Warriorcleric
Merry Atheistmas!
Posted on: 12/24/2009 23:09
I wonder if that word will bother anyone. I hope so. I hope that it bothers people the way that X-mas does. Interestingly, the x doesn't stand for just anything the way that it does in Math. I was taught that it comes from Xristos and is the first letter of Jesus last name (as we've come to pretend) which might as well be an X because we don't actually know which first century Yeshua we're talking about (it's not an uncommon name). However, it may be more enlightening to use it the way we do in Math. Instead of using an historical etymology we could try an algebraic one. The X mass. Celebration of X. Celebration of any and all values that will give reason to the equation. Each and every value for X giving a different solution, but a solution that is both correct and has meaning. In fact, most likely a solution that is even useful.
Which can perhaps give Christmas some meaning to me. I guess in a lot of ways Christianity has already done this by adding any meaningful tradition from their pagan neighbours (even including LED Christmas lights). Does the fact that we share the traditions with everyone else negate the meaning? We stole meaning from them. It had meaning before we took it and it will continue to have meaning after we set it up as our new ashtoreth (perhaps shibboleth?).
I think that I'm an atheist. But I also think that I'm a Christian. Does that bother you? If Jesus was not a god, and God is merely our projection of an answer to our fears as a result of consciousness as well as being the rational result of backward thinking (looking backward for our source instead of looking forward to how we should live) then how can I say that I am anything other than an atheist. Someone with no theos. However, it also seems to me that Christianity has always been a walk of life, a way to find meaning and purpose, by following the Christ. The myth, the hero, the God-man. A church should be a community of seekers and saints, not a collection of idiots. Within the community of Christians I find my place. It is my heritage and my faith. And so I will accept a Merry Christmas with gratitude. I will also accept a Merry X-mas with a smile and raise a glass of egg nog, and if some of you walking the same lonely path that I am feel comfortable enough, I will heartily accept a Merry Atheistmas!
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Comments
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 12/27/2009 13:21
"X" in Greek i "CHI" ... creating Christmas in code if you will as a sainted word ... dead language?
Then "CHI" can be translated from many forms into an ancient expression for pyre, or light ... isn't that an illuminating code when found deep in a dark cave and all you powers sucked out of yah. Plateaus' Quandry in a world where love of the soul-mate was certainly discouraged ... a thinking isolation is dangerous to the desires you know.
Isle leave IT as that as just travelling thought ... Egoes quickly through the knight when chi surrounds eM. But you must know some of the word/words in depth .. so that speak to yah. There are those that say that makes an isolated man crazy ... fallout of heaven? (castoff a clay mould?) Its a hellova Tory when you don't even try to alter the flashed edges ... cuitin, like a split tongue that speaks in th' aether's words ... another story again ... no end to them like it says in the close of John (an old expression for common sense, akin to Joseph, or Joy in knowing common stuff around us as gypsies piscine through with aLight ligne! Did you know a gib'd sea is like an altered vision ...
buford12
Posted on: 12/30/2009 16:49
Christ isn't Jesus' last name. It is a title meaning "annointed". I would much rather see "Merry Christmas". You are only a Christian if you believe that Jesus died for your sins, and you trust Him to be your Savior. I don't think it is possible to be both an athiest and a Christian............. Though it seems cerebral to say so ...............
franota
Posted on: 12/31/2009 00:45
"Christ" is also a Greek addition. It was never there in the beginning, Jesus didn't use it. Neither did the disciples, though some of the Gospels contain it - but given that they were written many years after Jesus' death, by someone else, the Greek addtions make sense.
I do take exception to your absolutist statement that one is only a Christian if one accepts 'atonement' and 'salvation' theology. I don't subscribe to either one. I don't believe Jesus died for my sins, nor do I see Jesus as savior. Salvation - in good Protestant theology - is by grace alone. I am a follower of Jesus, and an ordained minister in the United Church.
There is a wonderful book called "The Christian Agnostic", by Leslie Weatherhead.
Fran
Warriorcleric
Posted on: 12/31/2009 16:21
It still seems to me that it's kind of hollow to try to be a Christian but deny most of Christian theology. Or at least interpret it in such a post modern light that we're really not talking about the same things that the Church fathers were. Really, I mean if I can't agree with 2000 years of Christian faith statements, then who am I kidding when I pretend that my "song of faith" or personal ideology has any continuity with the Church?
Warriorcleric
Posted on: 12/31/2009 16:27
As far as the last name thing goes I wasn't talking about realities (small r) that people think history has, I was talking about the way that this is used... Its function. Function IS reality. Linguistically, it's a title (and what is a surname, but a title?). I don't care if you don't think it's possible to be both. What matters is if I do, that's why it was a question. Blogging is mostly about asking questions of myself and letting others watch. It's never really about other people's input.
Rev. Steven Davis
Posted on: 01/01/2010 01:55
Salvation - in good Protestant theology - is by grace alone.
Actually, in good Protestant theology salvation is by grace through faith alone.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 01/01/2010 10:54
Does it help one to Lighten one's elf by giving away all of one's physical wealth ... within reason ... A'Don's? It's agiven when in proper balance ... once you give ID aL ... yah float outa here as polter Geist ... just chill down the spine of the living ... if'n yah did it rite!
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 01/01/2010 11:05
Buford,
What's in a name?
Consider X as the Greek "chi" that in other tongues is a word for fire, now Maas is a flow in Flemmish tongues like a riva of thought because of all the accumulated words in that stream ... like a chaotic mindDoes a river run through ID?
Did the good book say that we should understand (their Egos) alien tongues? How about the expression that God is word and the reflection holds true? Is atheist that doesn't believe that God is physical near to an ultimate awareness of the spirit of G'd and Christ on a page ... WORD ... that's ess 'n Toule spirit .. fabrication of a thought ... Th'O ... a delicate matter to those who think only physically? What does it take for alleg or' heh ... an arc of nuit, nut in some terms, and a man that believes in God alone in latter daez ... needs sum light metaphysical penne'd raits