JP's Christmas Message

If you were hoping for something profound, I'm afraid that you're going to be disappointed.  If thoughtful and profound is your thing, you're probably better off waiting for the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas message.  I say probably, though, because I've just seen the BBC Headline which tells me that his message is going to be about not waiting for heroes to solve the world's problems.  I always think that it puts a bit of a dampener on things when the media announce what people are going to say in a speech, but in this case I hope that it's just something of a cliff-hanger.  As a message in itself, it's a bit nice-but-pointless.

Personally, of course, I hope that he really encourages people to think about the Christian faith.  The message of the Christian faith, of course, has not changed since last year but don't let that put you off having another think about it.  Believe me it's worth it, and the birth of Jesus really is something to celebrate.

Meanwhile, I'm struggling with the whole wrapping presents thing.  I feel that I'm now at an age where I should be able to do it, and that I can no longer rely on the fact that bad wrapping is assurance that I've put the effort in myself.  It's not going well, though.  I've managed to get that 're-used wrapping paper' look and may as well have not bothered buying a new roll.  Still, maybe some people will dig me for the apparent green credentials it gives me.

Happy Christmas!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the purpose of religion

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo...
Read more

atheism is a matter of faith, not science: the debate continues

Following the letters page in last Wednesday's Metro and the follow-up comment on this post I’m pleased to see that the beginnings of a debate are brewing, and I intend to use this post to pick up the baton again. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start by responding to the aforementioned comment. I apologise if my tone was deemed to be a bit sharp, but I have no hesitation in defending the point I was trying to make. According to dictionary.com , faith can be defined as “belief that is not based on proof.” As there is no proof that God does not exist, belief that God does not exist (i.e. atheism) must be faith. Now, I take your point that “as human beings we are always revising and fine tuning what we hold to be true based on the evidence to hand, what we discover and our ability to determine what is probable or improbable.” To digress slightly, that is why switching on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be something of a milestone, as it could eit...
Read more

milk and sugar?

I've been debating with my housemate as to whether tea or coffee is more popular world-wide. We've both done quick web-searches, and we've both got results to match our different claims. I say tea, he says coffee. So, to settle the debate, it's down to you. Do you prefer tea or coffee? Please leave a comment below - one word is all it takes.
Read more