Deuteronomy 12
29 When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
31 Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

In verse 30, notice the words "take heed". It means "to be careful not to do this, and to make sure that you listen to what I'm saying and obey. Take heed. Listen to what I'm saying." This is what God says.

The word "nations" can also be translated as "Gentiles", and even in the context of Israel versus the heathen nations, the Gentile nations that was worshipping all kinds of false gods, it is absolutely talking about Gentiles.
We have seen repeatedly throughout history the war between the races, the war between tribes and nations throughout history. And to this very day, that is what we're seeing occurring in the Middle East, the Arab Islamic nations against Israel.
It's the same thing we see today as what was written thousands of years ago, the same reality.

And it says basically, "don't look at how they worship their gods and say, I'm going to do it the same way".
There's a reason He said don't do this, because people were doing it already, and He knew that people would continue to do this.

The Bible tells us that God is the same today and tomorrow and forever, but He does not change. So, this same God of thousands of years ago, if He didn't want you to worship false gods, if He did not want you to worship false gods, then He still don't want you to worship false gods today.
The first commandment, "have no other gods before Me. Have no other gods at all. Only one Lord, only one God". That's the greatest commandment right there, is worship only God, and have no other gods.

And that is really the foundation, the number one commandment, the first commandment. And that was the primary thing about good versus evil, God versus Satan, Satan versus God, is that Satan wanted to be God.
That Satan presented a false god to the world, and that the world follows false gods. That is as foundational as you can get, and that has never changed.

So, this is still true for us today. The spirit of the law, which is what we're the most concerned about, other than the letter of the law, we're most concerned about the spirit of the law, and the spirit of this law has not changed at all.
It is as important today as it was then. And not only to not have the false gods, but to not specifically, even more specifically, do not worship the true God in the same way that the heathens, the sinners, the blasphemers, was worshipping the false gods.

And yet, that is what exactly, also, the same thing we're experiencing today in your average, everyday religious person of any religion, not just Christianity, but all religions across the world following false gods and worshipping gods in a way of the heathen tribes.
Worshipping their gods in a way of the heathen, uncivilized gods of the heathen people in pagan, that's what it all boils down to, pagan practices.

And we continue to read in the next verse, in Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth have they done unto their gods;"
He hates this! He does not honor this. He does not respect this. But rather, He hates this. He hates this practice of people trying to worship Him, the true God of Israel, in the same manner as the heathen, pagan religions.
He hates this! Now, should we not want to honor and respect what He likes and what He doesn't like? If we say that we serve God, if we say that we love God, if we say that we love the truth, that we like the truth, that we love the truth, that we are truth lovers, that we are truth seekers, then shouldn't we care about what He hates and what He loves?

:31 "...for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it."

Plain and simple, this is not difficult to understand.
It's not difficult to understand. And neither would it be difficult to apply into our lives. It's very foundational, basic stuff. Do not worship the true God with pagan practices in the way that the heathens had worshipped the false gods.

So I'm going to give a list of several religious holidays of the month of February and reveal why it's called February. Very interesting.
Please bear with me as we go through this list, and why these days are pagan, and why you should not observe these days. Because, although you may initially disagree with me, if you give me time to go over all the points, all the principles, then I believe that your eyes will be opened to the reality of the truth. Of what's been hidden from you.

And the first one that comes up this month, that I'm going to talk about, is February the 14th, and that is called Saint Valentine's Day. And of course, the average person would think that Valentine's Day is not religious, and there's nothing pagan about it, and there's nothing harmful or evil or demonic about it. Most people think that it's just a day that you show your love to your husband, to your wife, to your girlfriend; the children draw cards at school of who's going to be their valentine. Just harmless child's play and candy.

But notice, I did mention the children, and so did this Bible verse. Of course, they're not burning children today, literally, as far as a religious ritual to their pagan gods, but children are involved. And that is something to think about! And how religious Christmas and Easter are also centered around children.

