hey guys, i know a lot of people who have been ****ed up by christianity, but i'm glad you're happy little drones.
You got that all wrong. I have read all Narnia books years ago around 1981 when I was around 11. I had the Narnia wall calendar hanging in my room. I cried when Aslan died on the tv cartoon. I also went to church every week. But the two were never linked. I knew of the Christian undertones and thought that was kind of cool but no Disney marketing agency came to my church. My church never told me to read them or told me that they were christian stories. (That's because they really are not). The television played the cartoon movie but my church didn't do the advertising for them. I have absolutely nothing against LWW. My wife read some of the books a couple of years ago from my suggestion. It's disney and blatant marketing of entertainment in the disguise of spirituality that makes me vomit.
tweedle dee and tweedle dumb, i'm going to go with max on this one and abort the holy war ASAP. merry xmas.
While I'm not all for lifting hands and clapping and stuff, I don't really mind it when people do this when worshipping. If you read the bible, when some of the most godly folks to walk the earth praised God, they did it every way imaginable. From laying face down on earth, to hands uplifted to God, and everyway in between. God didn't have a problem then, he probably doesn't have a problem with it now.
It's to be noted that the FAMILY was instituted before the CHURCH if you read the Bible in chronological order. So this turn of choices by church leaderhsip is not entirely un-Biblical per se. And there are many churches of all sizes doing likewise. That said, at our church we are not "closing (as if it were only a business)" our church down, but merely reducing our typical Sunday schedule from the usual 9:45 AM, 10:45 AM (which may last sometimes through 12:30 or 1 PM) & 6 PM evening service - to just a 9:45 AM gathering of some traditional Christmas carols, a throurough but brief reading of The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, followed by taking Communion (the real reason Christmas is so special for Christians is to contimplate why he was born in a stable and laid in a humble manger, what mission he had, to restore God and mankind's fellowship by way of his sinless life, death at the cross, resurrection and return to Heaven)... and then we'll dismiss. The greater lack of turn out I would imagine will be on New Year's weekend.
I find the mega-churches a bit over the top myself. Heck, many of them look exactly like a place of business, unless you look hard. If it "does the thing" for those who attend, however, they can go with my blessing. My wife is a "non-practicing" Catholic, and one of the handful of times she goes to services during the year is for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. She used to go with her mom and sister, but now it's her and her sister that go to mass, Mom having passed away. I don't have a problem with churches not having services on Christmas morning. Being agnostic, it'd be kinda hypocritical for me to be hypocritical, and care. I know the Catholic Church has mass on Christmas morning. (is that supposed to be capitolized?? ...as in "Mass?" and what the heck does "Mass" mean? I know the physics kind of mass... I don't have much, and Shaq has a lot!) I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. I know the Blade Runner household will! Keep D&D Civil.
I believe that the word "Mass" is derived from the word "dismissal" (I think latin - "missa") which is at the end of the Celebration of the Mass in which Catholics are dismissed to go out and set forth Christ unto the world. Generally it is capitalized.
