Reply
Fri 1 Dec, 2006 08:36 am
Im not particularly religous.This doesnt have to be just about Christmas.
I dont necessarily believe that Jesus existed or the stories in teh Bible, they are nice stories so I think about them every now and again.
Ive no idea the significance of a decorated tree in the living room but the idea of decorating one and having it in the living room makes me smile!
Certain celebratory events happen because of beliefs thousands of years old.
Why do you have to believe in it to join in?
Surely it can be seen as a nice social event where youget together with family and friends and share good time?
Your thoughts.
I believe in it.
I believe that it's a great idea to liven up the dullest, coldest, yuckiest days of the year with a big bright fun celebration, and that by the time the celebration is over the days will be getting longer and the sun brighter and spring will be on its way -- if it'll take a while.
I think that's (as you say too) the basic idea of December celebrations and all the other stuff is overlay.
sozobe wrote:I believe in it.
I believe that it's a great idea to liven up the dullest, coldest, yuckiest days of the year with a big bright fun celebration, and that by the time the celebration is over the days will be getting longer and the sun brighter and spring will be on its way -- if it'll take a while.
I think that's (as you say too) the basic idea of December celebrations and all the other stuff is overlay.
I believe in it too.
I believe that it's a great idea to liven up the hottest, stickiest, yuckiest days of the year with a big bright fun celebration, and that by the time the celebration is over the days will be getting shorter and the sun less intense and autumn will be on its way -- if it'll take a while.
:wink:
I did think of that!
It originated up in my hemisphere, though, so <raspberry>.
I guess it's a kind of a 4th of July thing for y'all.
What do you celebrate during the worst part of your winter?
There's not really anything mid-winter. There is some "Christmas in July" activity, based around enjoying christmas traditions like hot meals in cold weather - anytime in July - restaurant marketing idea really. I have never seen snow though, so it's really not very European-ish. We really do enjoy just not being hot for a few weeks.
Lowest ever temp: 36.1F
Highest ever temp: 109.8F
xmas is nothing more than a social occasion with no significance to Jesus at all. if it was about his birth it would be in march, when the bible says he was actually born, not december.
sozobe wrote:I believe that it's a great idea to liven up the dullest, coldest, yuckiest days of the year with a big bright fun celebration, and that by the time the celebration is over the days will be getting longer and the sun brighter and spring will be on its way -- if it'll take a while.
That's the basic provenance of the pagan tree tradition. Because they stay green throughout the seasons, evergreens symbolized everlasting life, and the hope for the return of spring, and the regeneration of vegetal life upon which all other life depends.
Re: Whats belief got to do with it?
material girl wrote:Im not particularly religous.This doesnt have to be just about Christmas.
I dont necessarily believe that Jesus existed or the stories in teh Bible, they are nice stories so I think about them every now and again.
Ive no idea the significance of a decorated tree in the living room but the idea of decorating one and having it in the living room makes me smile!
Certain celebratory events happen because of beliefs thousands of years old.
Why do you have to believe in it to join in?
Surely it can be seen as a nice social event where youget together with family and friends and share good time?
Your thoughts.
You don't have to believe in Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, Veterans Day, Grandparents Day, Groundhog Day, etc. to join in them - you have free will! :wink:
Well, there is little truth in most biblical stories but its a fact that the Old Testament - written during approximately 600 years - consists of various texts (Yahvist or Sacerdotal) that contradict themselves. Human intervention and revisionism had distorted most stories.... and oh yes, there is the controversial guy...........Paul...
Only people who have lost their way would claim something man made (i.e. Christmas) to be a valid and legitimate act of worship that would be acceptable to God.
Only acts of worship that are decreed by God will be accepted.
But many people just use Christmas as another excuse to have fun and be 'merry' (i.e. get drunk)
Establishing true worship is following Gods commands, enjoning the good and forbidding the evil.
"Every innovation is misguidance and going astray" Reported by Abu Daawood (no. 4607), at-Tirmidhee (no. 2676)
"
and every innovation is misguidance and all misguidance is in the Hellfire." Reported by an-Nasaa'ee (1/224) from Jaabir bin Abdullaah
One thing I've noticed about the Muslims on this board.....
Not once do I recall seeing a genuine question being asked in the hope of learning something new. It seems the Muslims here already have all the answers they require, and their only purpose here is to demonstrate those answers and condemn all other thoughts to hell.
"Every innovation is misguidance"....I'm speechless.
