Since May 29 of this year when I wrote my first article for the Huffington Post, to my most recent on December 18, both with Barack in the title, I have focused on attempting to find Peace for Humanity and a solution for Peak Oil and Global Warming. On this, my 35th posting, my holiday message, while maintaining a somewhat provocative edge, provides a bit of humor, followed by compelling evidence on how the Catholic Church might have originated.
I will first draw from the world wide web ten nearly useless bits of holiday trivia in the spirit of my SIMPLE SOLUTIONS books found in one of the boxes on the right. It is possible that absolutely correct references or attributions might never be found for some of them. A few, not unlike miracles, will need to be taken on faith.
1. To complete his tasks, Santa needs to travel between 3 and 5 million miles per hour, depending on who you quote. This is theoretically possible because the speed of light is on the order of 670 million miles per hour.
2. There is a contention that Santa used female reindeers with male names because they (boy deers of this species) lose their antlers in the winter. Females don't...but yes, they do have them. The fact that neither gender can fly is irrelevant to this discussion.
3. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was created for Montgomery Ward in 1939 as an advertisement gimmick. A decade later, Gene Autry sung the song that became the second best-selling of all time. White Christmas, by Bing Crosby, remains #1.
4. In the 12 Days of Christmas, 364 presents were given. The 2008 value can be averaged to be just under $20,000. This period runs from Christmas Day to January 6 (Epiphany, meaning "to manifest or show," when there is a Christian feast to celebrate God's "manifestation" in human form...Jesus.) Then, Christmas can again be celebrated on January 7 by switching to the Julian calendar.
5. Something in the range of half a million annually contract food poisoning eating spoiled Christmas meals and snacks.
6. If you did not give your dog a Christmas present, you were not only a Scrooge, but in the gross minority.
7. Jingle Bells was written in 1857 for Thanksgiving and was the first song broadcast from space, as performed by Gemini 6 astronauts, Tim Stafford and Wally Schirra on December 16, 1965, with the full accompaniment of sleigh bells and a harmonica smuggled on board, while reporting on a command module they saw piloted by someone in a red suit pulled by eight smaller modules.
8. The Christmas tree was first popular in Germany as early as the 8th Century. O Tannenbaum (Christmas tree) came from 16th Century lyrics and an old German folk song. It takes anywhere from 4 to 15 years to grow a 6 foot tall fir tree.
9. Sir Isaac Newton (mathematician) and Little Richard (singer) were born on this day, while Billy Martin (baseball) and Dean Martin (singer) passed away on Christmas.
10. There is a nasty rumor that Santa has an evil brother, Satan Claus, who lives in the South Pole, and makes fruitcakes.
On a more serious note, excerpted from Chapter 5 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity, is a hypothetical tale reporting on, perhaps, the most significant mortal (or God) ever, Jesus Christ:
...place yourself back to circa 50 AD. Nothing much can be found about Jesus. Conflicting descriptions can be unearthed about this individual, but absent any miracles and the connection with Son of God. Is it possible that a group, say, the Antioch Jesus Movement, sees an opportunity to spur something called Christianity? So they pick a mortal of those days who might just fit a concept called the Messiah. They borrow selectively from early Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican (nah, scratch this, Columbus came 1500 years later) and Greek writings to create the legend of Jesus Christ around a real-life martyr. He was in his prime at the age of 30, so they choose 30 AD as the founding of Christianity. Could this incredible PR ploy have started it all? Did all this lead to the Catholic Church of today?
If the above sounds patently ridiculous, or, maybe, sacrilegious, much of what is written in The Bible is taken by many as Gospel with equally flimsy documentation. In any case, to intelligently comment, you need to read the full chapter to appreciate the boundaries of the available evidence. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!