Dr. Phil today...

by brianhenke 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  brianhenke

  One of his guests is a woman who doesn't want to celebrate holidays.
• 

  Will Power

  just watched it it runs again later for anyone who missed it how ridiculous! hahaha all those witnesses can see how ridiculous the reasons sound on national TV all those thinking of joinging can say - hey wait a minute those who have family members who think this way - all we can do is shake our heads wp
• 

  lovelylil

  yes. she was just on and said they were all pagan and satanic. Sound familiar? Dr. Phil basically told her that how a day was viewed centuries ago should not matter to us - it depends on how we view the day today and what meaning we give it in our lives. Sounds like pretty sound advice to me.

  He also pointed out that this lady's child will miss out on a lot of the good things in life like spending time with family during the holidays and getting into the spirit of the festivities. And that she may regret it later on. I know I did. Lilly
• 

  Scully

  From drphil.com :

  A chagrined viewer writes:

  Dear Dr. Phil:
  
  My family is so mad at me on my views on certain holidays. I am tired of defending my stance on not celebrating Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and Halloween to my family, especially my sister, Akea. Eight years ago, I realized the truth behind these “Hell Days.” Now my family ridicules me about my choice not to celebrate or let my 6-year-old daughter celebrate either.
  
  According to my research, Christmas is a pagan holiday. Jesus wasn’t even born on the 25th of December. Easter is another pagan holiday. Thanksgiving? Great, let’s celebrate the slaughter of Native Americans. Valentine’s Day is a purely sexual holiday, and Halloween is worshipping the dead. Christ would really appreciate that. I have no problem with documented holidays like Hanukkah, but these others make me sick. I get sick to my stomach when I see decorations, or have people wish me a happy this or a merry that. I wish more people would realize the truth.
  
  Dr. Phil, can you please help my sister understand that not celebrating these holidays is my choice?
  
  Bah humbug!
  Shelita

  Shelita's sister, Akea, joins the discussion via telephone. "What do you think is going on here?" Dr. Phil asks her.
  
  "I think she’s just cheap, because if you buy her a gift, she’ll accept it," Akea replies. "If she wasn't into celebrating Christmas, she would turn it down, or she would tell me, 'No, my daughter can’t come over your house to spend the pagan holiday with you."
  
  "I’m broke; I’m not cheap," Shelita clarifies. "If I had the money and I celebrated it, I would buy gifts."
  
  Akea counters, "If you’re so big on not celebrating it, why do you let [your daughter] come over my house to celebrate it?"
  
  "It was one day, one time, because you asked me, and asked me and asked me," Shelita argues. "I felt bad, so I let her go that one time."
  
  "She’s coming again this Christmas," Akea says.
  
  "You don’t know that," Shelita fires back.

  Addressing Shelita, Dr. Phil says, "What’s your problem with holidays?"

  "I did some research on these holidays, and I found out that Christmas has nothing to do with Christ at all. It’s all about the worshipping of a sun god. During the time when Constantine was converting pagans into Christians, the pagans didn’t want to let go of their celebrations," Shelita explains. "What they did to compromise was marry the two. They took pagan festivals and Christian doctrines and put them together."
  
  "That was in the 4th century!" Dr. Phil says. "Can’t you let your children enjoy the festivities of the holidays, the music, the spirit of giving and family and being together?"
  
  "Absolutely not!" Shelita replies. "To me, it’s a form of Satanism. If anybody knew anything about pagans, they didn’t believe in Christ, they didn’t believe in God. So would you let your children go to a séance, and conjure up spirits? Of course not."

  "You hate Valentine’s Day!" Dr. Phil observes.
  
  "That’s another pagan holiday. It’s as simple as going to your Encyclopedia Britannica, looking up Valentine’s Day, and it will tell you everything," she replies. "If Christ was around, he would completely, completely disagree with all these celebrations."

