No one is saying that Christmas is holy or set apart by God. Kland, your argument is a striking example of a straw man.

There is nothing sacred or hallow about Dec. 25. In fact we have our family gatherings whenever all the family can get together which this year will be next week. We spent Dec. 25 getting the house ready for company!

It's not the day -- it's the season, and we do well to honour Christ's birth and reflect on the incarnation in a special way each year. During the Easter/Passover season we reflect in a special way on Christ's death and resurrection. We need seasons of special reflection on the great events of salvation history.

But do you?

And do you?

[quote] The youth should be treated very carefully. They should not be left on Christmas to find their own amusement in vanity and pleasure seeking, in amusements which will be detrimental to their spirituality. Parents can control this matter by turning the minds and the offerings of their children to God and His cause and the salvation of souls. {AH 478.2}

The desire for amusement, instead of being quenched and arbitrarily ruled down, should be controlled and directed by painstaking effort upon the part of the parents. Their desire to make gifts may be turned into pure and holy channels and made to result in good to our fellow men by supplying the treasury in the great, grand work for which Christ came into our world. Self-denial and self-sacrifice marked His course of action. Let it mark ours who profess to love Jesus because in Him is centered our hope of eternal life. {AH 478.3}
...

Whenever it is possible, let religious services be held on Sunday. Make these meetings intensely interesting. Sing genuine revival hymns, and speak with power and assurance of the Saviour’s love. Speak on temperance and on true religious experience.—Testimonies for the Church 9:233. {ChS 164.2}

Early Christians protested the heathen day of worship. Mithra originally was an ancient god of Iran worshiped as a god of strength and war. By the first century, it was transformed into the leading sun god of the western world. Romans called him, Sol Invictus. Mithraism came complete with a cleverly conterfeited dying-rising savior, a special religious supper, a weekly holy day, and baptism of converts. It also included athletic feats of skill and war-like manliness. The fifth century western church ordered its celebration.

About the time of Christ, the days of the week were given names indicating which god ruled over it, with the most important god, Mithra, given the first day of the week, the day of the sun, or sun day. The week was known as the planetory week. Although the day's names were new, sun worship was not new but had been worshipped long before this time and was considered the earliest form of idolatry. Such is evidenced in the Bible.

Job 31:26 If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;
27 And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
28 This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.

Jer 43:12 And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace.
13 He shall break also the images of Bethshemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire.
(Bethshemesh: 1053 - house of the sun)

2Ki 21:3 For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
(grove: 842 - Asherah or Astarte, a Phoenician goddess)

2Ki 23:4 ¶ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
(grove: 842 - Asherah or Astarte, a Phoenician goddess)
5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

2Ki 23:11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

Eze 8:13 ¶ He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

Zep 1:5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;


By the middle of the second century, Emperor Aurelian, whose mother was a priestess of the sun, made sun worship the official religion of the Roman empire. Priests of the templ of the Sun at Rome were called "pontiffs". The pagans called their god, "Lord Mithra" and his day of worship, "The Lord's Day". The Christians in Alexanderia and Rome tried to justify their worship of Mithra by saying this was the same Lord's day or Sabbath of the Bible.

Constantine, in 321 A.D. decreed the first Sunday Law commanding rest on "the Venerable Day of the Sun". At the time, Constantine, still a worshiper of Sol Invictus, was the "Pontifix Maximus", or the supreme pagan pontiff of the state religion.

While the celebrated day of Mithra was established for December 25, no date had been established by the middle of the third century for celebrating Jesus' birth. Various dates were presented for the official celebration of the birth of Jesus: January 2, January 6, March 21, April 18 or 19, and May 20 were among several. It wasn't until the fourth century that the commemoration of Christ's birth was included in the Feast of Epiphany on January 6 at most places. About 330 A.D., the church of Rome assigned December 25 as the celebration of the birth of Christ. Even though many Eastern churches kept other dates, by the end of the fourth century, the customs of Rome became universal.

Even though Rome stated the actual date of Christ's birth was unknown, various traditions made up explanations for the choice of the date. Without any reason given for Rome's choice of the date, one is left to consider if the date was chosen to inspire the people to turn from their worship of the sun to the worship of the Son.


The winter solstice occurs on December 21 with the first observable return of the sun being December 25 - "the birth of the sun god". This is the day Mithraists celebrated the birth of their god.

It was also the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which began on December 17 and lasted for 7 days with licentiousness and gambling and exchange of gifts such as candles to symbolize the increase of sunlight after the winter solstice. Many of the customs were transferred to the celebration of Christmas.

While attempts have been made to whitewash Mithra and morph it into some kind of Christian celebration, can any amount of whitewash remove the evil origins and intent? Given the origins of a pagan holiday, so evil and sinister, planned and designed by satan in an attempt to usurp the Creator God, should Christians have anything to do with such a holiday?