On a related note..

I found out today that the commonly accepted explanation/history of the term "Rule of Thumb" that applied to a husband only being able to beat his wife with a stick/switch no wider than the width of this thumb is aparently a bit of an exaggeration and/or the result of perpetuated misinterpretations and a mix of outright falsehoods.

Interesting.

If people aren't opposed to rooting through some of the religious/political issues in the world (as long as folks are willing to do so without getting their panties in a bunch.. it just isn't worth that kind of drama to me), I think it might be fun to kick around some ideas and try to learn more about the world we live in.  I'm always open for better/more information and an honest exchange of knowledge.

My recent interest and exploration of religion was spurred by a string of conversations I had with some other folks that began with a delving into the origins of Christmas and Easter, being largely pagan celebratory rituals that were more or less absorbed into early Christianity in a (successful) attempt to assimilate the pagan masses.  The celebration of Christ's Mass was originally targeted for a lesser pagan celebration at the beginning of December but was moved, boldly, to try to take on the largest pagan ritual, the week-long Winter Solstice celebration (Saturnalia).   Easter is similar in that the bunnies, eggs and Spring-renewal elements are largely taken from the ancient belief in a pagan goddess of Spring (known by a TON of names), Eoastre, etc. 

From there, I got into questions about the origins of words in religion and the establishment of modern religious institutions, beginning back at the Council of Nicea with Constantine (a HUGE pagan guy) leading the goings-on and infusing so much pagan nomeclature, symbology and terminology into "Christianity" that if you were to remove all the pagan references, iconology and influences you'd not have much else left today.  Even the words Jesus (of Zues), Holy (Halo, Helo, all are direct sun-god references) and Amen (Pagan God, "Amen" being substituted for original word, "Amein") are ALL pagan in origin.  The original names of the guy known as "Jesus" and the supreme fella Himself "God" have been modified/removed from all the texts by Constantine & Co.

From there, you get as deep down the rabbit hole as you wanna go.   You've got the original Christian church, the Roman Catholic Church deleting one of the ten commandments and splitting another in half to keep the number at ten.. arbitrarily changing the day of sabbath just because they could, which was aparently supposed to be on Saturday (Saturnalia-day, ironically).

Anyway.. I'll stop rambling for now and get back to work.

=]

Late,

O-Rugs