The Wheel turns! This wonderful pic is via Dr. Zaius. Don't you think it sums up the year fairly well? Bye-bye, Christine O'Donnell.
Showing posts with label war on Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war on Christmas. Show all posts
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Happy Yule
The Wheel turns! This wonderful pic is via Dr. Zaius. Don't you think it sums up the year fairly well? Bye-bye, Christine O'Donnell.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sol, Sun, and Son
Religion, science, and the solstice
This a fine editorial about Yule by James Carroll of the Boston Globe, I first saw over at DailyKos:
...Religion and science occupy separate and opposed spheres, no? Not to our distant forebears, from whom all of our illumination festivals derive. They could not afford the facile dichotomy between the sacred and the profane that defines thinking since the Enlightenment, when people of the West sought to free themselves from the bane of superstition. For most of history, though, religion was not taken to be a flight from rationality, but a mode of it...
Is it me, or have there been less articles this season about the phony 'War on Christmas', and more like the one above? I hope so. Carroll wishes for a peaceful resolution between two parties that are often at odds in our society:
When mystical wonder was walled off from measurable observation, science restricted its range, and religion anathematized critical thinking - disasters both. But the festivals this week, sparked by this morning’s dawn, call to mind the age-old spaciousness of informed imagination. Happily, it remains so. Knowledge is holy. Season’s greetings.
Happy Yule, everyone.
This a fine editorial about Yule by James Carroll of the Boston Globe, I first saw over at DailyKos:
...Religion and science occupy separate and opposed spheres, no? Not to our distant forebears, from whom all of our illumination festivals derive. They could not afford the facile dichotomy between the sacred and the profane that defines thinking since the Enlightenment, when people of the West sought to free themselves from the bane of superstition. For most of history, though, religion was not taken to be a flight from rationality, but a mode of it...
Is it me, or have there been less articles this season about the phony 'War on Christmas', and more like the one above? I hope so. Carroll wishes for a peaceful resolution between two parties that are often at odds in our society:
When mystical wonder was walled off from measurable observation, science restricted its range, and religion anathematized critical thinking - disasters both. But the festivals this week, sparked by this morning’s dawn, call to mind the age-old spaciousness of informed imagination. Happily, it remains so. Knowledge is holy. Season’s greetings.
Happy Yule, everyone.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Nativity, WTF
Unholy dust-up at Nativity church
Once again, our War on Christmas is put to shame. Our Nativity battles are minor league compared to this:
...Members of rival Christian orders have traded blows at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, with four people reported wounded in the fray...Reports say some Orthodox faithful encroached on the Armenian section, prompting pitched battles with brooms...
Brooms! How very Wiccan of them! Now try to visualize this scene in your mind:
...police formed a human cordon to separate the battling dark-robed and bearded priests and deacons, said to number about 80...
US Dominionists are really slacking off. Then again, maybe they had a hand in it:
...One report says the dispute started when the Greek Orthodox contingent wanted to place a ladder over the Armenian portion...
Hmm, ladders!
(Thanx to Green Ghost for the link.)
Once again, our War on Christmas is put to shame. Our Nativity battles are minor league compared to this:
...Members of rival Christian orders have traded blows at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, with four people reported wounded in the fray...Reports say some Orthodox faithful encroached on the Armenian section, prompting pitched battles with brooms...
Brooms! How very Wiccan of them! Now try to visualize this scene in your mind:
...police formed a human cordon to separate the battling dark-robed and bearded priests and deacons, said to number about 80...
US Dominionists are really slacking off. Then again, maybe they had a hand in it:
...One report says the dispute started when the Greek Orthodox contingent wanted to place a ladder over the Armenian portion...
Hmm, ladders!
(Thanx to Green Ghost for the link.)
Monday, December 18, 2006
So This is Christmas...
