Boxing Day, but not in the USA

Rio De Janeiro at night: Sort of Christmas like...

Boxing Day, but not in the USA

Ultimate History Project.com

Cited

'In Ireland it is called Lá an Dreoilín, (The Day of the Wren) or Stephen’s Day. In England it is Boxing Day. On the Isle of Man, it is Laa'l Steaoin (Stephen’s Feast Day). Traditionally celebrated on December 26th, this is a day of customs ancient and modern; strange and ordinary.

As an official holiday, Boxing Day is actually of comparatively recent origin: Queen Victoria included December 26th in the Bank Holidays Act passed by the British Parliament in 1871.

The fact that it became an official holiday (a day when all banks are closed) at a time when the British Empire included Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada explains why it is celebrated in most parts of the British Commonwealth. The Republic of Ireland, which gained its independence from Britain in 1921, continues to celebrate the day as a bank holiday but does not use the term Boxing Day.'

Cited

'The name Boxing Day embodies the confusion surrounding the origins of the holiday. Samuel Pepys hinted at its origins when he recorded his diary entry for December 19th, 1663: “Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas.”

Almost fifty years later, Jonathan Swift complained,

By the Lord Harry, I shall be undone here with Christmas boxes. The rogues of the coffee-house have raised their tax, every one giving a crown, and I gave mine for shame, besides a great many half-crowns to great men’s porters”.'

Cited

'By the nineteenth century, Boxing Day, rather than Christmas or the days preceding it, became the day on which these tradesmen and in particular, postal workers were given boxed gifts or monetary tips in thanks for their services.'

Cited

'WHY ST. STEPHEN?

At the same time, it is no coincidence that Boxing Day falls on the Feast of St. Stephen. While there are several different saints named Stephen, December 26th is the Feast day of Stephen, Proto-martyr.-- Stephen appears in The Acts of the Apostles as one of seven men named to help ensure that the distribution of alms to widows in the early Christian church is done fairly.

Eventually, Stephen preached a sermon taking the people to task for poor behavior: they responded by stoning him to death. As the first Christian martyr he holds an important place in the church calendar. He is frequently depicted with a stone in one hand and the palm of martyrdom in the other.

Stephen embraced the gospel in opposition to religious leaders in Acts 7

Most importantly however, he is associated with the giving of alms and the locked boxes kept in churches for donations. These boxes were traditionally opened on St. Stephen’s day and the money distributed to the needy.

The connection of December 26th with poor boxes provides another plausible explanation of the term "Boxing Day."'

Cited

Whether through the box used to collect the money or the box used to house the wren, the day had also become inextricably mixed up with Boxing Day.

'However Boxing Day came to be, it has become a holiday of rest, relaxation, and time with family and friends for those who recognize it.

Today, Boxing Day is a day on which sporting events, shopping, and eating a second feast take precedence over giving tips and hunting birds.

Time: December 26, 2013

From this classic American source:

'If you’re looking for something that explains the origins of Boxing Day, well, you’re not going to find it here. The day-after-Christmas holiday is celebrated by most countries in the Commonwealth, but in a what-were-we-doing-again? bout of amnesia, none of them are really sure what they’re celebrating, when it started or why.

The best clue to Boxing Day’s origins can be found in the song “Good King Wenceslas.” According to the Christmas carol, Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen’s Day — Dec. 26 — when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant’s door. The alms-giving tradition has always been closely associated with the Christmas season — hence the canned-food drives and Salvation Army Santas that pepper our neighborhoods during the winter — but King Wenceslas’ good deed came the day after Christmas, when the English poor received most of their charity.'

Cited

'Boxing Day has been a national holiday in England, Wales, Ireland and Canada since 1871. For years in which the holiday falls on a weekend, the celebration is moved to make sure workers still get a day off (except in Canada, where it remains Dec. 26), but since visits to Grandma and other family obligations are fulfilled on Christmas, there isn’t anything left to do on Boxing Day except eat leftovers, drink and watch TV. Just as Americans watch football on Thanksgiving, the Brits have Boxing Day soccer matches and horse races. If they’re particularly wealthy or live in the country, they might even participate in a fox hunt.'
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Yes, I just watched part of an English Premier League, football match, today.

But boxes are taken out in America today, too, even though there was an American Revolution and the United States of America is independent from the United Kingdom.

So these reasonably academic presentations have demonstrated that there is more to Boxing Day than my childhood tradition of taking my empty toy boxes to the trash on December 26.

A different kind of Reformation

WALLACE TOM Jr. (2015) Refuting Islam, The Christian Patriots Guide to Exposing the Evils of Islam, Bellingham, Fundamental Publishers.

The book review continues... 

Chapter Three: The Reformers

Mr. Wallace opines that many (In the Western world) are attempting to reform Islam as a 'kinder', 'gentler' religion. (21).

He explains that this revised Allah is a fictional god of people's imagination, not in agreement with the Qur'an. Certain people do not like the judgmental Allah that is war-like. (21). Mr. Wallace reasons that Islam cannot be reformed. As example, an orthodox, Quranic Islam interpretation, should not ignore the (later) verses from the Qur'an that are more militant and cling to the earlier more peaceful passages from the Qur'an.

A reminder of the theory of open-ended verses within Islam:

October 24 2017

Religion of Peace

Quote

'Does the Quran really contain over a hundred verses promoting violence? The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, most verses of violence in the Quran are open-ended, meaning that they are not necessarily restrained by historical context contained in the surrounding text (although many Muslims choose to think of them that way). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.

The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God. Most contemporary Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence.

Islam apologists cater to these preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally don't stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology. Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad's own martial legacy, along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran, have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.'

