This is an expression that has been circulating around this year. People have their own ways and traditions in celebrating Christmas and far be it from me to interfere with them. "Viva la differance" is what I say. Some people go to basketball games on Christmas. Others head off to Lake Tahoe. Of course much of our Romanesque tradition comes from the Cult of Sol Invictus or "Unconquered Sun" which kind of merged with the cult of Mithras. In two different web sites lately I have come across a reference to the mass torching of ancient scriptures by the Romans in the late 4th century after the Nicene Creed was established. One of these writings was a Jehovah's Witness publication. You could tell from the frequent references to Jehovah. I am not inclined to give credence to either article. The Emperor was Theodosius I. I don't dispute that there was a move at this time to re-make classic Christian into the Trinitarian formulas we know today. However a bit problem with "mystery cults" is that they didn't write things down because they obviously wanted to be secretive. I have stated, and for you new people this is an eye opener, that classic Gnosticism goes back to a group called the Pythagoreans. This is a group that believes everything traces back to the original "Point" or "The One". From here gods and creation polliferated and became more complex and also underwent a devolution. Original sin is a concept that refers originally to the gods rather than to man. Because it's the sin of the gods that caused them to create this evil Universe. But many refer to the early Christians as Essines even though what the Essines believed was sort of a platonist dualism rather than a belief in a savior messiah. Some say St. Paul was an Essine. We know that "scripture was tampered with" because Paul was described as a "Young man" at the stoning of Stephan, a few years before he got saved. Yet to be a Pharicee, which he claims to be, you had to attain to the age of thirty and many say you could not be a Pharicee unless you were married. We don't know what happened to Mrs. Paul. Many have pointed out similarities on Paul's letters to the apocraphal book of Enoch. I bring out all these factoids to say that Christianity came from a primorial soup of varied and often disperate ideas. We learn much of what we know about St. Paul from the Book of Acts, which is an anti-semetic rant, and Marcion would have no doubt included the book in his cannon had the book existed in 140 AD or whenever Marcion formed his cannon. We know that in one letter Paul refers to Judas betraying Jesus, yet in another letter of Paul we have Judas being among the twelve who saw the risen Jesus. We know in one letter St. Paul refers to the Mosiac law as "Dead" and "Void". But he says in another letter not recognized by Marcion the following "We know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully". In one letter Paul says on the subject of eating meat "Let each man not judge the other", and yet in another refers to teachers who advocate this as "doctrines of demons". He says both "in these troubled times it is better not to marry" yet in another book (again not recognized by Marcion) he says "An Elder should be the husband of one wife and know how to rule his household". One author years ago said that we owe Christianity itself to St. Paul. So I regard him as a key figure who blended all of these items in the primorial soup of doctrine. This is a man whom many point out "Seemed to know almost no detail about anything in the four gospels". He was a man who even regarded historical reality as a wrong notion referring to it as "Knowing Jesus after the flesh". He believed Christ would return in his lifetime, we know from the line "We who are alive will be caught up together and so shall we ever be with the Lord". We're still waiting.
AND NOW FOR THE LOCAL NEWS
(RECORDED EARLIER TODAY)
This morning I went for coffee at ten after six. For the fourth day in a row there was no hot water in the shower only today it didn’t even tease for a few seconds of hot. Today it was cold all along so I didn’t even get in. I don’t know if the bakery will even be open tomorrow. We had Raison Bran with toast and butter and jelly and a fried egg and a second on coffee. I had KTLK on till eight and then I switched to a rather different Bill Handel program on KFI. Trying to find something that isn’t a rerun is difficult. Thom Hartman’s program was a rerun. In the news the Senate passed the health bill before the sun was even up in Washington. Someone said that Senator Byrd was the Senate pro temp guy who is fourth in secession to the Presidency. If so this adds a key note on those Republicans who are praying that one senator would die before the vote.
I thought I’d see what Rush Limbaugh had to say. He was foaming at the mouth at all sorts of issue and that show, too, was a rerun. In the first segment he was saying how President Obama is indecisive in not ordering more troops to Afghanistan, and even brought out a Dick Chaney quote. But later on Rush criticized his sending in of 34,000 vaguely implying he dislikes White House leaks. He then said taxes ought to be raised on everyone earning over thirty thousand, to pay for it. He seemed to also dislike the idea of Obama’s explaining his decision to the American Public by TV. He kept calling the President a “small man”. He then attacked this notion of a White House state dinner saying he was “hijacking Thanksgiving”. There’s no pleasing him. Then it was on to global warming and these E mail leaks. We now know that these leaks are ten years old and so utterly irrelevant to the current debate. Tomorrow on KFI will be Jesus Christ and the whole pro war gang celebrating the birthday of the Prince of Peace. On Bill Handel they launched into an attack of the movie “Avatar” because it seemed to put a negative spin on the US playing God with aboriginal peoples of a region, and of course anything that’s anti war is suspect. John and Ken say no matter who gets elected just throw them out of office the next time around. This of course will only insure that lobbyists are the ones running the government because they will be the only ones with experience.
The Health Care bill passed 60 votes in favor and 39 against. People continue to suggest that a public option might be slipped in by the conference committee but if this bill is altered by so much as a hair, it won’t pass the vote in the Senate. Some have even suggested that failing this, a “reconciliation resolution” could be made in the Senate where it would only need 51 votes. Some say “President Obama would never allow this bill to fail on his watch” and also say “the left has to pressure the President into getting things their way”. My response is the oft repeated Dr. Phil quote “Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior” and since when has “the left” ever pressured Obama into anything. It reminds me of Jesus Christ and how some said “If he were arrested he would be forced to take decisive action on behalf of the nation of Israel”. Well, contrary to what George Burnes says in that movie – God doesn’t work best under pressure. He folds like a dried leaf. I don’t know what drives Obama with certitude but it’s got an awful lot to do with not offending any of the drug and insurance companies he’s made deals with to get their support. On the contrary, the bill will only, if anything, be further watered down in the conference committee version and probably have more key provisions stripped from it, perhaps the one that says insurance companies can’t over-charge customers no matter if they’re high risk. The insurance companies don’t like that one. To quote from Dr. Phil again – all the democrats are Enablers of undesirable behavior by the president when they pass such a hopelessly compromised bill
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