In the United States it’s the holiday season. As soon as
I get why the holidays bug people.
It’s why I advise Christians to redirect our attention to
In the United States, we have a national day of thanksgiving on November’s fourth Thursday.
Whom are we giving thanks to? Well, the act which establishes Thanksgiving Day as one of our national holidays, provides no instructions whatsoever on how we’re to observe it. Or whom we’re to thank.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the last Thursday in November in each year after the year 1941 be known as Thanksgiving Day, and is hereby made a legal public holiday to all intents and purposes and in the same manner as the 1st day of January, the 22d day of February, the 30th day of May, the 4th day of July, the first Monday of September, the 11th day of November, and Christmas Day are now made by law public holidays.
—77th Congress, 6 October 1941
House Joint Resolution 41
The Senate amended it to read “fourth Thursday in November,” and President Franklin Roosevelt signed it into law. So it’s a holiday. But left undefined, ’cause our Constitution won’t permit Congress to pick a national religion, nor define religious practice. Article 6; Amendment 1 Not that Congress doesn’t bend that rule on occasion. Making “In God We Trust” our national motto, fr’instance.
Though our government is secular, the nation sure isn’t. Four out of five of us Americans call ourselves Christian. (I know; we sure don’t act it. Look at our crime rate. Look at the people we elect.) Regardless, a supermajority of us claim allegiance to Jesus, which is why we bend the Constitution so often and get away with it. Our presidents do as well; our first president was the guy who first implemented a national Thanksgiving Day.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.
—President George Washington, 3 October 1789
Yeah, Americans point to other functions as our “first Thanksgiving.” Usually a harvest celebration by the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. Although technically the first Christian thanksgiving day on the continent was held by the Spanish in Florida in 1565—followed by another in Texas in 1598, and another by the Virginia colonists as early as 1607.
Over time, colonial custom created a regular Thanksgiving Day, held in the fall. Sometimes governments declared a Thanksgiving Day, like the Continental Congress declaring one for 18 December 1777 after the Battle of Saratoga. But Washington’s declaration in 1789 didn’t fix the day nationally—and he didn’t declare another till 1795. States set their own days: In 1816, New Hampshire picked 14 November, and Massachusetts picked 28 November.
It wasn’t till 1863 when it did become regular:
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
—President Abraham Lincoln, 3 October 1863
Lincoln and his successors declared Thanksgiving every year thereafter.
I have certain people whom I follow on social media, who love love love the hashtag #blessed. They have a nice meal, or get a nice view of the sunset, so they post photos of it on Instagram, tagged #blessed. They find a sweet parking spot in front of their building, so they xeet about it and tag it #blessed. The kids achieve something at school, or make ’em a craft, or otherwise give ’em a fun day instead of screaming their head off because Dad won’t give ’em Froot Loops for dinner; it’s on Facebook, tagged #blessed.
Every time they feel blessed, they gotta post and tag it. Even for little minor stupid stuff. “Drove to work; nothing but green lights all the way! #blessed”
I know what brought this on for one of ’em… ’cause she said so. A few months ago her pastor challenged the people of her church to notice all the blessings God sent their way. He blesses us a lot, y’know. And a lot of us first-worlders are
Thing is, some months ago she took her husband to this really fancy restaurant for his birthday. She posted a photo on Instagram wearing a nice dress, with a nice plate of shrimp in front of her, nice wine, nice view of the ocean behind her, and the tag #blessed. (I’ll just point out her husband, whose day and life they were celebrating, isn’t even in the photo. Likely he took it.)
Okay: God didn’t grant her this experience. Her husband didn’t surprise her with it. She planned it; she paid for it. I hope she could afford it, and doesn’t have to pay off credit cards for the next several months, but even so: Is this a blessing?
Some would say yes, others no. One could argue the blessing comes from being able to have such experiences: She has a job which can fund these activities, grant the free time, and a kind husband whose life she’d like to celebrate. Although one doesn’t have to celebrate it in that particular way. Nor post a selfie on Instagram.
I can speculate about her motives, but for
Since pagans have a deficient relationship with God (as even Christians will
Are these people blessed? Did God grant ’em these blessings? Or did they really just bless themselves?
In the United States, on November’s fourth Thursday, we celebrate
Americans don’t always remember there’s such a thing as an act of thanksgiving. Our fixation is usually on the food, football, maybe the parade, maybe the dog show. If you’re
But this feeling of gratitude isn’t directed anywhere. Shouldn’t you be grateful to someone or something? Shouldn’t there be some being to thank?
And that’s a question many a pagan never asks themselves. I know of one family who thanks one other.
