Last week I went to a bookstore to see if the newest issue of PanGaia was out. They didn't even have a religious magazine section, not to mention an alternate religious magazine section (sometimes they are the Christian and non-Christian magazines are together sometimes not....). 

So, I wander up the stairs into the deepest darkest corner of the store (ok, it wasn't that bad, but they really don't make it easy to find) of the bookstore and locate the "New Age" book section. I'm poking around, not really intending on buying anything that day (they didn't have my magazine!) when I see this:

I think I need to write a book, because obviously they will publish anything..... 

The animation is dull, but the song is somehow scarily catchy...

http://fishki.net/comment.php?id=9540

So I watched "The God Who Wasn't There" last night and before I get started really with this post, let me just say that I don't believe in Jesus and haven't for quite some time. Let me also go ahead and say that when I say believe, I mean I don't believe that a guy named Jesus walked the Earth. I would have allowed for the possibility that he was a composite character, but I don't even think I would do that now.

So, back to the movie. It was pretty good, it made a lot of good points and arguments. They however did this thing that I found reprehensible. They were going along talking about things, then, they showed this quote from the bible and attributed it to Jesus.  I don't remember how exactly,  if it was  implied by the  visuals behind the quote or if it haqd the quote and  a "-Jesus" after it.  Here's the quote though.

Luke 19:27 (King James Version)

27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

I read that and thought "That doesn't sound right.", so I did a search for it and surely it is in the bible. However, if you know the bible, you know that mostly you need to read the text around a quote to make sure that it means what it sounds like it means. Well, it does, and it doesn't. The bible says that the quote was spoken by Jesus, however, he was telling a parable (The one about the kingly guy who gave 3 of his servants money, basically to see what they would do with it).

I'm sure that you can all see why I say that this is reprehensible. It's also just a bad idea. If your going to makea movie to challenge someone's faith (which is the only reason I can see to make this movie) you had better be rock solid on all your points. That one is not very solid.

 

I was out and about today when I saw a Pagan Fertility Altar. Here it is:

Ok, so it's not really an Altar. It's a display at a store, but when I looked at it I thought, "Huh, that would make a great teaching tool."

If I were going to teach about Ostara, and the oft asked (by Christians) "What do eggs and rabbits have to do with the birth of Jesus?", I would point to that display and tell the tale of the rabbit who so loved Ostara that he layed eggs and painted them in Her honor and gave them as gifts to the other animals. Then I would go on to say that while when I first heard that tale it was supposed to be an ancient Pagan Myth, that later I found that most likely it was a tale created entirely by the Venerable Bede. A good tale none the less.

No, rabbits and eggs are just ancient fertility symbols.

 

This is something that happened to me a while ago (December of 2005 actually) but I wanted to put it here....

 

And there she was....

 

I was driving to Cleveland for a training session. I was playing this game with myself that I play sometimes, I try to imagine what I would do if, I went back in time (but not in like a time machine, but if I suddenly found myself at an earlier age, say 5 or so) but still knew all the things that I know now. Doing such a thing would have it's own unique set of perks and problems, for instance you would seem very brilliant, buit that could be an issue, as people would expect a lot from you.

Anyway, I was thinking about life experiences. I am glad for my life experiences, because they are part of what made me who I am today. but if I went back, still knowing what I know, I could skip most of them since, for me, they have already happened and I would already be the person I am. Now of course this would change lived for a lot of other people. That's not really my problem, but what it really came down to, is what it always seems to come down to...Anna.

Anna has been through some...rough spots, and I could probably avoid that happening. Now of course there is the thing about those experiences, and her being a different person, but that's not even what I am referring to. There is another problem. Avoiding the bad experiences would also lead to avoiding some of the good ones, like say Johnathan. Even in a hypothetical situation, I could never make that choice (the one in which Anna is spared some of the rough spots, but Johnathan never comes to be), so the only fair thing to do would be to (if I had foreknowledge of my impending time trip) ask her how she wanted that to go....but that's no fair at all. How could you ask someone to make that decision. I mean, I was thinking that if the decision was to avoid the pain, it's not like she would miss him, as he would havce never been there, I thought, she would never have had a child. Then it occurred to me that of course she would have, our daughter.

That's when things went strange. This sort of thing has never happened to me. I'm not a creative person, ont a visual person at all in the imagination respect, but into my mind popped this image of this beautiful little girl, a cinnamon girl if you will. Long light brown hair, really she looked liek a cross between Anna and myself, with the best of both of us. The sort of little girl I might design from pictures of us, were I capable of doing such a thing.

I was floored, for lack of a better word. I didn't know what to do, it was such an odd experience for me. I feel like her dad. I want to be her dad.