Anyway people what to look at it CHRISTMAS started with Christ. Its the prefix of the word. If people choose to celebrate it for it's traditional reason, that is entirely up to them. I personally am not Jewish for instance, but would have every bit of respect for a song that was sang for Hanukkah. People let's all have respect for each other. It's not a matter of pushing religious beliefs. It's a matter of respecting others beliefs or lack thereof.
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Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan said Monday he would attend the events to help provide security.
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LOL!
FLORENCE, AL (WAFF) - A local police chief facing DUI charges has a court appearance Tuesday.
Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan is charged with DUI in Florence.
Police arrested him in December after witnesses say he ended up in a neighbor's yard after hitting a mailbox and another vehicle.
Court documents show Tuesday's hearing will deal with motions filed in this case.
Logan's trial is set for February 7th.
He is currently still on the job in Tuscumbia.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a letter to the school system complaining that it was unconstitutional for the students to sing the song during a public school event because it violated the principle of separation of church and state.
Alex Luchenitser, associate legal director for Separation of Church and State, said Monday afternoon the group planned no action against the play, at least not this year.
“Nobody’s planning it at this time,” Luchenitser said. “We had a short time frame to address this, so we only had time to send a letter that we hoped would educate school officials about separation of church and state. We hope in the future they don’t do this again.”
Hi ValleyGirl,
I give a really BIG "ATTA BOY!" to the city of Tuscumbia and to Tuscumbia City Schools Superintendent Joe Walters. It is about time that school district, city, county, state, and national leaders start taking a stand against the small minority of atheists, secularists, and vanilla-flavored non-believers whose only goal in life is to remove God from America and from American schools.
This I posted on Facebook -- and I believe with all my heart:
IS AMERICA GOING OFF THE DEEP END - OR WHAT? This article begins with: "Trenholm Primary School’s 'Christmas play' went off Monday night without protests or problems, despite a group’s (Separation of Church and State) concern over the students singing the religious Christmas carol 'Silent Night'. ”
Their complaint is about as ridiculous as swimming in the river -- and, then complaining about getting wet. This was a Christmas Play -- so, what is a more fitting song than Silent Night?
In my opinion, those folks at the Separation of Church and State organization have way too much time on their hands. Suggestion: Get a job! And, get a life! Just my humble CHRISTIAN opinion.
Alex Luchenitser, associate legal director for Separation of Church and State, said not forcing the students to sing does not resolve the issue. “These are young kids,” he said. “Kids are under a tremendous amount of peer pressure. Other kids are going to look at that child and think that child’s not a Christian. You shouldn’t place children in that situation.”
Funny, when I went to school in Alabama, I was not a Christian -- and, I don't recall ANYONE looking at me funny, or demeaning me, for not being a Christian. My children went to school in California -- and, no one questioned if they were or were not Christian. Gee, do you think all this paranoia could be in their atheist minds? Or could this just be one more excuse to deny God -- and to force God out of America?
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Alex Luchenitser is almost directly parroting his atheist leader, Richard Dawkins:
Richard Dawkins, in a recent Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman, was asked, "Do you really care that there are a lot of stupid people around?" And, Dawkins replied, "I do actually, yes. I really do. I mean, I care that children are being misled by those stupid people."
Bill Gray comment: Dawkins, instead of saying that he thinks Christians are misguided, prefers to call us "stupid." And, since, in his book "The God Delusion" Dawkins makes the point that religion is inherited from parents -- this, then, explains his reply to Jeremy Paxman.
ValleyGirl, thank you for posting this.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
The only way that adding this song to the program would be a violation of the First Amendment would be if someone had no idea what the First Amendment was about or if they had some agenda to change it, which has and is happening in our present days.
Not to resurrect an older topic that we debated to death without any resolution, the efforts of Congress to procure, import, Bibles from Europe would have never seen the light of day, much less reached the approval to import them, if it was considered something that Congress or our Government should not be doing. I totally agree with those that say Government is not to direct citizens as to how they should worship, where they should worship or if they should worship but to take it to the degree the courts have taken it today is obviously counter to the intent of the First Amendment and those who drafted it.
Kudos for those who decided to leave the song in for it was the right thing to do. If people are offended by the song they should also be offended by the program for it is a Christmas program and Christmas, like it or not, is a Christian holiday and celebrates Christ's birth so if a person objects to the holiday, the song, or the play then why not stay home? If a group, in the school, wants to celebrate a Jewish special day or a Muslim Special day then those who don't want to celebrate it or honor it just stay home or avoid the celebration. To force students to attend would be against the First Amendment but just permitting the song in the play I believe is not. Still I guarantee that somewhere they could find a judge and a court that would disagree. That holds true for most things today.
You shouldn't resurrect it because it never happened.
Kudos for those who decided to leave the song in for it was the right thing to do. If people are offended by the song they should also be offended by the program for it is a Christmas program and Christmas, like it or not, is a Christian holiday and celebrates Christ's birth so if a person objects to the holiday, the song, or the play then why not stay home?
And to resurrect another topic, christians don't own this season. It was celebrated long before you decided to "take it over". Just like the guy wailing about the "christmas tree" always being theirs. Most of you need history lessons.
Things get taken over all the time. The indians use to own this land until settlers took it over.
Things get taken over all the time. The indians use to own this land until settlers took it over.
