Freedom to decide your Days of Rest

by secularist - (iosaf mac d - in case you didn't guess) Sat Apr 05, 2008 23:33

I'm one of those types who can't just tell a joke or slip in a witty riposte without then using the feel good factor to make a political point. Sure as Oscar Wilde wrote "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you".

Now I hope all Irish people see in their days or rest, non-banking days & holidays the influence of Christian tradition. Furthermore I hope you all see that if the business folk get their "set Easter" not only will Ireland find herself operating a calender which gave Henry II of England the papal nod to invade us 800 years ago - but we will then find ourselves forever celebrating the 1916 Rising on the wrong day. As the set-up goes at the moment, we can look forward to a historically accurate commemoration within 746 years.

These holidays are celebrated and set labour, economic, financial, academic and political calenders in every state of Europe. Only those Germans who refuse to register a religious belief option on their tax forms to a recognised public worship body for tax purposes (not the Scientologists) may be obliged to staff the trains, buses & hospitals on those days the faithful tax payers scoff their eggs, light their candles, whip themselves goodo or break their fasts. It's an admirable system & one which works well. But it is not one which is copied or desired in other states of Europe where instead people get & expect double or triple wages for working a day many consider to be just the same as any other.


Thus I illustrate to you the Christian roots of European Society & Civilisation.


Yet in the first proposed constitution Giscard Valery d'Estaing thought he was being a brudder in the trad by leaving out the God clause which my predeccesor Ludwig van Beethoven would have expected along with the right to housing, health, pensions, education & self-determination. Too many people especially on the left thing insisting on the inclusion of the "Christian roots of Europe" or "God Clause" would lead to covering up nudey statues, a ban on abortion, the end of the campaign to die with dignity, no condoms & wall to wall Jesus. It won't. I assure you. But the lack of the "God Clause" will allow business lobbies to take what they like from the admirable German secular labour system & get you to work normal pay on the day Mary goes to Space or Stephens Day when you should be sleeping off a hangover. & that will only be the beginning. The lack of a "God Clause" as the lack of the other clauses I insist on at pan-European level will undermine the continuation in the individual member states of the Union. Thus the range of accords between various states and their dominant churches on maintainance of European heritage sites, European high art culture (such as art and frescoes and relics) as well as the funding of charity and special need educational organisations will move further in to the territory of the liberal free market.

I doubt you want to see the monastic heritage of Ireland in Europe bought by corporations who plaster "enjoy Coca Cola" neon lights all over them, or you are quite prepared for the liberalisation of the Deaf or Blind schools. Please note that the late Lady Valerie Goulding's "CRC" shared secular/religious school for those with physical & mental handicaps was a European exception rather than a rule.

Now if you don't join me in adding the lack of a "God Clause" to the list of points which the Lisbon rewrite of the proposed EU constitution which you ought identify & campaign on, then I'll start ranting about Vikings & Roman imperial deification.

I'm sick of saying Thursday, Friday & Wednesday. I'm also sick of calling the sixth month June, the seventh July or the eight August. Julius was not my Caesar neither was his nephew and they were not gods. I'm sick of calling the ninth to twelth months names based on the latin for seventh to tenth. I don't feel beligerent in March. I nod affectionately to the memory of one my teachers in my youth, a member of the Quaker faith who like the Zapatistas of Mexico never refer to months other than by their numbers. His little story used make us (me & fellow pupils) laugh.

Then he taught his point. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; the seventh & eighth months. Render unto Europe its "God clause" & you know His fans will help you on the rights to
- Housing
- Work
- Health
- Pensions.


the illustration was a previous logo of the European MayDay collective. Combatting Precarity & Reclaiming Mayday. it stays on May 1. obviously not in Eire for economic reasons. Like we all used to collect the dole mid week to return the liquid money into the economy....,
global holidays around the world :-
http://www.globalsources.com/TNTLIST/DIRECTORIES/TRAVEL...S.HTM

Overworked, Underpaid, Double Treble Time...

by secularist Sat Apr 05, 2008 19:31

Surely they should be allowed along with hostellery staff of all persuasions to choose their statutary dry day every year!

& what about the 1916 Easter Rising commemoration bollox? It's never ever happened on the same day.

by Miss Read Sat Apr 05, 2008 17:25

I think Easter should be on the same day every year, it is our civic duty to uphold the
profit-making (generating) community and the further the idea of harvest mythos
and co-option of archetypes moves from the cosmological calendar the better.

And by extension easier to ignore.

The second comment intrigues, the state school year indeed facilitates commercial
endeavour and all the best kid's movies etcetera are released to coincide, this was
a Noel Dempsey idea. Needless to say the private (mainly RC) boys schools do
not have the same calendar as the public schools, with primaries sometimes getting
a month longer that their public counterparts (both secondary and primary begin
in June for some 5,000 euro fee-paying schools, whereas state primary get theirs end
of June).

In fact bureaucratise the Holy See altogether , the Pope's forward party for the US visit
rivals the Queen's entourage and GEP are doing the security. I do wonder if they will
ban the porn and the ice-cream?

by lulu Sat Apr 05, 2008 15:42

Being Xian doesn't mean we want the same holiday-dates as every1 else! Whatever yr beliefs, u can opt out of the stupid robo-consumer-fest of Xmas/Yule/Solstice/Chanukah, etc., & enjoy time off - u don't even have to see the family if u don't want to. I noticed a magazine headline, 'How to Survive Family Xmas' - well, if it's so bad, leave it out! Have u noticed how pressure is growing to make ever more money from Halloween, Valentine's, etc.,? It's not even just the money that galls me, but being shepherded into the supermarket, market, pub..........bollix to that. Sure, if u have kids @ school, y're rather stuck with the holiday-dates, & the increased charges for peak times.