Dump Christmas & Introduce Beltane Day!

Have you ever asked yourself, why the hell do we celebrate the Northern Winter Solstice in New Zealand?

Along with Guy Fawkes, New Zealand’s inherited annual celebration of The Winter Solstice on the 25th December, has to be one of the more absurd ‘holiday’ observances going.

Who in New Zealand gives a ‘rats arse’ that this date heralds the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere, when down-under we are basking in sunshine, donning shorts, and lazing on beaches?

And if the Christians wanted to pinch this date from the pagans and call it their own – why should we follow suit and act like that this date is any more relevant than say the 25th of August or the 07th February?

Pick a date, any date for the birth of Christ, they all have the same basis in fact.

That’s to say…..none.

It’s not yours, or my fault, no one bothered to put crucial information like dates of births in The Bible and the ‘desperate & dateless’ Catholic Church said “this Winter Solstice will do the trick” ten plus centuries ago.

This plagiarism of holiday observance dates may have some historic validity in say England, where winter falls at this time and where folks got naked & worshipped the sun (prior to do-gooders spoiling their fun) but the date has no credence in New Zealand.

Christmas, is New Zealand’s cultural equivalent of a legacy from a dead distant uncle, who liked wearing brown-suits & grey shoes, and expects you to now don them.

Hey, don’t get me wrong I totally support the principal of New Zealanders taking time off from work, drinking to excess, connecting with friends and family, venerating the deity of their choice (as long as it’s away from me), exchanging crappy gifts, adding to the countries obesity epidemic – but on the date of Winter Solstice when its’ 25 degrees Celsius outside?

Get outta here!

Then there’s the issue of Christians who conveniently ignore those ‘gapping blanks’ in their most precious book, and want the rest of us to go along with their historic pantomime and pretend, like they do, that Christ was born on this date – when he wasn’t!

These are the very same group of zealots that want us to be fine up-standing & honest citizens – but when it suits their own purposes they ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story’.

If we are going to continue celebrating sacred pagan holidays - why stop at just Christmas and Easter?

And why should Christians have the monopoly on stealing & re-packaging pagan holidays and forcing them on the rest of us?

I want to lead a campaign to make New Zealand the first country to officially re-introduce the traditional Celtic observance ‘Beltane Day’, in place of the naff Winter Solstice (a.k.a Christmas).

Start circling the 01st May on your calendars.

Here’s a brief synopsis on what Beltane Day is all about so you make your own conclusions as to its merits:

In old Celtic traditions it was a time of unabashed sexuality and promiscuity where marriages of a year and a day could be undertaken but it is rarely observed in that manner in modern times.

In the old Celtic times, young people would spend the entire night in the woods "A-Maying," and then dance around the phallic Maypole the next morning. Older married couples were allowed to remove their wedding rings (and the restrictions they imply)

Before you disparage the idea of Beltane making a come-back 5 centuries after Christians in Scotland & Ireland banned it, here’s a photo from Edinburgh, taken at last years Beltane celebration:

You’ll no doubt observe from this photo and the You-Tube clip below, up in Scotland, Baltane means fire, naked bodies and lashing of beer.

Think ‘Wearable Art’ meets ‘Boobs on Bikes’ with a sprinkling of Marilyn Manson & Guinness.

It’ll be a sure winner with Kiwi’s!

In a decade no one will remember Christmas.

The Nazi Analogy - The Final Pollution

As it happens, I frequent a far number of other blogs, on a casual basis, taking the appropriate proplactic precautions where necessary.

Initially I was bemused at the frequency of both articles & commentary containing an analogy about Nazi Germany out there in ‘blogger-land’. This bemusement has now turned to annoyance.

These Nazi analogies are especially popular on theist sites.

The subject could be something completely unrelated to Hitler or Germany under National Socialism, but you can bet your boots somewhere in the middle of the thread ‘bang’ a poster will link their position, or that of their target, to Nazi Germany.

From observation, there appears two main corollaries employed when positioning ‘Nazi Germany’ in to a debate:

1.) It is used to critisise & be-little a rivals position, along the lines of “that’s what the Nazis did”.

2.) Utilised to defend a position “we fought against this sort of stuff”.

It appears all heated arguments lead to Germany under Hitler & the posters believe the emotional & objectionable weight of this period is the ultimate condemnation on every subject under the sun.

A debaters ‘trump-card’, when all else fails.

