Your defense of sunday worship is interesting, but you apparently do not know the history of why it became the Christian worship day.
Constantine declared it so as the head of the Roman empire. Many believe this was to bring pagans in who worshiped the sun god on that day.
Your need to educate me is actually a bit amusing since you seem to think I am somehow lacking in this elementary knowledge.
Sun worship is still very much in evidence in Roman Catholicism to this day to those who know what they are looking at.
But as those who have completely separated from Christendom and all of its erroneous doctrines, tell us please what day of the week is not desiccated to a false god? We do not have "Sunday" worship because it is a holy day...it is a convenient day for many people. Many of us meet on different days....OK? Your accusations are groundless.
So your argument fails. If a guy putting a log in the fireplace on Dec. 25 is worshiping pagan gods, then certainly JWś worshiping on a day which was a day for worshiping a pagan god, declared to be a Christian day of worship by what you would call corrupt Christianity is just as bad, if not worse.
You ignored the point about why you would want to imitate those pagan practices in the first place and fuse them with your Christianity? Did God approve of his people ever doing that?
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 defeats your own argument. You are mixing paganism with your Christianity....mixing light with darkness......Christ with the devil (Belial)......why do you even want to?
That is nonsense. We do no such thing.You cannot have it both ways, it is hypocritical to condemn others, while you excuse yourselves for doing the same thing.
Lets talk about the worshiping thing.
You bring up the golden calf, and it being worshiped, certainly a pagan rite.
The Israelites believed it was a god, had the power of a god, and dedicated themselves as a followers of this god.
And because they worshipped their God with a pagan practice, (picked up in Egypt) he had them put to death! Hello.....
A Christmas tree in the home is not accepted as a god, no one believes it has any power, and no one dedicates themselves as followers of the tree, yet you accuse them of worshiping a pagan God.
Isn´t this exactly your position regarding sunday ?
How is it remotely the same?
We have no control over what the days of the week or months of the year are called. There is not one that is not connected to a false god. You have a choice to cut down that evergreen tree and put it up in your house, knowing full well that it and the Yule log are completely pagan in origin and were used in false worship. Can you control that?
Isn't that deliberately contravening a Biblical directive to separate yourself from those spiritually "unclean" things? It's your choice to continue doing it in full knowledge of what it meant to the pagans who did it to worship false gods......something that God witnessed firsthand. You can't plead ignorance.
You mention things being unclean to God. Well, he certainly declared that pork and shellfish are unclean, do you eat them ?
Why were certain foods "unclean" to Israel? These were health motivated laws because certain diseases were connected to those "unclean" creatures. But the law applied only to Israel. Gentiles were not under obligation to keep the law or its dietary requirements....except for the consumption of blood. (Acts 15:28-29)
So then, in your mind I worship pagan Gods because I celebrate the birth of Christ on Dec. 25.
I compound this pagan worship by having a cut pine tree in my living room.
Did I say that? I said that by incorporating those blatantly pagan elements into a celebration that was not ever commanded by Christ, and clearly borrowed or adopted from spiritually "unclean" sources, it its a direct contravening of a Biblical command to keep separate from those things. How can it not be?
Whether I believe in a pagan god, or actively worship it, is irrelevant, that pine tree and that celebration on that day makes God angry.
Any compromise on our worship makes God angry, as his response to Israel's excursions into false worship clearly demonstrate. At one point he wanted to "exterminate" them.
I live in the Southwest, and there are many artifacts of the Indian cultures that existed in the area. I have found some on my own land.
What if I found an interesting looking stone, obviously hand worked, and one of my Indian friends tells me it was used in a religious ceremony. Am I worshiping Indian Gods if I keep it and display it ? Is God angry with me ?
Are you going to incorporate it into your worship? That is the main concern, isn't it?
If it symbolises worship that God condemns, then personally, I would not want it in my home. Your choice would be up to you.
Denominations major in minors. Many of the more cultish ones want to have a badge they can wear that shows them to be somehow superior in the purity of their beliefs, and gives them justification for criticizing others.
If being "faithful in what is least" means avoiding anything that would offend the God I worship, then yes I would rather do that than assume that pagan practices don't bother him. When he said to Israel that he is a "jealous God" who demands exclusive devotion, and punished his people when they disobeyed him, then I will take him at his word.
For SDAś it is the sabbath, for JWś it is Christmas,and Easter ( ishtar worship !!) holidayś et. al., and translations of the Bible.
All of this is pure nonsense.
Is it nonsense to God though? He is the only one whose opinion counts here.
God judges the heart, motives and attitudes.
He sure does.
He knows what pagan worship is, and what is required for it to be so.
A cut pine tree in my living room, or you going to the kingdom hall on Sunday to worship God ain´t it.
You are entitled to do whatever your conscience dictates, or can justify. We will all see sooner or later who it is that Jesus' words in Matthew 7:21-23 applies to....won't we?