Category Archives: Religion

Christmas Music?

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So, while I lean into punk & metal on a regular basis, I enjoy a wide variety of Christmas music. A lot of it I can find on Amazon Music (I refuse to pay for Spotify when we have all kinds of other Amazon stuff). Some I can’t. I’ll have to make a YouTube or free crappy free commercial-filled Spotify playlist.

What are some of your favorites? Here are a few of mine.

I also really dig the Bad Religion, Vandals, & Twisted Sister Christmas albums, and so many punk rock comps, and the Willie Nelson & Johnny Cash ones… and the Billy Idol one.

Here are my holiday playlists:

Share your favorites & playlists in the comments!

Also, this rules:

Christmas Playlist Thumbnails from Amazon Music

Merry Christmas 2020 – From the Carroll Family!

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Our church put out a call for video submissions for the Christmas Eve streaming service. Here is what we contributed.

I threw it together into one video and added some cheesy effects and titles.

This is…

  • The Christmas Carrolls performing “Away in a Manger”
  • Molly reading The First Christmas Night by Keith Christopher
  • Ian doing some prayers on the fly – take 1 & take 2. (We only sent take 2 to the church.)

Check out live & archived videos from the church here: https://www.facebook.com/hillschurchexport/live

Pittsburgh to me; “Slow down.”

Posted on by Standard 3

So this morning when trying to get to church, we had an adventure.  We cross the city to go there, because it feels like home when we do make it, and it is where I grew up going.  Generally, it’s not a bad drive on a Sunday morning.

This morning, we left a little later than we like to because… we have two small children.

I knew that there was some sort of work in the Fort Pitt Tunnel this weekend, so I decided to take the Liberty Tubes instead.  Why?  No respectful yinzer takes the posted detour, and it was going west when I wanted to go east.

No work in the tubes, or even on the Liberty Bridge… except when we got to the ramp for the Blvd. of the Allies and we couldn’t go towards Monroeville.

Up Bigelow Blvd. to Craig St. through Oakland to try to get to Forbes Ave. and get on the Parkway in Squirrel Hill, and we ran into this along the way:

Lady Pittsburgh

Lady Pittsburgh

I have no idea what this was.  She was oblivious to the world around her, happily rolling down the middle of the street on her scooter with absolutely no regard for safety or traffic laws.  She eventually got on to the sidewalk, but she was rolling along at about a ½ mile per hour when I pulled up behind her.  All I could do was start a “What the…” phrase that I couldn’t finish with children in the car and laugh.  We laughed for the rest of the ride to church, and we weren’t done with the obstacles.

Apparently, Forbes was closed off right after the CMU campus for a race today.  Out & around to the Edgewood/Swissvale on-ramp to the parkway it was.

Seriously though, I know I’m not a resident of Pittsburgh proper, but I am a resident of Allegheny County.  Can we pass some sort of local ordinance that you can’t work on or around two major through-ways to the city at the same damn time?

We got there, and were only a little bit late.  The universe was testing my patience today.  I hope I passed.

 

( °) Pointless Arguing. |-o-| [-o-] |-o-|

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One thing people seem to be good at is arguing over texts.  We can argue different points about the same information.  How many interpretations are there for the constitution?  And that’s just one language.  Hit up the Torah, Bible, or Koran that’s been translated into different languages a few times and it’s absolute chaos.  People seem to focus on minutiae instead of the big picture.

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I can easily imagine a post-apocalyptic dystopian future where the Star Wars films have become the basis for religion. People will subscribe to their own versions of the Jedi and Sith philosophies and have an overall high regard for the force. Some people will say it’s all fiction. Magicians will use levitation and spoon-bending illusions to “prove” that the force is real.

imageI can imagine sects breaking out of each group of trilogies, finding their own interpretations of the overall themes to be the only correct way to see things.

Some will say Anakin/Vader brought balance to the force. Some will say it was Luke. Some may focus on the new characters to come. Some cults will say you have to go to the dark side before you can be redeemed by the light and that is the only true path to Jedi salvation.

Some will argue that the original films unedited are the only true word. Some will argue that the standalone films and animated series are like the apocrypha, and can’t be true canon.

Monasteries will open and instead of vows of silence, they will talk like Yoda.

Books will be written trying to prove that the holiday special did in fact exist.

People will kill each other arguing over who shot first.

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I think you now have a script for Idiocracy 2: Idiocracier.

So, I have an idea for a TV show: #MissionariesImpossible ⛪

Posted on by Standard 1

Yup.

What do you think?  Would you watch it?  TLC is pretty close to that any way.  I’m fascinated by all the shows with the Browns and the Duggars and the crazy Amish and Mennonite kids.

OK, “Missionaries Impossible” isn’t the best title.  Have a better idea?

I’m not poking quite as much fun as you may think.  I have gotten into some lengthy discussions with evangelizing Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I have done some mad research on Mormonism.  They would both probably call themselves Christians, while most Christians from Roman Catholics to Creation-museum-loving Evangelicals to super liberal UCC‘ers would probably give a hearty “No, no, no, they’re not with us…” when they’re brought up.

I admire the chutzpah of anyone willing to “sell” their faith door-to-door.  Even if they do (like royal ass-hats) choose to do it on Christmas day.  Yes, that happened to us once at my wife’s parents’ house.

I can totally get not celebrating religious holidays with pretty much no regard as to the events they’re supposed to commemorate.  I don’t see a problem with polygamy (yes, I know that’s a very small percentage of fundamentalist Mormons that even Mormons don’t like to talk about) as long as all parties are consenting adults.

I would guess that there are things that we can learn from each of them, and what better way to do it that to let them try to out-missionary each other?