If you want to buy red roses this week in Saudi Arabia, you'll have to hit the black market, reports BBC News:Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic. In addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.
With a ban on almost all things red, young lovers are having to get creative and to sneak around to observe the tradition. Flowers are being delivered under cover of night. It all sounds terribly romantic.
Of course, if you hate Valentine's Day and want to go someplace where you face almost no pressure to produce a teddy bear, here's your vacation destination.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 5)
46. Hey slobbert (isn't that cute that I can mess with your name too!) I've been posting under my name (Dave) and this address. Just a thought, I hope you're not so smug in real life. That may be why you're home alone waiting anxiously for a stranger to reply to you. Sure, you're good as baiting people into a tête-à-tête, but I guess that just makes you a masterbaiter. Have a great day and feel the LOVE! I'm gone...
lighthousecog at 3:58PM on Feb 12th 2008
47.
Dave
Going back to your earlier quote to chandler
Have you read the book of Joshua? Not only does it condone murdering every last man woman and child to bring the kingdom of god on earth to the Israelites, it mentions the whole conquering of the Levant by the Israelites as promised by god.
Ever heard of the lost book of wars of Yahweh? It is quoted in Numbers. It is lost to us but the very title suggests the atrocities recorded by those who wrote it.
The quotes mentioned by chandler to be out of context is absurd. The fights were real, the kingdom was real. It was Yahweh's will to install the promised earthly kingdom the Israelites and they murdered anyone who got in their way of possessing the Levant.
These early chapters are to provide cohesion to the Israelites who conquered alongside their WARRIOR god the land with the richest resources and best trade routes.
Also the sacrifices in the torah are not taken out of context if you can read them right.
If you actually separate the 4 authors of the torah and place them together you will find that E's version of Abraham's sacrifice has Abraham coming back from Mount Moriah with out Isaac.
Have you ever noticed that Isaac is not mentioned again in E's version of the sacrifice?
The bible is nothing more than a collection of collections.
goddess1prevail at 3:59PM on Feb 12th 2008
48. But seriously, folks. I really am doing research for a screenplay. It takes the "What If" Jesus did return? And thank you all for confirming what I already suspected and written. You would crucify him all over again!
Love and kisses this Valentine's Day!
Sayonara,
Robert
robert at 4:07PM on Feb 12th 2008
49. The bible should not be taken as a final authority on what god is, especially by theists. To think the bible is the final authority of what god wanted for man and to end it with the Jesus story shuts man from god all in the name of the dogmatic church. That is why bible thumpers harp on "no one shall see god the father unless it's through the son"
Do you know how much power this gave the early church? It took god away from man and made him unreachable. All in a name of a book of compiled collections derived from earlier collections of other gods most people believe do not exist.
How ironic is that?
goddess1prevail at 4:09PM on Feb 12th 2008
50. O.K., I just couldn't pass up this one...
goddess1prevail - PLEASE read something besides rehashed gnostic ideas. McDowell and Stroebels (and Komoszewski whom I already referenced) do a masterful job refuting those supposed parallels. Those "gospels" you mentioned (hundreds? come on!) were not contemporaries with the four in the Bible and if you know anything, you know that, nor were they ever accepted by any significant part of the church in any era. The "problems" you mentioned do nothing to explain away the martyrdom of 11 of the disciples for their testimony that they SAW (not believed - big difference) Jesus raised from the
dead. Where are the eyewitness martyrs for Horus?
Unlike you, I have studied it from both sides. I did not grow up in the church - I was the lead guitarist for the same band Johnny Depp played in -and hung around atheists, junkies, and very liberal thinkers. I came to where I am today because I investigated things on my own. I'm not going to argue back and forth with you, and I'm not going to lose sleep because you want to avoid the truth. Like I said, I've got other things to do but to hang out here.
Dave
lighthousecog at 4:09PM on Feb 12th 2008
51. Robert your funny
Jesus will never come back and I suspect the church will change their view of Jesus.
I bet that in 4,000 years from now Christianity will barely be recognizable.
