I’m not a Christian, but I’ve always thought the nativity star was a greater symbol of hope than the cross.
I understand the meaning of the cross is to remind people the messiah died for the sins of others. But a message of hope, love, virtue and peace match a star heralding a new beginning, rather than a dying man on a cross.
The Star of Bethlehem helped lead the Three Wise Men to baby Jesus. Jesus came to show us the way; his death was not for himself. He showed us the way to find salvation. Through Jesus, we can be forgiven. The reason we need to be forgiven is that Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan, and we came to know evil. We are always living with evil, and evil is inside us.
Luke 14:27 says: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
It was determined that Christ was going to save us through sacrifice and death. Christians have to bear their own crosses, whatever the struggle or burden may be, and follow Christ in his ways. The cross is about us. Jesus is here for us, isn't he? We all have to regard sacrifice and giving ourselves to God as the way to be, otherwise Jesus came and died for nothing. What God is saying is that good is only achieved through sacrifice. We can only be close to God through sacrifice. The cross is teaching us that.
@emiliya So I started post with “I’m not a Christian”. This is a huge clue about how I feel about the religion. Seen it, read it, had it preached at me. I don’t buy it.
Maybe you haven’t read the post. If you have you’ve missed the point completely.
Either that or this is just a continuation of your behaviour on other posts where you just want to have an argument.
Whichever it is, I’m not in the market for it. Move on.
Our ancient crosses have different meanings depending on shape and craftship.
They all are called crosses by western anthropologists but not by us. We don't have the word cross in our language because we never practiced that as torture or capital punishment.
Some of the crosses are given to boys at the age of 15. They symbolize the 4 corners of the world. They are given by fathers to sons and told they now can travel the world as they please /nomads.
Some symbolize the same egyptian godess Tanit of wisdom and craftship and civilization.
Some are a historical story about Touaregs resisting the Islamic invasion and moving to the south.
Some are talismanic to ward off evil.
Some have stars engraved on the silver. The stars are guiding the touareg at night in the Sahara...
@Miram In my country, archeology regularly produces Bronze and Iron Age rings with a cross on them. These are Celtic equivalent of wedding rings, with the cross representing their god Taranis. Perhaps he features in a wedding vow or oath. Those people are also a potential source of hot cross buns we now eat at Easter.
The Cross would definitely seem to be the commemoration of a more dreary event...
But it actually marks the fulfillment of hinted-at promises / prophesies through the actual life and words and work of Jesus.
In terms of your looking to the star...the birth might be hopeful, but remember that the births of Beethoven, Einstein, Madison, Tesla, Clemens were also hopeful, as well as those of Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Dahmer, Charles Manson. It is only through those lives being lived that we find out how the hope of the birth worked out.
I read a fantasy story that had a sect that was very obviously a stand in for Christians. In this story the messiah was stoned to death so his followers wear a pebble around heir neck.
I think it was a deliberate statement of how it is weird to wear the torture device that your god was executed with.
Different types off crosses to. The swastika is a type that’s very popular symbol for mainly Asian cultures. The Finnish Air Force only recently stopped using on their planes.