Valentine's Day was originally under a different name. The name was changed around 498 A.D. by a Roman Catholic pope. That was when the name was changed to Saint Valentine's Day.
But before then, it was known as Lupercalia.
And it was an ancient pagan festival, held even as far back as the 6th century B.C. and earlier, way back there in the B.C. years. Way back! And it celebrated the fertility goddess named Lupercus. And that's why it was called Lupercalia.
Lupercus was a pagan goddess, female false god. That is your origin of Valentine's Day. It has a origin, a beginning, in pagan religion!

What did we just say? But what God Himself said, what does the Holy Scriptures say? Don't worship the true God in the way that the pagans did. And people are like, "well, but we're not worshipping God on Valentine's Day at all. We're not even worshipping God."
But guess what? Who changed the name? The Roman Catholic Pope changed the name and promoted the observance of the holiday without any changes to it other than the name.
He promoted the observance of this day. And it is called, not Valentine's Day, no, that's not the name of it today, but rather Saint Valentine's Day is the true name today after the change of names by the Roman Catholic Pope.
So the word "saint" gives it a religious connection in addition to the original origin. So here you've got three religious connections.
The original origin being a pagan goddess, and the name change by a Roman Catholic pope, and the fact that the name is Saint Valentine's Day. Three connections already in this short time of speaking, already identified three connections to religion!
It is a religious holiday, and it is more important among the Lutherans and the Catholic Church and main divisions of the Catholic Church.
It's more important to those groups of people than what it is to perhaps, the Pentecostals or people like that. It's more important to the churches that are the closest to their "mother church", not just more observed, but more important.
They actually add importance to it as a religious day to honor the "Saint Valentine" that lived back around 200 or 300 or 400 or 500 AD, depending on which Valentine, because there was quite a few men named Valentine in those first five centuries AD.

The Roman Catholic Church says that it honors a Roman Catholic priest. They say that's what it's about. Well, if that is true and it honors a Roman Catholic priest, and if you are even half awake to the reality of the corruption in this world, then why would you want to honor a Roman Catholic priest? Why would you want to honor such a pagan? Those Roman Catholic priests, both in our current generation and back in that time era, both, they are people that have sold their soul to the devil through many pagan practices.

I have on the website, an article that shows 19 ways that the Catholic Church and Islam are the same. 19 ways that they are actually the same and have the same origin as well!
We could go way more than 19, but I have listed 19 basic, easy ways of proving that they are the same. I encourage you to check that out someday.
We can look at a lot of different facts, but that's a whole different sermon. Why would you want to honor a Roman Catholic priest? It is definitely a religious (pagan) holiday.

Now, the main person named Valentine that they think that it's named after, his skull is on display in Rome for people to see.
It's more than just a museum artifact of people being curious, much more than that. If you think about it, I've been to a lot of museums, quite a few different museums. Some of you have as well. Have you ever seen a human skull in one of those museums? No.
It is not even a museum. It's a church. It's not in a museum. It's in a church, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Rome. It's in a church.

Why would you have a human skull in a church building? It's obviously of religious importance. People say, well, that's just honoring a saint. Bull-crap. Bull-crap!

I've seen a lot of evidence of Roman Catholic priests kissing vows of blood of Catholics that died many hundreds of years ago.
This is not conspiracy theory, but very easily proven, kissing vows of blood and kissing bones. When you go to that extent, it's more than honor. I have no problem with honoring a person if it's a person deserving of honor, but these people were not even deserving of honor to be fair, to be realistic.

But even if they were deserving of honor, this goes beyond honor. This goes beyond respect. When you start kissing people's bones and kissing people's blood, that goes into the arena of a death cult. A death cult.

And that is one of those 19 points of how it is the same as Islam. It's a death cult. It is.
And not only the skull in that one Catholic church, but also other bits and pieces of his body. The Roman Catholic Church claims that other parts and bits and pieces of the saint's body have been distributed to other Catholic churches around the world so that everybody can worship his bones and honor and kiss his bones and bow down and pray to his bones. It's a death cult.

