504. The Church Fathers on “The Seven Deadly Sins” and their Results

These days when people are breaking the “Seven Deadly” publicly and unashamedly and even proudly, I thought this might be a relevant topic. Brief Introduction What is “sin”? In the New Testament, by far the most common word for sin is “amartia / ἁμαρτία”, an archery term which means being “off the mark” – the […]

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501. Happy New Year! Today, January 3, is New Year’s Day!

  Tomorrow, January 4, is New Year’s Day, too… and so are January 5th and 6th and 7th… and even March 25th, for that matter.  In fact, did you know that in America, for over a century, March 25 actually was New Year’s Day. More about that in a minute. Dating of the beginning of […]

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499. Is Christmas a Fairy Tale? Part Two

So Jesus’ birth was the result of Mary’s being raped by a Roman soldier?! That is the suggestion of Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton, University. * The evidence for this is…  You’re right. There isn’t any. As for the Christmas stories?  They, she says, are  only “metaphors”. Metaphors for what? That’s not clear. […]

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