Even among the Christians who remember, “Oh yeah—we’re thanking God,” a lot of the thanking is limited to
But enough about Thanksgiving Day and its not-so-religious customs and behavior. The practice of thanksgiving isn’t limited to just this one day. If you wanna practice more actual, authentic thanksgiving in your relationship with God, great! I’m all for that. So’s God. But it means way more than thanking God only once a year, on the government-approved day set aside for it.
I’ve posted before about
Not merely allowed it to happen, even though he could totally intervene if he wants, ’cause he’s almighty and unlimited.
Calvinists call this “the doctrine of sovereignty”—
So since I dare to say the “doctrine of sovereignty” is fatalistic rubbish which comes more from Platonism than the scriptures, certain Calvinists are convinced I’m heretic. Or, again, not even Christian.
One of ’em put it to me thisaway recently: “I trust God. You don’t.”
No, you trust your doctrine. Which isn’t God. Although you might not recognize the difference. There is one, y’know.
Historically we Christians have had the darnedest time translating and explaining this passage. While it’s written in really simple Greek, it’s deep. It’s profound. It tells us
Flesh. Meat. Blood and bone and muscle and tissue and nerves and fluids. An animal. Yet God.
People still find this idea alarming. Even blasphemous. I keep coming across
It’s why
But nope, he’s human. Fully, permanently human. And God.
The apostle John
Which was a mind-blowing idea for
But nope; John states it here pretty clearly. Everybody has the potential to become God’s children; Jews and
Because we’re not automatically his children just because we’re human. That’s a common idea which plenty of pagans will insist upon: God’s the creator and we’re the creation, so God’s our father and we’re his daughters and sons. Automatically. We automatically have a relationship with him; we’ll automatically go to heaven because of it. Even if we spend our entire lives wanting nothing to do with him, refusing to believe in him, worshiping any and every other god there is, inventing our own gods for fun and profit, even deliberately defying him and being as evil as we can just to show off our autonomy. Pagans might make an exception for truly evil people… but then again they might not, because they believe so very strongly that
Nope. God wants to save everybody,
And lemme reiterate: Light, in this passage, means Jesus. Yes, elsewhere in the bible light means other things. Like truth and wisdom. And yes, Jesus is truth,
Yes, we oughta accept truth and wisdom too, ’cause there are way too many brain-dead Christians out there who believe all the dirty lies and stupid beliefs their favorite preachers and pundits tell them, and won’t even practice
Not for nothing does John point out Jesus’s own people didn’t accept him. Because they figured they had truth and wisdom already; because they figured they were God’s children already. Christians today tend to get the very same attitude. We think, like first-century Judeans, we have the light; we know so much, and we said the sinner’s prayer and were baptized, and we’ve memorized tons of bible verses and Christian pop songs, and
Pretty dark stuff.
Here’s a bible difficulty which tends to stymie a number of
God, the Creator, is identified as the L
Throughout that book, the author of Genesis calls God “the L
But in Exodus, this specific God tells Moses that Abraham, and all the Hebrews since, didn’t know him by that name Y
Despite all the many, many instances of Y
But biblical literalists insist, on the contrary, it was revealed. It’s in Genesis, after all. People called the L
Seth was the son of Adam, the very first human; so all the way back then it looks like people identified the name of their Creator as Y
Yes of course literalists have an answer. It’s that the L
I brought up
The word of God—i.e. the second person of
Now lemme remind you the bible is not a
I’ve written previously about
“The word” which the author of John wrote of, exists at the beginning of creation. Is with God. Is God. And is the means by which everything is created.
And round 7
Why’d the author of John (and for convenience we’ll just assume he’s John bar Zebedee; he probably is) use “word” to describe the pre-incarnate Jesus? You realize this passage is the reason so many Christians are hugely fascinated by the word “word” (and its Greek equivalent
This John passage tends to get translated in past tense.
Okay, now to the concept of
For centuries, Christians presumed lóyos comes from ancient Greek philosophy. Blame ancient
Instead they interpreted bible through the lens of their own culture. Which was wrong then, and is wrong now. Yet Christians still do it. But that’s a whole other rant; let’s get back to criticizing ancient Christian gentiles.
Ancient Greek philosophers had written a whole bunch of navel-gazing gibberish about the word lóyos. ’Cause they were exploring the nature of truth: What is it, how do we find it, how do we prove it, how do we recognize logical fallacies, and what’s the deal with words which can mean more than one thing? For that matter, what’s a “word” anyway? Is it just a label for a thing, or is it a substantial thing on its own? Maybe that’s why God can create things by merely saying a word.
Follow the Greek philosophers’ intellectual rabbit trails, and you’ll go all sorts of weird,
Now let’s practice some actual logic. John wasn’t a gentile; he was a Galilean Jew who grew up attending, and getting the equivalent of a middle-school education in, Pharisee synagogues. So let’s look at that culture: What’d Pharisees teach about what a memrá is and means?
Turns out Pharisees had a lot of interesting ideas attached to it.