Not a virgin anymore

Recently, we've got a new translation of The Bible. This happens every 20-30 year or so. The purpose is to bring the old book closer to contemporary language, and make it easier to read.

Most important, in this respect, was probably the German translation by Martin Luther, and subsequent translations to all other languages. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed up his 95 theses on the church-wall in Wittenberg. He argued that for most people, it would be more useful to read the Bible in their own language, rather than in Latin, which they didn't understand.

This sounds like a reasonable argument, but the Pope got pissed and didn't agree. That's hardly a surprise. The Pope is always against any kind of change.

Back to our new translation of The Bible: One of the most remarkable changes is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not a virgin anymore. In the new translation, "virgin" has been replaced by "young woman".

(I don't speak Hebrew, but I suspect that "virgin" and "young woman" translate to the same word in Hebrew, more or less.)

This is good news. I never believed in the virgin-story, and I've been arguing against it ever since elementary school.

When I was a kid, we had a Christian school system, and Christianity class had a preaching purpose. Most teachers were pragmatic about this, but in 3rd grade, we had a teacher who was very serious about the preaching. Our first conflict came up when I refused to believe in the Original Sin. I refused to believe my little baby brother was a sinner.

She got angry and yelled at me. Actually, she said that she wasn't angry, but God was:

"GOD IS ANGRY WITH YOU ... MWUUHAAHAAH ... YOU LITTLE HEATHEN."

This was kind of scary, of course, for a nine year old boy. After a couple of days, however, I realized that nothing happened, and nothing was going to happen. God was probably too busy to punish me, or maybe he just forgot. He's known to be a revengeful God.

Anyway, I never worried about God's anger ever since.

Later, when we learnt about the Virginborn, I immediately rejected it as a rediculous idea. The older kids in the street had explained to me how babies are made. They even showed examples, in some magazines they had hidden in a buried metal case.

I supposed that Jesus had been made in the same way.

Now it's nice to see that even the bible translators rewrite the virgin story. Maybe God is angry with them? At least the Pope is >:)

By the way, here's a great song: The Virginborn by Gorgoroth. If you like slow and doomy old-school black metal, you should click on the link. If not, don't do it; God may get angry with you >:D

(That's little-boy Jesus and his mother, the young woman Mary in the picture. I took it in Kotor, Montenegro last summer, when she was still assumed to be a virgin.)

Daylight saving time

This weekend we swapped to daylight saving time, or summer time, as we call it. I assumed my new cell phone automatically adjusted the clock, like my old phone did.

I'm using my cell phone as alarm clock, and Monday morning we got up when the alarm went off at 7am. We had breakfast and I sent little boy off to school, before driving to work at 8:15, I thought.

Little boy thought so too. He rang the door bell of the house next door, where one of his friends lives. They walk to school together every morning. He got an early warning when his friend's mom opened the door and said that his friend left an hour ago. He was embarrassed when he came to school and had to tell the teacher that we had messed up the time.

Little boy was annoyed when he called me after school. Sorry about that. My fault.

I told him that it will be less embarrassing in the fall, when we switch the clocks back. Then he will be one hour too early >:D

(I found this picture on the internet. When I was young, I had several Swatch'es, in all kinds of weird patterns and colors. Now it's more than 10 years since I carried a watch. Maybe I should get one?)

Jesus the pirat

I was nine years old and in 3rd grade. At that time public schools in Winterland officially had a preaching objective (fortunately this is no longer so). We had to sing psalms and pray in class everyday. Our teacher was a Christian fundamentalist. She really taught us how to believe in God, properly.

Once in Christianity class, the theme of the day was Jesus calms the storm. After the teacher had told the story, we were set to draw the scene in our workbooks. My friend Foggy and I were sitting together on the back row. Our imagination was running off. We made some creative drawings with Jesus on board a pirate ship, with a pirate flag in the rear, and some angels flying around with propellers on the back. The kind of things little boys do.

The teacher was furious, and God was furious too, she said. We should expect a painful destiny in Hell, unless we prayed. The homework for next day was to color the pages black, to cover the blasphemic drawings. Tearing it out was no alternative. Then the attached page on the other side of the staple would fall out, the page where the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 18-20) was written down. Covering the drawings with black crayons was the only option.

That day, I learnt three things:

o Religion is a stupid thing,
o I'm an atheist,
o Black is my color of choice.

As I have grown older, I have refined my views a little bit:

o Religion can be a stupid thing, but doesn't have to be. Anyway, religion has brought more pain than good to the world. The Catholic Church has killed more people than Hitler (the church also had alot more time to reach the top of the killing list, of course, today it's mainly the Muslims who are running up).
o I'm an atheist, with some sympathies towards satanism (which is not a theistic religion, but more like a philosophy).
o I wear only black clothes, and I listen to black metal.

In Satan we trust >:)