Had a great Christmas visiting with family and friends but after I thought ... what does Christmas really mean?. I mean beyond the  ridiculous consumerism people seem to enjoy which corporations depend on.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Christmas-true-meaning.html

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The true meaning of Christmas is love. John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Hmm... So God gave his only son to the ignorant masses to be crucified so the ignorant masses might believe they can be Gods in themselves and live forever... wow.

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For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." The true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this incredible act of love.

Of course, sending your son to be crucified by the ignorant masses and the powers that be = love. How could I not see this?.

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Why does God love us so much? Because He is love itself (1 John 4:8). Why do we celebrate Christmas each year? Out of gratitude for what God did for us, we remember His birth by giving each other gifts, worshipping Him, and being especially conscious of the poor and less fortunate.

So giving each other gifts and celebrating rampant and quite senseless consumerism is our way of celebrating the fact that if we believe in God we can become gods, treat others as inferior and live for eternity. However I find the part about being conscious of the poor and less fortunate a little offensive because no Christian I know seems to give a damn about them. Note it says we should be conscious of the poor but in no way does it say you should help them and in fact nobody does. In fact the supposedly good Christians following Trump voted for a massive tax grab for the wealthy paid for by the poor in the form of 1.4 Trillion in new debt. They just shafted the poor royally just in time to celebrate Christmas... how wonderful of them.
Debt... the gift that just keeps on giving.

It's no wonder I tend to drink too much around Christmas and I often wonder what might happen if everyone actually started acting like responsible adults instead of children on a shopping spree.

I would also like to add that beliefs and opinions mean nothing if they are not reinforced through action. Honesty, Integrity and Intent to do and act as we claim which seems to be a dying art in this day and age of much ado about nothing.

Hear hear.

I don't mean to sound like a scrooge because I think Christmas is the best time of the year and I enjoy getting together with friends and being thankful for what we have, I just get a little cranky when people prostitute good intentions to serve themselves.

For instance...

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Why does God love us so much? Because He is love itself (1 John 4:

You see it implies if we do not believe in God then we can never truly know love which is degrading and demeaning.

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Why do we celebrate Christmas each year? Out of gratitude for what God did for us,

Ah gratitude or is it loyalty?, the kind of loyalty Trump speaks of which is a way of saying subservience and doing as you are told without question like a slave. As if to say if you do as I say without question because I believe I am a god in myself and superior to you then you will be rewarded. However it does not mention the down side and if you do not do as you are told you will be ostracized and punished... a slave by any other name.

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we remember His birth by giving each other gifts, worshipping Him,

Worship: the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration, Reverence: deep respect for someone or something, Respect: agree to recognize and abide by, Abide: accept or act in accordance with. Thus we come full circle back to what was really implied by the term worship which is subservience:  willingness to obey others unquestioningly. Uhm... I do not obey well, never have never will, I'm not a dog I'm a man.

So what are we really talking about here?, at the end of the day it is about power and control...period.

But enough of the negativity because we have always been free to choose, a choice and we do not need to follow anyone. A new year is upon us, a new start, a new beginning to learn new things we never thought we would know. To understand things we never thought we would if we choose to understand without bias or prejudice. You can do it little buddy... were all rooting for you.

Kick some technological ass because you can and never look back... look forward because you can.

Well the next coming of _________ would have to be something so powerful that not one government would be able to survive unless they also got on the boat, otherwise people all over the World would build themselves a whole new way of living, one which makes "living off the grid" the new norm and after that then..........who knows.

I think it's high time for something completely new, a fresh start, all over this small planet.

It's not first restart for mankind in human history - think of human footprints found within dinosaur footprints ...
Round and round and round again ...
... Boring ...

I read some articles suggesting great technologically advanced civilizations inhabited Earth three times in the past but destroyed themselves. Same old crap... war, racism, religion and politics. If nothing else it will give the planet a rest from our stupidity for a while kind of like an intermission between regularly scheduled programming.