No, Shavuot is a Jewish holiday. It celebrates the giving of the Torah. Pentecost is a Christian holiday. I’m not sure exactly what it celebrates, but its origin is described in the New Testament, as mentioned earlier in the thread. I guess they occur at the same time, but they’re different holidays. Passover and Easter occur at the same time too, but they aren’t the same holiday.
[nitpick]
Actually, more people voted for Gore.
(And no, this is not some sort of whine about the 2000 election. It’s simply a fact that Gore won the popular vote.)
[/nitpcik]
Unlike some, there are very very few facts that I expect everyone to know, and it doesn’t frighten me to find people who don’t know stuff. In another similar thread, somebody met a woman who didn’t know that it only snows where it’s cold (and I know I simplify). Also, someone who thought the sun and the moon were the same thing, but you called it something different depending on if it was day or night. Those would really surprise me.
I had a similar experience recently, though; it didn’t frighten me, but it did enlighten me. I explained to a science-minded friend of mine that you can see the Milky Way from his house, but not from mine, because I live in a city. He said, “Wait a minute. I thought we were in the Milky Way galaxy. How can we see what we’re inside of?”
For those who don’t know, the Milky Way is a white smeared band across the sky, comprised of stars in the disk of our galaxy. Our galaxy itself is named after this. If you go outside at night far from a city, it’s really hard to miss. I look up every time I go outside, so to me it was like not knowing of the moon.
Perhaps them I’ve been misunderstanding sources. Although “Pentecost” first appeared in Greek in a New Testament, I understood that is was still referring to the closing festival of the Passover season as described here. The Shavuot is the first Pentecost as I described above when the Torah was given on Mount Sinia, and Christians celebrate the “new” Pentecost, but the festival predated the Christian connotation.
This is how I’ve always understood it. Perhaps I’m just used to hearing in a more scholarly context of history rather than faith. I can’t imagine anyone of the Jewish faith ever using the word “Pentecost” to refer to the Feast of Weeks.
Imputing impolite or rude behavior to someone whom you have never met just might make you appear to be the sort of moron you’re referring to, scout1222. I do not instantly and unjustifiably adjudge unknowledgeable people as being ignorant. If they are unaware of information, I cheerfully share it with them. I they exhibit no interest at all in correcting their lack of learning, it is only then that I begin to feel that they may be ignorant. For you to assume otherwise is both ill informed and just plain wrong. Continue to maintain such a position and I may well begin to agree with your own self assessment.
Well said, Ponder, and may I say that this is not a hijack in the least? There is a vast difference between the two. Speaking for myself, it is* willful *ignorance that I find repulsive.
I didn’t intend my remark to seem as snarky as it came across. When I reread it, I can see that it is offputting.
Just when I was scanning the list of things I should know, yours seemed (to me) to be the most obscure.
No harm, no foul?
Take it easy on poor Airman. It can happen to anyone.
Interesting how we have the same conversations though…
I think that must be it. I can’t imagine a Christian celebrating Pentecost the way Jews celebrate Shavuot. Christians don’t count the Omer, they don’t have Lag b’Omer, they don’t study Torah all night, and they don’t have sunrise services.
I never said I could spell. 
OK, OK, everyone, let’s settle down here.
Pentecost is simply an event that occurs 50 days after some other event (based on the meaning of the word). Shavuos occurs 50 days after Passover. While I have seen secular works use the term “Pentecost” for Shavuos, it is never used conversationally as such. If you mentioned “Pentecost” to 100 Jews, at least 90 of them wouldn’t have any inkling that you were referring to Shavuos.
However, the Christian Pentecost is not Shavuos any more than Easter is Passover or Christmas is Channukah.
Zev Steinhardt
Canine Octopi use beaks at Pentecost???
Hmm…I have met two adult human beings who were unable to tel the time on a standard clockface - if it was not digitial they did not understand it.
OK 3 things:
Easter is not the same day as Passover, Good Friday is the same day as passover.
Good Friday does not just “happen” to be at the same time as Passover, the Last Supper was a Passover meal. Likewise, it appears to me that the disciples dod not just “happen” to be together on Pentecost, they presumably were celebrating Shavout.
The disciples were not hiding from Jews - they WERE Jews.
Silly UN. Not beaks. Chopsticks.
I have met people who were unaware that a fever is the body’s attempt to kill a bacterial or viral infection. They just thought it was how you tell you’re sick.
Completely unrelated to pentecosts or beaks:
I am constantly amazed at people who don’t know that when stoplights are out, the intersection should be treated as a four way stop.
Wouldn’t common sense and the need for self preservation dictate that it be treated as such? Nature attempts to weed out the stupid, and the engineers at Chrysler, Volvo, et. al. step in and foil it’s valiant attempts.
Chopsticks…that makes so much more sense, thank you 
On the other: it amazes me how many people (some doctors included) still try to fight a viral infection wth antibiotics
You know why that is, tho…people are so insistent. They think they know what antibiotics do (if they thought about the word, ANTI BIOTIC, says it all, really), and it will make it better. And are then amazed when, 10 days later, their stripped immune system allows them to catch the same damn flu!
Hope I didn’t come off as snarky with my cursive comments. I just find it surprising that these people didn’t know there was a difference between writing and printing–they thought printing was writing and cursive was, apparently, only for signing their names and passing the third grade. And I don’t mean to offend anyone with poor handwriting–I suck, too, and I know that. I also realize that there are few instances when you need to actually use cursive–but I’ve also seen people whose printing and signature of their names are exactly the same. Those people either don’t know cursive or refuse to use it.
This doesn’t apply to the Pentecost Debate, but…
I used to have a snapshot of the Eiffel Tower hanging on my bulletin board at work. A young guy I worked with, when seeing the photo, asked about my trip to King’s Island (an amusement park outside of Cincinnati that has a much smaller replica of the Eiffel Tower). When I said that the picture was taken in Paris and was of the real one, he was dumbfounded - “You mean there’s two of 'em?”
Um, actually, he was only partly right. The Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Co. on the Feast of Pentecost, also known as the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks, which occurred seven weeks (fifty days- it was the day after the seventh week ended) after the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover). Thus, the Jewish Feast of Pentecost is celebrated as the Birthday of the Church.
It frightens me that a Catholic wouldn’t know this. Actually, it frightens me how much a lot of Catholics don’t know about our own faith, but that would be a whole 'nother thread.