Toto

Here's how rational he is:

No word in how many of those angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Sheshbazzar

nor will they give up their miscegenated jackass, unfortunately.

Αλεξαμενος ϲεβετε θεον. indeed.

stephan huller

But in all fairness, those are the stupid beliefs that he was born with. I have a soft spot for tradition. I like going into a restaurant for instance and having my Chinese food really Chinese. You know like the half-dirty iron tea kettles which always leak. The waitress who can barely speak English and asks what the man wants to order before the lady. Indeed the real test of a truly Chinese restaurant is when it is lunch time and the restaurant is really packed and they ask if you want to sit at a big table with other people.

So let's not talk about religion. I like traditional food. I like traveling to places and feeling I am in another world not a familiar one. To this end, I like Benny Tsedaka the Samaritan to come over to my house for Xmas. He's like a little piece of history. If Benny's descendants forgot how to sacrifice the lambs at Passover it would be a bad thing. In order to have them carry out their practices in the right way they have to believe in God. I am sorry the deconversion of the whole world is not a good thing.

In the same way I want there to be poverty in the world so that young women have a reason to sleep with older men beyond their physical prime. If all the ills of the world were corrected and it was made exactly according to the contemporary 'ideal' the world gets worse not better.

There is no doubt that I can never vote for the Republican party because I think the religious people in this country are nuts. I never want to see another Terry Schiavo as long as I live. Nevertheless it would be a sad thing to see traditional America disappear. There are a lot of great things in this country which people take for granted. I was an outsider to this country before becoming naturalized.

That's why I don't try and change anything or anyone. If people want to give up on their traditions that's fine. I just don't believe things ever get better. Sure things weren't great in the past either. But the truth is that when you come in touch - I mean literally, physically touch the living past - whether its food, culture, women and of course religion - you get a sense of what it is to be human.

Sheshbazzar

I hear ya stephan, some of favorite family members are Muslim's with Middle Eastern origins, and man o man is it interesting and fascinating to socialize with them, I'm not a Muslim by any stretch, but I wouldn't think of wanting to change my Muslim cousins or trying to extract them from their rich cultural heritage, Heck, I feel the same way about most of my backwoods Christian Kentucky kinfolk, nice colorful and interesting people, unless they get caught up in pushing some 'hate-of-the-month' Church agenda.
The Japanese immigrant owner of our favorite Oriental restaurant has been a good friend of ours for years, and we have held many family get-togethers enjoying the wonderful food and hospitality she has unfailingly provided.
I'm not a Catholic, and have a very low opinion of the Catholic religion, yet nonetheless sent my son to a major Catholic University, from which he has received several Degrees, and with over 20 years of association, is a prominent Alumni holding chairs in several policy making positions.
All of my life I have loved and embraced human diversity, and get along well with members of almost any ethnic or religious group that does not promote hatreds, or talk bad about others. Those that do, I avoid like the plague, as I love my friends regardless of race, religious background, or their sexual orientations. All of these have greatly enriched my life.
I don't believe in the Easter bunny or that Jebus is my savior, but I celebrate and enjoy Easter, I don't believe in ghosts or goblin's but I celebrate and enjoy Halloween, I don't believe in Santa Clause or that Jebus was born on Christmas day, but I enjoy and celebrate Christmas, or Kawanzaa
I don't believe the religious teachings of my own congregation, but when I am with them I celebrate and enjoy the Seven annual Feasts of Yahweh.

Life in all of its diversity is rich and so wonderful. Unlike so many others whom are dissatisfied and troubled, I love the life and all the friends, and experiences that I have had, yes even the sad and troubling ones.
My heaven is not somewhere in someplace far off, but is present in the life I that live in the here and now.
What a wonderful world! I cannot but wish that others would appreciate and make the best out of the present, rather than despising the moment, dissatisfied and critical, always missing the beauty and the opportunity to love and to cherish that now is.
Then they die, having missed out on what's best of this world, and that is really sad and tragic, for such never will find their heaven.

Short form; Life is what you make of it. Heaven is where you make it.

Jaybees

Sigh!

This brings back memories of a grubby Chinese restaurant back in my student days. The only waiter spoke just one word of English: "OK." It was the answer to any order, question or comment. It really didn't matter, though, since there were only a half-dozen items on the menu which were served randomly as the ancient woman in the kitchen turned them out.

Chili

Interesting, and I actually think he's been to the protestant library to often for his own good because in Catholicism Christ was born and not Jesus, ever. Maybe also he has been watching Disney to much instead a good movies like Fiddler on the Roof where tradition counts above all, and is from where the Christ-child is born.

Then he denies myth as fiction and is totally wrong about the ox and the mule as they are a must inside the stable to confirm the Immaculate Conception when the shepherds looked in and understood what they saw.

I.e. duhhhh, these are the same shepherds who were 'out of order' taking turns herding sheep on a midwinter night . . . to say that something was wrong with the mind of the Jew they called Joseph, and these then were his shepherds as eidetic images (read insights) that he had created by himself and for himself only. Obviously, the sheep they were herding were the sum-total of his accomplishments in evidence of the wily carpenter/sinner he was as co-creator with God, (and in essence saw the contradicton he was as an upright Jew to himself).

The evidence of this is that the donkey Mary rode-in-on was the body of Joseph now beyond theology (with his own eidelons-on-the-run), wherefore then Mary --who presides over the TOL in the mind of Joseph--could lead him to wherever She wanted to go, and for her, Beth-le-hem was the place to be in the renewal of life as it is.

The Virgin Birth itself is symptomatic by the absense of the donkey inside the stable, where now both Mary and Joseph are kneeling (consciously) beside the manger in ecstasy enduring until wisdom arrived when the shepherds looked in and understood what they saw. To 'understand' here brings Joseph's involutional melancholy to a sudden stop in the renewal of life as indeed Christ was born unto him or they would not understand, and that so confirms the Immaculate Conception as a opposed to a one night stand altar call event.

The ox and the mule represent the now passified Adam and Eve operating in the TOK of Joseph, to say that Bethlehem is a non-rational event, and is why the ox is an ox and the mule is a mule and no longer the temple tramp (lesser serpent) that she once was as per Gen.3:15 still effective today.

Perspicuo

Wow. Trippy.

squiz

Please tell me more about Germany's model of taxing religious bodies. My understanding is the opposite: church members in Germany pay church tax (additional 8-9% of income tax paid), and the state additionally subsidises many of the churches activities (such as church charities like "Caritas", religious instruction in schools, training of priests and theology studies in universities). http://www.kirchensteuern.de/Texte/K...nanzierung.htm
The big two churches (Catholic and Lutheran) in Germany are among the richest in the world.

stephan huller

Most of my information about German religious taxation came from my father who was an athiest. He made it seem that religious people paid an addition tax rate which isn't true. He wouldn't know because he didn't attend any religious services and thus wouldn't have identified himself as a religious person. Perhaps it was slightly different under Hitler too. When he came out of Siberia he only worked for a little while in Germany before moving on to England and then Canada. Thanks for pointing that out.

steve_bnk

This is what Christian theologians do, they theologicize on the birth date of non exoetrent people.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19699581

'...Germany's Roman Catholics are to be denied the right to Holy Communion or religious burial if they stop paying a special church tax.

A German bishops' decree which has just come into force says anyone failing to pay the tax - an extra 8% of their income tax bill - will no longer be considered a Catholic.

The bishops have been alarmed by the number of Catholics leaving the Church.

They say such a step should be seen as a serious act against the community.

All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property..'