12-27-2010, 07:45 PM
Hi,
Historical accounts? You mean the collection of fables and fairy tales written about a turn of a fourth century priest by the following three centuries of credulous monks? In one thing they all agree -- that St. Nick's bounty was always in secret.
As to Basil, his story, being better documented and in the more intellectually advanced east, is nowhere as fantastic. However, he is not associated with individual giving so much as with following Jesus' injunction to give everything one has to the poor and follow Him.
I think that what you are doing, instilling humane values into your children and teaching them the sources of our customs, is very laudable. But if you present medieval superstition and exaggeration as "historical accounts" then you are instilling the credulity in one place that you are eradicating in another.
Note: not faulting you. Your children, your right to raise them as you will. And, from your attitude and some of your comments, I think you're doing a great job (not that what I think matters a whit in this case). Just saying.
--Pete
(12-27-2010, 05:44 PM)kandrathe Wrote: Finally, I've shown them the actual historical accounts of Saint Nicholas of Myra and the Greek and Byzantine folklore of Basil of Caesarea.
Historical accounts? You mean the collection of fables and fairy tales written about a turn of a fourth century priest by the following three centuries of credulous monks? In one thing they all agree -- that St. Nick's bounty was always in secret.
As to Basil, his story, being better documented and in the more intellectually advanced east, is nowhere as fantastic. However, he is not associated with individual giving so much as with following Jesus' injunction to give everything one has to the poor and follow Him.
I think that what you are doing, instilling humane values into your children and teaching them the sources of our customs, is very laudable. But if you present medieval superstition and exaggeration as "historical accounts" then you are instilling the credulity in one place that you are eradicating in another.
Note: not faulting you. Your children, your right to raise them as you will. And, from your attitude and some of your comments, I think you're doing a great job (not that what I think matters a whit in this case). Just saying.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?