  Dr. Phil acknowledges that holidays acquire different meanings for different people. "They can be totally dominated by the marketing machine, and become completely commercialized, or they can be religious observances, or they can be family observances where you ritualistically get together and share time," he explains. "I don’t believe that it has to be just a religious observance. I think there are a lot of different ways that we can define these for ourselves."
  
  "But it is a religious observance," Shelita argues. "I like to say that you can’t turn pus into pudding. You can’t change something into a good thing because it was never intended that way."
  
  "If I get together with my family this Christmas — if my 82-year-old mother comes here and spends the holidays with us, and our children, who are grown and outside the home, come and spend rare time with their parents, and we have a nice meal and watch football games — you’re saying that’s a pus-filled holiday?"
  
  "Yes. I think those who understand the true meaning of Christmas and continue to do it, your soul’s going to be judged," Shelita says. "If you’re an atheist, and you’re doing it for tradition, then I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to preachers, those who have a religious responsibility to lead the people. I don’t believe that they are leading the people correctly."
  
  "I just totally, blatantly disagree," Dr. Phil says. "I would really hope that you would take a deep breath and ask yourself if there is a way for you to define some experiences for your children so that they don’t miss the joy and festivity and celebration of some of these holidays. But because somebody in the 4th century defined something, does not tell me how I define it now."
• 

  sir82

  Clearly, Dr. Phil is a pagan himself, or demon-possessed...

  ..or both!
• 

  blondie

  The only way I see to deal with JWs re pagan holidays is to show them the many ways they still celebratve and observe things with a pagan background. There is a recent thread listing such things.

  My family were JWs but had family gatherings on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and grandma's birthday...saying that it was when everyone was off from work anyway!!!!

  I don't understand JWs accepting BD and Xmas gifts and gathering together to eat turkey. I know one congregation that has the regular pioneers over for a meal with the elders and their wives during the time the elders have their yearly meeting to "encourage the pioneers." When do they do this, on Christmas Day!

  Blondie (the cup may look clean outside but is full of vermin and filth inside)
• 

  jayhawk1

  Pagan means is defined by Christians as somebody or something not pertaining to their religion. One could say Jesus did just that when he changed Passover to Communion. People's heads are not removed to celebrate birthdays, yet that is the only defense JWs use regarding birthdays is John and some Egyptian baker's heads was cut off. I don't watch Dr. Phil, because his rules for living can't be applied to everything. That said, I'm glad he attempted to address this one. Was there any resolution or did they just simply disagree at the end of the show?
• 

  lovelylil

  Blondie,

  That is good advice. I would only like to add this one thing. Pagan does not mean bad. It means pre-Christian. All Christian people were pagan before becoming Christian. The WT society and some other religions have everyone automatically thinking pagan = bad. If a pagan became a Christian and redefined the days they celebrated within the guidelines of their new faith in Christ, then that would be o.k. As even the bible says whatever you do "do it unto the Lord" and this advice is for Christians. It does not tell us as individuals what days we can and cannot observe. It just says observe the day with the Lord Jesus in mind and that would mean not using the day as an excuse for participating in unchristian practices. (bowing down to worship a false God, killing, stealing, drunken revelries, etc.)

  And as Dr. Phil brought out - no one today is worshiping a false God on xmas day. Most of the world that view this as a religious holiday are worshiping Christ on that day and know nothing at all about the ancient pagan festival associated with that day. Of course the Witnesses will disagree with this too as they do not worship Christ. But most people today do see xmas as merely a secular holiday and a time to get together with family. Lilly
• 

  return visitor

  If we are to stay clear of everything with pagen origins then we better stay clear of the WT organization. In there biginings their was Pyrimid worshop. They celibrated Christmas too.

  RV
• 

  Thegoodgirl

  Dang! I wish I had watched that! I was flipping through the channels and caught the very end when he said "Holidays are about getting together with family" or something like that.

  Anyway, I'm glad he wasn't afraid of not being "sensetive to different religious beleifs" or something.