Apparently, the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year, which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece which I would like to share with you...

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

 

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejewelled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a nativity scene, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

 

In light of recent events... terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.
Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what a bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Christmas in Armenia

Why do Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6?

Armenians do not celebrate Christmas on December 25^th with the rest of the world.  The exact date of Christ’s birth is not recorded in the Gospels and has not been established by any other source.  However, all Christian churches celebrated Christ’s birth on January 6^th until the fourth century when the date was changed to December 25 by the Roman Empire.  Historically, December 25^th was a pagan festival which celebrated the birth of the sun.  At that time, many Christians continued to celebrate pagan holidays and in order to undermine the pagan practice, the church hierarchy designated December 25^th as the official date of Christ’s birth and January 6^th as the feast of the epiphany.  However, Armenia was not influenced by this change and has continued to celebrate Christmas on January 6^th like our oldest Christian ancestors.

The lasting effects of the Soviet Union on Christmas in Armenia…

Armenians lived under the rule of the atheist Soviet Union for 69 years.  Under Soviet rule, almost all churches in Armenia were closed, left to deteriorate or used as schools or other non-religious buildings.  Armenia, the first country in the world to declare itself a Christian state in the fourth century, was forbidden from observing the birth of Christ.  During the Soviet era, the communist government discouraged the telling of the Christmas story and instituted a tradition of Grandfather Frost bringing gifts on New Year's Eve. Armenians began to celebrate Christmas and New Year together on New Year’s Eve. 

After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenians slowly began to reopen the churches and publicly celebrate their religious holidays.  While Armenians are now free to celebrate their holidays, the 69 years of Soviet rule had a strong influence on the society.  Until now, in most homes, Christmas and New Year are mixed into one holiday to some extent.  The New Year receives the biggest celebration and emphasis with a big feast and the exchange of gifts.  Starting the week before New Year’s Day, the women begin working into the morning hours to prepare two weeks’ worth of traditional New Year’s dishes.  It is the Armenian tradition that from January 1-7, all of your friends and family members must pay a visit to your home and with each visit you must heat up the food and spread out the same feast for your guests. 

On Christmas Eve, January 5, some families go to visit the church where they are given a small candle lamp which they carry home, symbolizing that the “Good news” is coming into the world.  Christmas day, on January 6, is celebrated more solemnly than the New Year with a traditional meal of fish, rice with raisins, wine and special Armenian sweet bread and some families attend a worship service at the church on Christmas morning.

On Christmas, Armenians greet each other with the words, “Christos tsnvets yev hytnetsav” which means, “Christ was born and appeared”.  They answer by saying, “Dzez yev mez mets avedis” which means, “It is great news for you and for us!”

Turkey’s Kurds Seek Forgiveness for Part in Genocide

BY AMBERIN ZAMAN

From Al-Monitor

“The Armenian population is melting.”

This bleak assessment was pronounced by Sahak Mashalian, an Armenian Orthodox priest, during a recent Sunday mass at the Asdvadzadzin church in Istanbul. Reeling off the statistics: 482 funerals, 236 baptisms and 191 weddings, the black-robed cleric solemnly intoned, “These figures point to a community … that is dying.”

Little over a century ago, the Armenian Patriarchate put Anatolia’s Armenian population at more than two million. In 1915, tragedy struck. Estimated figures vary, but between 800,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Ottoman forces and their Kurdish allies in what many respected historians call the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey vehemently denies any genocidal intent. The official line is that most of the Armenians died from hunger and disease, as they were forcibly deported to the deserts of Syria amid the upheaval of the collapsing empire.

The ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party has done more than any of its pro-secular predecessors to improve the lot of Christian minorities and to encourage freer debate of the horrors that befell them. Yet it has also showered millions of dollars on international lobbying firms in a vain effort to peddle the official version of events. A steady trickle of nations continue to recognize the events of 1915 as genocide. Turkey’s biggest worry is that on the centenary in 2015, the United States will risk wrecking relations and follow suit.

In Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakir (Dikranagerd), global diplomacy does not figure in the calculations of Abdullah Demirbas, the mayor of the city’s ancient Sur district. A maze of narrow cobbled streets lined with decrepit stone houses, Sur used to be known as the “neighborhood of the infidels” because of the large number of Armenians, Syrian Orthodox Christians and Jews who once lived there. Since being twice elected to office on the ticket of Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party, Peace and Democracy (BDP), Demirbas, a stocky former schoolteacher with an easy smile, has thrown himself wholeheartedly into making amends for the past.

“As Kurds, we also bear responsibility for the suffering of the Armenians,” he told Al-Monitor over glasses of ruby-red tea. “We are sorry, and we need to prove it.” As a first step, Demirbas launched free Armenian-language classes two years ago at the municipality offices. “They were an instant hit,” Demirbas said. Many of those who enrolled were thought to be “hidden Armenians” or the descendants of those who converted to Islam to survive.

One such “hidden Armenian,” a gnarled octogenarian called Ismail, confided to Al-Monitor that his father’s real name was Leon.

“They wiped out his entire family, out in the fields,” he said as he awaited an audience with Demirbas. The old man’s voice cracked with emotion. “My father was rescued by a Turkish officer and became a Muslim. But though, praise God, I am a good Muslim too, praying five times a day, I know I am not accepted,” he added. “In their minds, I am always the son of the unbeliever.”

The Kurds’ role in the killings has been well documented, increasingly now by the Kurds themselves.

Egged on by their Ottoman rulers, Kurdish tribal chieftains raped, murdered and pillaged their way through the southeast provinces where for centuries they had co-existed, if uneasily, with the Armenians and other non-Muslims. Henry Morgenthau, who served as US ambassador in Constantinople at the height of the bloodshed, described the Kurds’ complicity in his chilling 1918 memoir “Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story” thusly:

“The Kurds would sweep down from their mountain homes. Rushing up to the young girls, they would lift their veils and carry the pretty ones off to the hills. They would steal such children as pleased their fancy and mercilessly rob all the rest of the throng. … While they were committing these depredations, the Kurds would freely massacre, and the screams of women and old men would add to the general horror.”

Osman Koker, a Turkish historian who has chronicled Armenian life through a rich collection of postcards and photographs predating 1915, reckons more than half of Diyarbakir’s population was non-Muslim before the violence began.

“Most of them were Armenians, now there are none,” Koker told Al-Monitor in an interview. Hashim Hashimi, a former member of parliament and a Sunni Muslim spiritual leader with a robust following, told Al-Monitor, “Sadly, many imams were convincing people that if they killed an infidel they would find their place in heaven and be rewarded with beautiful girls.” This meant that thousands of Syrian Orthodox and other Christians were not spared, either.

In 2009 Demirbas and Osman Baydemir, a fellow BDP politician and the mayor of Greater Diyarbakir, decided to help with the restoration of an Armenian Orthodox church that had lay in ruins for decades in Sur. Baydemir donated a third of the costs of restoring Surp Giragos to its former magnificence. In 2011 the church, said to be the largest Armenian church in the Middle East, opened its doors as a fully functioning house of worship.

Ergun Ayik, an Armenian entrepreneur and philanthropist who runs the Surp Giragos Foundation, told Al-Monitor that the BDP mayors “went out of their way to help us,” even providing the church with free utilities and security guards. A new museum of Armenian culture that is due to open by the end of 2013 within the Surp Giragos complex under the sponsorship of the Greater Diyarbakir municipality should also help draw tourists, not to mention thousands of “hidden Armenians” thought to be scattered across the southeast.

Silva Ozyerli, an Armenian activist from Diyarbakir who left for Istanbul in the 1970s, has agreed to donate some family treasures, including a silk nightshirt, several finely embroidered tablecloths and a pair of engraved copper bowls to the museum. Ozyerli voiced her enthusiasm for the project in an interview with Al-Monitor.

“You know why it is dear to me?” she asked, a tinge of defiance creeping into her voice. “It is because everything in that museum will show people that not too long ago, Diyarbakir was every bit as Armenian as it was Kurdish, if not more so.”

