h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Get this. My family have just accused me of "doing his Van Morrison arse jiggle again."

It's that word "again" that worries me. I didn't even know I did a "Van Morrison arse jiggle" in the first place!

Apparently when certain Van songs are played, I start unintentionally moving with the music. In a way that is best described as an "arse-jiggle", apparently. All this is news to me!

Merry Christmas to all of you, and long may your arse jiggle.

Merry Christmas. I do hope that "Lang may yer arse jingle" becomes an Ulster Scots greeting

Me, too.

Merry Christmas to all in NI!

Merry Christmas towel, and towel a good night!

I'm at midnight mass. What I really need is a cigarette.

...or a .

I wonder if I could sneak out at half time for a smoke and a whisky. (Is journaling during mass a mortal sin? Oh Jesus wouldn't mind I'm sure.)

(Masses like this are why we invented protestantism)

Yeah. You could be singing carols. With actually tunes.

Seriously Dmitri, I think it's the nicotine shortage, but I really feel like heckling Saint Paul's letters to the heathens (of wherever the hell). I kinda like the heathens more. What a pain in the ass that Saint Paul fellow was.

You'll get no argument from me. I'm still mad that he and Peter get all the big squares, and John got this little tiny thing on Patmos with donkeys in.

Thank God that's over. It took bloody ages.

Ages.

Never go to masses as an act of friendship or fellowship. Especially not at this bastarding time of year.

(The debates are fun though.)

At times I am tempted to wonder if Paul was the Anti-Christ [even though Octavian/Caesar Augustus fits the characterization more]. Jesus took pains to uphold the dignity of women, and then Paul came along and decided that women should not even be allowed to open their mouths in church , hence the 18 or so centuries in which choirs were all-male, except perhaps in nunneries, where they would have been all-female.

This was the huge culture clash: what Jesus had in mind, versus what the patriarchal Roman world dictated. Incredible, isn't it, that people thought the two cultures could be brought together?

In the last few days I've thought about Mary's role in the Nativity process. Did she have any other options than to be a wife and mother? I doubt it. Of course, men of that time had severe restrictions on what they could become, too. We don't get much character analysis of Mary in the Bible. She was chosen, and that was that, and she did her job as a mother, and went to a spot very near the top in the afterlife. There was only one such spot, and now it's filled, so don't get your hopes up, ladies.

Biblical scholars have maintained that Mary was extremely well-liked by her contemporaries. I guess they have non-Biblical documents to establish this. Joseph was respected. It is said that plows made by Joseph and Jesus were still in use three hundred years later.

There is a set of books by Josephus that contains much of what is known about the First Century A.D. Most decent libraries would have the set. I have never read it, but it would be fascinating to sit down with it some day.

Somewhere, down at the bottom of all the "biblical scholarship", the politics, the architecture, the schisms, there is something very simple. Too simple, perhaps. Too obvious to exist without being expanded upon, expounded upon, elaborated upon and forgotten.

Something more important than cathedrals, pipe organs, and beautiful marble.

But I forget what it is.

Love? Kindness? Compassion?

If that's it, it's very simple indeed. You can't buy it, and it's not for sale on eBay.

Yes, that!

But it is too simple. It's easier to worry about whether to eat meat on a Friday. Or how many hours before communion you can eat or drink alcohol. Or whether or not to circumcise Gentiles before they can become Christians. Or whether god is one person, three persons, or no persons at all. Or whether special clothes need to be worn. Or whether he was born this year, that year or the other year.

And hopefully, by the time you go through the inexhaustible list of absolute nonsense, you won't have to deal with those really awkward ideas about being a decent human being.

"But it is too simple. It's easier to worry about whether to eat meat on a Friday, etc." [[KB]

My theory is that the vast collection of habits and traditions exists to set Christianity apart form competing world views and make it seem better. Like you, I don't care how many gods there are, or what you need to wear or what year Jesus was born, or how many waltzing angels there are on a pinhead. However, I am interested in the human elements. People decided to be with Jesus or against him because they knew him, or knew people who knew him, or liked his family, etc. There were either a lot of people who liked Jesus, or the few who did had enormous motivation to carry the flame for him.

Thomas Jefferson carved out all the things that Jesus is supposed to have said, and published them as a booklet. Did Jesus really say all these things? We don't know. It was common practice at the time to include sayings that Jesus *might* have said. Confucius and Buddha probably had stuff added in this way, too. "If it fits, keep it" seems t have been their motto.

Some day I hope to read roughly four dozen long-hidden gospels that were unearthed in Nag Hammadi in 1946. I think all the disciples wrote [or had written for them] gospels of their own. Mary Magdalene is supposed to have been Jesus' wife as well as a disciple -- which did not sit well with the male disciples. I love it! No wonder the patriarchal Romans were so eager to want this detail destroyed.

"The Da Vinci Code" has used this possibility as the basis for a best-selling book.

I'm always mindful of the contradiction in modern searches for meaning in First-Century events. If Jesus was just a man [which seems likely to me], he could still be a source of wisdom for modern people, just as Confucius, Buddha, and numerous other ancients were. But would people be so interested in him if he wasn't said to be divine?

I enjoy historical novels such as Colleen McCullough's four books about Julius Caesar and his times. "Wolf Hall" by Mantel is also fascinating. I've also read excellent historical accounts such as "Desire o the Everlasting Hills." So, I'm not obsessed with any one period or historical figure. I'm just curious to know what new insights might be added to what is already known.

And, to be honest, there is a lot of strange conjecture that is all over the map . Much of it is bunk, in my opinion .

Those are very good examples. Yes.

Thank you.