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and a Happy Winter Solstice to my atheists archnemises friends!

Who loves ambiguous holidays? I don't! Did you know that the advent of this New Age combined religion paradigm is actually a sign of the apocalypse? No, I'm not kidding. Seriously.

So after that festive note, what are you heathens and heretics getting for your days of the worship of commercialism?

rofl I hear it's best when you let it ripen for 666 minutes.

Until now biznatch.

Well, my father would certainly agree with you! He's one of those people who will give you a death glare for pointing out the decidedly non-Christian origins of the date and many of the traditions. There are lots of things that have been interpreted as signs of the apocalypse for over a thousand years. Still, the theories on it are interesting.

I honestly don't know what to expect. Books, probably. My family still likes to be cryptic, and I didn't say I wanted anything. So I'm expecting a sweater and books. Despite the fact that I keep telling them I don't need another sweater, they tend to buy me one every year. I can hope for money, but it's not gonna happen. Unless my aunts start sending me gifts again.

I bought my dad a pocketknife and a remote control car, my stepmom a cell phone charger, and I should probably work out some little things for a few of my friends. I'm not really obligated to buy for anybody else and I have no money. Well, very little money. So that's that. Not much of a worship of commercialism, at that point.

I pretty much agree with you there.

Sentimental things are good. Make shopping easier. Same with jokes and the like, though not living at home fulltime anymore makes it a lot harder to pull off a good joke. Less material available for reference.

I've officially boycotted Christmas's commercialism actually. While I'll accept the cash my grandparents give me (of course I will lol), I'm trying to celebrate Christmas like I do Thanksgiving - just be thankful for what I have. In my Media Literacy class - it's a new English elective that teaches us how to interpret the media - we are talking about the Winter Holiday commercialism and I've been thinking that I've always been so much more happy during Thanksgiving than when I'm bombarded by Holiday commercialism. The fact that I have the clothes I'm wearing, the roof over my head, food in mah belleh, and a great family is more than any crappy plastic toy can represent. In fact, Christmas has mutated into quite the un-Christian holiday. It's not really Christianity's fault, it's the market's doing, but still - I like Thanksgiving, which is more of a secular holiday, better. I mean it historically was giving thanks to God, which is what I do, so there you go.

And JJJ, that whole eliminating money - that's another sign of the Apocalypse. Heheh, yeah.

I've been thinking about the Apocalypse recently. I'm not suicidal or anything - in fact, the exact opposite. And I mean the Apocalypse, with a capital A. Judgment Day. And that's what a lot of people don't understand: the Apocalypse is not a bad thing; its the times before the apocalypse that are difficult. There is no "post-apocalyptic", so I tend to refer to those kinds of movies as "post-disaster". Me and my family have been talking about what our religion teaches as the Apocalypse, and in fact most of the Revelations in the Bible have yet to be understood. Frankly, I believe that the teachings will only be understood when the Apocalypse is about to occur, but it's not like I'm frantically trying to figure it out. I'm resolved about it all. I'm...ready to die basically. Yeah.

Wow, from holidays to the Apocalypse. I think that wins the "Most Drastic Digression" Award. lol

Uh, how much is unemployment?

...Are stalking me? And I would know if my father was laid-off which forced me and my dad to move to an apartment while my mom had to leave for Boston to find work.

Well, I'm something of a skeptic on the Apocalypse, really (then again... I'm essentially an agnostic theist. I guess that's just what my views on everything tend to be then, eh?). My mom used to believe that it would come during her lifetime, firmly enough that she believed she'd been told as much by God. Well, that didn't happen. So I kind of wonder why she believed that so firmly. I'm not sure that my family really has any consensus on what they believe regarding it. My stepmom is kind of a "happy friendly Jesus" Christian and hates the violence of the Old Testament and Revelation; my dad likes reading  the accounts of wars in the Old Testament. I imagine they probably have different views of the matter. I know there was some debate on... whatever it's called, that's supposed to make those who don't believe believe. I want to say the Time of Troubles, but that's when they couldn't decide who was the heir to the Russian throne after Ivan IV's son died. Not that.

I actually kinda like Revelation. Trippy, but it is sort of cool because of it. Was always one of my favorite books of the Bible because of that element of the fantastical. Though the beasts covered in eyes always freaked me out. Those things just sound scary. Now, why those sounded scary and the rest of it didn't... Don't ask me. I have no idea.

As far as commericalism goes--my stepmom loves it. Not as such, but she does. My dad is a little more indifferent, but likes giving things to people to make them happy. I tend to be more ambivalent about it. I wish I could boycott the commercialism of it, but I can only go so far. Essentially, I give people that I really want to give something to something small (wow... confusing sentence structure). Plastic toys are good for jokes. My stepmom tends to give me action figures of characters she knows I hate. And occasionally ones she knows I like, purely because it became a running joke about three years ago. Thanksgiving is a better holiday in many ways, but given the fact that I don't have many family members I'm actually in contact with, it usually amounts to nothing more than a regular dinner with my family. Me, my dad, and my stepmom eating a turkey (which I don't really like) and kielbasa (which I do). And feeding the dogs leftover turkey, which is probably the most fun of any of it. They're funny.

