Merry Christmas,

Oh, I doubt that. I'm sure you remember when two alumni of Rev. Hargis' Bible College declared their past sexual histories on their wedding night and discovered the "Reverend" had boffed both of them. At least it was at separate times.

The reason I'm so sure you remember is that's why you enrolled there.

"Steve" you are wrong about something you are sure about? Never heard of him. Funny you focus on weakness and sin and not the good things churchs and god do.

I will withstand you childish behavior and keep h> On 15 Jan 2007 11:51:29 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@aim.com wrote: >

You are a breath of fresh air as far as Usenet Christians go. Perhaps that is an over reaction on my part. It may be that people like Curt are more mentally disturbed than Christian. I'm not one to give any credence to the inflammatory rhetoric that religion causes mental illness, but it is well known that religion attracts the mentally ill - especially schizophrenics.

As for who goes to hell. Who knows. I don't believe the bible makes that clear at all given the plethora of interpretations between faith, works, or simply God's mercy. Hell, as popularly understood, is a purely New Testament concept so there isn't much to go on. All references in the Old Testament translated as hell actually just mean death or the grave (e.g. Sheol).

This in fact was a point of contention between the Pharisees and Saducees. One side believing death is the end and all rewards or punishments are to be had in a single finite life span, and the other believing in reincarnation. Christ seemed to side more with reincarnation for when he was asked by his followers whether it was the blind man's parents sin, or his own, that caused him to be *born* blind, Christ simply said it was neither. Notice he didn't correct his followers by asking how on earth someone's own sin could cause them to be born blind. Reincarnation was a popularly accepted truth in much of Judea, as well as with the Essenian sects in Egypt among whom Christ was raised.

I find Christinaity fascinating. Obviously not because of whack jobs like Curt, but because the number of variations in Christian beliefs throughout the history of the religion, and current is immense. The variations in the beliefs of the very first Christian sects alone can fill volumes.

What we have today, as far as the most common Christian beliefs, is religion via committees of men, not God. But everyone is entitled to their beliefs. If there is a God, he will no doubt understand the confusion of many non-believers and actually hold the believers accountable for it.

But one thing seems clear. Christ seemed to prefer the company of sinners rather than what he considered to be religious hypocrites. And he spent his time trying to teach them, with an endless capacity to forgive their ignorance, even to the point of forgiving the very men who drove the nails into him.

He certainly didn't wake up every morning and say "Okay listen up. Lesson

Personally, I think Christ should have had the foresight to hire a stenographer.

I'm pretty much the same. I'm a colloquial agnostic, yet I do have a fondness for Christmas just as a part of American cultural heritage.

I'm 42 years old, and my earliest memories of Christmas have nothing to with religion. It was just a time when people were nicer to each other (well, back then at least... adults didn't beat pregnant women to the ground in a stampede to get the must have toy of the year), we watched shows such as Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, etc.

It also meant that stainless aluminum Christmas tree - the envy of the neighborhood. That left behind during a move, and Christmas was never the same. So this year I dropped $995 to buy the very same tree 1965 vintage tree. (I did the math. In 1965 dollars, I spent less than my father did...)

It's been a secular holiday (albeit with both Christian and Pagan origins) for ages.

... evidently don't include helping your spelling, let alone logic.

No, it's acknowledging that the 2 weeks off for schools in December is actually due to the Christmas holiday. As I see it the conundrum the more radical liberal atheists have with this and other government observed religious holidays is that they have to figure out a way to remove all traces of God's existence out of schools without losing those days off. The current tactic is to rewrite history and redefine what the holiday means. They've also used this redefine tactic with the theory of evolution by redefining what a "fact" is and more recently in attempting to confuse the definition of marriage.

Not a problem. Here are two sources. I haven't tried the video link on the second. Somebody apparently got it on their camera phone so maybe you can even see it as it happened.

Update from a radio report a few days ago: He has undergone 3 surgeries at a burn center and is in much pain. It's still unknown if he even remembers what happened.

As I've said, I don't know enough about the fellow or his history on the boards to really no for sure why he comes across as antagonistic. I see he has his own OT thread now.

No, not really. If saying "Merry Christmas" was prosletyzing then there would be little reason for Christians to exchange the phrase amongst each other, which they do. As Jerry mentioned, today it has acquired additional meanings, but in it's purest form it is still a personal testimony of a belief about the occasion and a hope the recipient may enjoy it as well.

I'd say the Christian faith compared to most is one of the most tolerant in the world of other beliefs.

I don't think it's that. It seems that they simply have little respect for our culture when they enter in to it (most of the complainers from these other faiths are newer immigrants) and for some odd reason want to turn our culture into the type they ran away from. We have enough problems without adding in problems from other countries. Wouldn't you agree?

