Happy Negative Nativity!

So, here it is again; the festival of over-indulgence. It is supposed to be a happy time of year, although for lots of people it's one of the loneliest and unhappiest times of the year, but what is it all about?

I know the nativity story of ickle baby cheeses and all that. Which is a story that is far older than the Christian belief, and attributed to lots of other mythical people (see previous blogs). The festival itself is a mixture of Christian and pagan beliefs, and the Christmas we now know is of German descent, brought to us by Queen Victoria.

So although we claim it's about the birth of the son of God, it isn't really!

Talking of the big 'G' I watched a programme on TV the other night where pseudo-intellectuals discussed the evidence and the meaning of God. They called themselves thing like 'Spiritual Thinkers' Theologians' and my favourite, 'The Movement for Enlightenment?'

Most of these people have moved away from the religious aspect of God, as they have realised that it is becoming more and more impossible to defend the notion of religion. They know you can't claim to be a supreme intelligence if you punish people for not worshipping you. Some still hold on to the idea of a personal God while others have realised that even this is impossible to defend intellectually, so they now have moved to arguing for the concept of a God.

What is spirituality? Is it awareness of one's self with the environment? With the universe? Or getting closer to a mythical being? Why are they "enlightened" because they believe in an unproven theory that would be thrown out of any court as nothing more than hearsay and conjuncture!

If we hadn't had these "enlightened" thinkers throughout history, man would have landed on the moon hundreds of years before he did. Without God, we wouldn't have had so many wars and persecution and famines that we have suffered throughout the ages.

As for a personal God that hears your prayers, a friend of mine told me about this only this week. Her nephew was involved in an horrific accident which left him with a serious head injury. It was touch and go whether he lived or not, for a while.

The medics put him in an induced coma to give his brain time to heal while they operated on him. He was then placed into intensive care where he received round the clock medical care. My friend is a Catholic and they all prayed daily for him to be returned to them safely.

She told me of the joy of the miracle when he opened his eyes and spoke going against all the odds. She told me that even the surgeons had gone to the chapel to pray for him after the operation (I find that a worry).

So there you have it! Proof that God listens and answers your prayers, there it is. Excepts for the millions of people in the third world who he turns a deaf ear to. The ones that pray each day for him to save their children that are dying for want of a sachet of rehydration salts worth no more than a couple of pence. What about the people with cancer who are dying a slow and painful death? Why does anyone need to die? If this young man had had his accident in Africa, the outcome would have been very different. The miracle that was performed was the miracle of modern medicine.

But that is, for the enlightened ones, too mundane an explanation, and of course I would say that, as I'm not on their level of understanding. And that science is backing up their beliefs with things such as 'intelligent design'. If anyone tries to explain this theory to you, you have my permission to smack them, hard! It's even worse than believing in God! 

While I'm on this subject, why do the Spiritual brigade describe people like me as cynical? Not that it's a bad thing, to question everything and accept nothing that can't be proven. I go along with this, and agree that yes I am cynical about their juvenile beliefs: they don't like to be described as 'gullible' but I'm afraid if you look up the word in a dictionary, that's what they are! 

I know that this blog is not an in-depth look at religion or God. I know that some of the 'Enlightened Ones' are very eloquent and put across very important views on life and philosophy, but true awe and wonder surely goes to the ideas of physicists! These people are taking the human race out into space, and helping mankind to develop at a faster rate than has ever been possible. But I digress.

I think that Christmas now is all about commercialism, and I'm supposed now, at this point, to say this is a bad thing, but it's not.

Anything that gets the economy going is good, People who borrow money and get into debt for Christmas are very foolish, but if everyone just bought just one thing extra, this is I think good, it helps to stimulate growth, then we all benefit.

For me, this time of year is a children's festival, a time to celebrate youth and innocence and catch up with friends. The story about the young man who had the unfortunate accident was told to me by a friend over lunch a couple of days ago. We hadn't seen much of each other over this year but we caught up for Christmas. I have had drinks with and conversations with lots of people who I really should spend more time with, and all this just because it's Christmas!

So who ever your God is, whether you believe or not I would like to wish you a happy Christmas and a very peaceful, prosperous but most of all happy new year!