But let's base our critiques, if we have them, on facts and not unsupported nonsense. (For example, find an actual ancient source on the use of Christmas Trees for Saturnalia. Few if any exist, and none that we are aware of.)

Santa Clause, on the other hand, is a different story. St. Nicholas (Born circa 280 AD) is the oldest reference of the Jolly Man who gave aid to the poor and powerless. Tales of St. Nicholas include him giving dowries to girls being sold into prostitution, thereby saving them from such a life, and giving gifts to the poor. Others are more fantastic. However, all of these stories should be celebrated, in the context of what the Love of God can do through one man. St. Nicholas wasn't magical, he was transformed through his relationship to Christ. Santa Claus, as we have him today came from numerous accretions and other legends, some even pagan in origin (think Krampus).

All of that aside, however we got Santa Claus is not necessarily important. What is concerning is that some have taken the caricature of St. Nicholas and turned him into a god who rewards good works and the sacrament of milk and cookies. We tell children Santa and Jesus are both real and then wonder why they no longer believe in Christ only a few short years of their belief in Santa being shattered. Where is our consistency? Have we been guilty of worshiping a false god that satisfies our own paganistic desires for self fulfilment in America? Has Consumerism consumed the message of Christmas?

So, is Christmas a pagan holiday root and branch? Not in the root, but maybe for some, the branch. We should ask ourselves: Is Christ still on the throne of Christmas, or have we erected our own god of self-actualization with a fat bearded man who gives gifts with little effort from us, a caricature of God the Father Himself? Do we spend nearly as much time worshiping the King of Heaven as we do ourselves, and even our children and families?

https://www.learnreligions.com/why-is-christmas-on-december-25-700439

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/12/december-25th-birth-jesus-interesting-considerations.html

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/12/08/just-how-pagan-is-christmas-really/

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2018/12/05/the-origins-of-the-christmas-tree/

The US Dollar has seen a perceived devaluation of 40 cents on the dollar since 2000. 10 cents of which have been this last year. Pause for effect. That means they have stolen 10% of your assets in 1 year. It came out of your bank account, house, car, ect.

Fiat currencies are what make this possible. Like we said in the Is Welfare Moral Podcast, money is just an IOU. When more IOUs are printed than what could ever be redeemed, the IOU starts to lose value. Printing money equates to theft, and they will not even pay it back.

With 4.5 Trillion dollars spent in aid, and very little of it actually making its way to real people (less than 2 Trillion), this money is just funding pet projects run by family members and friends of those who passed the spending… 10% of the US Dollar's value has been lost due to the money printed in 2021.

Let's just ballpark the loss in napkin math by the average American yearly income ~$67,000. ~330,000,000 Americans x $67,000 = ~$22,000,000,000,000 or 22 Trillion, in 2020 20 Trillion was the Estimated GDP so we're not far off. That means that they stole over 2 trillion dollars from Americans this year alone (not the 10, 50, 100 years in which this inflation will likely exist, if this nation lasts that much longer). Just think of it this way, they stole 10% from this year's wages, and 10% of the value of every dollar that you have saved, from the equity in your car or house, ect, and in the future and they by far haven't given the money back. They have just spent it on their own interests!

For those who still think that this is acceptable, what does the Bible say about this?

Ezekiel 45:9-10

‘Thus says the Lord God, “Enough, you princes of Israel; put away violence and destruction, and practice justice and righteousness. Stop your expropriations from My people,” declares the Lord God. “You shall have just balances, a just ephah and a just bath.

Micah 6:10-14

“Is there yet a man in the wicked house,

Along with treasures of wickedness

And a short measure that is cursed?

“Can I justify wicked scales

And a bag of deceptive weights?

“For the rich men of the city are full of violence,

Her residents speak lies,

And their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

read more.

“So also I will make you sick, striking you down,

Desolating you because of your sins.

“You will eat, but you will not be satisfied,

And your vileness will be in your midst.

You will try to remove for safekeeping,

But you will not preserve anything,

And what you do preserve I will give to the sword.

Proverbs 16:11

A just balance and scales belong to the Lord;

All the weights of the bag are His concern.