Yeah, recently there has been some...tension between some of my family, but lucky we have enough people to get together with for Thanksgiving. I mean this last Turkey Day, it was just my immediate family, and it was awesome. We watched Akira Kurosawa films, played Persona 3 and 4 as well as Modern Warfare 2's campaign in one sitting, and of course ate turkey.

For faithful Christians, the Revelations are meant to teach you to be prepared for the inevitable end of time. Whether it is or is not going to be in my lifetime, it is a way of life. I mean WW2 came close to being the end of the world, but of course there were certain aspects that weren't what the Revelations said the Apocalypse was going to be. The Apocalypse can very well happen in our modern era, but I don't think it will be for some time.

 I don't think I'd be able to convince my family to watch Akira Kurosawa films. They look at me funny if I suggest a foreign film of any sort, and it didn't help that the first ones my dad saw with me were both Tarkovsky. Solaris and Ivan's Childhood. Neither of which are completely straightforward in comprehension. And he managed to fall asleep playing a video game. Don't know how he did it.

As I said, Apocalypse stuff is pretty interesting. I should probably read Revelation again sometime--it's been a long time, and my beliefs on it have changed quite a bit. If "it could be true, it could be false, there's no way to know for sure--at least now" counts as a belief at all. Makes me sound incredibly indecisive. Maybe I am. It used to be that I was the only person in my family who actually found it an interesting thing to discuss, though. But that was back in... 7th grade? Certainly before I became as skeptical as I can be nowadays. I used to believe that microchipping animals was a sign of the end times, because somebody told me that microchips in humans could become the Mark of the Beast.

No offense, but it seems my family is more cultured than yours. lol We love all things foreign, moreso than American stuff, but what I've come to realize is that America is so great, we can hate it and wish it crumbled apart, and we're called patriots for it. Well, in a certain light. I do like America - it's not perfect, but nothing is, and Ameirca works well enough.

The Mark of the Beast is mentioned in quite a bit of detail in Revelations, but I don't care what form it is in - it's basically just the replacement of money and trading with the sign. As long as you have the sign, you can live in society. It's these kind of social changes that make it so a Christian cannot live in society that mark the Apocalypse. Essentially.

It's not hard to be more cultured than my family. I suppose that 38 years as an hourly factory worker didn't help my dad much on that end, but he hasn't done anything to help himself become more so, either. His brother's a little better, but it's really only with my cousins (who are in their 20s and 30s) and I that it started to get a little better. My dad would be one of the "consumerism worshippers" mentioned, despite the intensity of his aversion to anything he sees as not Christian enough for him. My stepmom's much better, but she won't push her views on him and so tends to be brought down to his level as far as culture goes. I like foreign films a hell of a lot better than most American ones, but that has just resulted in me watching them on my computer because I can't get them at school and my family claims the tv when I'm home.

Well, that at least I see as a fairly likely way to go--combine IDs and credit cards, and you've got it. Essentially. That's actually how some school IDs work already, but those are only within the college or university itself so I don't see them as really truly related. They'd have to be taken on a larger scale.

Actually, that reminds me of my NaNoWriMo this year. Didn't think of it as at all related to apocalyptic prophecy and the like, but it centered around a society sometime in the future where identification chips allowed employment and purchasing of mainstream items. My main character got implicated in a crime, disabled his own chip, and so could only survive on the black market and through a somewhat subversive organization. Sorry, that's a bit unrelated. But that is what I thought of.

I bet the apolcalypse has clowns. Lots of clowns.

Uuum, fuck Halloween, man. It's sacriligeous, pagan, and worships immorality (lack of morals, not lack of mortality - in case you can't read well). At best, it's about having fun, but that's less than the bare-minimum of the foundation of the "hell-iday". Thanksgiving is where it's at, and the actual shame is that Turkey Day gets strong-armed by clever advertising.

Just like you hate zealots, I hate Halloween. I really only don't like it when people THINK IT'S A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY. YOU DUMBASS. FUCKING DUMBASS. That bitch phaled. But more than that, it's just such a visceral holiday that it's too...graaauughish for me.

Well, there is All Saint's Day and hence All Hallow's Eve, but it is indeed a pagan holiday. Then again, most holidays do take  some pretty strong pagan influences. That, however, doesn't bother me a great deal.

You know, Snickers bars make good street hockey pucks when frozen. We did that one Halloween. What made me think of that was that the family whose house we did it at puck Bible tracts on their candy to hand out. Then me and another friend went over to bug our friend who was there for having to go home to hand out candy when we were going to go play video games and so on, but pretended to be trick or treaters by wearing the Russian hockey jerseys I'd gotten at a thrift store some time back and carrying hockey sticks. It turned into an impromtu street hockey match. Good times.