If the Nazi’s favoured something it must be morally repugnant – end of story.

This is evil personified, the marker in the sand from which all other moral & ethical arguments are measured.

Am I the only one who can see the ridiculous & infantile nature, these continual references to Nazi Germany are?

- Hitler had a moustache, so by rights everyone else with a moustache must be a megalomaniac.

- The Nazi’s introduced a ‘Law for the Encouragement of Marriage’ in an effort to get more couples to marry and strengthen the family unit. Should we now counter this by supporting de-facto relationships and denounce marriage & the family as mere Nazi ideology?

- Hitler had a German Shepard dog called Blondie, so it follows all pet-owners are closet fascists and those with that breed of canine are storm-troopers planning secretly for the Fourth Reich. Debbie Harry modeled herself on Eva Braun.

- Nazi doctors were the first to link smoking to ill-health and run campaigns to reduce smoking. We need to disassociate ourselves completely from this terrible era & as soon as a child can walk it’s every parents duty to shove a cigarette their child’s gob and tell them they’ll live to 150.

- Hitler was a vegetarian, and one can see how his diet, lead directly to the Second World War.

- The soft drink Fanta is a product of Nazi Germany, and any child drinking more than two bottles daily over a prolonged period, will develop blue eyes.

- The Nazi' thought God was on their side, so God can't be trusted or he backed a loser.

Can you now see where these farcical 'guilt by association' arguements go?

No where!

Let’s make it our mission to cleanse (pun intended) blog sites of this ‘final pollution’.

Are Christians Exempt New Smacking Laws?

This is Korean pastor Moon Hong Min outside court in Christchurch.

He’s looking rather pleased with himself, which is hardly surprising given the fact he escaped conviction after striking his 15 year old niece with a leather belt eight times around her legs, torso, and shoulders.

His guilty plea & the evidence above should have been enough one would have thought, to distinguish the pastors actions from a simple case of over-zealous chastisement, to one involving petulant violence against a minor in his care.

The thrashing came as a result of his niece spending too much time on her cell-phone.

The defence told the judge a conviction would see his work visa cancelled and deprive the Korean Christian community in Christchurch, his attributes as a pastor.

Whilst the judge indicating the crime was of a serious nature, the judge imposed only a fine ($2,5000) & the pastor walked from Court and back to ministering his flock.

Thus, all the smiles above.

Those that are pushing for the referendum on child discipline are asking for consistency in law and clear legal guidelines for parents – well now they have it.

New Zealanders now have the legal precedent & guidelines they were after, and boy will the Christian based anti-smacking campaigners, be applauding this landmark decision.

The message is there for all of us to ponder.

Moons defence was founded on his “character” and his own beliefs of traditional discipline ‘old testament style’, plus the ramifications a conviction would have on his ability to stay in New Zealand.

The Judge agreed these were enough grounds for Pastor Moon to escape conviction, and he receive the lighter punishment.

If he had have been ‘Joe Bloggs the Atheist from over the fence’ or ‘The Head of The Hells Angels chapter’ in court under identical circumstances, it’s doubtful the court would have been so lenient in imposing just a fine.

The decision in this case will be picked-up by lawyers up & down the country and the precedent created here will doubtless be repeated in similar cases.

Godless Children’s Theatre Group made homeless by Wellington Church

Pastor Tale Hakeagaiki, a fine upstanding Christian gentleman, has ‘turfed-out’ out a children's theatre group that performs plays featuring witches, little pigs and princesses, from it’s traditional home, a Wellington church hall - all because it’s not a “Christian activity”.

KidzStuff Theatre for Children has been staging productions – such as The Princess and the Pea, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Three Little Pigs, Puss n’ Boots and Sleeping Beauty – in the Red Brick Hall, part of the Cambridge Terrace Congregational Church, for about nine years and is closely associated with the venue.

But this arrangement is no longer, because those nasty witches and trios of swine, were not in tune with the brand of Christianity practiced by the new Pastor.

“The place is not a community place, it is a church and in my view should be used for Christian activities,"

“I see it as a church hall for the glory of God”

So this years school-holiday production of ‘Which Witch is Which’ was performed somewhere else.

One only has to take a look at the reprobates & degenerates associated with KidzStuff Theatre to see why the good pastor doesn’t want them polluting young minds.



Children have hated these fanciful 'fairy' stories for centuries.

