5 Fun Facts about Christmas

Merry Christmas. Have a list full of fun “Did You Know?” type of stuff to share. Let’s get started.

1. Did you know Christmas wasn’t celebrated by Christians until the year 354? That’s right! A Greek saint named Saint Nicholas was known in modern-day Turkey as a jolly old fellow who delivered gifts to children on this special day. St. Nick’s tradition continued, and later evolved into who we now call “Santa Clause”. 

2. Jesus was not born in the winter time. If you believe in the Bible, and believe that Jesus walked the earth, then you should know what the genocidal/purely mythological and in no way should be taken literally good book says. “She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” Shepherds working the fields, keeping watch of their flocks? Doesn’t sound like it was winter to me…

3. This was originally a pagan holiday that was “adopted” by the Christians. As it states on World Bulletin by ErtanKarpazli, “December 25 marked what was known as the Winter Solstice. Sol is the ancient Latin word for ‘Sun’, and Stice literally means ‘standing still’. It was celebrated by sun-worshippers as the day signaling the middle of winter, the shortest day of the solar calendar.” 

In addition to pagans, the Romans who were around before Christianity also celebrated December 25th as a special holiday. Karpazli says “ December 25 marked their most important holiday, Saturnalia. This was later renamed to ‘Sol Invicti’, which means ‘the unconquerable sun’, in honor of the Syrian sun-god Apollo. Ancient Egyptians also used to celebrate December 25 in worship of Ra, or Horus, the sun-god child of Isis and Orisis. In Mesopotamia, the mythical god Marduk, who was believed to fight against the cold and darkness, was also worshipped on this day. The Aztecs on this day would sacrifice children in worship of their sun-god, Huitzilopochli. North-western Europe hosted festivities for the Nordic god Balder, while the Ancient Greeks dedicated the day for Adonis and Dionysos. For the Ancient Persians, December 25 represented the birth of Mithra, the sun-god.” (Side note: Horus also basically shares ALL the same traits as Jesus Christ such as virgin birth, 12 disciples, performed miracles, was crucified, died, and rose from the dead 3 days later.)

4. Did you know that pagans worship nature, and create idols out of organisms found in nature? Hence, the Christmas tree. 

5. Read this article about 5 direct quotes from the Bible specifically said by Mr. Christ, and how literally EVERYONE who celebrates Christmas goes against most of these ideals, such as not making a show of your giving in Matthew 6:2, how worrying about money can strangle your spirituality in Matthew 13:3 and 7, and how wealth/materials security can blind us to our real needs in Revelations 3:17. 

So to wrap it up (pun intended), everyone enjoy your holiday, enjoy the time with your families, enjoy the presents, and enjoy the food. Don’t take any of the historical elements of Christmas too serious or you will upset yourself. Just take it for what it is. A capitalists dream, a consumers nightmare, and a child’s reason for getting good grades. Merry Christmas y’all.

Donald Trump is correct on Syria

So Donald Trump appears to be doing something that left wingers, progressives, liberals, and whatever other labels you want to use have been asking for going on roughly 17 years.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME.

So, while it somewhat pains me to give Trump credit on anything because he’s so trash, I must call it how I see it.

This is a great move.

Removing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan and removing all troops from Syria is fantastic news. Anyone who says otherwise is suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, meaning you hate him so much that even when he does things you agree with, you find a reason to disagree with it.

You have probably already heard the nonsense “This helps Russia” talk, which is basically just a way to spew propaganda. They say our withdrawal will help ISIS and somehow at the same time will help Asaad’s regime. Even though they are the two groups fighting each other. That should be a clear indicator of bullshit. 

And let’s get back to the Russia point for a second. My guy Kyle Kulinski over at Secular Talk on YouTube, brought up the best point. “So if Vladimir Putin was in favor of Medicare for Alland free college, and then Trump implemented it, would you all of a sudden be against it?” Excellent point.

I am an advocate for peace, for not spending money to try to “fix” other countries when Flint still has poison water, we have 50,000 homeless veterans, and student loan debt remains in the top 3 types of debt, which stops my generation from being able to participate in the economy in any serious way. 

So, in closing, good job Trump, you should do this in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Niger too. 

Also, I’ll believe it when I see it. Once the troops are actually on planes, I’ll give REAL credit. Right now, it’s just talk. We’ll see.

Capitalism Makes People Trash

been a while people, how are you? Me? I’m tired. Been working mad overtime, making sure this Christmas isn’t trash for my loved ones. But this whole month, I’ve been thinking about how much fun the month of December used to be as a child compared to how stressful it is as an adult. 

I work at a west coast delivery company, similar to Fed Ex (it’s not Fed Ex.) We’ll call it “Western Delivery”.  And let me just tell you…

People get really really angry when there are issues with package delivery. 

Nobody really thinks about the grand scale of things, so let yaboy put it in perspective.

We deliver in 8 states. Each of the larger states have more facilities, smaller states may only have one warehouse for the WHOLE state. Each warehouse may have anywhere from 50 to 200 drivers. 

We deliver somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000 (Dr. Evil voice) packages per day. 

So with that said, there are going to be delays, deliveries to incorrect addresses, packages that go missing, which sucks, but let’s face it. Shit happens. And boy oh boy, when the shit happens to YOU, all that other stuff goes out the window. Quickly.

All the anger stems typically from people who are anticipating gifts to give their kids for the holiday season, and they don’t want to disappoint anyone with a lack of presents under the tree/by the menorah. So the stress which comes from essentially trying to make sure that your loved ones have new shiny material things for this one particular day creates a hostile relationship between consumer and producer. 

People always forget what it’s like to have rules and restrictions as an employee as soon as they are the customer. So all chill goes out the window, and the aggressiveness begins towards people who truly weren’t involved with your issues with the delivery/product in the first place. Then people leave work stressed and have to participate in this whole debacle as well, and the stress cycle of the holidays continues. The only people who aren’t on the constant verge of a mental breakdown are the owner class. They don’t have to deal with the consequences decisions they make for everyone else when it comes to the anger and extreme disappointment that the consumer faces because “Western Delivery” took on too many contracts that we couldn’t fulfill with the amount of employees we currently have. 

So what is my point in all of this? There’s two.

1. Capitalism sucks.

2. Be nice to customer service employees, the person on the phone didn’t do anything wrong.