But seriously, I was twelve when my parents decided Halloween was evil and stopped giving out candy. They'll pretend they aren't home even if they are to avoid "catering to paganism." It's a good thing they don't know that I'm not very religious anymore...

Meh, as a non-believing, infidel dog, I like christmas because a) it's generally around 42 degrees and b) I get shitloads of new novels :D

JJJ, I know that Christmas and Halloween has pagan roots. Don't call me a moron all the time, it's rude.

While Halloween is essentially entirely pagan with the Christians trying to make a holiday to compete with the pagans (like Hanukah for the Jews to compete with Christmas), I don't celebrate Christmas on the 25th and I know that that date has its date from pagan holidays; I celebrate the Christmas of the Orthodox which happens on Jan 7 and is based on our belief when the Christ was born. My beef with Halloween is because I am Orthodox Christian and don't observe and that's as far as it goes. I don't celebrate it, you do, okay, moving on.

Also, I never said that the New Year was bad and that you should not celebrate. This has never been trying to convert you guys, so stop getting so paranoid when dealing with faithful people, JJJ. There's only so much I can do to get you from condemning yourself to an eternity of pain. That's 75% joke, 25% awkwardly-true. But enough of that.

Since it is Western Christmas today, I'd just like to wish everyone a happy holiday. Honestly, I don't care about dates or whatever. As long as you lead a good life, I'm sure that counts for something. Enjoy your time with your friends and families and remember that the best present is love, and yes that's sappy, but darn it if it isn't true.

...Pardon me if I accidently didn't double-tap my 'K' key. And I was saying that Hanukkah wasn't as important as Christmas became - and Christmas is important, but it's not like it dominated Easter. Don't worry, my Jewish friends know this too, so I'm not demeaning Judaism. Hanukkah was near the time of Christmas so in an effort to get Jews into commercialism, Hanukkah was hyped up and commercialized. That's what I'm saying about that; that commercialism essentially changed the holiday.

And look JJJ, you're turning this thing into a battle over religion. I'm not in the mood to exchange hatred between Christians and atheists. It's one of the things you don't discuss with friends and family. lol I'm tired of debating things like religion, and essentially its the divide between the secular and the Church, so just leave all your assumptions of me believing myself to be superior to everyone else at the door. I have Jewish, Muslim, gay, and atheist friends, and it's just ironic when non-faithful people accuse religious people of trying to push an agenda when they just live a different way.

Fine fuck it, I'm sick of arguing.

I didn't mean that Hanukkah was invented to compete with Christmas. I was making a connection between how the commercialism was made to combat the expansion of Christmas. That's all.

Yeah, dude, don't blame us for your religious flame wars. We just like to sit on the sidelines and chuckle .

No seriously, merry christmas. I'm going to lock myself in my room now and read the Tales of the Three Worlds until my eyes bleed. Epic stuff.

Ugggh. I'm not one of those religious nutjobs. That's what I was parodying. Alright, that's done.

And I'm personally psyched to watch Joyeux Noel. I saw a mini-review of it on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com and it looked extremely awesome, so I'ma pick it up and watch it with mah family.

It is a good movie. One of the few worthwhile things we watched in my second year of German classes.

Not to resurrect the war, but... isn't Orthodox Christmas the 7th mainly because of the calendar change? That was what I'd always heard, anyway. It just happens to be January 7th on the new calendar, and was not on the old--and as Russia and the rest of the Eastern Orthodox world changed calendars later than Western Europe, their Christmas retained its position. Honest question/observation, not trying to start anything else...

And merry Christmas! Even though it's technically now not Christmas anymore. Or yet, if you're Anubis or any other Orthodox around.

Meh, nothing worth reading, Silver. But seriously, I don't care about calendars and shit. I was kidding about the heretic crap, mah boi.

Anyway, what have you guys gotten? Myself, I got all the achievements for Veteran completion for levels "S.S.D.D" through "Whiskey Hotel" on Modern Warfare 2, so yes I am a bamf.

Amazon.com gift card, Slava Fetisov Red Wings jersey (my parents apparently just found out that he was my first favorite hockey player), hoodies, and my stepmom's constant joke action figures. Star Trek ones this year.

Song of the Tears saga by Ian Irvine. Words cannot describe the awesome.

Too much to read for a thread that I've not been involved it at all.

Paganism sure has influenced a lot, that's for sure.  Good times.

I don't celebrate any of these holidays (neither does my family), but my parents bought me shit on Black Friday regardless. haha  I got a guitar, which I've been wanting for quite a while, and a PS3, which I've been wanting for an even longer while.  Also, they went to Mexico last week, and will be gone for two more weeks, so they left my $200 and I get to stay home by myself for 3 weeks.  A merry bunch of holidays indeed.