Ad Campaign by Amnesty Inernational

It's not happening here but it is happening now...

http://simplepimple.com/2013/10/its-not-happening-here-but-it-is-happening-now-brilliant-ad-campaign-by-amnesty-international-10-pictures/

An interesting article about an Armenian monastery which has been restored by an Arab Sheikh

Haghartsin Monastery (Armenia) (AFP) - Standing next to a newly refurbished bell tower, priest Aristakes Aivazyan says it needed divine intervention to save Armenia's medieval Haghartsin monastery.

But it also took a lot of money from a very unlikely benefactor —- the Muslim ruler of the resource-rich Arab emirate of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi.

"I cannot recall anything similar to this happening in our history that some Arab sheikh, a Muslim, helped to restore and rescue an Armenian Christian church," Aivazyan told AFP.

"Without doubt it was God who brought the sheikh to Haghartsin," the priest, dressed in long black robes, said.

Perched spectacularly amid thickly forested mountains about 100 kilometres northeast of Yerevan, Haghartsin monastery is a masterpiece of medieval Armenian ecclesiastical architecture.

Founded in the tenth century, the monastery -- which includes three churches and once housed some 250 monks -- survived attacks from Arab and Ottoman invaders and anti-religious campaigns under Soviet rule during its turbulent history.

But after weathering those storms, decades of neglect in recent years meant the complex looked headed for collapse as plants twisted through walls and cracks threatened to send buildings tumbling.

"The monastery was in need of serious reconstruction but the repairs were always delayed by the lack of finances," father Aivazyan said.

That was until a fortuitous visit from al-Qasimi, who had been invited to Armenia by former president Robert Kocharian on a trip set up by the Armenian business community in the emirate.

"In 2005 his royal highness visited Armenia and generously offered to renovate the complex during a tour of various Armenian regions," says Varouj Nerguizian, a Sharjah-based Armenian businessman who has advised the sheikh.

Nerguizian refused to say how much the sheikh had given for the refurbishment but local media reported that it could be around $1.7 million.

Now, after years of building work including a new road up to the monastery to help boost visitor numbers, the refurbished structure was finally opened last month.

"It falls within the natural context of his royal highness' philanthrophy as well respect for other religions," Nerguizian.

Perched on the Persian Gulf, after Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Sharjah is the third largest of the seven emirates that make up the UAE.

Al-Qasimi, 74, -- who came to power in 1972 after his brother, then king, was killed in a failed coup -- has sought to boost the emirate as a tourist and cultural hub in the region.

Despite a thriving community of Armenian businessmen that now boasts its own church in the emirate of some 900,000 inhabitants that now boasts its own church -- there have been few links between Yerevan and Sharjah.

For those working at the monastery, the surprise of seeing an Arab leader visiting the holy Christian site remains a vivid memory.

"He came with his entourage of about 10 people and looked around for quite a while at all the churches and stone crosses before asking to go into the main Church of Our Lady," recalled Artak Sahakyan, who sells candles to visiting worshippers.

"When he came out he said that he believed that the word of God was really heard here," Sahakyan said.

Armenia is considered to be the oldest Christian country in the world and its Apostolic Church belongs to the ancient Oriental Orthodox branch.

The church is hugely influential in Armenia and two monasteries and its main cathedral are already listed on UNESCO's list of world heritage site.

After a history of conflict between Armenia and its Muslim neighbours of Turkey and Azerbaijan, those working at the Harghartsin monastery say they hope the support they have received from a Muslim ruler shows that the two faiths can get along.

"The sheikh is a deeply religious man so seeing a monastery is such a bad state it is not surprising that he felt touched," says father Aivazyan.

"It is as if the with this generous gesture the sheikh is saying that we need to be tolerant of other religions as in the end we all serve one God," Aivazyan said.

Syrian Refugee Children By the Tragic Numbers

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/20708-syrian-refugee-children-by-the-tragic-numbers

A parish priest: "The exodus of civil Christians from Qara, invaded by foreign jihadists"

http://www.fides.org/en/news/.UqB5IMQW0XK