Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:23 pm:
I have seen TSO in concert twice...it was truly a great show the first time...Court would say "Amazing"....the second time a year later was virtually a note for note duplication.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:28 pm:
oh and while we are at it there is literally no way he looked anything like the little white baby we see in every manger. Last time i checked Bethlehem was in Palestine. How many strait up White Palestinians have you met? I would go with zero.....
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:42 pm:
I'm wondering where all these pagans are celebrating the holiday with gifts and such in America. How did America come to be home for them?
My point is that not long ago America paid much better recognition to the holiday. The rampant corruption of it in secular music and the like is fairly recent. Your pagan celebration influence then is unrelated.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:51 pm:
Not long ago, Christmas was BANNED. Puritans hated Christmas. At one time it was celebrated with drunken revelry and promiscuity, called "misrule". I'd say rampant consumerism is a moral improvement.
~SM
(Message edited by Swordsman on December 08, 2010)
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:53 pm:
>>> oh and while we are at it there is literally no way he looked anything like the little white baby we see in every manger. Last time i checked Bethlehem was in Palestine. How many strait up White Palestinians have you met? I would go with zero.....
No way? He was Jewish. Jews are usually fair skinned, yes? Your logic assumes that the ethnic composition of Bethlehem, the city of Joseph's birth, hasn't changed in over 2000 years. It sure as heck wasn't "Palestine" (Arab) then as it is now. And Mary was from Nazareth presumably.
Did the natives of Manhattan island or of San Francisco 2,000 years ago look like those of today?
Jesus could have been a black man for all I care. His appearance other than being that of a human means little.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:53 pm:
Blake i do however happen to agree with you on this one. No matter when Jesus was born or what he looked like his birth should be celebrated with charity and good will especially for those who have nothing. I see to many people with hundreds of dollars of presents walking right by the salvation army guy. Or there's Target who have banned them from collecting out front. It amazes me that people celebrate his birth by spiting on those he cherished.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 04:59 pm:
>>> Not long ago...
For 22 years in Boston beginning in 1659. Dude. LOL!
>>> ... Christmas was BANNED. Puritans hated Christmas.
Christmas wasn't banned, nor was it hated by Puritans. They hated the secularized revelry which they viewed as a corruption of the holy celebration of Jesus' birth. They very much revered the holy day and all it meant to their faith.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 05:08 pm:
Innes,
I don't read fiction hardly at all. I might see it on film if it ever makes it to that media. I did read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand this Summer. It about wore me OUT! Someone needs to rewrite that excellent story, but pare it down to about half its current length. Geesh!
Why would I need to put my faith aside to read the book?
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 05:17 pm:
I didn't mean that you had to put your faith aside, as that's an inate thing that I doubt you'd be able to do.
What I meant was that, as a work of fiction, you wouldn't be able to read & enjoy it while holding your own religious yardstick up to it, if you follow my meaning.
It raises some interesting questions about religion in the US nonetheless.
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 11:04 pm:
Song I grew to hate in college? The Who carol, "Fa-who-do-re, da-who-do-re..." from the Grinch cartoon.
Of course, our holiday perversion didn't help...got the cartoon, on video, no commercials (no breathers for 28 minutes). Every time they say or sing "who", either as a word or part of a word ("who-ville" counts)...you drink.
>>> old church slavonic translations of greek orthodoxy it is not a virgin birth for Mary but a birth during the time of the virgin...VIRGO
There is no mention of the virgin birth? For instance, how do those translations describe Joseph's dealing with the issue?
I s'pose the one doesn't refute the other.
Interesting take on the December 25 time frame is that it connotes the conception, aka the immaculate conception, which makes sense as the REALLY miraculous event most deserving celebration.
What did people in that part of the world look like 2000 years ago? Hard to tell. Many empires conquered that part of the world before and after Jesus lived. The ethnicity of the people living there now could be quite different than it once was.