~Brad

A real one-way bastard, aye? Funny thing how there are and have been dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other prophets of various ilk all claiming to be THE one way. What are the odds that any of them are right? Quite a bit lower than the odds that none of them are. But who cares?

Mark Newton, actually.

Which is a Christian celebration.

Which confirms my previous point about pushing Christianity into schools.

Relevance? Apart from attempting to conflate creationism or "intelligent design" as fact?

He comes across that way because he is a troll. That is his sole purpose. That, and the fact that he's off the planet...

As I said, prosletyzing.

Yes, you would. You'd choose to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

No, I wouldn't. You say "we" as if I was an American. I'm not.

If you want to live in a monoculture where there is only one, state-sanctioned religion, I reckon Iran would be a good bet.

Mark Newton, actually.

Which is a Christian celebration.

Which confirms my previous point about pushing Christianity into schools.

Relevance? Apart from attempting to conflate creationism or "intelligent design" as fact?

He comes across that way because he is a troll. That is his sole purpose. That, and the fact that he's off the planet...

As I said, prosletyzing.

Yes, you would. You'd choose to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

No, I wouldn't. You say "we" as if I was an American. I'm not.

If you want to live in a monoculture where there is only one, state-sanctioned religion, I reckon Iran would be a good bet.

The Romans camped on a Paegan holiday. They were celebrating the return of the sun. Eventually, the birthday of Christ was convienently moved to overlap this hijacking.

Paul

Lie.

Winter equinox (actually circa 23rd December)

It follows the thread pretty well, me thinks.

Nevermind the thread doesn't belong in this NG in the first place.

Winter Equinox Holiday Season (the sun really is coming back it just took a few days to be sure and get the party rolling)

OR

Keep the Retailiers in Business Celebration (remember to BUY BUY BUY)

OR

My Name is Better than Your Name Season (and the sun is coming back anyway)

The theologians in the group can address the accuracy of Dec 25th as actually being Christ's birthday.

Paul

Ok :) the date of the Birth of Jesus is unknown but based on the evidence its anywhere between late September or early April..... and its a pretty pointless debate which has no real relevance in the 21st century except for retailers who want to sell as much of their shoddy toys on children as they can. But if you are going to take over a holiday that has for two millenia been called christmas then you should have a better prepared reason than a bunch of 18th century racists thought it should be that way, the original reason for a holiday was that people worked 7 days a week back then and up to 16/18 hours a day, the using of a well known pagan festival as well as the use of Sunday as the sabbath was in orderr to give ordinairy working chaps a chance to actually have a life as opposed to wholesale drudgery, interestingly I think, the people who are asking for the scrapping of the expresasion CHRIST mas are those who are reasonably wealthy exactly the same type of people who opposed it in the first place, with out a day to call our own which is the end result of such lobbying we who like railway modelling wont have the time to sit down and open a hobby mag let alone construct a railway.

Valé Beowulf (Genuine bappy theologian)

What evidence? (If you want to link Luke's story to Roman history, well, I don't think of the gospels as history, and theologically speaking I think such an approach distracts from what really matters in them. But that's for another forum, as is this whole thread, so forgive my adding to it.)

As I (vaguely, I must admit) recall what I learned in the history of religion class taught by my (Lutheran) pastor, Christmas is very late invention of the Christian church. Almost as late as the sacrament of marriage, in fact. IIRC, most of what we think of as the "traditional" church year etc wasn't sorted out and codified until not much more than about a thousand years ago. The monks had a great deal to do with it: they wanted a regulated year as well as a regulated day and a regulated week. (It was a monk who did the calculations that Gregory used to switch from the Julian calendar to the one we use today.)

Around the time of the birth of Jesus, Rome had about 100 holidays a year, and every Caesar added to the count. By about 100 CE (or AD, if you prefer), over half the year was holidays in Rome. The Christian Church actually reduced the amount of time off for ordinary chaps, to a mere 50-odd days. And of course slaves had no time off at all, except at the whim of their owners. (There's nothing the the OT or the NT that forbids slavery, BTW.)

Some of the fiercest Christians ever, the ones theologically and ideologically related to the Pilgrim Fathers, abolished Christmas in England as soon as they had a chance to do so. Cromwell and his buddies were well versed in church history, and knew that Christmas was an adaptation of the Saturnalia. That's also why some fringe-Christian sects won't celebrate Christmas nowadays (or other originally pagan festivals, which is pretty well all of them.)

As for the sabbath as an opportunity to have a life: that's not how it was. Sunday wasn't a day off, it was a day for serious church going and listening to sermons and reading the bible and repenting and stuff like that. Sort of like orthodox Judaism, but without the arguments and without the music. Ugh!

Pax vobiscum. Shalom. Salaam. Shantih.

:-)

I'm not sure that's true. I remember reading somewhere long ago that a slave in Rome worked less than our current 40 hour week because of all the holidays. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that, but it does contradict what you're saying.