Happy Christmas

[sum]

I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year.

My wish for a very happy Christmas is also for SAM and Garudaman along with their co-religionists. Hopefully they will see the light.

sum

[Nosuperstition]

I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year.

My wish for a very happy Christmas is also for SAM and Garudaman along with their co-religionists. Hopefully they will see the light.

sum

How dare you tell them to leave behind the One True God and ask them to join you pagan celebrations with the tree and all that associated stuff?How dare you ask them to become apostates thereby risking their lives?

[manfred]

I too wish everyone a happy Christmas.

[survivor]

I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year.

My wish for a very happy Christmas is also for SAM and Garudaman along with their co-religionists. Hopefully they will see the light.

sum

'Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy New Year -2018', everyone.

[Ariel]

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas. Mine was not too great. Husband and I had/have the flu, while we still had/have to visit my 96 year old mother who is getting worse and worse, and who needs more and more attention. She still lives at home.

Anyway. Today we have a day off, and we can feel sorry for ourselves, a whole beautiful day long. How nice....

I am sure next Christmas will be better.

[survivor]

......Duplicate

[survivor]

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas. Mine was not too great. Husband and I had/have the flu, while we still had/have to visit my 96 year old mother who is getting worse and worse, and who needs more and more attention. She still lives at home.

Anyway. Today we have a day off, and we can feel sorry for ourselves, a whole beautiful day long. How nice....

I am sure next Christmas will be better.

Sorry to hear you and your family are not feeling well, Ariel.
Hope, you guys recover soon and have a great 'New Year's celebration'.

[Nosuperstition]

red things hung on the Christmas tree supposedly represent the blood of Diana,the queen of heaven in pagan Germanic and Norse mythologies denoting fertility of the females.Muslims might not accept the pagan Christmas tree as long as such things still continue to decorate the tree.

[manfred]

red things hung on the Christmas tree supposedly represent the blood of Diana,the queen of heaven in pagan Germanic and Norse mythologies denoting fertility of the females.Muslims might not accept the pagan Christmas tree as long as such things still continue to decorate the tree.

Diana is the GREEK goddess of the hunt and has nothing whatever to do with Germanic or Norse mythology. And a "Christmas tree" is a relatively new "tradition" at Christmas, dating back only to the early 19th century. What is slightly true in your statement is that it was a sort of romantic revival of an old Nordic custum to bring evergreen plants into the house for winter as a reminder that the harsh season will end.

The reason why the "Christmas tree" became widely popular is because the German husband of Queen Victoria, prince Albert, introduced it to Britain, and thus it spread through many regions of what was then the "empire" as well as other parts of Europe.

The Christmas tree is an incidental tradition to Christmas, and many celebrate Christmas without it. For those who do have it, it is simply a symbol of hope. Just as the persisting green of the pine in the hardest of winters promises a change and return to better times, Christmas is a promise of change: God became man, and this is the biggest change and sign of hope possible. A small child in a stable, a sign of hope for salvation. Christmas is a promise which is delivered at Easter. Just as this newborn received Gold, incense and myrrh to emphasise his role as hope for humanity, so also the Christmas three is decorated to emphasise that it seen as a symbol of hope.

So the old symbolism in the Norse tradition, a pointer to better times ahead, is given a quite new and deeper meaning.

As to Muslims not being able to "accept" this symbolism, I have no problems at all with that, in fact some Christians also do not not. However, those do not go round murdering those who have a differing view. Muslims as a rule are very insecure about their own religion which is where the intolerance comes from.

If a Muslim decides to convert to Christianity, there are few who would prescribe to them how to keep Christmas or any other holiday. However, from my experience, it is not Christmas customs they have problems with. For many of such converts, the last thing they "relax" are the dietary rules of Islam, specially the eating of pork. They can take comfort though from the fact that the Christian God cares little about their dinner.

[manfred]

... And specially for NS and those how don;t like Christmas, let me add a politically correct Christmas greeting and New Year's wish:

"I wonder if I might crave your momentary indulgence in order to discharge a by no means disagreeable obligation which has, over the years, become more or less established practice in government service as we approach the terminal period of the year — calendar, of course, not financial — in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Week Fifty-One — and submit to you, with all appropriate deference, for your consideration at a convenient juncture, a sincere and sanguine expectation — indeed confidence — indeed one might go so far as to say hope — that the aforementioned period may be, at the end of the day, when all relevant factors have been taken into consideration, susceptible to being deemed to be such as to merit a final verdict of having been by no means unsatisfactory in its overall outcome and, in the final analysis, to give grounds for being judged, on mature reflection, to have been conducive to generating a degree of gratification which will be seen in retrospect to have been significantly higher than the general average."

[Nosuperstition]

And specially for NS and those how don;t like Christmas

I do not have an axe to grind against Christmas.You are putting words in my mouth.I only commented from the point of view of a muslim. In fact I welcome the fact that pagan things such as the Christmas tree are being added to make it even more colorful.In fact after seeing the split of my linguistic state based on the premise of grabbing money of others taking precedence over shared heritage and that being endorsed by the very party that stands for shared heritage of Hinduism(all in the garb of cultural nationalism),I hardly have any feelings left.

However if I were put in God's shoes , I would ensure that prosperity of a region only depends only so far as religious toleration and right to choose is allowed.Once toleration is gone,prosperity should be gone too.

