Christmas- My Take

There was a time when Protestants were the majority religion in America, when Christmas trees were put up only by minority immigrants, when Christmas was a religious affair. At first a majority of Americans did not celebrate Christmas out of fear that the holiday was too catholic. In the 3rd century C.E. what is now our beloved Santa Clause was actually a bishop named Saint Nicholas! Santa evolved into the fat jolly magical gift giving man in red due to newspaper articles and poems in American media that portrayed him as such, which deviated far from the original religious figure. Now Christmas in America has less religious overtones and has become consumed by commercialism. People become far too stressed this time of year while trying to scrounge up enough money to buy presents. Shopping lines are long and aggravating, while clocks tick away and chip away at the season. Married with the irritating chill of the winter season and the toiling to keep houses and children warm this holiday becomes an altogether preposterous strain on our attempts at cheer. As children count presents under the Chrismas tree, echoing throughout the world will be the sounds of little spoiled children saying things like, "Hey why did I get one present less than last year," and other children hesitantly inquiring, "Will Santa Clause visit our house this year?" With all this turmoil it's hard to imagine how we ever find time to focus on the real meaning of Christmas-- family. Unfortunately Christmas has become a race towards mass consumption at it's most chaotic and extreme. What would Christmas be if we did not have money for special treats and fancy china to set them on, expensive trees and ornaments and presents to set decoratively beneath? What would be left is the original intent of Christmas as it was when adopted in the Victorian era. Christmas use to be centered around the family, and for some groups still is. My Personius side of my family has worked hard to keep the Christmas spirit of family togetherness alive, but I pity those groups that undermine the importance of family during Christmas. I appreciate the festivities centered around tradition and family that occur in my Personius side of the family. It gives me a sense of belonging during Christmas and replaces the chaos of gift buying with a focus on relatives. It's a time to get to know your family members and play with the children in the family. It's a time to cook and decorate with those you love. It's a time to help the family create a sense of merriment and magic for the children who do or should believe in Santa Clause and his reindeer. It's a time of imagination and celebration, celebration of family, celebration of warmth and giving of time, and simply celebrating for the sake of celebration. I believe that Christmas transforms the season and can even transform families when the focus moves away from the material and on the transcendent aspects of merriment, wonderment, and love.

My cousin and I have been Christmas caroling all season long.  Check our version of Walking in a Winter Wonder Land on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FVvMPXHYwg

Ben Franklin's Take on Religion

Benjamine was raised a presbyterian.  He didn't agree with the doctrines surrounding the eternal decrees of God, election (that God selected those he chose to save), and reprobation (the thought that we are all damned to hell). He held respect for all religions, seeing them as fundamentally the same- thought they used differing doctrines not to encourage morality but to create divisions between people of different belief systems.  Church services had too much emphasis on doctrine and not enough on morality, so Benjamine did not attend church on a regular basis.  He often disagreed with the interpretations of the minister so created "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion."
These are the 13 virtues Benjamine Franklin outlines in his autobiography:
1) Temperance
eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation
2) Silence
speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation
3) Order
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4) Resolution
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve
5) Frugality
make no expense but do good to others or yourself; waste nothing
6) Industry
lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions
7) Sincerity
use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly
8) Justice
wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty
9) Moderation
avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve
10) Cleanliness
tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation
11) Tanquility
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable
12) Chastity
Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation
13) Humility
imitate Jesus and Socrates

Religion- What's your take?

What a nice man.  He must have really loved his dinosaurs.  Oh wait...those came before man.  Somehow Adam and Eve managed to escaped them on the seventh day of Earth's existance....

Religion, religion, religion, oh why can't you make up your mind?  Over the course of history, religion has been notorious for shifting with the ebb and flow of unstable human idealism.  If men thought that the ideal piety included plainess, obediency, bible worship, and fear then that's what religious doctrine turned into.  However, when men became more populist in their ideals and demanded freedom and independence from church run governments, religion became much more accessable to regular folks and much more entertaining and passionate during services.  In America, religion began as an unforgiving, dry dogma that saught to instill the fear of an angry god in its listeners.  You had to be chosen by clergy for acceptance into the church, and acceptance was priviledged only to those who had been "saved."  To show that you had been saved, one would send a detailed description of the saving, in written form (and remember most colonists were illiterate), to the head of the church and wait for approval. 

"Our God is an awesome God..."

Well since those God-worried purists, religion has evolved into something more translucent in its meaning and application on the whole, and religious beliefs are unique to each individual.  This is great, in my opinion.  However, religion falls short of being ideal, in my mind, because there is far too much politics raging in religious relms today.  I don't like the idea of a religious authority preaching politics because believers are likely to trust the judgement of the authority rather than research the political issues at hand and form a more educated stand.  Just because a preacher proclaims something and has a plethera of biblical knowledge to back his claims doesn't make him all-knowing and eternally right.  When religion functions in this way it mutes the freedom of believers to think for themselves, a scary thought in itself, and allows people to adopt the falty ideas of a few popular men who afterall are just men and have every opportunity to be wrong.

The Jesus fish stick.  A message from God perhaps?  Or just a fried piece of frozen seafood?