Proverbs 20:23

Differing weights are an abomination to the Lord,

And a false scale is not good.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/12/phillip-patrick-us-dollar-lost-40-cents-value-since-2000-10-cents-loss-happened-year-joe-biden-video/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/covid-relief-bills-us-has-spent-most-of-coronavirus-aid-money.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/10/20/dr-anthony-faucis-little-known-biodefense-work--its-how-he-became-the-highest-paid-federal-employee/?sh=3fb0d00e6081

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10324873/Emails-reveal-Fauci-head-NIH-colluded-try-smear-experts-called-end-lockdowns.html

https://www.census.gov/popclock/

https://www.bea.gov/news/2021/gross-domestic-product-second-quarter-2021-advance-estimate-and-annual-update

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/581101-voters-are-correct-biden-is-to-blame-for-inflation

https://www.vox.com/2021/12/11/22829221/inflation-rate-cpi-supply-chain-biden-transitory

When did victimhood become desirable? Well, after the triumphs of the 60s, those who lost their fight, the Marxist-Left, began a subversive campaign to change the narrative that those who had just acquired freedom, needed to remand themselves back into bondage and that the Marxist-Humanist-Left could lead them to a utopia. Does this lie sound familiar? With an infinite range of possibilities in a beautiful garden, man was convinced to leave the Truth that was given to him, for a lie. This sin plays out today. Given a free and more or less post racial America in the 1980s, we decided to trade what we had in for the lie of Cultural Marxism, a rebrand of what the Soviet Citizens were suffering from in Eurasia in the same time and day. This is the aftermath.

Links:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2021/12/09/jussie-smollett-guilty-verdict-orchestrating-attack/8838114002/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/12/lax-bound-flight-makes-emergency-landing-passenger-screaming-blm-enslaved-white-man-assaults-flight-attendant-air-marshal-video/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/12/black-lives-matter-activist-charged-19-felonies-attacking-gassing-police-found-not-guilty-jury/

Have we come to accept the violation of children in the West? Join us as we talk about this sensitive topic today on Further Every Day.

Writing the title to this episode, once again, hit me in the gut. Incrementalism isn't bad, necessarily, in the context of being better than Incremental restrictions on Abortion, such as heartbeat bills and other regulatory measures, have been suggested as effective, and I would agree that every life saved is a victory. However, some have embraced the Incrementalist Strategy so fully that full abortion bans have been blocked by movements like National Right to Life. Add to this the controversy that, some of these more aggressive bills have had penalties for the woman who has the abortion. Now we have an interesting debate on our hands

The argument for Incrementalism makes sense from a human perspective, but does it make sense from a Godly one? After all, isn't Incrementalism another -ism? I understand the “both and” argument some will use to say we can run both efforts (Abolition and Incremental Regulation) concurrently, but when one of the biggest international Pro-life orgs actively blocks Abolitionist bills in Conservative led houses of state legislatures, and even nationally with a “Pro-Life” majority, we have a bit of a problem.

One might say that we couldn't put the bill through because of its stance towards women. I can get behind that, but these bills were aborted in committee, the language could have been removed all together, or better yet, clarified to say after such and such date, no more amnesty for women who have committed voluntary infanticide. After all, this is someone hacking apart or poisoning a baby. If that's baby was in NICU, we'd charge her with capital murder in some states. One could say that the Supreme Court could rule against it. Okay, how is this any different than what is already happening? Roe v Wade?

Are we consistent in our worldview? Have we allowed the Pro-Life movement to overshadow the work of the Lord? Have we religiously subscribed to Incrementalism so deeply, that when God has handed us a way to push a Pro-Life bill through a state, that we give up?

I guess God can't sway the minds of 4 justices.

https://youtu.be/AUBocf3Wfzc

https://youtu.be/Hcu-jnuoQnI

http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/8121613485.html

Is the Spirit of Black Friday in competition with the Spirit of Thanksgiving? Let's unpack that as we watch our culture stray Further. Every. Day. Full article and comment section can be found at provokedtoreason.com .

https://blackfriday.com/news/black-friday-history

https://blackfridaydeathcount.com/

https://www.retailwire.com/discussion/was-black-friday-a-bust/

https://www.trtworld.com/business/black-friday-becoming-a-shadow-of-its-former-self-in-us-31795

https://www.axios.com/black-friday-amazon-ecommerce-holiday-shopping-d7ffd7db-f137-467f-83e9-b93463aa338d.html

https://www.dealnews.com/features/black-friday/How-Deals-Will-Differ-on-Thanksgiving-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday/

https://wallbuilders.com/thanksgiving-2007/

https://wallbuilders.com/celebrating-thanksgiving-america/

*PSA For those experiencing issues with sound, please delete and redownload the episode. There was a technical issue during upload that has been rectified.

As Christians, we should always look to the Bible for our philosophical structure. Good theology, with intellectual rigor, should furnish an excellent philosophy, culture, political, and economic structure. All presuppositions aside, as much as one can do that, let us go to the Bible and attempt to plainly read the Scriptures to ascertain the answer to the question of the morality of self-defense vs pacifism.

