Christmas Is No Jihad
And Christ Freed Humanity
December 24, 2002
Little matter where you are in the world; as Christmas day draws near, all Christians start to rekindle their childish joy. The Christmas season creates an atmosphere of joy, compassion and hope. It is the one day of the year when humanity reflects on its goodness and revels in its charity.
For those Constitutional dilettantes who are hell-bent to separate church and state, this is a time to take pause and reflect upon a world with no belief in Christ, no Christianity and no Christmas.
Americans have the literal God-given advantage of living in a system born from and nurtured by Christianity. Every freedom we are blessed with is the product of a Christian-inspired mind. With little doubt, there are plenty of those who would crucify me for having said this, but reflect on the concept for just a charitable holiday moment.
Before Christ, the world was ruled by literal warlords who controlled their populations with a belief system based on nonsense deities. Roman emperors ran wild with blasphemies that denied most people any human rights and the operative law was the rule of whim. The only pagan nonsense with the least bit of validity might be the god of fire for whom the only worthy sacrifice is a rack of baby back ribs.
When Christ planted the seeds of the Judeo-Christian ethic, an eventual capital sentence was pronounced upon tyrants’ enslavement of the masses. The new sport for the Roman Coliseum was Christian faith and charity…a sport the early Romans never understood and obviously lost.
Even the notorious Holy Crusades were eradicated by the Judeo-Christian belief system. Oh sure, some little smarties out there can make a ham-fisted argument that Christianity was the causation for these conflicts, but that is simply wrong. The Crusades were the self-serving campaigns of Monarchs. Christianity was only a convenient justification…sort of propagandistic pabulum. Christianity had unleashed a force in human society that not only made the ridiculousness of the crusades extinct but their Monarchs as well.
The progress of Christianity further unshackled humanity with the Renaissance. In their quest to praise God, the God of the Judeo-Christian belief system, artists built and decorated great houses of worship. This artistic activity necessitated a quantum leap in mathematical and engineering knowledge. Ergo, all of the sciences advanced at a previously unseen pace. Resultant was the ability of man to study and understand his place in the universe and on our little planet. No longer was the world controlled by the divine acts of Monarchs. Scientific understanding sowed the seeds for the liberation of Western Civilization from the oppression of monarchies and their class systems. Kings were no longer Gods on Earth, just men…benevolent or otherwise.
Once freed from the spiritual chains of the monarchies by the scientific advancements of the Renaissance, humanity was ready to politically free the individual from the coercive hold of governments by ushering in the Age of the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, mankind peeked inside of its post-Renaissance toolbox that was overflowing with knowledge and asked, “How do we use these tools for the betterment of the species?”
The answer was a debate of ideas the likes of which the world had never before seen. This was a real debate based on reason and logic, not the kind of name-calling one-upmanship of today’s world. Philosophers like Rousseau and Locke uncorked the genie in the bottle of individual liberties. The concept of individual liberties, more than anything else, symbolizes the American system which we so cherish to this very day. Once again, this was the work of Western Europeans operating under an umbrella of Judeo-Christian beliefs.
It was a very short step from the European philosophers to the likes of Jefferson and the rest of our Founding Fathers. Ergo once again…the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is nothing more than arrogance to promote the badly flawed argument that religion has no place in American government. American government is inseparably linked to the moral values propagated by the Judeo-Christian ethic. America’s laws are based on moral beliefs. Individual liberty is a moral value. And…these morals are the children of Christianity.
As we all start to celebrate the Christmas season in our own ways, it might do well to think for a moment about how fortunate we are. What other nation in the world consistently strives for charity and understanding, even in the face of overt aggression? What other religious system has created an almost universal holiday whose only point is to make us kinder and more charitable people? I challenge anybody, including the less than perceptive revisionist propagandists, to show me a holiday that spreads more universal joy and compassion than does Christmas.
The forces that so fervorently wish to strip the last wreath of Christmas cheer from American society would do well to consider the system they benefit from is a direct result of Judeo-Christian moral values. So, to these Bah Humbugs I wish a very merry Christmas.
And to people all over the world, especially our armed forces personnel and my friends in the Ether Zone, I wish the merriest of Christmases. This is truly the time of year when all should suspend their animosities and focus on the greatness that surrounds us and our personal ability to bring hope and happiness into the lives of our fellow humans.
Even to bin Laden himself I extend the blessings of Christmas joy. Although I will have to do my Christian best not to hope that his Santa is driving an F-16. Sometimes Christian charity extends only so far.
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