Me personally, I adhere to no organized religion.  For that matter, I have adopted no popular law of morality of even mode of mentality.  I am a Freethinker of the modern day (though I was not born a jew I still would like to adopt the term).  My opinions and standards are always changing to fit a world that never stands still.  I learn and I grow.  Self development is my creed.  Altruism is something I would strive for more arduously if I wasn't born into such a egocentric culture.  However, I don't do anything out of influence from a divine role model (such as Jesus).  Humans are born with reason, but in religion we so often sacrifice reason and investigative behavior for blind acceptance.  Like Thomas Pain I would be so advantageous as to dubb the following as manifestations of an ignorant scared authority-fearing population: literally interpreting the bible, believing in Jesus as a divine man who died for our sins when there is no evidence of that, believing fullheartedly in miracles and using them as evidence that there is a God, disclaiming the findings of science and historical research (that give evidence against bibical stories).  Mary had an affair with a Roman soldier and covered it up by telling her husband that God had impregnated her.  There is more evidence for that than for the fantasy of miraculous conception.  Noah can talk to birds and send one on a lengthy journey to find land and report the finding back to him?  I think not.  However, my parent's african love bird did escape from their house one day and did return after a few hours of being called for. That I do believe.

Well this blog has gotten long enough.  Enough about me.  What's your take?   

This is my cute little nephew...who isn't quite so little anymore.

Visit the Chuckanut trails sometimes.  Gorgeous.

Pretty Bellingham Skies

This is the family cat.  His name is pewter.  He is a very ferocious beast

(who wouldn't stand still for his close up!)

Health Care Conspiracy? Hitler wasn't our president last I checked.- What's Your Take?

NOW COME ON NOW.  ARE YOU SERIOUS???

While I was walking through red square, I was filled with relaxation and relief for having just been released from my 2 hour long sociolinguistics class.  I thought nothing could disturb my blissful feeling.  But then there it was.  A table with pictures of Obama.  These weren't just your ordinary media pictures.  They weren't the glorifying pictures we usually see of our beloved black/white president.  No. In these pictures, someone had copy and pasted a mustache on him strikingly similar to that worn by Adolf Hitler.  Now really?  Is this what some people have succumbed to?  Is this a racist group or just a bunch of over analytical conspiracy theorist attention seekers?  I don't think I was the only student who looked at this table with laughter and bewilderment at the rediculousness displayed in poster form and pamphlet form before our eyes.  So I went up to the table and asked one of the activists what his opinion on the subject was.  Through yellow stained teeth the tall and lanky (by nature physically imposing) man looked down at me (like I must have been hiding under a rock for my whole life if I didn't know what his opinion on the matter would obviously be) and said, "You don't know?  You don't know why we would give him a Hitler mustache????"  I said no, that I had no idea and repeated that I would like to hear his opinion on the matter.  So apparantly this man thinks Obama is Hitler reincarnated because of something to do with health care reform.  Apparantly Obama is trying to get something about euthanasia approved in congress.....according to this guy, if this was approved Obama would be able to kill off patients who were costing too much to treat or who couldn't be healed.......(wow).....(not even sure I get it).....so then he said Hitler too got the same euthanasia practices approved which resulted in the mass genocide of the jews and therefore this man at the table basically communicated to me that Obama must be conspiring towards genocide.....genocide of who?  I don't know. Unfortunately I felt like my brain had just been sqeezed like a grapefruit of all reason and in shock couldn't come up with a rebuttle for such an insane idea.  The pamphlets I was given will be living a happy life in the garbage can stationed behind a friendly cashier in the VU Market.  So if you know more than me on the subject or you believe in the conspiracy, please do enlighten me.  Otherwise, I'm going to forever see it as rediculous until perhaps I am euthenized in a mass genocide of Americans... or something...  

Sensa- What's Your Take?

Sensa is a tasteless odorless chemical meant to be sprinkled on food.  It's supposed to work with your brain in regulating appetite.  The idea is to get people to eat less.  Apparently it has no side effects.  What do you think is up with that?

A Rant on Roommates- What's Your Take?

 

Give me all your rent money!

So I was sitting in Biology 101 Lab (yay for GUR's!) and I started talking to my lab partners about roommates.  One of the nice girls said she couldn't stand being the one to request rent every month because if her roommate didn't have the money she would feel bad and let it slide.  Maybe it was the age difference (me 21 and her 18) that made me stare in stunned amusement at her comment as she laughed nervously and batted her hair back.  I respect the sentiment that one wouldn't want to get on their friends bad side by demanding something as bombastic as rent! (OH NO NOT THAT!  HOW COULD SHE???!!!- note the sarcasm) On the other hand, this is college!  We are moved out of our parents' houses!  We have jobs (or should have jobs) and we have priorities and responsibilities.  If I was this girl I would do my hypothetical roommate a favor and say, "Hey princess if you can't hand over the rent at the time it's due, you shouldn't be living here.  Go back to your parents if you expect someone else to pay your way because I'm not doing it."  In the real world we all learn that no one is going to save our asses in a pinch.  We all have to learn to be responsible for our own living expenses, our own fuck ups, our own needs and desires.  Because I know how hard life can get, I'm not about to become a safety net for someone else.  It's hard enough dealing with my own shit.  It just makes me mad that people can't stand up for themselves and they would rather go into financial debt than offend someone.  Oh well....what do you think?

A Rant on Romantic Relationships- What's Your Take?

What a Fairytale Love is...

Well I deleted the old post to say:

I guess love is a fairytale, but that's what makes it so worth the trouble.  When we love we try to transcend the world, we try to escape reality, we put our partner on a pedistool; it's the ideal form of humanity where acceptance and understanding reign supreme; it's what we all strive to give and receive.  Therefore I will not begrudge love any longer just because I have lost it a time or two.  I will wait excitedly for the day when the right love comes into my life, and I will not be afraid of its imperfections or run when the fairytale becomes fragile or torn.