Posted on 11/29/2005 6:46:39 PM PST by Alouette
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
The Rabbi's phrasing might be misunderstood :-).
i believe that our good friend rabbi lapin has snuck into the RATS locker room and has stolen their playbook in regards to their attitude towards religion.
hildabeast, the cape cod orca, and the rapist have been using these ideas for years.
it is really hard these days to reconcile democrat party and religion, they are beliefs that are two poles apart.
Just how many interpretations for abomination'
Do we REALLY want to go down that road? There's a strong Biblical argument that Christmas trees are against the Bible...
Jeremiah 10:2 KJV Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3* For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4* They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
I suppose there are other interpretations?
In what America does this guy live in? In the last 10 years the number of non-religious people doubled (14 mil to 29 mil) while those calling themselves Christian declined by nearly 10% and by their own numbers 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return.
That secularism gave us abortions by the millions and this has started making many Americans, including the daughters of the women who marched for Roe v. Wade, a little squeamish to say the least.
Ummm no. All the Supreme Court Justices as well as the Presidents and Senators who put them in where in fact Christians, and so are the women who've had the majority of abortions
I'm not sure what your point is. Canaanite religion used trees as a symbol of their deities and a site for fertility rites. So did pagan Germanic religion, from which we draw the tradition of the Christmas tree. I'm sympathetic with those who don't have Christmas trees because of this connection; we didn't have one, the year I read "The Iron Hand of Mars," and the fact the we get one as a rule is my German husband's decision.
However, unless we're performing Nordic fertility rites around the Christmas tree, it's just a nuisance, not an idol.
I really, really, like this man.
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~
Did you even read the article? It's about the pride and power, not numbers. Do you think Jews gained religious pride by numbers?
By definition, religious awakenings arise out of religious slumber, which you aptly identify. Rabbi Lappin may be right or wrong about the timing, but awakenings usually follow when it looks like things just can't get any worse. God will turn up the heat until we pay attention to him...
You've proven the Rabbi's point: The definition of "secularization" is that the actions come to resemble non-religious, rather than religious. Regardless of the nominal religious status.
The heart of secularization is this example from Pennsylvania vs. Casey, 1993:
""At the heart of liberty is the right to define ones own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.""
Jeremiah had no idea that there were people living up in the forests of Germania who worshipped living trees (assuming they were there at that time, having migrated from points further east). St. Boniface started the idea of the evergreen trees (the Germans didn't worship evergreens but large oaks.) And the custom of cutting one down and bringing it into the house and putting ornaments on it is really a Victorian one . . . originally the trees only had candles on them anyhow.
So I'd put this one down to coincidence and a murky translation by King James's committee (worthy a group of scholars as they were!)
Relax, the Germans worshipped the Oak tree (like the Celts). According to legend, St. Boniface instituted the idea of using a fir tree as "the Christ Child's tree" because when he cut down a sacred oak tree (just to show the Germans that he wouldn't be struck dead when he did it) the oak tree crushed all the trees it fell on except a little fir tree. St. Boniface seized the moment and declared that "the Christ Child's tree."
I'm hearing bagpipes on that one
But by that definition of "secularization" Christians are more secular than Atheist
The studies done by Barna match the other studies
One in Three Adults Is Unchurched
Number of Unchurched Adults Has Nearly Doubled Since 1991
Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in Christian Churches
How could an atheist's life be secularized? The criticism of secularization is the movement from a recognizable religious lifestyle or set of cultural markers to a religious/atheist "neutral" style, until the religious is less and less visible.
ping
It is pretty hard to listen to this tortured pretzel that equates government social programs with christianty. The buzz word is "values". Remember "values clarification"? The lifeboat game?
Ummm... A Steve Taylor song in the mid 80's, right?
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