There is no Biblical evidence of December 25 as Christ's date of birth--Luke is able to give us a range of a couple of years, but no specific date. I much prefer the honesty of noting that reality up front, and treating today as a day to honor the creation of Christ instead of insisting that today and only today must be His birthday. The analogy I use is that we have not a shred of evidence that the earth was created on April 22, but we still designate it as Earth Day. Nor is December 25 agreed upon by all Christians as the date of Christmas--I'm matrilineally Armenian, and Armenian Orthodox Christmas is January 6, the date of the Epiphany in Western Christianity.

I think that Constantine and his successors who infused Western European Christianity with non-Christian trappings did so to make the Empire's latest choice of religion taste better going down, and that it is possible to acknowledge that history while still cherishing family Christmas traditions and honoring the incarnation of Christ today.

fantastic reply

What is your honest opinion on that fact that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday? Genuinely curious, I'm a life long non believer but my family is hardcore right wing bible thumpers (no offense) and I don't know anybody else who could answer this thoughtfully

Who you spending the evening with?

"Ordained." Come back to Holy Mother Church and repent your heresy. Please?

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I guess if that was what you were looking for then...just ask that? Like, that's a great question just on its own!

I give regularly to the United Negro College Fund. There are lots of HBCUs here in the Deep South that need and deserve more financial support, and the UNCF includes a disclosure form in its mailed appeals stating how much money raised goes towards campaign expenses and how much goes directly towards its goals, which I appreciate as a straightforward way in which to build trust.

Yep. I agree totally.

I answered this a bit elsewhere in my response about power and status, but to dig just a bit deeper, I think that politics in many ways comes down to the protection of one's power and status, even at the expense of financial success (like, just look at how Elon has flushed tens of billions of dollars on Twitter, but white supremacists get to tweet again).

For instance, it is more or less what Ronald Reagan promised when he campaigned on "welfare queens" against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Carter was considered a turncoat by many white Christians for enforcing the law against private segregation academies, and Reagan was pretty clearly saying that he would make Black Americans, and especially Black women, suffer without spelling it out. And even though a whole lot of people suffered economically during Reagan's first term--it was a significant recession--he won reelection in a landslide.

To me, there's a pretty direct line to draw from that to present day politicians basically running on a platform of, "I will make the people you hate suffer." And I think that many US Christians have decided that they will be good voters for those politicians first and good Christians a distant second.

Why do you think so many Christians in America (obviously not all, but certainly many) have been drawn to follow White Republican Jesus rather than Brown Socialist Jesus?

I think that many people are drawn to whatever will give them power and/or status, and at least here in the States much of historically white, male-led Christianity has been wrapped up in both of those at the direct expense of pretty much everyone else.

In doing so, however, we forget that power and status were among the things with which Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus successfully repelled that temptation. We, in large part, have not. Jesus was tended to by angels as a result. I'm not so certain that we will be.

I know this is a joke but it’s a pretty stupid and lazy one. Sorry. Shorting the stocks of every billionaire would just be like giving them money. It would be much easier for him to take away billionaires’ money from the comfort of his throne in heaven.

I was really just looking for a specific charity that you recommend.

What’s your theory on why so many truly hateful are drawn to Christianity? I mean, it’s so different from the teachings of Jesus and I just don’t get it.

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Those, and I think He'd use at least some of it to short the stock options of every billionaire so as to increase their chances of entering the kingdom of heaven above that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.

Hahaha cool

How do you think Christ would spend his book earnings if he lived today? Scatter it to panhandlers? Or donate to a specific charity?

I believe in Baby Santa, which is Santa coming to the earth as an infant like Baby Jesus, in order to rid the world of Santa Baby, which is one of the worst Christmas songs ever written.

Ten years ago, the church I was the minister of was broken into over Thanksgiving weekend and almost set on fire. It was a small congregation with an older, historic building, running an annual deficit and I was losing all sorts of sleep over how much cleanup and restoration would cost us. People all around town chipped in money to make sure we met our insurance deductible--and this was before Gofundme had really become a thing. It was for the congregation absolutely, but with all the worry and stress I was carrying, it felt like it was a blessing to me as well. I continue to treasure my memories of the seven years I spent as that church's pastor.

(The insurance company went on to drop the congregation as a client, so they definitely ended up on the naughty list, but that's another story for another time.)

Do you believe in Santa?

What's the nicest thing anybody has ever done for you?

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in some ways i feel like i should do an AmA myself as ive never quite clearly seen that arbitrary legal line, with the advent of the dark web etc theres been easy access to just about anything for over a decade now and i went forth and tried just about everything (after learning about it) ive tried literally hundreds of different chemicals

now to me i could only ever read so much before i had to know myself, especially with drugs im a great believer in the fact you just have to feel it, you cant explain it, my best analogy for is is if i asked you to describe the colour blue to someone who was born without eyes

you mention below youve minimal experience with drugs yourself but while researching were there none you became curious to try yourself?

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dude the Trevathon was legendary. Respect