But this story doesn’t end there, after booting Kidzstuff out, the duplicitous Pastor Hakeagaiki ran his own ‘approved’ school-holiday production from the Red Brick Hall.

Numbers were apparently rather ‘thin on the ground’ for this consecrated production.

Wellington kids apparently much prefer their fairy stories with princes, castles and a liberal dose of anthropomorphism, over ones with arc’s, loaves & fish and living-dead.

West Coast ‘Soap Opera’ sees Pastor getting the boot!

Even by the admissions of The Baptist Church of New Zealand, Pastor Michael Wise, has a tendency to polarise people.

His ‘love him or hate him’ style lead to a recent split in his Greymouth congregation.

That congregation held a vote as to whether Pastor Wise was ‘a keeper’ or whether he should return across the main divide from whence he came, after a short six month stay.

The majority of the eligible voters within the Greymouth Baptist Church voted for him to pack his bags & the miffed minority went off to the new rival church he’s stated around the corner.

So what bought about this schism, in this small West Coast church?

A bit of a giveaway was when the official line from Baptist H.Q which said (in short) - this has nothing to do with Michaels stand on homosexuality.

The gossip on the West Coast though, is to the contrary.

The word is Pastor Wise was fervently anti-homosexual and his Sunday soliloquies attempted to ‘rally the troops’ to join his evangelical inspired obsession.

The fair-minded ‘coasters’ occupying his church’s pews rejected his preoccupation with persecuting homosexuals, and decided to get rid of him.

Expect more to come out on this story over the next few weeks as parishioners, from both sides of the divide come forward and ‘spill their guts’.

Ahh yes, Christian Soap Opera – beats Coronation Street, every time!

What will happen to the Souls after a Brain Transplant Operation?

Wanted: Amateur Theologians to answer my philosophical poser.

Now, before you start I want you to forget any ethical or medical considerations, whilst pondering ‘what will happen to a soul after a brain operation?

So, here we go……..

Fred is brain dead and kept alive by medical science, but for all intents & purposes nothing is registering ‘up-stairs’ and doctors have no medical avenues for a cure.

As a quadriplegic Jack, has lost use of his limbs and has a low quality of life.

A pioneering brain surgeon suggests to both parties, care givers etc ‘a brain transfer’.

Jack would make use of Fred’s redundant, but functional body.

Fred’s inoperative brain, would find a new home in Jacks paralysed form.

For the purposes of this exercise, the parties agree to proceed with this radical operation.

The question I’m asking is “what will happen to Jack & Fred’s souls?”

It won’t too long until operations of this kind will soon be reality, & this question will move being merely a theoretical one.

Leave your theory in the comments section.

St Teresa of Avila - ‘The Patron Saint of Hysteria’

Popular Name: St. Teresa of Avila
Real Name: Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada
Country of Birth: Spain
Time-frame: 1515-1582
Claim to fame: Mystical cloistered Discalced Carmelite reformer and nun. Foundress of St. Joseph's convent in Avila, the first reformed Carmelite convent.
Quote: "This prayer is a glorious foolishness, a heavenly madness where the true wisdom is learned; and it is for the soul a most delightful way of enjoying"

History: Born into a family of 10 kids, when her mother died her father shipped her off to be looked after by Augustinian nuns at age 13. She decided, against her fathers wishes to become a nun, but life must have been fairly rudimentary in the nunnery game, and she soon fell seriously ill. Worried at the lack of treatment his daughter was getting at the hands of the Church, her father decided to take Teresa to a ‘health spa’ to recover. But rather than getting better her health deteriorated to the point she lapsed into a coma and when she regained consciousness found she had temporary paralysis of her legs.

At the age of 39, her biological clock ticking away, Teresa began to have visions of Christ and vivid experiences of ''mystical marriage'' with Him and of His presence within her. The last film in the U.K to be banned for blasphemy ''Visions of Ecstasy,''(1989) depicted the supposed ''erotic imaginings'' of St. Theresa of Avila during these visions. Her life was hence-forth littered with visions & raptures described by one writer in this way: "Her record of raptures and visions answers to nothing, in the experience of most modern Christians".

She claimed to have the gift of ‘extraordinary favours’(which she was able to bestow on others, whilst still suffering ill-health herself? ) and ‘dominion over demons’. During her ‘visions’ she became a regular visitor to hell (yes, ‘the’ hell), the description of one such ‘trip’ is outlined in her autobiography....

