What is the harm of taking others traditions and adapting them to your worship?

All the rituals and customs in the Old Testament are either direct borrowings from neighboring pagans or direct parallels

There is nothing wrong in a Christians adapting ethnic customs and rituals to contain Christian symbolism and themes

If your asking if there is harm for a Christian to celebrate Christmas, Probably Not! But Christmas is NOT Worship! If a Christian is Doing it as Worship then it IS Wrong. In the Old Testament God described the Kind of Worship he desired and He was Specific and He Also Punished those that Worshiped him in ways that He Had Not desired. Just Think of Cain and Abel. Abel gave the sacrifice that God Wanted... Cain did Not.

Edit: The bronze serpent was provided as a visible means for repentant believers to be saved from their sin, and was, as Christ Himself plainly stated, symbolic of Someone far greater to come.

The apostolic council at Jerusalem was called because some Judean Christians were teaching gentile Christians in Antioch that they had to be circumcised or else they could not be saved (Acts 15:1) It had nothing to do with Old Testament Forms of Worship. But I didn't Say you as a Gentile were required to Worship the way Cain and Abel was. I Simply said that God has a Specific way in which He Desires to be Worshipped. And Adopting a Pagan Tradition and Modifying it and Blending it into Your Form of Worship is NOT supported Anywhere in Scripture... Old Testament or New Testament.

Deu 12:30 take heed to thyself that thou be not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.

- It depends upon which god you choose to serve, whether it is YHVH, the Holy One of Israel, or baal.

Psa 89:18 For YHVH is our shield, yea, the Holy One of Israel our King.

1Ki 18:21 And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If YHVH is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word.

- The xmas tree is a form of an asherah to worship baal whether directly or indirectly:

http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Asherah%20pole

Deu 16:21 "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of YHVH your God that you shall make.

2Ki 17:16 And they abandoned all the commandments of YHVH their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.

- The people were nearly destroyed by committing idolatry worshiping a molten calf to have a feast to YHVH:

Exo 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Exo 32:5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to YHVH.

- YHVH was going to consume the people and make a nation out of His great servant Moses, the same Moses "Christianity" will have nothing to do with and out of their doctrines and churches.

Exo 32:9 And YHVH said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

Exo 32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

- If one does not believe the words of YHVH written through His servant Moses than neither will they believe the Messiah:

Joh 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

Joh 5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

Joh 7:19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?"

It depends. If you believe in biblical Christianity, we are not encouraged to become enamored with worldly ways. With that said, that doesn't mean we haven't. And, just like the book says, we are sinners.

What is the harm? Well, paganism is not Christianity. And, Roman Catholicism uses pagan imagery that violates the second commandment (the second commandment of the bible, not the second commandment that the Catholic Church invented).

These traditions and customs were created by man to worship false gods and deities. The custom

is a ritual that was dedicated to perform on behalf of that false godly worship.

Almighty God Jehovah is a jealous God. It was by his means that all created came into existence

and that all that live had been given life by him and that the order of the laws of physics as we know

them exist by means of him and he will not share worship with any other proclaimed god set up

by anyone. Their customs and rituals he does not attend too. He has given us instruction that he

finds acceptable to him in our prayers and worship to him and we must obied by these given

instructions. We must worship the Father with "spirit and truth". The ritual performed to praise

false supposed gods are detestable to god and he will not let his good name be defiled by the

use of such rituals being used to offer him service of worship. One may think we all worship the

same god in different forms of religion customs when in fact we do not! God rejects the prayers

of those who pray or worship him if they are not in harmony with his guidelines of instruction

which is his "WILL". That is why man was created; to serve the "will" of Almighty God , Jehovah.

Going too far with this becomes theft and copyright infringement. Everyone should think for himself and not just copy other people's ideas. Such behavior only shows a bankrupcy of ideas on the part of early Christians. It is quite deceptive to take elements from the Roman Saturnalia and Druidic Yule customs and claim it is for Jesus' birth. That just shows that many of the tales about Jesus were copied from older myths.

IMSHO, it's fine, just give credit where credit is due. In other words, don't assimilate pagan practices into your religious traditions and then go around bad mouthing paganism.

Becuase traditions aren't something you just

put together to please the masses... they have

to have a valid basis in the history of your religion.

It's when you claim it's something you came up with, instead of adapting. And then you turn around and demonize the religion whose practices you took that's bad.

Moral of story. Don't plagiarize people's sh!t, claim it as your own, and condemn the people who actually came up with it! Adaption is fine, so long as you can recognize and respect the source.

Are you going to worship a cow because Abdullah at the 7/11 does? yes they dooooooooooo.