Replacing the Hindu temple crisis with celebrating Christmas controversy
That is also how Islam views this matter (hence the call for Muslims to not celebrate Christmas). And people like Kit Siang should not turn this into a Muslim versus Christian matter because the Muslims and the Christians have been fighting for 1,000 years and they do not need a kafir to pour oil onto the fire.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Lim Kit Siang and a number of other Pakatan Harapan leaders are attempting to replace the Hindu temple crisis with the celebrating Christmas controversy.
Actually, this issue of whether Muslims should or should not celebrate Christmas — or even Deepavali, etc. — is not a new issue. So, what’s the big deal? Furthermore, Muslims are entitled to their beliefs so who is Kit Siang or any other non-Muslim (or Muslim) to tell Muslims what they should or should not believe?
Christians believe that salvation is through the saviour, Jesus Christ, not through Prophet Muhammad. Do Muslims scold Christians for this belief even though in essence that means those who believe in Prophet Muhammad are doomed to go to hell?
The 25th of December celebration was Mithra’s sacrificing of the bull long before Jesus was born
The Christians can believe what they want. Let the Muslims believe what they want. And the kafir like Kit Siang should just stay the hell out of the affairs of the Abrahamic faiths and not try to batu api the Muslims and Christians to fight.
Does Kit Siang know that during the time of King Charles 1 of England the celebration of Christmas was banned? Shops were ordered to stay open on the 25th of December and shopkeepers who closed their shops were arrested and jailed.
The Church of England regarded the celebration of Christmas as a pagan festival, the pre-Christianity Roman celebration of the sacrifice of the bull. In fact, there is no proof that Jesus was born on the 25th of December or even that it was 2,018 years ago. So, for all intents and purposes, Christmas Day is not a celebration of the birthday of Jesus but a pagan holiday.
Mithra, also spelled Mithras (Sanskrit Mitra), in ancient Indo-Iranian mythology, the god of light, whose cult spread from India in the east to as far west as Spain, Great Britain, and Germany. (See Mithraism.) The first written mention of the Vedic Mitra dates to 1400 BC. His worship spread to Persia and, after the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great, throughout the Hellenic world. In the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, the cult of Mithra, carried and supported by the soldiers of the Roman Empire, was the chief rival to the newly developing religion of Christianity. The Roman emperors Commodus and Julian were initiates of Mithraism, and in 307 Diocletian consecrated a temple on the Danube River to Mithra, “Protector of the Empire.” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)
In fact, since before the reign of King Charles 1 — since the time of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth 1 — the papists and the iconism of Christianity were regarded as bid’ah. There were many periods in Christian history when iconoclasm was launched to combat the bid’ah practices of Christianity.
That is also how Islam views this matter (hence the call for Muslims to not celebrate Christmas). And people like Kit Siang should not turn this into a Muslim versus Christian matter because the Muslims and the Christians have been fighting for 1,000 years and they do not need a kafir to pour oil onto the fire.
