Tag Archives: holidays

Roundup

Do the “comprehensive” sex education courses teach this fact?  I’m guessing not.  Study finds that teens who lose their virginity are more likely to divorce

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Evidence for early dating of the Gospels

  • The Gospels were nearly perfect in how they captured the frequency of names among Palestinian Jews of the time. For instance, Ilan’s list of the 10 most popular names matched rank for rank the list of the most frequent names in the Gospels and Acts. This is an extraordinary confirmatory correlation.
  • By contrast, if you examine the most popular Jewish names in a different region (such as Egypt) at the time, the list is dramatically different. The pattern of names does not match what we know the pattern to be in Palestine.
  • Also by contrast, if you examine the names that appear in the Apocryphal Gospels (such as the Gospels of Thomas, Mary, Judas), you discover that the frequency and proportion of names in these writings do not match what we know to be true of names from the land and time of Jesus. Hence the Apocryphal Gospels do not have the ring of authenticity with regard to personal names and are rightly called into question.

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Obama & Wall Street — why don’t the mainstream media and the Occupy Wall Street movement ever mention this?

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With such extreme self-parodies it appears that they are trying to put the Onion out of business.

As families across the nation gather to celebrate Mother’s Day, others will gather to support the abortion industry. Never one to miss a fundraising opportunity, a New York affiliate of Planned Parenthood is hosting a Mother’s Day brunch to support the clinic. . . .
This is not Planned Parenthood’s first attempt to raise money through Mother’s Day. Year after year, the abortion giant encourages supporters to donate on behalf of their mothers. . . .
The organization responsible for the death of over300,000 children annually has no right to be raising money in honor of mothers. Abortion steals motherhood from women.

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Alex, I’ll take schadenfreude for $1,000 — Chris Matthews Bombs on ‘Jeopardy!’ After Repeatedly Mocking Palin for How She’d Do

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As the media continues to ignore black on white assaults in the name of Trayvon, here’s another thing for them to not report: Medical & Autopsy Reports Reveal George Zimmerman Had Broken Nose, Black Eyes, Head Lacerations Trayvon Martin Had Bloody Knuckles.

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Another from the, “I wish this was a parody, but it isn’t,” category.  They have a whole store full of this stuff.

fag-obamunist-baby-onesie

I’m sure they do, little baby.  Along with a lot of other morally confused people.

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A good point from Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.

Hey all, don’t buy the media line that homosexual “marriage” is inevitable! I was on the ground in North Carolina for a month, and their 61-39 victory for REAL marriage translates into 70-75% support for same if you factor out: the media’s tremendous pro-“gay” bias during the campaign; a 2-1 spending disadvantage; and most importantly, the LIES of their opponents who spread lots of confusion about what the simple Marriage Amendment would do (e.g., saying it would remove protections for unmarried women abused by their boyfriends). This was a HUGE triumph that gives the lie to the Left’s insidious “inevitable” claim.

P.S. 70% of Independents and almost half of Democrats realize Obama’s change was about politics (read: $$), not principle.  I think this position will hurt him.

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Hat tip: Duane from Facebook

Do you really want an old-fashioned Christmas?

You might, but only if you go back decades and not centuries. I urge you to read Before you wish for an Old-Fashioned Christmas… for a fascinating overview of how Christmas was celebrated throughout the centuries and how it evolved to what we have today.  You might be surprised at the few things that radically changed it, and the surprisingly positive impact that the Santa phenomenon had.  Don’t get me wrong — I’m not a Santa fan and find him to be a distraction, but the historical impact is significant and not all bad.

However bad you think the commercialization of Christmas is — and I agree that it is bad — the current day celebrations are much more civil than they used to be.  There is no need to be shocked at how easy it is to miss the point of the amazing incarnation, because it has been going on for 2,000 years.

It seems that the most awesome event in human history, the coming of God to earth as a babe in a manger, has been forever obscured by Santa, shopping, and merrymaking… [But before] we brood and protest too much over what we think Christmas must have been like in generations long past, we might actually feel encouraged about the season we celebrate today when we consider what Christmas was really like in the days of old.

Only in relatively recent times, the past two hundred years, has Christmas even been celebrated by most Christians. Up until the 1800’s the day recognized as Christ’s birthday was largely a pagan celebration. Those who bemoan the lack of religious zeal in modern Christmases would have been appalled at the way people in early America celebrated the day. For a majority of people who embraced Christmas throughout history, Christ wasn’t a part of the day at all. In most of the world, especially in England and America, Christmas was not a time of worship, prayer, and reflection; rather, it was a day set aside to sing bawdy songs, drink rum, and riot in the streets.

For centuries, Christmas was anything but a holy day. It was most often a sinful parade of excess, a day set aside for ignoring laws and even terrorizing citizens… Those who attended church did so in wild costumes, the messages of many priests were anything but scriptural, and gambling was common during the services.