And what about Cupid? That little so-called cute little infant baby in a diaper with the bow and arrow that people today call the Cupid. And they, yeah, with angel wings.
And there's another religious connection. Just having a symbol, a symbol very directly connected to Saint Valentine's Day, a symbol of an angel type of creature. There's good angels and there's bad angels.
And this particular baby angel with wings shoots people with bow and arrows; and he would shoot like a male and a female and they'd fall in love, whatever. But he was originally known as Eros, the god of love.
So this was a pagan god. This ain't conspiracy theory, this is fact. This is historical fact. He was actually known as Eros, the god of love, so he's a false god.

So here you actually have two false gods connected with St. Valentine's Day. Lupercus was a female false god, heathen, pagan god, and now Cupid, Eros. So now you've got two false gods connected with St. Valentine's Day. Why would you want anything, once you know this, once you have heard this, even if it's your first time hearing it, why would you want anything at all to do with St. Valentine's Day?

Why would you want to say it's child's play and harmless when there are two demons directly related to the observance of the day? What is a false god but a demon, a fallen angel? Especially when you have the symbolism of an angel with wings.
It doesn't matter if it does look like an infant. It originally did not look like an infant. The original image of the Cupid was a young man, muscular and handsome and sexy, and then over time they drew it down to an infant.
It doesn't matter the age. It's an angel. It ain't no good angel. There's no good angel connected with the Roman Catholic Church.
The observance of St. Valentine's Day is breaking the first commandment, and it is breaking also the commandment of God that we read in Deuteronomy 12:29-32, to not worship the true God in the way that the pagans worshiped the pagan gods.

This is simple stuff, and foundational. You can do your own research, but these very basic foundational facts that I have presented in this short period of time; and is enough for any person that truly cares about what the truth is and how they worship God and how God wants to be worshipped.
Because we should care about what He hates and what He loves.

This is enough information for any true "truth seeker". And a lot of people call themselves truth seekers. A lot of people claim to be truth seekers and lovers of truth.
But they hear/read what I just said and just blow all of it out the window without any consideration; thinking that we are just being legalistic or whatever. But this is so foundational. We have Bible verses that tell us don't do these things!
I have given you the proof. The undeniable proof is connected with demons, with false gods, with religion, with the Roman Catholic Church, with Roman Catholic Popes. And they're like, "none of this matters to me. I don't care. I will just continue to do it and I will continue to teach my children to do it. I don't care. Oh, but I'm a truth lover. But I still don't give a sh*t what you just said pastor".
Let's just say it the way it is! I know that my choice of words will offend some people, but this is such a serious matter that I need to use some tough words to help some of these hard headed people to wake up.
Hardheadedness and hardheartedness! It takes a little bit of strong language and some yelling to wake up some of these blind, ignorant, deaf, hardheaded, stubborn people!

Oh, by the way, the St. Valentine's Day was originally three days. It was three days, not just one day.
So originally, the celebration of Lupercus, as it was originally known, what they did on those three days, a festival of sex is what it was. A festival of sex, fertility goddess. Lupercus was a fertility goddess. That means that she's all about making women fertile to reproduce, to have babies. You can't have babies unless you have sex. It was connected to sex.

And the pagan priests would perform animal sacrifices during these three days. Animal sacrifices. So it's a counterfeit of God's true holy days.
And they would take the animal sacrifices, the skin of the goats, to make whips. And these whips were called februa, which is where we get the word February from. The month February is named after the whips that was made out of the skin of the goats that were sacrificed for Valentine's Day.
That's how we get the word February. And these whips, called februa, were used to hit naked women that had lined up to volunteer for men to hit them, to whip them, so that they would be fertile. So that they would be more likely to have babies and successful childbirth by being whipped by men.