Christians Protest Halloween Then Push for Christmas
I know a school teacher who had a parent go ballistic just because she dared have a picture of John Lennon in the classroom. Yes, Filthy Hippy numero uno, that evil Destroyer of Worlds--JOHN LENNON. I suppose she'd have been fired on the spot if she wore a pentacle around her neck! I know a couple of Wiccan leaning teachers who feel threatened at work, settling for a closeted existence rather than lose their jobs. (Of course, there's no problem talking about Creationism, or saying Evolution is 'controversial'.) Such bullying becomes brutal around Yule; the phony "War on Christmas" is a holiday centerpiece of Xtian arrogance and selfish entitlement. Any request for tolerance, equal time, or a mere crumb of recognition, gets labeled as "an act of War". I guess such labels appeal to a certain mindset. Kirsten Anderberg's article on the theme of Halloween vs. Christmas lays bare the hypocrisy of the "War on Christmas" bloviators. She covers many topics, supplying much needed fodder against those trying to torpedo Yule. Not only does she come armed with facts, and we know the cold fear 'facts' instill in cultural warriors, but she fights from the gut:
The patriarchal roots of Christianity, the conquer and destroy, or smiting, philosophy of Christianity and the sense of entitlement Christians flaunt, all really explain their campaign against Halloween and pagans. Pagans allow female godheads. Most pagans reject the conquer mentality Christians have towards nature, and instead respect and revere nature... Pagans threaten Christianity due simply to the inclusion of women as godheads and their reverence for nature. Just as feminism threatens sexism, paganism challenges Christianity at the root of its patriarchy and exploitive natures...Today a Christian friend of mine told me how mad she was that they wouldn't let Christmas and prayer into public schools but they have books with witches in them about Halloween in the school library...My first response was "but you have the whole school pledging allegiance to "one nation under *God*" every single morning in most U.S. public schools!" Reality is that Christianity and the male Christian godhead mythology gets much more airplay than WICCA, and all other religions combined, in public schools...
That warrior conqueror attitude is common in Monotheism. Just look at the Crusades! It's one of the reasons so many Wiccans and Pagans think "evangelizing" is in such bad taste. It's so insulting for someone to come up to you and say, "My religion is better than yours, let me now convince you..." Besides this, currently the disease of intolerance has indeed taken root in number of monotheistic religions.
Kirsten has a great site featuring some fine Pagan Politics.
I know a school teacher who had a parent go ballistic just because she dared have a picture of John Lennon in the classroom. Yes, Filthy Hippy numero uno, that evil Destroyer of Worlds--JOHN LENNON. I suppose she'd have been fired on the spot if she wore a pentacle around her neck! I know a couple of Wiccan leaning teachers who feel threatened at work, settling for a closeted existence rather than lose their jobs. (Of course, there's no problem talking about Creationism, or saying Evolution is 'controversial'.) Such bullying becomes brutal around Yule; the phony "War on Christmas" is a holiday centerpiece of Xtian arrogance and selfish entitlement. Any request for tolerance, equal time, or a mere crumb of recognition, gets labeled as "an act of War". I guess such labels appeal to a certain mindset. Kirsten Anderberg's article on the theme of Halloween vs. Christmas lays bare the hypocrisy of the "War on Christmas" bloviators. She covers many topics, supplying much needed fodder against those trying to torpedo Yule. Not only does she come armed with facts, and we know the cold fear 'facts' instill in cultural warriors, but she fights from the gut:
The patriarchal roots of Christianity, the conquer and destroy, or smiting, philosophy of Christianity and the sense of entitlement Christians flaunt, all really explain their campaign against Halloween and pagans. Pagans allow female godheads. Most pagans reject the conquer mentality Christians have towards nature, and instead respect and revere nature... Pagans threaten Christianity due simply to the inclusion of women as godheads and their reverence for nature. Just as feminism threatens sexism, paganism challenges Christianity at the root of its patriarchy and exploitive natures...Today a Christian friend of mine told me how mad she was that they wouldn't let Christmas and prayer into public schools but they have books with witches in them about Halloween in the school library...My first response was "but you have the whole school pledging allegiance to "one nation under *God*" every single morning in most U.S. public schools!" Reality is that Christianity and the male Christian godhead mythology gets much more airplay than WICCA, and all other religions combined, in public schools...
That warrior conqueror attitude is common in Monotheism. Just look at the Crusades! It's one of the reasons so many Wiccans and Pagans think "evangelizing" is in such bad taste. It's so insulting for someone to come up to you and say, "My religion is better than yours, let me now convince you..." Besides this, currently the disease of intolerance has indeed taken root in number of monotheistic religions.
Kirsten has a great site featuring some fine Pagan Politics.
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