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Collins then goes on to explain about the period in the 1600’s where the Puritans in the British Empire, led by Oliver Cromwell, rose up to overthrow King Charles I, and set about banning Christmas festivities and all the debauchery that went with it. He believed that Christmas should be a sober day of reflection where people go about their business just as they would on any other day of the week, and then go home to quietly consider what Christ meant in their lives. So both the sociable and the unsociable extremes of the holiday celebration were outlawed. No gifts given, no toasts made, no carols sung. Likewise, no day set aside to drink rum, riot in the streets and sing bawdy songs, or invade the palatial homes of royalty and the upper-class.

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The drunken parties and gang riots grew so bad that in 1828 the New York City Council met in special session to discuss the issue, and a special police force was formed just to deal with the unlawful conduct of citizens on Christmas Day.

Three primary things changed all that:

  1. Queen Victoria married her cousin, Germany’s Prince Albert, in 1840, which helped import Germany’s more solemn recognition of Christ’s birth.
  2. The poem, “The Night Before Christmas.” (Originally “A Visit From St. Nicholas”)
  3. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” caused people to re-evaluate the season and how they lived

Perhaps ironically, with the introduction of Santa and Scrooge, and with the commercialization of Christmas, those living in America and England finally got a chance to experience the real meaning of Christmas. Santa put an end to the drunken riots and brought peace to the season, and this allowed millions to reflect on the peace offered by the babe’s birth in a manger. … Though many today may grow tired of the commercialization of Christmas, in reality it has opened the door for Christ to once again become the focal point of the season, and for family, especially children, to be at the heart of the celebration.

I am not a fan of Santa, but I must give credit to how the Santa-thing helped impact the positive ways we celebrate Christmas.

It is indeed also an irony that the big man in the red suit who now usurps the interest of many at Christmas, especially children, should be partly responsible for the freedom we now have to focus on the one who deserves pride of place as the inspiration for the holiday in the first place.

Because you see, Christmas is not about giving, it’s about a gift. May the gift of forgiveness through Jesus, our Lord, fill your heart this year.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas is an amazing holiday.  Easter is the most important event in Christianity, of course, but it had to start with the incarnation.  As radical as the resurrection was, I find the concept that God came into his creation as a human being even more astounding.  And I believe it with every fiber of my body.

Merry Christmas and blessings to all of you!

Coveting apparently not a sin in the UCC

See UCC Action Alert: Stand up for the Common Good this Thanksgiving.

Apparently the fakes in the UCC like false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie ignore the the 10th Commandment just like they ignore so many others (worshiping other gods, condoning the killing of thousands of  innocent human beings per day via abortion, sex outside of one man / one woman marriages, etc.).  Chuck & Co. deeply desire to take money from neighbor A to give to neighbor B.  After all, God must not have distributed it properly in the first place so we need the UCC to straighten out his mistakes.

Because even though neighbor A provides jobs for people that Chuck claims to care about, they must be punished for their success!  Oh, and even with the Bush tax cuts those folks still paid the vast majority of all taxes.

And the UCC wants to consider their takeaway biblical generosity on their part!  How convenient: “Give away” other people’s money.  Release endorphins.  Check.

Hey, I wonder how much Chuck and the UCC Liberals give out of their own pockets?  People who don’t give generously should not even be listened to when it comes to taking money from others by force. Their foundational hypocrisy proves their untrustworthiness.

Consider our very rich President, Barack Obama (a proud member of the UCC, btw):

Barack Obama has a rather poor track record when it comes to charitable contributions. He consistently gave 1 percent of his income to charity. In his most charitable year, 2005, he earned $1.7 million (two and a half times what George W. Bush earned) but gave about the same dollar amount as the President.

Wow, a whole percent!  Hope and change, baby.  Maybe “Reverend” Wright preached on giving on all those Sundays where Barack was too busy to worship.

UCC = Unitarians Coveting (your) Cash

P.S. Remember that one of Chuck’s solutions to reducing poverty is to kill more people in the womb.  And the fact that the ratio of abortions for blacks is 3x that of whites doesn’t seem to bother him at all.  In fact, he supports taxpayer-funded abortions which will increase that ratio.  How ironic for a race-baiter like him . . .

I don’t mail Christmas cards, so . . .

holy_spirit_sky.jpg

Merry Christ-mass and Happy Holy-days to all!

Consider yourself greeted.  Seriously.

(I do this instead of cards because of my fervent Green philosophy.  Or possibly because I’m too lazy.)

Many thanks to all the regular readers and commenters.  I really enjoy your contributions and the community we have here. 

May your hearts and minds be filled with the knowledge of Emmanuel — God with us! — this season.