Also during this festival, men would draw names of women, pull a woman's name from a jar, to be matched with that woman, either for the three-day festival or sometimes for a year. It depends on the person, the situation. Sometimes they would draw names for who would be their Valentine's for three days, and other times it would be who would be their Valentine/mate for an entire year.
That is the origin of the St. Valentine's custom of what the children do in the public school system right now, or they did back when I was a child, how we would draw names of who you would trade Valentine's cards with, and stuff like this.
They do that even today, and some of the churches do this. And that is the origin of it. It's all paganism!

Ash Wednesday

Now, Ash Wednesday, supposedly, their claim is 40 days of mourning and abstaining or fasting from something, leading up to Easter. So they try to claim that it is humbling yourself, that it's a good thing to do, that it is something that God will want you to do, that Jesus fasted 40 days and it's pointing up to Easter. However, this all goes back to paganism. It really cannot be denied if you're truly willing to consider the facts.
So on Ash Wednesday, they mark their forehead with ashes from the priests in the Lutheran church and Catholic church and some of the other churches, Orthodox and so forth.
And we know that Easter, the last of the 40 days of Lent, Lent means that they are 40 days of fasting, but the word Lent means spring. And so there's a connection with the spring fertility goddess. The spring pagan festival is about spring.

So the pagans, without worshipping the true God, the pagans would be worshipping the planets and the stars and recognizing the transition of the weather from winter to spring.
And when they saw spring come, then they would see the rabbits and all the different animals beginning to mate in mating season and having babies. And so the symbolism of greenery, coming of new life, a symbolism of resurrection, not the resurrection of Christ, but the resurrection of grass, trees coming back to life, different things like this.
Because this has to do with the worship of creation rather than the worship of the creator. It is heathen pagan tribalism.

When you look at all the facts, none of this can be really denied. Easter has an origin in the Assyrian pagan religions with Esther and Ishtar. It's all connected. The ash on the forehead is supposed to symbolize mourning for 40 days, so it's supposed to be a symbolism of fasting and mourning.

But what did Jesus himself say about this? Of displaying yourself in public and proclaiming and altering your facial appearance so that others may know that you are fasting and mourning.
What did Jesus say about that? That's an easy question. Let's look at it in Matthew chapter 6.
For the people that don't know or don't remember what Jesus said about this,

Matthew 6:16 "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."

Why would you want to put ashes on your forehead, that people know that you're fasting, that people know that you're mourning, and alter your facial appearance that people may see your "good" works? It's directly against this commandment of Jesus!

And while we're here, let's look at Matthew 15:8-9 "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

Is the ash on your forehead, is that not a commandment of man? Is that not a commandment of the Catholic or Lutheran priests or Presbyterian, Episcopal or whoever else does it? It's a commandment of a human priest. It's not the commandment of God.
It's a tradition, a religious tradition with pagan origins. Even the putting of the ashes on the forehead.

Yeah, they can say it all day long: "Oh, we do it for this reason. We do it for that reason."
They can make claims all day long with their lips that they're honoring God.
But God sees the true heart, and they can say "my heart is well", and you can say that their heart is well.
But God sees the true heart, that it is obedience to a pagan priest rather than obedience to God.
That's their true heart. And their true heart is more concerned with tradition rather than what the Scriptures declare.
That is their true heart. People would try to say I'm taking Matthew 15 out of context because Jesus was talking about food or washing dishes. But the reality is that the spiritual principle, the spirit of the law, of what He was saying is (regardless of whether you're talking about food, regardless of whether you're talking about washing hands or washing dishes) people actually do try to worship God using customs and commandments of men as if it was the commandment of God.
So it don't matter about the context because the spirit of what He's saying applies toward any area of life in which you are breaking the commandment of God of the first commandment, or even Deuteronomy 12, to not even worship Him in the way that the pagans worship their false gods.
Jesus here is basically pointing back to Deuteronomy 12.
And did not Deuteronomy 12 say that we must not add to it? Don't add to what God has commanded of how you are to worship Him.

