Of this, that and the hoidays

May I take the opportunity to wish for Christians a merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah for those of the Jewish faith and also Happy Kwanzaa for those  African Americans who are celebrating their African Heritage and traditional values.

It is easy to assume that our religious beliefs makes us superior and this is reason enough to look down on the religious beliefs and traditions of other people. On the other hand it is obvious that there are many persons who does not observe the religious festivals that take place at this time of the year and so they classify the celebrants as being illiterate and ignorant.

The month of December is fascinating because the Jewish and Christian celebrations that take place in this month are determined by some people to be based on fairy tales and legends. It remain fascinating that the very stories that are being denied, these deniers cannot prove to be not true.

I only recently heard about Kwanzaa and I am not in a position to say anything about the desire by African Americans to celebrate their African heritage and traditional values. I am sure, however, that the heritage and traditional values of ancient Africa have been diluted because the traditions that existed in Africa 500 years ago have certainly been subjected to changes and modifications. Technology and modernization will have rendered many ancient traditions of Africa obsolete.

At the same time keeping the African heritage and traditional values alive may not be as silly an idea as it may appear to some. We who are of African descent and heritage could learn a lesson from the persons of Jewish descent. The Jews are celebrating, Hanukkah, the cleansing of the second temple after it had been desecrated. Historians and Jews maintained that a miracle happened then and remembering the miraculous events are a part of the celebrations. For centuries Jews anticipated a time when they would hold their religious  festivals in Palestine and finally their dreams have become realities. Those of us who are of African descent may one day have to face the reality that we may have to return to the motherland Africa. The motherland Africa may one day have to face the fact that one day she may have to welcome home and accommodate her children of the Diaspora. 

The Christians celebrations of Christmas presents sometimes interesting discussions. Many Protestants take pleasure in denouncing the Roman Catholic Church as being wrong in doctrine and teachings. I once asked a fellow Christian, "If the Roman Catholic Church is as bad as you claim, why do you celebrate Christmas? After all we did get Christmas from the Roman Catholic Church." His response, "Some things are for every Christian and not just the Roman Catholic Church." There are other Christian groups that are quick to point out that there are no commands in the New Testament to keep any day holy or the appointment of any festivals for Christians and so these groups reject every Christian religious festival?celebrations.

One of the things that have generated much debate over the years is the fact that December 25th is celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Christians continue to take a lot of bashing because they cannot explain this date. There are many critics who are quick to point out that shepherds would not be in the fields in winter and others understanding is of such that they do not comprehend that the weather is not the same everywhere at the same time around the globe.  In years gone by knowledge was limited and many persons who possessed the faith but not the knowledge proclaimed the Christmas message. The information about Christmas can be easily accessed by those who oppose celebrating Christmas and those who celebrate Christmas. 

The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th was in 336, during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (he was the first Christian Roman Emperor). A few years later, Pope Julius I officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th December (Copied)

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and Western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated. (Copied)

One of the dangers in our modern world is to deliberately dismiss the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and the Christian celebration of Christmas as just myths and legends. The reality is that there was a temple in Jerusalem and the fact that the time of his birth was unsure does not any less make Jesus Christ real. 

As a person of African descent Kwanzaa is celebrated in the US and we in Jamaica had our ways of keeping our African heritage and traditional values alive. My ignorance of Kwanzaa is of relatively little value. Keeping the African heritage and cultural values alive in the US may or may not be of lasting value

The celebration of the re-dedication of the second temple in Jerusalem and the attending miracle speak to the fact that God is real and provides the proof also that he is concerned about his holiness. Christianity hinges on the fact of the reality of the God of the Jews. The fact that the God of the Jews is alive and real exposes the world to the dangers of ignoring this God.

The celebration of Christmas is about God intervening in the affairs of mankind. It is celebrating the fact that God cares so much about man that he became a man and experienced what it is to be a man. It is being cognizant of the reality that man is so valuable to God that God voluntarily for a time gave up being God in order to bring man back to himself. It becomes scary for man to mock and ridicule God for doing so by insulting and maligning this God.

It is a common concept that no one knows what happens at death so it is okay to ignore, mock and ridicule the Christmas story when in reality the Christmas story is actually preparation for what happens at death. It is the Christmas story which gives life a sense of meaning and which makes life worth living.

