For those of you who believe the nativity story...?

As is the whole of the nativity story. Look up Mithras, the Roman God of the soldier (Emperor Constantine was a follower before he became Christian). The birth story of Mithras is almost identical to that of Jesus and Mithras predates Christianity by at least 600 years. Talk about borrowing.

Christmas is big business

Those Christmas bells chiming during the holiday season might be likened to cash registers ringing up millions of dollars in retail sales. Christmas is very big business and is thought to be great for the national economy. But has anyone thought to ask whether this type of wild spending is really in people's best interests, either now or, more importantly, for their long-term spiritual well-being?

Should we be buying gifts others frequently don't want or need with money we don't have? It's a logical question.

Yet people will defend observing Christmas by countering that it's a celebration honoring Jesus' birth. If that's true, why buy gifts for others and not Jesus Christ? Is Christendom behind the presumptive trappings of a pre-Christmas season or is it being promoted by secular businesses for their own gain?

Christmas is so popular that millions of atheists and people of other religions celebrate the holiday. Why don't people, those who claim to be Christians or otherwise, resist the commercial aspect of the season?

Observing Christmas because "everyone does it" is a trigger feature. Other triggers include the music, the lights, the decorations and the sentimental store displays, each of which can cause us to respond automatically—rendering us nearly helpless as we part with our money. But do we really honor God by uncontrolled spending during the Christmas season?

From the November/December 2007 Good News article What's Behind the Magnetic Pull of the Christmas Season?

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That story misquotes the Archbishop rather egregiously...

The telegraph says "Dr Rowan Williams has claimed there was little evidence that the Magi even existed and there was certainly nothing to prove there were three of them or that they were kings." And then it even has this somewhat damning quote: "Matthew's gospel says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that's all we're really told. It works quite well as legend."

Seems pretty bad, huh? So I check the transcript. The quote is *actually*: "Well Matthew's gospel doesn't tell us that there were three of them, doesn't tell us they were kings, doesn't tell us where they came from, it says they're astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire. That's all we're really told so, yes, 'the three kings with the one from Africa' - that's legend; it works quite well as legend."

OK, so the Archbishop of Canterbury gives an interview in which he's talking about what actually happened there. OK. And really, most of what he said seemed pretty accurate. A little wishy-washy, but throughout the interview he never denies the facts of the gospels, and indeed, he cites the gospels as reliable. And at one point he's talking about the "three kings" bit -- something which I think we all know is suspect. And he refers to that particular bit as legend.

And then the Telegraph flat-out omits the part where he says *what* he says is legend, without even so much as an ellipsis to disclose the fact that it's doing a misleading mash-up of out-of-context quotes. (Specifically the "so, yes, 'the three kings with the one from Africa' - that's legend;") As if that's not enough, a headline is fabricated that substitutes the entire nativity for what's being called a legend.

IF the star didn't stand still (it would be considered super-natural), then all supernatural events are discounted and brought into question. No miraculous birth? Then no Resurrection from the dead.

Therefore, the Archbishop of Canterbury just eliminated his own career and high ranking position.

What say I?

The man is an idiot who serves a god no larger than himself.

He has bought into the unscientific aspects of secular humanism and science.

The wise men in the book of daniel shows the wise men couldn't figure out anything,

Dan 2:27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise [men], the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;

first of all you overlap the debts in Matthew and in Luke, a similar way a police officer might want to practice an coincidence record from the thoughts of quite a few witnesses. Secondly, the writings of a historian 100 years after the shape surpassed off would not supersede Scripture.

Why should we care what the archbishop of Canterbury says about anything? Who gave him the authority to determine what is true and what isn't?

The "wise men" were astrologers, believed to be from Babylon. They were not there at His birth, but came a few years after. In Matthew, they are said to be coming to see the "child", this is not a baby, but a young boy. Plus, in Matt. 2:11, it says they came to their house, which would indicate they were not in Bethlehem, but at their home in Nazareth. The family left shortly after to flee into Egypt. Herod was determined to get rid of who he believed was a usurper to his throne. He set about to kill all the boys under 2, which would indicate Jesus was not a baby at this time. They returned after he died.

I can only say this, along with Paul:

2 Timothy 1:12 (New International Version)

New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

12That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

Read it, Christianity is actually not really a bad thing in the UK.

There may & may not have been wisemen. But that's not important about Christmas. What is, is that Jesus was born.