So where do we read in the Bible? Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or Paul, or Peter, or any of the disciples or followers, or even Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or any of them? Anyone in the Bible. Do we read of any true person of God in the Bible putting ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, or a commandment that you must fast from 40 days leading up to Easter, or that you must observe Easter, or St. Valentine's Day?
None of this. Absolutely none of it is a commandment of God. But their commandments are commandments of priests.

Now God has used true men of God, and true people of God, like the Maccabee family, and Esther and Mordecai, to bring to us additional holidays of religious observance. But we can read about those in the holy Bible.
We can read about those in the Bible as being good and holy, and that we would be blessed if we do the same.But we don't read that about Valentine's. We don't have any biblical commandment to observe Easter or Ash Wednesday.

Now look at 1 Timothy 4:1-3 "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (fallen angels). By means of the hypocrisy, amen, of lives seared in their own conscience with a branding iron.
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth."

Oh, get this! Praise the Lord Almighty! Get this! Branding in their conscience!
You know where your conscience is symbolized? Your forehead.
As a branding iron, as if somebody is branding letters or symbols in your conscience, in your forehead.

Come on now! Men who forbid marriage, that's the Catholic Church.
Abstaining from food, which God has created to be gratefully shared again by those who believe and know the truth. In the context, a religious group forbidding marriage and abstaining from food, that's fasting from meat like the Ash Wednesday pagans do.

There were people already in that day and time of Paul and Timothy that was already practicing the 40 days of Lent.
They go all the way back, way back into the BC years of fasting 40 days from meats or 40 days from this or that and fasting as a religious observance.
Not for the true God of Israel unless they only claimed it with their lips, but not truly for the God of Israel, but paganism and forbidding marriage.

That sure sounds like the Catholic Church. I'm not against fasting, but you've got to be careful how you fast, when you fast, and why and how.
Paul would agree on that. I'm sure Paul was not against fasting when he's talking to Timothy right here, but it's how and when you are fasting.

In the pagan Nordic religion, putting ashes on the forehead, specifically above the eyebrow, was believed to ensure the protection of the Norse god Odin.
This practice spread to Europe during the Vikings' conquest. This was done on a Wednesday, on what was known as Odin's Day.
So you see, in pagan religion in Europe, that it was a practice on a Wednesday, specifically on a Wednesday, to put ashes on the forehead to worship a false god called Odin. Putting ashes on the forehead on Wednesday as a pagan practice.
One version of the Babylonian celebration of Easter and Lent declared that Tammuz, a false god, was the husband of Astarte/Ishtar/Easter. And he was slain. He was killed while he was hunting a wild boar, a pig. They mourned for him by weeping ceremonies for forty days. Forty days!
During the lifetime of Ezekiel, this pagan ritual of forty days of Lent was found among the Hebrew people, and that's why we read in Ezekiel a warning against it.

Let's go to Ezekiel 8:13-14 "He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."

It actually says they were mourning for Tammuz, and we know from history that they did that for forty days. This, you cannot deny. It's fact, it's undeniable fact, that they lamented for Tammuz for forty days leading up to Easter, which was the wife of the man God called Tammuz.
You can't deny any of this. Tammuz and Easter were husband and wife, pagan gods, demons, fallen angels, creatures with wings, forty days of Lent, ending on specifically Easter, the holiday of his wife Astarte/Ishtar/Easter.
You can't deny that this is talking about Easter and the forty days of Lent. You can't.
Unless you're a liar, you cannot deny that Ezekiel 8 literally talks about Easter and the forty days of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday.
Hello? You can't deny this because it tells you the name of the false goddess, or false god, and you can't deny by looking at history and archaeological evidence, you can't deny that it has connection with Easter because that was his wife, and forty days of Lent because that's how long they mourned.