1. So, to start, what do the scriptures say about the value of life? Well, the scriptures say our bodies are temples, our lives have worth, and it is morally imperative to rescue the innocent from the hands of evil.

2. The old law lays out a clear understanding of what is and is not self-defense.

3. With all of this said, the Gospel, and our ability to further it is our goal. One cannot further the Gospel when dead, nor can one forward the Gospel with a vengeful or vindictive spirit either. Godly Wisdom is key, when defending oneself.

Let us look at how the scriptures value our bodies, lives, and the bodies and lives of the innocent.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”

One could take from this passage that we have a purpose on this earth. We are to treat our body as Israel and the Greeks treated their temples. This held a cultural connotation of treating the body as a holy place. People have died defending much less.

Psalms 84:2: “Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.”

When those dependent on us are under attack, it our ordained duty to defend them.

Ezekiel 33:6: “But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.”

Building off of the thoughts to the last verse, if the watchman does not blow the trumpet, then the watchman will be held to account for the blood shed committed by the evil doer. It is not a stretch to apply this to use of the sword to protect the innocent. Watchmen in the Bible were armed, see Nehemiah. Is there not some culpability if you do nothing to stop someone from murdering you or your dependents, when you have the power to do so? Consider the scenario that after leaving your murder scene, they go on to murder someone else? If you had the capability to defend yourself, are you not at least guilty of failing to use the capabilities that God gave you to stop this person from having that opportunity?

Leviticus laid out some excellent laws concerning self-defense and they seem to provide the context for what our laws should look like.

Exodus 22:2: “If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. 3 If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”

This verse provides the context for self defense in that if the home owner is taken by surprise and kills this person who has unknown or expressed intentions, than the home owner is justified. However, if the thief is found after the nighttime robbery and slain, then the act of vengeance is one of murder. This is in interesting juxtaposition to the law of the avenger of blood and sanctuary cities.

And finally the purpose of everything that we do should be to further the Gospel in some way shape or form.

Luke 22:35 And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. 36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. 37 For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. 38 And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.

Christ himself knew that the apostles would need to defend themselves at times. He was about to go to the cross, to be numbered with the transgressors, and he would not be around much more to defend them. Self-preservation is a commandment from Christ the Son of God. Now, while that is the case, we also need to act in wisdom as we exercise our ability to defend ourselves.

Lu 22:49 When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? 50 And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. 51 And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.

Christ was not here to defend himself, he had said as much. He was there in that garden to be taken to be slaughtered, the only worthy sacrifice. Peter, missed the point of Christ's ministry on more than one occasion. We must always be mindful that there are times where our Father in Heaven will wish us to be willing sacrifices for His Gospel, just as His Only Begotten Son was.

So, is Self-Defense a Moral Obligation? I would say yes, with the caveat that Christians remain on this earth for the glory of the Lord. If our time has come, He through His Spirit will let us know. Until then, we are expected, no, commanded to protect ourselves for the furtherance of His Gospel, and the innocent among us for the same reason.

Comment and share on our home website: provokedtoreason.com !

With social credit scores being implemented in China, some are now eager to implement them here in the United States. Are social credit scores moral, or do they conflict with the Christian Worldview? Let's discuss it as we watch our culture stray Further. Every. Day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cGB8dCDf3c

https://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-chinese-citizens-told-me-what-they-thought-about-the-controversial-social-credit-system-127467

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/565860-coming-soon-americas-own-social-credit-system
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-affects-childs-university-enrolment-2018-7
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/news-digital-drivers-license-will-include-vaccine-status-may-eventually-include-credit-score-travel-records-social-credit-score-video/

Is Imperialism Immoral? Was the "Spheres of Influence" American Imperialism of the 20th and 21st centuries actually harmful, on its face? Yes, there are some notable exceptions where corrupt officials, soldiers, and others have acted horribly, but one should judge a system on the rule and not the exception. Japan, Germany, Afghanistan, and other nations have actively been hostile threats to the world. However, unlike any other nation before us, we did not colonize or annex these nations. We allowed them sovereignty with the only stipulation that we have bases on their soil. It really was a means of turning enemies into pseudo-allies. We live in an imperialistic world, the question is always: what kind of empire will rule over the world, not if there will be one. Explore the topic with us and how the American Church has lost an incredible amount of opportunity provided by the American Empire as we stray Further. Every. Day.

https://www.studentsofhistory.com/forms-of-imperialism

https://vittana.org/16-most-notable-imperialism-pros-and-cons

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/in-defense-of-empire/358645/

What happens when narrative takes precedents over facts? Join us as we discuss the question on Further. Every. Day.