[Fernando]

... And specially for NS and those how don;t like Christmas, let me add a politically correct Christmas greeting and New Year's wish:

And may I convey a tentatively optimistic anticipation of an amelioration with the onset of a new enumeration period to all.

[Nosuperstition]

Back then I had no idea that the Southern states had been taxed more than the Northern states for more than 70 years.Now after knowing that the Northern Indians are just like the British who had siphoned off wealth in the sub-continent for the betterment of U.K,I do not feel myself that attached to the idea of shared heritage.British insisted on construction of roads,laying of railway lines etc so that speeding up of transfer of wealth outside of the subcontinent is facilitated .When I see that North Indian policy planners too are just like the British who show more interest in road and railway construction in the South but not in essential irrigation projects ,I do not feel myself that attached to the concept of shared heritage.When I see that vanity projects such as bullet train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai etc get immense amounts of grants from the Prime Minister but the same does not happen for the sake of welfare programs initiated in Southern states and instead,Southern political leaders are systematically targeted,I do not feel myself that strongly about the so called 'shared heritage'.

[Fernando]

Not just India, NS. In England it's the other way round though: the South sucks up all the wealth and has the best trains. Billions are being spent on a high speed train to get people to or from London a few minutes sooner - people suggest it will simply extend the London suburban commuter belt North as far as Birmingham. Meanwhile, there is little or no money for trains to get around the North and hasn't been for years.
The North has its uses though: London councils find it cheaper to send their homeless there, rather than keep them in London.

[Nosuperstition]

Not just India, NS. In England it's the other way round though: the South sucks up all the wealth and has the best trains. Billions are being spent on a high speed train to get people to or from London a few minutes sooner - people suggest it will simply extend the London suburban commuter belt North as far as Birmingham. Meanwhile, there is little or no money for trains to get around the North and hasn't been for years.
The North has its uses though: London councils find it cheaper to send their homeless there, rather than keep them in London.

I think Southern U.K is Britain,the heart of U.K whereas Northern U.K is Scotland which is culturally different from Britain even though the language of English is imposed over there.Am I right?

[Nosuperstition]

When you find out that people love your money more than you,then levels of attachment will naturally decrease.

[manfred]

When you find out that people love your money more than you,then levels of attachment will naturally decrease.

Ah, the rich man's curse.... does she love me or my bank account? There are similar curses to that, so rich people are not the only ones with problems like that. "Does he love me or my body?" is another one...

Some will be prevented from ever having a meaningful relationship with others because of that, others simply approach the whole "love" thing is a pragmatic, almost cynical way... I cont care what she thinks as long as she does, generally, what I expect of her, and I pay her. In one thought, the wife becomes a prostitute.

It is not a coincidence that many rich and famous people have several marriages.

The secret in love is not your expectation of others, but your willingness to give yourself to the other. Love is found in giving not demanding. Love is self-less. You can only find it to the extent you are willing to loose yourself. The man how withholds a commitment because of fear that her real love might be the money he has , also brings about the sham marriage he accuses his wife of. If you want to see real love between two people in action watch an old couple that have been together most of their lives. There is often little show of affection, but you can see that they know each other perfectly, just like they know themselves. They complement each other, two sides of a sheet of paper.
They know every last of each others strengths and weaknesses, and they have simply accepted each other as they are. They more than a team, they are like a single unit.

[Fernando]

I think Southern U.K is Britain,the heart of U.K whereas Northern U.K is Scotland which is culturally different from Britain even though the language of English is imposed over there.Am I right?

Far from it: Yorkshire alone has more people than Scotland and there is still County Durham and Northumberland before you get to Scotland.

I'm not sure about the imposition of the English language - it would have been a long time ago and the Scots still have a thing about their brand of Gaelic. Who knows whether they would revert if they got independence? I must say, though, that there is still pressure from the Southern establishment for provincials to drop their local accents, never mind dialects. A pointless exercise - everyone will be speaking American in another generation.

[Nosuperstition]

When you find out that people love your money more than you,then levels of attachment will naturally decrease.

Ah, the rich man's curse.... does she love me or my bank account? There are similar curses to that, so rich people are not the only ones with problems like that. "Does he love me or my body?" is another one...

Some will be prevented from ever having a meaningful relationship with others because of that, others simply approach the whole "love" thing is a pragmatic, almost cynical way... I cont care what she thinks as long as she does, generally, what I expect of her, and I pay her. In one thought, the wife becomes a prostitute.

It is not a coincidence that many rich and famous people have several marriages.

The secret in love is not your expectation of others, but your willingness to give yourself to the other. Love is found in giving not demanding. Love is self-less. You can only find it to the extent you are willing to loose yourself. The man how withholds a commitment because of fear that her real love might be the money he has , also brings about the sham marriage he accuses his wife of. If you want to see real love between two people in action watch an old couple that have been together most of their lives. There is often little show of affection, but you can see that they know each other perfectly, just like they know themselves. They complement each other, two sides of a sheet of paper.
They know every last of each others strengths and weaknesses, and they have simply accepted each other as they are. They more than a team, they are like a single unit.

'The country does not mean soil,it means people' a famous sentence from Telugu.So essentially what sort of a people are we.Are we those who believe might is right and might is justice?

'You cannot worship both me and money simultaneosly'--That is what Jesus almost said.In things that are to be holy,money should have little place.Since for Hindus,their people are also holy,they should stress more so on equanimity rather than on money.

[Garudaman]

you're welcome! but, why not Merry Christmas? whats the difference?