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So you think that's the same thing huh? OK
You shouldn't resurrect it because it never happened.
Kudos for those who decided to leave the song in for it was the right thing to do. If people are offended by the song they should also be offended by the program for it is a Christmas program and Christmas, like it or not, is a Christian holiday and celebrates Christ's birth so if a person objects to the holiday, the song, or the play then why not stay home?
And to resurrect another topic, christians don't own this season. It was celebrated long before you decided to "take it over". Just like the guy wailing about the "christmas tree" always being theirs. Most of you need history lessons.
Your assertions are wrong.
"Christmas'' was NOT celebrated in the sense that it has been ever since the 4th century. Although some customs have evolved, the was never any "takeover" of Christmas. The term Christmas itself should tell you this.
As for the " Christmas tree" always belonging to a particular "them", you must be referencing the pagan Winter Solstice. This included evergreen sprigs and a form of tree worship.
The traditional Christmas Tree used today is an adaption of the selection of a fir tree, because it supposedly "pointed to Heaven". This is believed to have origins in Germany.
And to resurrect another topic, christians don't own this season.
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I posted SEASON. Christians don't own this season. So for them to whine and cry at Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings and insist everyone has to include the word christmas in everything they do at this time of the year is wrong.
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No one knows what day Jesus Christ was born on but most Bible scholars can readily admit that it was most likely not on December 25. From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover in relation to the birth of his relative and prophet John the Baptist. It is also very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night in the book of Luke. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. So why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday as Christmas, on December the 25th?
The answer lies in the pagan origins of Christmas. A number of people are already aware that there are some parts of the Christmas traditions that are pagan in origin. However, they all stop short of saying that the entire celebration was originally pagan, and some of the traditions we do today were once banned for those reasons.
In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture.
Saturnalia, was a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).
In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.
The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this Pope Julius I declared in the year 350 that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25 which is the concluding day of the Saturnalia festival. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them.
Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.”
In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.
The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.” Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.
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LOL!
FLORENCE, AL (WAFF) - A local police chief facing DUI charges has a court appearance Tuesday.
Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan is charged with DUI in Florence.
Police arrested him in December after witnesses say he ended up in a neighbor's yard after hitting a mailbox and another vehicle.
Court documents show Tuesday's hearing will deal with motions filed in this case.
Logan's trial is set for February 7th.
He is currently still on the job in Tuscumbia.
Seven, you really new around here? Two yrs later Logan is still contesting his conviction. He hired Tim Case and now they have the venue moved.
Tim Case? Has a new partner that was once a Florence police officer! Google him sometime.
I ran into a guy who told me that he would be offended if someone greeted him with "Merry Christmas." I suggested that I greet him with, "Merry Christmas, ###hole." That didn't help the dialog.
To claim that "Jesus is the reason for the season" is folly. However, Jesus is the reason for Christmas. Okay, so the holiday is a amalgam of cultural events, but in this country, the typical celebration of "Christmas" has a religious element, a gift-giving element, and a fun element. If you don't want to celebrate "Christmas" then don't. If you don't like listening to Christmas carols (I don't) then stay away from where they're being performed.
Quit whining so much about what a demonstrable majority of the people in this community want. You don't have a right to not be offended. The occutards, liberals, and progressives in this country offend me simply by their existence, yet I live with it.
Okay, you said to correct you. Couldn't find it in the TD, but here.
http://shoalandaspeaks.blogspo...ently-very-much.html
So early Dec. 2009 and late Dec 2011 makes two years and two weeks.. Do you understand how long this crazy man has appealed? I just threw in Tim Case because you asked why so long. Seems Case has told Logan he can win. Two years later and Lauderdale tax payers are still paying for it. I mentioned Case's new partner just cause. You wonder why lawyers have a bad name.
BS alert.
Okay, you said to correct you. Couldn't find it in the TD, but here.
http://shoalandaspeaks.blogspo...ently-very-much.html
So early Dec. 2009 and late Dec 2011 makes two years and two weeks.. Do you understand how long this crazy man has appealed? I just threw in Tim Case because you asked why so long. Seems Case has told Logan he can win. Two years later and Lauderdale tax payers are still paying for it. I mentioned Case's new partner just cause. You wonder why lawyers have a bad name.
I think the Times Daily just tried to sensationalize the matter by asking Tony for a quote. I was at the play and really didn't consider it a large crowd.
Infomercial, it's no secret that Tony has had a problem, but I've lived in Tuscumbia all my life and don't believe we've ever had a better police chief. He has had the courage to enforce some traffic laws that have made driving easier everywhere in the city. No matter the outcome of his trial, I hope he stays. Wouldn't you want an attorney who would fight for you? Too many people can't see past a person's private life to look at their professional one. That goes for both Tony and his lawyer.
PS. I do agree that this should not have taken over two years to settle.
Okay, you said to correct you. Couldn't find it in the TD, but here.
http://shoalandaspeaks.blogspo...ently-very-much.html
So early Dec. 2009 and late Dec 2011 makes two years and two weeks.. Do you understand how long this crazy man has appealed? I just threw in Tim Case because you asked why so long. Seems Case has told Logan he can win. Two years later and Lauderdale tax payers are still paying for it. I mentioned Case's new partner just cause. You wonder why lawyers have a bad name.
