Friday, December 21, 2007
Merry Christmas.
(2)
I participate in your culture as an outsider, an observer, a commentator. I am not really a part of your culture but I speak your language. Consider this:
Christmas cards sent out: zero.
Christmas cards received: one (From the dentist to whom I recently paid about 2000+ dollars for new dentures. He hopes for new business).
Christmas produces absolutely no anxiety so far as Kootch and I am concerned. We don't build a tree nowadays (but we did so when the kids were still living with us). We don't even exchange gifts. Christmas is just another day with us. True, I give Kootch some sort of gift every year, but that is my cultural inclination (I have cut off the stalker, no more taps).
So far as we are concerned, therefore, Christmas is not a problem with us. Kootch ignores it. I like the music, but I like it less and less as I get older and older. I laugh at the annual 'war on Christmas.' Christmas is your problem. Christmas is not our problem.
What is Christmas? Here is the narrative:
----------
God created man.
Man sinned (displeased god, who is the ultimate control freak).
God punished Man by ejecting man from Supernature into Nature.
God then became the enemy of man, except in special situations. Sheep and goat served to placate a hungry god back in those times. But god was angry and condemned all dead souls to Hell.
After thousands of years of human suffering and a burgeoning population in Hell, god relented and sent Jesus down to Earth in order to become the final and ultimate sacrifice which would serve to counterbalance the emotional effect on god of all those human sins over all those thousands of years. Jesus died a horrible death pleasing to god, thereby freeing future sheep and goat from the threat of 'sacrifice.' Both were allowed to live out their natural lives, free from threats from above.
But Jesus brought good news and bad news: 'Contrary to popular opinion, death is not really the end. Thou shalt live forever. Believe and thou shall be saved, otherwise thou shalt burn, and thou shalt burn forever.'
----------
Jesus, in effect, revealed to Humanity that the downside of god's plan of 'salvation' was eternal fire. Death was no longer the ultimate refuge.
Let me repeat: Death is not the end. You are condemned to live forever. Congratulations. Merry Christmas.
I participate in your culture as an outsider, an observer, a commentator. I am not really a part of your culture but I speak your language. Consider this:
Christmas cards sent out: zero.
Christmas cards received: one (From the dentist to whom I recently paid about 2000+ dollars for new dentures. He hopes for new business).
Christmas produces absolutely no anxiety so far as Kootch and I am concerned. We don't build a tree nowadays (but we did so when the kids were still living with us). We don't even exchange gifts. Christmas is just another day with us. True, I give Kootch some sort of gift every year, but that is my cultural inclination (I have cut off the stalker, no more taps).
So far as we are concerned, therefore, Christmas is not a problem with us. Kootch ignores it. I like the music, but I like it less and less as I get older and older. I laugh at the annual 'war on Christmas.' Christmas is your problem. Christmas is not our problem.
What is Christmas? Here is the narrative:
----------
God created man.
Man sinned (displeased god, who is the ultimate control freak).
God punished Man by ejecting man from Supernature into Nature.
God then became the enemy of man, except in special situations. Sheep and goat served to placate a hungry god back in those times. But god was angry and condemned all dead souls to Hell.
After thousands of years of human suffering and a burgeoning population in Hell, god relented and sent Jesus down to Earth in order to become the final and ultimate sacrifice which would serve to counterbalance the emotional effect on god of all those human sins over all those thousands of years. Jesus died a horrible death pleasing to god, thereby freeing future sheep and goat from the threat of 'sacrifice.' Both were allowed to live out their natural lives, free from threats from above.
But Jesus brought good news and bad news: 'Contrary to popular opinion, death is not really the end. Thou shalt live forever. Believe and thou shall be saved, otherwise thou shalt burn, and thou shalt burn forever.'
----------
Jesus, in effect, revealed to Humanity that the downside of god's plan of 'salvation' was eternal fire. Death was no longer the ultimate refuge.
Let me repeat: Death is not the end. You are condemned to live forever. Congratulations. Merry Christmas.