You can't deny this, and yet people still keep Ash Wednesday and people still keep Easter because they don't care what the truth is. And they are blatant liars when they say that they actually appreciate truth. Liars!
Hypocrites, as Jesus himself said. And look, they're doing this in the house of God, in the temple.
So very clearly, they claimed to be doing it as a way of worshipping the true God. Very clearly, it doesn't have to say it directly, because where were they doing it? They were doing this in the house of God. Very clearly, logic declares that they were making the claim that they were doing it for God.
Even when Moses came down from the mountain, and they had the golden calf, and they said that they were doing it for God.
They said we had made a festival for God. We were doing this for God. We were honoring God with all these different claims.
Paganism, hypocrisy, and lies, and stubbornness, and hard-headedness.

In verse 15, "He said to me, Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
16: And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east."

Now when is the sun in the east, in the northern hemisphere, in Jerusalem?
When, what time of day, is the sun in the east? Only in the morning. The sun rises in the east.
So as morning time, as a religious observance, at the true house of God, they're claiming they're doing it for God, at the true house of God.
It's not even a pagan church. It's at the true house of God, defiling the sanctuary.
In the morning time, that is sunrise, worshiping the sun.
This is Easter sunrise service. You can't deny it. The Israelites embraced pagan gods. History, archeology and the bible, all agree that the Israelites adopted pagan Assyrian gods.

There was weeping for Tammuz; that's the forty days of Lent. We know that for a fact, leading up to the final day of people outside, at the house of God, but outside, because their backs were turned toward the temple, so they're outside, facing the east, facing the sun. That's in the morning. This is Easter sunrise service. You cannot deny this.
And yet, how many people have read about the pagan origins of Easter on this website, during the past 17 years, and just left the website without changing their habits, without changing their religion, without stopping doing this, even though they read it, even though you can't deny it, even though it's clear as day, even though a five year old could understand this, it's so simple.
They don't care what the truth is, and they're liars when they say they do.

Verse 17: Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

They're provoking God to anger, because He hates St. Valentines Day, Lent, Ash Wednesday and Easter. He does not honor these pagan holidays. He does not respect them, and it's not an acceptable way to worship the true God of Israel.

They're provoking God to anger, "and behold, these stretch out the vine branch as mockers"; they're mocking God! "Therefore I would deal with them in wrath, I would deal with them in anger, my eyes shall not spare, nor will I have mercy."

So they can claim all day long that they're not under the law, but they're under mercy, they're under grace.
God will have the final word.
God will deal with them when it comes the time of great tribulation, God will deal with them when it comes the day of wrath, but God will also deal with them in how slow that they die, how much dementia they're going to have, what kind of health problems they're going to have, what kind of problems in life they're going to have.
There's many different ways that God will deal with those people, and they deserve it all.
God's judgments are fair and righteous and true.

You don't read about any of the apostles putting ashes on their forehead. People try to say, well, there's scriptures in the Bible of putting on sackcloth and ashes. Yes, there is.
But when they did that, it wasn't a cross or a plus sign on their forehead.
And it wasn't to display to people that there was fasting, but rather they went in the privacy of their own house and put on the sackcloth and ashes, and the ashes were all over them, not just a nice little neat mark.
No, it wasn't. To try to use those verses to validate their paganism is twisting scripture.
Because when they did the sackcloth and ashes, it was not a neat little tiny plus sign on their forehead. It was not.
They put ashes all over their head, all over their bodies, and in their own privacy.
They didn't walk around displaying it to everybody in the public store. They did not.
And they definitely did not do the 40 days of Lent.
So you want to talk about things out of context?
Sackcloth and ashes, trying to compare that with Ash Wednesday, is way out of context.

Mardi Gras

One more point I want to make about Ash Wednesday is, like I said, it's actually three days, Monday and Tuesday, to actually eat extra before they begin fasting.

That's not what you're really supposed to do, is it? But yet they make a holiday out of it, Monday and Tuesday both, of making gluttons out of themselves in a religious manner.

