Been resting and playing for two days, so today I am going to work. There are a few things that need to be done and as always, I am the one to do it.
But that's work. It's the same anywhere, everywhere.
Recently, there has again been a big hoo-haa on wishinghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif people 'Merry Christmas'. Some morons said Muslims can't wish that to non-Muslims, for fear of points being deducted from our good deeds.
What nonsense. But then again, this is how a lot of people want to live their lives - dictated by nonsense people - so who is anyone to tell them otherwise? To tell them they are wrong.
Whenever I alert people that they are wrong, they get angry, even when the whole intention is the sharing of information. And there are lots of information about these religious festivities.
For example, Christmas is probably not the day on which Jesus was born. He was born probably in Spring. Some sources say that Dec 25 was a pagan holiday to celebrate either Mithras or Saturn. Hence The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon saying Happy Saturnalia instead of Merry Christmas.
When I was in school, my teachers and a book said that the two Eids were created to replace two pagan festivals happening at the same time. I do not know the veracity of this as it was handed down as an oral tradition.
If we go back further in time, we can find many elements in current religion stemming from even older beliefs. The Siratul-Mustaqim that is mentioned in Islam, was also a depiction of Judgement Day by Zoroastrians. Their As-Sirat was also a bridge the width of a seventh of a single human hair.
Jesus' traits of being born of a virgin, tempted in the desert, crucified and later resurrected were also the stories of Mithra, Krishna and some Egyptian God. And Jesus was mentioned in both The Bible as well as The Koran.
The teachings of a middle path is also inherent in Buddhism, some 500 years before Christ. Islam also teaches moderation, also a middle path, frowning on extremism.
In Malaysia, the practice of bankrupting one's self for marriage was a fusion tradition. Islam required that news of a marriage be announced somewhat, and the natives here combined that with Hindu traditions to a certain extent. So that today, we have people going into debt to throw a party (or several) for weddings.
In the end, though, as I always tell my atheist friends, leave the people be. They want to believe or celebrate anything, let them. Who are we to tell them otherwise. Each one of us have our own vices and the worst could be a desire to be right and prove other people wrong. There is no comparison, really, as right and wrong are merely two sides of the same coin.
