No, he's not fishing for an argument, just thoroughly owning you.

actualy, it is pointing out an inaccuracy of the story. We know when king herrod died, (he died a while before the time when jesus wa supposedly born), so therefore it doesn't matter when he was realy born, the fact is the year that we use is not possibly the actual year that he would have been born in.

he will never admit defeat. he is just too stubborn.

Well who the hell doesn't know that. Of course nobody knows EXACTLY when Jesus was born. You claimed that he was after when we thought Jesus was born, which I knew was bull, because nobody knows when he was born, just a small span of years during which time he may have been born.

Everybody that celebrates 'Christmas'.

Well that's arguable. A lot of non-christian families (read: mine) celebrate Christmas :p

Religiously, though, they have to have a time to celebrate it. It's just they pinned down a month and day when to do so (yes, I know exactly where they got most of the traditions from too).

one, i said he was born early than the year we accept as his birth. (1 AD)

two, as i said in my previous point, i was refering to the year that most people think as his birth year.

Either way you're wrong. You don't know whether he was born before or after or even down to the hour they thought he was. That's what I'm saying.

i only said that he was born before 1AD. it cold have been 1 year, it could have been 5 years, i am just saying that he was born before the most commonly quoted year of his birth.

back on the original topic, my internet connection has joined a workers union, it only wants to work for about 8 hours, then wont reconnect for more than a few minutes. I have to leave it for a few hours before i can rconnect and stay on.

But you don't know, and can't conclusively prove he was born before 1 AD. For all you know, he was born 1/1/2 at 12:00:01 A.M.

people should goto chruch 52 times a years then take a break for 313 days

why are you only attacking my argument, you should also back up your own argument. otherwise it may seem like you are unfairly attacking me.

This is absurd. It's a thread about an air conditioner's odd behavior.

Regardless, wouldn't the incorrect year be 0 AD, not 1?

We have no evidence this air conditioner ever existed!

rofl, I'll have to remember that mispelling of 'church'.

mabye we should bring back the religous forums.

he speaks the gospel truth!

Because my argument is that you have no argument. You don't know when Christ was born exactly, or even as accurately as you think you do. Maybe you should learn this thing called reading and coherency. I hear it helps wonders in debates.

you still havent prooven that i am wrong. you have only prooven that i may or may not be correct.

and if you hate arguing so much, why do you start these arguments. these things only turn to flame wars when you respond to a post that i have made.

I don't hate arguing, I hate arguing with you. And you don't realize--the fact that you may or may not be right, is what makes you wrong. That's the exact point I was trying to push. The point I was arguing.

It's sad that it took me 3 tries to get this into your mind.

Yoshi, I swear to the Almighty Air Conditioner if I hear one more person say "You lose." in a debate I'm gonna SNAP.

You lose.

In addition to what Jon `C said, the practice of yearly celebrating a person's birth did not yet exist. IIRC, the Roman Empire was putting pressure on Christians (or something like that), and the church adopted holidays during the time of Pagan celebrations. If you look closely at them, you will see the similarities. Easter, to Pagans, is a celebration of life and fertility. To Christians, it is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Christmas (or at least some time during this season) was a celebration of the birth of a Pagan god (whose specific name I can't remember). So Christians adopted the celebration of the birth of Christ. Originally, Christmas was not December 25, but is documented as being celebrated on various dates, both earlier and later than Dec. 25, and even as late as sometime in January.

Actually, the earliest documented use of a Christmas tree wasn't until 1521 in the German region of Alsace. There isn't evidence to support that the Christmas tree derived from the Yule Tree either. Rather, the evidence shows that it decended from the Paradise Tree and the Christmas light of the Middle Ages.

The Dagda? You gotta remeber there's more than one.

It was one of the Roman gods (naturally). I'll try to to "re-find" my sources. It's been a while since I last researched anything religious. I had something typed up, but it appears I deleted it.

Some early Germanic tribes celebrated Yule by hanging animal and human sacrifices from trees.

Just jumping in to say it's refreshing people can actually place their beliefs and traditions in a historical context. Rare... kudos!

I'd also like to point out that 'pagan' is just a catch-all term for anything that isn't Christian. 'Pagan' is synonymous with 'heathen' but has lost the negative connotations.
'Pagan' isn't a single, structured 'religion', it is lots and lots of completely different religions with no commonality between them. It was most commonly used to refer to the pre-Christian religions in Britain, but it is sometimes used for the animalistic Roman religions and even Islam occassionally.

'Pagan' is not a very good word to use.

On the contrary, I argue that Paganism is a very good term to use for these religions. Unlike the adoption of the term for modern use (Neo-paganism), Paganism classically represented proto-religions with little political structure. Additionally it more easily explains our roots - modern, heavily-structured and political religions like Christianity and Islam emphasize the power of the male form, while early religions like Druidism exalt the female form and the energy of reproduction (an area that modern Christianity shuns outright).

IIRC, there simply isn't a term that can be used to describe early Germanic protoreligion. It's not quite Norse, and it's definitely not Celtic.

The reason why the religious discussion forum was removed was because it only served to condense the entire intolerance and hatred of this community into one area, whilst somehow not reducing it anywhere else. It was an administrative nightmare, there wasn't a single thread that didn't need an admin response.

DJ Yoshi, stop being offensive towards alpha1. Don't argue that he deserves it because frankly I don't care.

As soon as he stops posting. Though I honestly have no idea where you got that I'd argue he deserves it.

Perhaps it just happens to run out of coolant on Sundays.

That's not the way things work.

He said to stop being offensive. he didn't give you conditions, and he didn't say you could choose. now i suggest you stop, because frankly i have no idea why you think its proper to backtalk to detty.

Well seeing as how you're not an admin, I don't think you're in a position to suggest anything? *cue banning*

I'm sorry, Jon'C. I agreed with everyhing you said until here. I must tell you that druids do not believe in a female dominated form. We believe in unity between the two sexes to bring a balance.

The ancient Egyptian religion, which too would be 'pagan', was entirely about power, constructed by and for the Pharaohs and their priests. It too was heavily structured and hierarchical, and inseparable from politics of the time.
All religion is really about power and politics; the early Germanic religion (which I think was known as Ásatrú) was merely less centralised than Christianity would become, and the power struggle was on a much smaller scale.

Considering the number of times I've referred to a follower of a polytheistic religion as Pagan in religious discussions on the web, it would be likely one of these people would have pointed out that it's "offensive." However, so far they've all referred to themselves as Pagan. So naturally, I'm going to as well

Any Pagans here find the word "Pagan" offensive?

Like most words, it depends on context. There are several definitions of the word, and a few actually contradict.

Well if they're a follower of some religion, then it makes more sense to actually use the name of that religion.

Describing it as 'pagan' doesn't actually describe it at all, it doesn't give you any information.

Describing it as 'polytheistic' or 'animalistic' or 'naturlistic' actually tells you something about the religion, so that classification makes sense. Getting 'offended' over those would make no sense at all, unless you were mistaken about it.

Getting 'offended' over 'pagan' doesn't really make much sense either, as although it's fairly meaningless it's not really judgemental either.