Merry Christmas! OR, Happy Holidays. Why? I'll tell you...

Merry Christmas! It seems like a fairly innocuous greeting.

Do you find this offensive? Some do.

It has inherent goodwill intended. Which confuses some.

Because we live in a diverse world, a diverse multicultural, multitheistic country and environment, we merely need to be aware of that in our thoughts, speech, and actions.

No, it's not asking that much of us. For myself, I was raised Catholic, old Slovak Catholic. I went through stages of seeking God and found how humankind invented all this thousands upon thousands of years ago.

I have in my search for what is truth in religion, or "God" in a supreme intelligence, or whatever you wish to refer to it as been through many stages. I see using the gender of "Him" (or "Her") as questionable in ascribing a kind of anthropomorphism to an entity far beyond our understanding and why ethereal beings need gender is quite beyond us, though not really).

From my childhood and deep into my 20s, I have experienced being a "born again Christian" in my late teens. Then in my research and studies to "find God", an agnostic, an atheist, an agnostic again and finally a follower of reality as best it can be defined, through science, through the Buddha Dharma when lent itself to the Christian form of restructuring Judaism, and also Aikido, "the Art of Peace".

I was surprised to find how much "Buddhist" beliefs fit into Christianity and general psychology orientations during my university years of study toward my degree in psychology, and in Phenomenology, and physics.

That being said, I don't just have a problem with Christmas and below I'll explain why.

IF one cannot function appropriately and positively in that kind of life, one in America's "tossed salad" citizenry and community, one of diversity, of inclusion, of acceptance and fellowship, then one is of limited mental, emotional and cultural capacities.

Do you find this offensive? Some do.

So before you start ranting about the ludicrous immature belief in a "war on Christmas", of which there is none, but is rather an opening of awareness of others besides one's self or one's culture or religion, or in some cases, one's "bubble", do consider you are merely extending that well-intentioned greeting to other to whom it may have no meaning to them.

Not everything is as we believe. 

• December 25th is understood to not be the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. 
• The song Jingle Bells was originally intended for Thanksgiving, and was titled, "One Horse Open Sleigh" 
• December 25th was originally a pagan festival day but the Catholic church absorbed it in order to compromise and assimilate pagan cultures when they were moving into.their region. 
• Christmas now has transcended the Christian faith and spread out in a secular fashion to those of other cultures and religions. How is that a bad thing? The underlying principles are still there and if Jesus were alive to see this, he just might be okay with it. Because what he preached was the reality and not the dogma, not the diction, not the rules. But the people. And compassion for one another. 
• The Golden Rule is based on the principle Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them,” adding, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” The significance of Jesus "Christ’s" statement here is huge. What we call the Golden Rule is the summation of God’s entire view on the way of life.

So much of Christmas is about peace and love, make it so!

What we believe to be is different originally than we thought to begin with. So there is really no need to be zero tolerant, or uncompromising, or to believe in a war on something merely because of a call for greater awareness and understanding of other's different cultures or religions. Essentially...

It's Okay! We need either greater awareness and compassion for one another or have more wars and cultural friction and misunderstanding of one another. Especially during a season that calls out for greater compassion and caring, help and sacrifice for others, it truly is, okay.

So why would you offer it to them? It is obviously out of ignorance either in an understanding of our country or specifically in another person, you do not know very well and perhaps should take the time to consider and address them appropriately in a way they can understand what you mean and intend.

To wish them goodwill and happiness this season. Christians, many of them, like to point out the original intent and meaning of "Christmas" is all about Jesus. But as was pointed out above, that is at very least disingenuous and even, ignorant.

It really just means we have to give some thought to something we may never have given much thought TO. Which is actually the original intent of that greeting. to wit, if you are NOT giving it enough though, in the first place. You are actually, in the bigger picture of things, going counter to what you are trying to do and say. In trying to point out to others that there is or was a war on Christmas, you are the one missing the point in coming from Christians who cannot actually give the greeting enough thought and feeling, in order to share it in the most appropriate and productive ways.

Even if that means using another greeting.

This really isn't all about you after all.

What we all really need more than anything else in this world, is simply to all get along.

Because that is in the end, the Thought...that is in the end, what counts. Isn't it?

So with all that being said, I really have to end here with this...

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays, whatever you believe and practice!

Death Throws of Theistic Nations

When your government starts talking about there needing to be a new leader of the Nation's morality, you KNOW the government is in trouble. Because whenever they are in trouble, they always start going back to the basics we all thought we had evolved beyond: morality and religion.

We've been hearing this from the conservative right for a long time now. And look how they are doing. It's been killing the GOP. And in their current incarnation, good riddance.

The real issues are almost hands down that the government, the politicians, the legislators, the leaders have yet to catch up with the morality of the Nation as a whole. We have been held captive but a sad conglomeration of conservative, theist group of Fascists.

As a people we are evolving, but leaders usually do not. They are always slow to change and tend to get old and stuck in the ways they believe work to keep them in office. It's not that the Nation has lost it's way and that the leaders need to draw the Nation back into the folds of those "Holy Know Betters". It's that the leaders need to lead the direction the Nation is headed and show the best way to go in order to achieve that. Yet, they almost always fail in that task, even though that really is the task they were hired to do in the first place. To Lead.

So when you consider the few Nations left in the world that aren't secular, you can be pretty sure they are on the way out and it's only a matter of time. Iran is on the way out. Islam is on the way out, it just doesn't seem like it because of the violent temperament of those hardliners in those Gangs of God. But we also see this in Nations like North Korea, right, some of you might say. And they are secular. Not really. They are a kind of Earthbound theism. A twisted form of the ancient ancestor worship traditionally common in that area of the world. They worship their leaders, who remain in power even after death.

The counter intuitive thing about a secular government is that it allows for more freedom of religion / morality. The problem there being that it also allows for the other kinds of thought, of belief, to prosper. Which is the problem those leaders are having in going that direction. That it isn't JUST THEIR morality or religion that would prosper, but that of others who also live in their Nation.

The problem with the world's few surviving theistic Nations that are now in their religious / morality death throws (and yes these could take decades to finally die), is that during this period of their Nation's Phoenix rising (which many leaders will do anything to avoid acknowledging), they become a very, very ugly thing indeed. Why?

Try holding someone's head under water and see how hard THEY struggle for that last, final gasp. Still, it is the people of their Nation who truly suffer, and far more than the Leaders usually ever do. Except for those few leaders who do pay the ultimate price for their selfishness, greed and narrow-mindedness, who at times allow their Nation its truly sad, yet fresh air to breathe. How long will this world have to suffer the death throws of those like Assad in Syria? Or the twisted government of Iran? Or that of the government of North Korea that also seems now to be on the way out.

It will happen. It's only a matter of time.

The only hope at this time that the people of these Nations have (and the World in general) is to know that one day, all the sooner for the harder they work and sacrifice for it, these theistic nations will one day go the way of the dinosaur and perhaps exist only in History as a kind of intellectual fuel for our descendants of how not to run a Nation and put down the masses for the benefit of only the egos of those few in power.