Make a film on that!
goddess1prevail at 4:12PM on Feb 12th 2008
52. ROBERT
(Fearfully)
I see crazy people.
robert at 4:23PM on Feb 12th 2008
53. Bye Bye Dave
Your search has only lead you to where you want to go
I've been to Egypt, the temples of Luxor and Idfu and seen the story of Horus is written in plain view. The stories are different but all ATTRIBUTES are identical.
Go see where Jesus's plagiarized stories came from.
As for the hundreds of gospels...
You might not have considered them gospels but in some form they were. We only have knowledge of them through the correspondence of the early church fathers who only placed the gospels in that treated the resurrection as a literal truth, those that didn't were destroyed. Those years where the most horrific years of censorship. That is a truth.
goddess1prevail at 4:18PM on Feb 12th 2008
54. Permission to digress? Thank you. Dear Godddesswillprevail (I know, I know, don't correct me.) the point of the movie (I'm giving stuff away.) is not about Jesus at all, but about the people's reaction in general. Without going into detail, the ending is quite a twist when the denoument is revealed. Keep an eye out for it in the next few years at Sundance.
robert at 4:22PM on Feb 12th 2008
55. Hey "goddess", I see you post all the time on this subject. It seems to me you have a lot of anger against a God you claim not to believe in. I don't believe in Horus, but I don't get online everyday looking to challenge people who do. My guess is that you grew up either in a Christain household or community and this is misplaced anger against someone. Please get some help and maybe you'll actually find a life.
Bruce at 4:25PM on Feb 12th 2008
56. Bruce
I have never claimed to be an atheist, nor have I ever grown up in a Christian home.
Please leave your assumptions at home and save the blog for those who like to discuss these matters.
goddess1prevail at 4:30PM on Feb 12th 2008
57. wow goddess, now you're even replying to people who've left the board. idk about anyone else, but i've been to the middle east - lived in Jordan for awhile. let's just say it's not just Christians who see what they want to see - you're proving that point with every post. not even most of the most leftist writers I've read would agree with you regarding your "Jesus myth" - most of them still bring up the Terebullium. you're way out there and preaching to your own choir. defending a raving, ranting luntic like chandler didn't help your cause either.
Bruce at 4:34PM on Feb 12th 2008
58. Lighthouse, I have heard of Q and that was the point. You missed Q in your first statement. go read my post again and apologize to me.
Then tell me how old you think John was when he hung around with Jesus and why is his name John and when was it not John? Then why don't you date all the original manuscripts for everyone if anyone's paying attention, viz. the earliest fragment of each synoptic gospel and the earliest copy of John.
Clif Kuplen at 4:36PM on Feb 12th 2008
59. i'll bring any assumption I want to and post it anywhere i want to. just because you sadly live on these boards doesn't give you ownershoip of them. if you can write your stupid assumptions about people's cherished beliefs, you're really funny to criticize others. i have another assumption that you're a sad, lonely person with no life, but i'll save that for later. btw, i didn't say i was a christian either - i just know your type. if you're really not that, then you're doing a really good imporession of an angry christian hater.
Bruce at 4:41PM on Feb 12th 2008
60. Unlike you, I have studied it from both sides.-Dave
And unlike you Dave who assumes I only studies 2 sides. I've studies all sides.
And let me start by saying that I don't believe in sides. All religions in one form or another are mere copies of ancient religions that have emerged together through battle and conquest. It all started with the hunter-gather societies who created these religions in order to entice men to settle the land, and build houses and to work as a group instead of individuals. As it is said in most ancient writings "god created man to do gods work on earth".
I've been to Ras Shamra in Syria (ancient Ugarit) where the temple of the Canaanite and biblical EL can be found. I've been to Neolithic Catal Hoyuk in Turkey where the painting of the primitive mother goddess is found on the wall giving birth, a miracle to most then since they did not know that SEX resulted in such things. In order to understand why you believe the things you believe you must first understand its language, content and the culture it was created in, If not you know nothing.
goddess1prevail at 4:42PM on Feb 12th 2008