“Oh, my goodness! I see--oh, it's a stench! The odor is so horrible! I see a huge pit, and it's real burning. The walls are orange and burning hot. Oh! Oh, and I see these horrible creatures; they're clinging to the sides of the rocks. Some have wings on them with horrible--they look almost human, half human, half animal, but they have pointed ears. And they have ... "oh, my God! Please, Blessed Mother, take me out of here!" Oh, my God, they have feet that look like claws and arms with hair, but they also--the fingers have long fingernails; they're like claws. And they have the most horrible grinning expressions on their faces. Now I see, I see bodies of humans falling, falling. As they fall they're starting to glow. They're glowing like an orange color, like coals. And they're screaming, "Help! Mercy! Mercy! Too late! Too late!" Oh!”Oh, my God! And I see they're going so fast. I don't know where they're falling from. They seem to be raining, like almost from the sky into this pit. And I see--oh, my God! I see some are priests. Oh! Oh, and I see one, he has oh, my God!-a cardinal's hat on his head. And there are three. Now I can count them, there are three. They have mitres on their heads. Oh, my God! Oh, it's so horrible! The heat is so great, and the stench! I feel like I'm just burning"....

I’m sure there’s plenty of hospital staff that hears this sort of thing, shortly prior to sedating the patient. The Robbins & Roth Study of 1999 reported 28% of all patients with psychotic symptoms, involved delusions & hallucinations with religious connotations – so we what we see here is not unusual, nor is it divine.

In her most famous vision, the subject of the statue by Bernini (main photo above): "I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form ... He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire ... In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love for God. The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by the intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one's soul be content with anything less than God.".

The most popular modern-day diagnosis of Teresa’s mental condition is contained in the pages of ‘Psychology of The Future’ by Stanislav Grof.

He describes her as a ‘severe hysterical psychotic’, one which seems fair given the nature of her visions & founded also in her claims she was able to physically levitate and ‘fly around my room’ (claims the Catholic Church backs-up) Her psychosis was similarly highlighted in ‘Saints and Madmen’ (by Russell Shorto)

Another re-occurring theme in the analysis of St Teresa’s life is: sexual repression (the topic of the fore-mentioned British movie) By all accounts Teresa was a beautiful woman, with many admirers. Her sexual desires unable to find a physical outlet, she finds ‘pleasure’ and ‘release’ in her visions.

In her autobiography she wrote “During ecstasy the body stops moving, breathing becomes slower and weaker, you only sigh and pleasure comes in waves…”. For all intents and purposes, she is describing an orgasm. Many interpret her most famous vision (above) as having strong sexual connotations, and the angels golden spear to be phallic symbolism.

Even in the 19th century, when psychiatry was in its infancy, it was obvious to those who read her ‘rambling’ autobiography Teresa was suffering what would now be termed ‘mental health issues’. Sigmund Freud's colleague, Joseph Breur, dubbing her ‘the patron saint of hysteria’ after finishing her story (an herculean effort in itself, the book being almost unreadable to anyone, in any age, past or present)

Others modern psychiatrists like Dewhust & Beard (‘Handbook of Health & Religion), attribute her visions to temporal lobe epilepsy. Just may be, the Catholic Church does have a sense of humour after all, or begrudgingly agree with the diagnosis - St Teresa just happens to be ‘The Patron Saint of headache sufferers’!

Even Teresa herself considered she was “mad” at times, an opinion shared by many of her fellow nuns, villagers surrounding her monastery etc. In one examination of her powers the two priests involved concluded she was ‘deluded’- but not enough to prevent beatification. In many of the Catholic Churches official writings they do point to her issues, framing them as “mental agonies”.

Morbidly, her body was exhumed several times after her death, and the Church reports of the time describe her corpse as ‘sweet-smelling, firm, and incorrupt’( if you are thinking of becoming a saint, it would help to remember this) Her heart, hands, right foot, right arm, left eye and part of her jaw are on display in various sites around the world. She was canonised by Gregory XV in 1622, and in 1969 proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for her writings (the first female)

This article is part of my series on ‘Churches of Christchurch’ in which I investigate the lives of the Saints, exploring the real stories behind the names synonymous with some of our cities most famous landmarks. We look behind the official church rhetoric, and examine more closely their often flamboyant & sometimes disturbing lives.