Got the right take Tanveer

I, like I think you, wish for a would where cricket was the higher obsession

where Christians, Muslims, Hindus, born again cricketer West Indians, could disregard the religion of old man Power Projection and keep their eye on the ball.

It would be a better world.

Even Indians and Pakistanis play cricket in peace - no nukes need apply.

Pete

Maybe ‘happy holidays ‘is the best wish that you can bestow if you feel that a wish needs to be bestowed. Not everyone celebrates the religious festival of Christmas but most people at least have a holiday around this time simply to take advantage of the number of public holidays available. Wishing someone a Merry Christmas is very presumptuous. Why wish someone something that they do not necessarily wish for themselves? Maybe they don’t want any type of Christmas. It is just as easy to respect the different choices by wishing them a good holiday rather than a merry Christmas. Many wish a merry Christmas simply because of the pressure they feel to show ‘goodwill to all men’. They are meeting their own needs to be good rather than the needs of the person to whom they are wishing. To them ‘happy holidays’ does not meet the criteria required to appease their guilt.

Celebrating Christmas only makes sense if you are celebrating the birth of Jesus. Why you would want to do that is another question but at least it is consistent. Exactly what everyone else is doing when they say they celebrate Christmas is a mystery. It would be better to wish them a happy family gathering or something. It makes no sense for non-Christians to indulge in Christmas behaviours at all so they must be responding to some kind of peer pressure or emotional blackmail from families. They usually rationalise their behaviour by saying they are celebrating ‘family’ or some other nefarious concept. Christmas behaviours are essentially neurotic. There is no reason or logic behind any of them. You can have just as much fun and joy at this time of year and have integrity at the same time by just enjoying the holiday and familial relationships in the same way you would at any other time. The stress that most people endure is a sure sign that what they are doing is not at all natural.

This article only reinforces my opinion that religious belief is purely a geographical accident dependent on where one is born in the world. Being brought up in India, Catholic or Muslim. Ireland a Catholic. England a Protestant and so on around the globe. Culture is exactly the same. If I had been born an Aboriginal, then perhaps I would believe in "Dream Time".

It is what you are taught to believe at an early age. I was baptised and confirmed into the Church of England, but I soon began to question this world of myth and superstition not substantiated by any sort of proven science and so have rejected it all in favour of evidence and scientific enquiry. Pray to all your various gods if you wish and it gives you succour, but ask yourself the question why you are not heard by your interventionist deity with any favourable result not based on coincidence.

Well Tanveer, you and the Jews can feel comfortable next to the ham.
There was a real purpose to the ban on pig meat originally.
In the middle east the method of animal husbandry that kept parasites
out of the pig were unknown.

The knowledge to do so was developed by the Chinese, before Christ
sometime I believe, and this knowledge got passed through to Europe
somewhat later. However the middle east missed out or it had become
dogma and so could not be changed.

It is burdens like this that religion leaves us with.
I am not sure if in the early first millennium if Europe had a ban on pig meat.
I wonder if the Romans ate ham ?

Well said *BazZ* visa vi the swine.

I often take perverse pleasure in stirring up my Islamic friends about pork. I say things like:

"Well, didn't *GodO* make everything?"

To which they usually respond:
"Yes He(cough) did Adam!"

Adam: "Oh Really?! So, what happened when he made El Porka? Did He ___k up?"

Mooslees: "No Adam, El GodO is perfect, He makes no mistakes?"

Adam: "Oh well, was He perhaps on the p!ss & special sheesha that day?"

Mooslees: "Oh! Adam, WHY do you say such things to us?"

Adam: "Well, what's the problem then? Grunt, Grunt?!"

Moozlees: "For it is written by the Prophet in the Holy Book."

(Wasn't he the illiterate fella who had to have his mates write down his auditory hallucinations so he wouldn't forget?)

Adam: "Truly Poppets. And WHY do you think he made that rule?"

Moozlees: " .. dah, dah, dah - because He is the Prophet,"
and we then degenerate into circular reasoning. "

..

(Re-Rolls out BazZ's comments)

Indeed it seems that the Clerics where the ones who butchered the carcass AND it was a good call in the interests of health to ban its consumption at that time and in that place *TIP* Only eat imported pork in Indonesia.

But since then, and with dirty, filthy political control of the masses mechanisms appearing to be involved, many poor uneducated Moozees are only taught that they MUST BELIEVE, and that is the end of the matter.

..

My wife is Islamic NU, non practising and progressive. She accepts the scientific argument, is happy to cook me up quality bacon and pork chops, but as of yet is not keen to consume herself. She wants her natural child (my step daughter) to grow up a child of the world though, so we left her to make her own choice without any UNDUE INFLUENCES. And that's part of the key.

One sniff of the crackle and she was into it, slurping with delight along the way. ;-) Crunch, Crunch, Crunch

1/2

We now have a dog - which the girls insisted on having - despite their Islamic upbringing and *POLINA* is a much Luved member of the family unit.

..

So, the issue to me really is quality education in a nurturing environment free of coercive practices.

And that's the problem with the manner that some religion is practiced. It is not so much the silly indoctrinated practitioners, but rather the vile, frothing at the mouth, intolerant fools who insist on inflicting their demented and deluded view of the world on others.

..

If this guy is only just getting used to the ham on the table *BazZ, it begs the question does it not? Maybe he got the encouragement award to help with some of those of his shared faith?

..

Some reasonable questions were posed to him by another poster. I am curious to see if he will respond.