"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come if you gamble on its truth and it prove false? i you gain , you gain all; If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then ....."
                                                                                                                             Blaise Pascal

Have a Merry Christmas.

Class and Crass

After 340 years of independence  the United States of America has realized that all its advancements and achievements have very little value and there is now a desire to return to the values held by Europe. The very things that were thrown off and abandoned in order to sever ties with Europe more than three hundred years ago are the very things that the US now realize make the difference between class and crass. This is being borne out through the results of the 2016 US presidential elections. There continues to be a cry "We want to be white again". It is quite convenient to ignore and deny the historical records.

This is not as strange  a phenomena as it may seem because children have a tendency to adopt the values taught by their parents.The US experiment of abandoning the values of Europe have not worked and one only has to look at how the US is fascinated with things British, French and Italian to find the  proof. The values that have been embrace by the US are lacking in substance and lasting effect and these are the things now that the US is seeking. It is time which validate value and permanency but the US is designed to keep the industries going so nothing is built to last. The US is finally learning the lesson that quality supersedes quantity because it abandoned the notion of quality and permanence.

Many centuries ago the Romans empire conquered the Greeks and then discovered that in comparison to the Greeks they as Romans were  boorish. The Greeks were learned, had class and culture and aspired after the finer things in life while the only thing that the Roman empire  had going for it was its military might and prowess. The Romans saw in the Greek the noble traits and qualities that they desired in their children and many Romans citizens had Greek slaves teaching their children how to be classy and have sophistication. It is not by accident that the  Greek  language, learning, philosophy, arts and culture have survived to the present while one of the few things that have survived from the Roman empire is the Olympic games. It has always been known that brains is superior to brawn.

In the US there are many that did not change with the changing times and were left clinging to memories of the "so called good old days". These persons conveniently  forgot that America's wealth was forged through the labor, blood sweat and tears of African slaves. A people dehumanized because they embodied the very qualities that other races envied. The descendants of these slaves continue to be hated and are the scape-goat for those left behind by progress. It is conveniently forgotten that the Africans were enslaved because of their strength. The descendants of these Africans slaves have courage and hardiness in their genes. The fear of many are that with his already superior strength when the playing field is leveled then others will be at a disadvantage because these descendants of former slaves have demonstrated that they not only have superior strength but they are also just as intelligent and brilliant as other ethnic groups. This [laces the descendants of the  former slaves above all other ethnic groups.

The 2016 US presidential election  provided the ideal conditions for a message to be proclaimed that there will be a return to the past or at best this is the hope of some persons. This was at a time when progress was being made into the future. The message embraced was riddance of minorities and those who are different so that once more there will  be a super race. The real problem being that some persons whenever the look at an African American see who he would like to be but lacking in the necessary qualities. The need to prove that you are superior simply means that you are not superior.

Let us forget for a moment the Native Americans who the Europeans found occupying the land and the treaties that the US signed with Mexico and consider the ignoramus. These ignoramus are seeking a return to the past when they need to be retrained for the future. The jobs they once had are now being done by robots. Their jobs have been replaced by technological advancement. However these ignoramus desire to see the heyday of the past. The ignoramus continue gloating and basking  in their ignorance while their inferiors are keeping pace with the advancement into the future.

It was not only the ignoramus that got a glimmer of hope for the future in the 2016 presidential elections because there were many of the educated and elite females who saw a glimmer of hope for the future. It was a glimmer of hope that civility, class and culture may return because if certain classes and groups no longer existed then once more there may happen to appear a semblance of what is in Europe. For these females there was glimmer of a chance to not be seen as a woman but hopefully get a chance to be feminine. The US society long ago rejected feminism and embraced womanhood and now desire to blame other ethnic groups for the lack of opportunity to display femininity. The present culture makes life even worse for these women because not only are they denied being feminine but they are being relegated to being gender neutral.

It remain a pity for the focus was on I and me and  and not we. Quite often it is said if I ever get the chance but no one foresee the headaches that accompany opportunity. The philosophies that were embraced in the early days as being high and noble are now being realize to be equated to cattle let loose in a field to graze.