Eorl wrote:One thing I've noticed about the Muslims on this board.....
Not once do I recall seeing a genuine question being asked in the hope of learning something new. It seems the Muslims here already have all the answers they require, and their only purpose here is to demonstrate those answers and condemn all other thoughts to hell.
"Every innovation is misguidance"....I'm speechless.
Well I'm taking a Jesus History class next semester even though I'm Muslim. I'm interested in learning about how the Christians view him which may help me understand their views.
But there's Islam accepts all the Prophets and we do not differentiate between them. From Abraham, Solomon, Moses, Jesus, Jacob, etc. However, it seems Christians refuse to accept Muhammad as a Prophet even though Jesus told his followers of this beforehand.
Quote:"Every innovation is misguidance"....I'm speechless.
Kind of explains the end of a scientific culture which brought us, those who don't see innovation as misguidance, algebra, astro-physics, hydraulics and a plethora of other disciplines.
But back to the thread:
Have yourself the best time with the best of your friends and family. Share some love. Imagine Peace.
Innovate something.
Joe(next year all our troubles will be miles away)Nation
Eorl wrote:One thing I've noticed about the Muslims on this board.....
Not once do I recall seeing a genuine question being asked in the hope of learning something new. It seems the Muslims here already have all the answers they require, and their only purpose here is to demonstrate those answers and condemn all other thoughts to hell.
"Every innovation is misguidance"....I'm speechless.
"This day those who disbelieve despair about your religion: so dread them not but rather dread Me. This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor towards you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion."(Al-Ma'idah 5:3)
If it is perfect, then everything added is diluting the religion.
Personally, I'm in the Many Mansions tradition.
Abid wrote:Eorl wrote:One thing I've noticed about the Muslims on this board.....
Not once do I recall seeing a genuine question being asked in the hope of learning something new. It seems the Muslims here already have all the answers they require, and their only purpose here is to demonstrate those answers and condemn all other thoughts to hell.
"Every innovation is misguidance"....I'm speechless.
"This day those who disbelieve despair about your religion: so dread them not but rather dread Me. This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor towards you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion."(Al-Ma'idah 5:3)
If it is perfect, then everything added is diluting the religion.
If it is perfect, then all Muslims are in complete agreement. This seems not to be the case. I'm guessing all those who disagree with you about anything, are not
real muslims?
OK, but I ain't walkin' with him through Customs.
The greatest delusion, the most perfect one, is the delusion in which one believes anything is perfect. A person has to constantly avoid looking at reality.
We've seen this kind of thing before, the Roman Catholic Church decreed that the Earth, created by a perfect God, must not orbit the Sun, but the Sun must orbit around that perfect Earth. Not only that, but that same perfect Earth must be perfectly round. You laugh, but that sort of belief in the perfect kept Western observers from publishing their not-so perfect calculations for a thousand years. That's right.
Not only that, but we had perfect bodies, I'll bet that came as a big surprise to a lot of people, but it also meant that you couldn't do operations on the flesh, that you couldn't even do research on cadavers to learn how that "perfect" body operated, you couldn't do blood transfusions or, horrors, examine any of the cells or blood or bone coming from those perfect bodies. Pretty funny now.
Do you know what's really funny? When Western science finally got the courage to tell the Church Fathers to bugger off in the early 1100s those scientists discovered that MUSLIMS had had the correct calculations all along and that MUSLIMS were doing all kinds of things very much like vascular surgery. (The scientists found this stuff out from talking to the returning Crusaders of the time.) So, the West really got busy and told the Church to attend to Sunday and leave the rest of the week to science and commerce. We, meaning the West, were way behind the Arab world.
Then another funny thing happened. Constantinople fell to the Muslim Turks in 1435 and they, and the rest of the Muslim world, locked out the West. The mullahs, not the learned scientists, of the Muslim world took control and used their perfect book to hold that world still. So, while the West sailed around them to the Orient and sailed further West to the New World, the Muslim world sat, nearly frozen in time. So for the next five hundred years, it was the West who progressed humanity into the modern world we have today, not so perfect, but better in the Year 2000 than it was in the Year 1000.
So, thanks Muslims, you could have been a contender, but you let a bunch of guys hold you up on a delusion.
When the oil drillers arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1939, they found that there, not far from where hydraulics were invented a thousand years before Mohammed, there wasn't a single Arab engineer with the knowledge to build a pipeline. That's what perfect gets you.
Joe(it will drive you crazy)Nation
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace