If anyone gets offended by my li'l ole' blog, please chill...I get facetious and make silly attempts at humor. The people who know me, know me.
The first established churches were in Ethiopia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and later Italy (Christians had to suffer a few centuries of being eaten by lions in the arena...)anyway, much of Europe didn't hear of Christianity for hundreds, even a thousand years after its beginnings.
Christmas on Dec. 25th came to be celebrated as the birth of Christ though he was really born in the spring. Dec. 25 is really about the time of Roman saturnalia, English yule, a pagan tradition celebrating the new year and sun reversing its course.
The Christmas tree, the yule log, etc. etc. etc. all have to do with pagan customs that Christian converts later used for interpreting Christian concepts. Sometimes those concepts don't really oppose. LIke Easter eggs as a fertility ritual, came to symbolize birth/renewal, which is what the Paschal season also teaches through the resurrection of Christ.
Another subject, arising out of our own cultural constraints:
Among Christians, "white" people these days are pretty much in the minority. :)
But that's OK, Jesus wasn't Caucasian, it isn't a "white" thing. I hate that so many missionaries confused teaching what Christ said. For example, many old schools didn't allow Navajo kids to speak their own language, only English. Certainly no sense in that! England became Christianized at the point of Charlemagne's sword 1000 years after Christianity began. English is certainly no better or worse than Navajo to speak or pray in! In the Christian Bible, it very distinctly points out that the Holy Spirit speaks all languages.I know some people did things in the name of Christ which Christ would never endorse (see Crusades, conquistadores, etc.). I hope those events don't become the face of Christ to people because it certainly wasn't what Christ was about.
posted by Ann @ 5:21 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
not offended, just addressing something that I have seen on the news, in the paper, in LJ-land. Just putting my two cents out there. I know so many diverse people that I speak more generally, saves paper on holiday (yes holiday) cards. ;-)
One thing I suspect you and I can never really talk about is religion. We have radically differant views. or politics for that matter.
Hope all in AZ are feeling better.
That's OK. I understand. One thing I try not to do is make any statement as sort of a one-upping point, a my-dad-can-beat-up-yours way of talking. If I ever write or share something I believe is true, it is never to discredit something someone else said. It's not a comparative thing, in other words. I could never see things in those terms.
You know in politics most people see me these days as too right-wing. Actually I'm a mixed bag there. I care about children, babies, and everyone. That's why I think the right has gone too ridiculous in trying to control immigration. They're way off base. They have not caught one terrorist in their repeat deportations of four-feet tall Mayan women who make a trek up to northern Mexico from Chiapas or Guatemala, pay someone to take them across the Sonora desert where they might die of thirst, and this smuggler(who has extrapolated some exhorbitant fee the woman has saved a year for) will then deliver this person into a windowless van with a dozen other people who drive for three days in order to be farmed out to companies willing to look the other way when seeing their fake SScard and Driver's License (which she has also paid about US$1000 for, at least). The company will pay this person about $6 an hour and give no benefits. This little Mayan lady can also be abused at work because if she goes to HR to complain she's afraid she'll be sent back to the border.
I have worked with hundreds of these women and men and children and really it's just a question of loving people, and showing mercy to people, the way God does for us. How can you turn a 9-month-old pregnant woman who's already had 4 kids, one that gave her a fistula, away without helping her? I don't speak as an American or Republican or anything, just one who wants to help innocent people.
Well, the republicans are off -base on a lot of things, however, so are the democrats. What a great two-party system of corruption we have here. BUSH BLOWS!!! Bah humbug! "X"-mas for me isn't religious. I am a humanist. Jesus was probably a pretty cool dude, end of story. Religion to me is a way to fill-in the missing gaps of scientific proof. What god? Just because we humans can't truly comprehend the universe doesn't make "god the answer” that is such a simple answer, therefore I don't buy it.
I love X-mas, but not for the religion, in fact, that's what makes me sick about it. Oh those hypocrite churchies on Sunday driving to lunch after a good does of brain washing flipping you off because you aren't pulling out in front of the oncoming traffic fast enough so they can get to the Golden Corral for a healthy feast of crap food to add to their already oversized lard toting butts. Wow, what a sentence. I guess that's a bit harsh, but I've known to many "good Christians" that are this way. Humbug to them, I'll be celebrating Love, family and friends on X-mas. and check the Christianity at the door.
-Bush Blows!!!
Well Jesus didn't have a Golden Corral, but He is a darn good fisherman (sorry, even better than you) and His wine is the best made. I'm going to HIS house.
Are you sure you should be commenting on the follies of lardbutts everywhere?
it wasn't lard butt's I was commenting on, it is the hipochristians! not all of them are this way, but oh, so many are, what a disgusting "do as I say, not as I do" american way we have.
Merry X-mas
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