Epiphany

So that's Christmas well and truly over again. Boo. I like Christmas. I dutifully removed all the decorations yesterday as one is meant to, and checked carefully around the house for the one I had missed, for there is always one. Sure enough, when leaving the house today there was the sort-of-wreath on the front door. Because I checked the whole of the INSIDE of the house, of course, not the outside. Missed the deadline again. Like every year.

Today is Epiphany. The day the wise men arrived in Bethlehem to pay respect to the baby Jesus. The last day of the celebration of Jesus' birth, before we start winding up to celebrate his demise.

Incidentally, I do accept the story of Jesus as a historical figure, but I do think of it as being more Life of Brian than King James' Bible. Still, it doesn't do any harm to think about the "true meaning of Christmas" and try to come up with an answer for the children that isn't "gifts" or "it's all a load of lies".

There has been a poster up for a few weeks opposite a set of traffic lights I pass through for most places I go. So I've studied it a lot. It says something along the lines of:

"God loved us so much that he sent us his only son so that those who believe could have eternal life".

I have issues with this.

Couldn't God, all powerful creator, simply:

1) mysteriously impregnate any virgin/woman (why did it have to be a virgin? Surely God would know if she was pregnant to another?) to have more sons?

2) just say "right, you have eternal life"?

Obviously you have to believe in God in the first place to believe there is an afterlife, so saying you don't get in unless you believe is pointless. I don't get in a tizzy about not being able to go to places that I don't think exist, so why should anyone else?

And I don't really get why having his son amongst us being persecuted and then executed helps the cause. It doesn't give the impression that being a fan of God is a good thing.

I don't understand it at all.

I don't mean any offence by the above, I'm just asking the questions that come to me. Which I believe is offensive, but that's another matter.