Put them all together in a big sturdy trash bag. Then, go to a Christian store for enough Holy Water to get them good and wet but not quite dripping. Seal the bag up tight and leave it someplace kind of warm for a few weeks, and leave what happens up to God on high.
You’d think they’d come out radiating goodness, but they get all moldy instead.
There’s some kind of lesson here, though I’m hard pressed to say what it is. You can show the resulting pile of mess to all your relatives and see if they can figure it out.
Shelve the Bible stories next to the fairy tales, Greek mythology and folk tales of India. Make sure you thank your relations because its very important to you to give your kids a sound grounding in comparative religions, folk beliefs and superstitions.
(Good luck, my sister in law used to give my kids Veggie Tales CDs. Which we would put in the charity box. Over time we just stopped exchanging gifts - it was a relief. About two weeks ago my mother in law - the one who raised her atheist son - gave my teenage (!) children a Children’s Bible - if this weren’t typical, I’d think her age was starting to show. I thanked her, but said that my son only read the bare minimum, and children’s Bible stories weren’t on my list of bare minimum, and for my daughter, I think she’d already read the real Bible as part of Unitarian RE)
My Mother does the same thing. She specializes in plush toy that loudly sing bible-study songs in the voices of off-key toddlers.
This is the sort of scene she is hoping to inspire: - YouTube The actual result is me and Celtlng holding our hands over our ears any time we bump into one and it starts bellowing its propaganda.
So, Skaldy, join my crusade to “save” the one person in the world whose conversion to Evangelistic Christianity would result in an ultimate good for millions of people. Send all the magical soul-saving devices to Kim Jong Un.
And even if we don’t succeed in convincing the poor affluenzic princeling that there are, in fact other entities worshipped throughout the world, the gifts can still serve a useful purpose. All gifts to NK leaders are ensconced in the International Friendship Exhibit, which is intended to prove to the NK people who visit it the utter worshipful esteem in which it’s leader(s) are held by the rest of the world. The various gifts are all displayed, and represented as submissive offerings of tribute to the high and mighty Kim du jour.
Imagine if some of the items displayed suddenly burst into renditions of “Jesus Loves Me” or “The Doxology.”
My sister gives us crap like this. We’ve found that drawing eyes and a mouth on the figures made them look like ghost-alien-zombies. Much to her dismay, it is now prominently displayed every Christmas.
It is impossible for Mary to have committed adultery with Joseph. Neither of them were married to another person when she got knocked up, and they were betrothed to be married anyway. At most she might have FORNICATED with Joseph.
But if I recall aright (and I well may not), the oldest of the Gospels, Mark, does not mention the virgin birth or any other part of Jesus’ childhood. The whole thing about Mary’s magically-intact hymen smacks of retcon.
I second this though I might not tell the relatives the things had been donated. As unlikeable and inappropriate as those presents are too you there may be some poor Pentecostal Christian family that would enjoy them. So take the position of what SHOULD be the true meaning of the holiday season (i.e., good will and benevolence to all).
In the name of Athena daughter of Metis daughter of Tethys daughter of Gaia the never-born, you people must STOP giving serious answer and START making dirty jokes, or I will SHOOT LEGOLAS IN THE FACE.
Improbable, but impossible. We only have the bible’s word for her only being betrothed to Joseph. She could have been a bolter who left a string of broken hearts and betrothals throughout Judea. Insert Dirty Joke at this point.
Ha, that happened to me once (no kids, it was sent to ME in an effort to save my soul or something). I turned-around and re-Christmas-gifted it to one of my atheist friends for a good laugh.
Saying we only have the Bible’s word that J & M were betrothed is like saying we only have Tolkien’s word that Gandalf looked like an old man with a long grey bird.
That said, when I was, oh, possibly 14, I got in trouble in Sunday School because I was unwilling to say that I believed that Mary had been all sweetness and light (i.e., that she had never even entertained the notion of knocking [del]boots[/del] sandals with any man. I wasn’t contesting her virginhood; I was perfectly willing to stipulate that she had an intact hymen until Jesus busted it on his way out of her womb. (Note that I was stipulating that the same way I’d have stipulated that Jim Kirk was the second captain of the Enterprise, not the third.) But to me that didn’t mean she hadn’t ever kissed a boy, and the notion that God was unable to work his will through a gril who was only TECHNICALLY virgin seemed impermissably limiting on omnipotence to me.
Skald, I am probably going to be swarmed with robot bees for this, but wasn’t the first captain of the USS Enterprise, Robert April, who was then followed by Christopher Pike, thus making James Kirk the third captain?
My point exactly, sir. Robert April is mentioned in the animated series and in a novel by, um, Diane Carey or Vonda McIntyre or somebody, but never in the live-action series or the movies as far as I know. (I haven’t seen the latest one and will shoot in the knee anyone who suggests that I should.) So it’s easy to argue that April doesn’t/never existed in the “real” continuity. If I were talking to someone who insisted on believing one way or the other, I’d just concede the point to we could return to discussing the real issue: whether 1960s!Nichelle Nichols was hotter than 2010s!Zoe Saldana, and whether anyone had skin shots to support his/her case.
Are we talking regular paper picture books and Bibles, or board books? If it’s regular paper, I vote origami. Preferably little hats for your all-baby production of selected scenes from Pirates of Penzance. I’m sure some of the other stuff can be turned into props for other shows wherein your sons are [del]bombarded with show tunes and thereby thoroughly innoculated with Teh Ghey [/del] exposed to lots of music that helps their little brains develop.*
This is my avowed explanation for getting my 2 year old niece a full percussion set, and I’m sticking to it. (My brother knows what he did.)