The two days before Ash Wednesday are called "Collop Monday and Shrove Tuesday". Shrove is from the older English word shrive, which means to confess all sins. So they're claiming that this day of gluttony is related to professing sins. So it's religious. It's religious gluttony of eating extra for two days before you begin fasting.
That's not how you fast. It's hypocrisy.

All of this is connected, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday. It's all connected. The word Mardi Gras technically refers only to what is called Fat Tuesday, and they call it Fat Tuesday because it's the day before Ash Wednesday.
It's a day of gluttony leading up to "fasting" the next day. They call it Fat Tuesday.
Mardi Gras is a day of gluttony before "fasting" or abstaining. So it's directly connected to Ash Wednesday.
You cannot separate Ash Wednesday from Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). You can't. They're directly connected.
They're both observed mostly only by Catholics and Lutherans, and those other church denominations that are very closely related in practice to the Catholic Church, how the Catholic Church practices. So you cannot separate these days, but yet when I think of Mardi Gras, I do not think of honoring God. When I think of Mardi Gras, I think of Satanism, sex, and gluttony.Lasciviousness. Thinking that you have a license to do whatever you want to do. Homosexuality. These things are what come into my mind.

When I think of Mardi Gras, I don't think of honor and respect and obedience to God.
Complete opposites.

And even though Mardi Gras technically refers only to Fat Tuesday, but actually Mardi Gras is a season of time, not one day.
It actually begins on January the 6th, which is also called the 12th day of Christmas. Mardi Gras season begins on the 12th day of Christmas.
So again, yes, there is a connection with Christmas and Easter, both with Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday.
You cannot separate Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, Christmas, and Easter.
You cannot separate these four days because the 12th day of Christmas, January 6th, begins Mardi Gras season, which is Fat Tuesday, followed by the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter.
It's all directly, not even indirectly, but rather directly connected.
If you don't observe Christmas because it's pagan, then you have to not observe any of these.
If you don't observe Easter because it's pagan, then you cannot observe any of these. They're all directly connected.

In Brazil and many other nations, this period of time of Mardi Gras season and Fat Tuesday is known as Carnival. They call that season Carnival.
It's also celebrated in England, Mexico, Spain, Trinidad, France, Germany, and other nations, anywhere that you can find Catholics and Lutherans. Not just New Orleans. You may think of Mardi Gras as being something that they only do in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the United States. But actually, Mardi Gras is celebrated worldwide wherever Catholics and Lutherans are present.
There's a lot of Catholics in Mexico. There's a lot of Catholics in England and Spain. So is a worldwide religious pagan season.

The word Carnival means "farewell to the flesh" from the Latin. A Latin connection to this season!
Even though it's called farewell to the flesh, it's not farewell to the flesh at all. It's gluttony, leading up to 40 days of fasting, but it's not a total fast. It's only fasting from one little thing, either fish or chewing gum or cursing or whatever they choose. It doesn't even have to be a very serious, tough, demanding, difficult fast.
They don't even teach you that it should be something difficult or meaningful.
It can be something as simple as, "I'm not going to chew gum for 40 days, but after the 40 days, I'm going to chew gum again."
It don't even have to be serious to where you're going to change your life.
It can be as simple and as easy as you want it.
They don't put any test or trial to it.
How in the world can you call that fasting?
That's not fasting.
That's pretending like you're fasting while pretending you're mourning, putting ashes on your head, and you're not even mourning because your trial, your fasting, is not even difficult in the least.
You're not even suffering any type of hunger pains the whole time you're doing this.
How can you call that fasting or mourning?
It's ridiculous.

Related articles:
The origin of Christmas.
The origin of Easter.
The origin of Halloween.
What day is the true Sabbath, or is one required?

Research links:
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mardi-gras
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/lupercalia
https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2
https://www.history.com/news/who-is-cupid
https://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/65802-weeping-for-tammuz.html

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