End citation

'Most contemporary Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. '

This worldview approach by liberalized, Western Muslims will often reinterpret Allah, the Qur'an and the Sunnah through a reformed view. I tend to agree with Mr. Wallace that this will not be orthodox Islam, but at the same time I do not see the growth of Western Islamic population leading to a serious threat of radical Islamic rule in any Western country. It is theoretically possible, but does not seem likely to occur.

I am open to future correction, but as noted in this review series, I see secularism as the prominent Western worldview for now and decades in the future.

Islam in the West may very well pass all forms of Christianity in population.

London: metrouk2.files.com

Logically impossible: Fatal condition

Logically impossible: Fatal condition

Preface

This Blogger article was originally published 23122017, slight revisions 20251214.

Naples, Italy Amo, Facebook Logically impossible: 

Fatal condition

LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy)

The continuation of text review:

Key symbols

≡df = Equivalence by definition
: = Equal (s)
ε = Epsilon and means is
⊃ = Is the same as
⊨ is Entails
˜ = Not
∃ = There exists
∃! = There exists
∴ = Therefore
· = Therefore
< = Is included
v = a logical inclusive disjunction (disjunction is the relationship between two distinct alternatives).
x = variable
· = Conjunction meaning And
0 = Null class cls
= Class int
= Interpretation
---

Langer explains that a proposition can only be known via another proposition. (183). Implication is a relation that only holds among propositions. (183). Propositions are regarded as postulates. (185).

2025 note: But a proposition can simply be a statement on its own. This is a proposition that is not part of an argument. An argument requires at least one proposition, known as a premise, in the context of an argument, and a conclusion. For my Wales, MPhil and PhD degrees, I wrote propositions connected to questionnaires and surveys.

End

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A postulate needs to belong to the system, in the language of that system.
A postulate should imply further propositions of that system.
A postulate should not contradict any other accepted postulate, or any other proposition implied by another postulate. (185).

In other words, symbolic logic requires non-contradiction within its system in a universe of discourse.

Requirements

Coherence: Every proposition in the system must cohere to the established conceptual structure. (185). It must be in coherence with the rest.

Contributiveness : A postulate should contribute and have implication. (185-186).

Consistency: Most important states Langer (186). Two contradictory propositions (or premises) cannot contradict each other in a system. (186). The inconsistent is logically impossible. It is a fatal condition. (186). It is not logic at all. (186).

Independence: Postulates should be independent from each other. (186). If a proposition is deductible from a postulate already provided, then it is a theorem, a necessary fact, not another assumption. (186). Something provable in a theorem would be error to include as a postulate. (186).

I would reason that within philosophy there would be plenty of debate on what is a proposition/premise within systems and what would be a theorem. Langer explains that when a theorem needs elucidation, any proposition  implied by another proposition as granted and proved within a system is a theorem. (186-187).

Within a biblical, system and universe of discourse...

Gd = God

(∃! Gd)

God exists. Would be viewed as necessary and a theorem.

Within an atheistic, system and universe of discourse...

˜ (∃! Gd)

God does not exist. Would be viewed as necessary and a theorem.

Noted: Some atheists would state they do not know if God exists, and not definitely that God does not exist. But my example stands as valid. Some have beliefs which actually are within a range of being atheists/agnostics and do fit within my proposition. 

However:

Ag = Agnostics

(∃! Ag)

Agnostics exist. Would be viewed as necessary and a theorem.

Agnostic atheism: Wikipedia 

Cited

'Agnostic atheism – or atheistic agnosticism – is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and they are agnostic because they claim that such existence of a divine entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.'

Key sources

Harrison, Alexander James (1894). The Ascent of Faith: or, the Grounds of Certainty in Science and Religion. London: Hodder and Stroughton. p. 21. OCLC 7234849. OL 21834002M.

Smith, George H (1979). Atheism: The Case Against God. Prometheus Books. pp. 10–11. ISBN 9780879751241. 

Barker, Dan (2008). Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists. New York: Ulysses Press. p. 96. ISBN 9781569756775. OL 24313839M.

End citations

Further

RS = Revelatory Scripture

(∃! RS) ⊨ (∃! Gd)

Revelatory Scripture exists entails God exists. From a Christian worldview, revealed, supernaturally inspired Scripture entails that God exists. Could another supernatural source provide supernatural revelation? Yes. God is reasoned to be God based on divine claims and supernatural interactions within that revelatory scripture that is considered religious history.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

CONWAY DAVID A. AND RONALD MUNSON (1997) The Elements of Reasoning, Wadsworth Publishing Company, New York. 

LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy) 

PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.

The Wright Answer (PhD Edit)

Squidooit.com: Clarksville, TN

PhD, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, 2010: Theodicy and Practical Theology 

MPhil, Bangor University, 2003: The Problem of Evil: Anglican and Baptist Perspectives

Wright reasons the problem of evil can be solved in a straightforward manner by proposing that God predestines evils to occur for a particular purpose. Wright (1996: 197).

Persons do not have an answer back for God. Wright (1996: 197).

This comment from Wright is accurate from a Reformed perspective. I can interject and state that academically solving the logical and gratuitous problems of evil by tying them back to God is an ultimate intellectual solution, but there are still practical ramifications to deal with, such as why certain evils occur.

The fact that a sovereignty theodicy can logically and reasonable solve its problem of evil, does not mean that suffering often comes with an explanation. This is where practical and empirical theology can be very helpful when they offer practical assistance to those suffering under the problem of evil.

WRIGHT, R.K.McGREGOR (1996) No Place for Sovereignty, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.