Spiritual message

That geezer fancies himself as the next Messiah, eh? An unlikely candidate if you ask me.

Well let them believe what they want to as long as they don't try to force it on others. Plus in the commandments, it never once said that other gods were fake. It said to believe in said Christian god. In other words, all other gods and religions are supposedly "real". However gods and religion were created by human fear and belief. In other words, human beings are greater than gods for being able to create such deities.

Praise be to God for this beautiful Christmas Season that celebrates the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless those who spread the word of God, there is too much evil in this world, we need all the good we can get.

J Hemi

Christianity might have made more progress in Japan. However, the base for Christianity in Japan was Nagasaki. Until August, 1945.

New "religions" come along all the time. Every single one you can name today started as small cults borrowing certain parts of existing religions or supernatural belief systems. I understand that the rules, stories, traditions and gatherings can make people feel a sense of community and more power to them. One thing I enjoy about living in Japan is that people rarely ever bring the topic of religion up and even rarer to try and convert me. Sometimes in the US people can become so boorish with their evangelical rantings it takes an incredible amount of patience to laugh in their face. Just like cigarette smoking - please do it if you want but not around me.

This kind of thing gets posted every Xmas season. What I'd like to see is a quick poll of the general Japanese passers by to ask them what they think of it. How many of them even know what it's referring to?

Given that only on the order of 1% of Japanese are Christian sectarian, e.g., Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, etc., it seems to me most Japanese go: meh.

Japanese will probably ignore but respect this (I was born and raised Christian, now agnostic.) Religion is difficult to understand for those outside of Japan and maybe even in Japan. Japanese people are religious and at the same time not religious. Shinto? Buddhist? They will say yes. Christian? A minority might actually say yes also.

Amen!

Good to know we can avoid all afterlife problems with just this one belief. It appears problems of the material world are a lot more difficult to solve ... Any solutions for them?

Every year Japan Today posts this type of photo and every year the same old arguments arise. I am a practicing Catholic and all my life I have encountered people wanting to insult me because of my belief. Well, I can't answer them but I can say something that not one of them has ever been able to refute and that is this. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, fine, but teachings attributed to him have stood the test of time. Can anyone honestly say the world wouldn't be a better place if we followed words as "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," or "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Or even the story of the Good Samaritan...and countless others.

For myself, I try to ignore the fanatics who try to force others to follow their ways and instead try to live my life according to those simple teachings. I don't try to convert anyone and hope that others won't mock me for my faith.

And lest I forget, the Christmas message of peace on Earth and good will to all. Not a bad message, is it?

Not again!!!!

These people love to ruin everyone's day.

They blare their mumbo jumbo in an effort to save the wicked, but the only thing they do is piss folks off.

Worse than the black vans, at least those vans drive off, these people don't.

Can anyone honestly say the world wouldn't be a better place if we followed words as "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," or "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

As a philosophy or a moral code, it's (mostly) excellent, I try to follow it myself (note the 'try', we're none of us perfect). But that doesn't make his Dad god, nor mean that people who don't pop a wafer in once a week will be 'judged' and sent to eternal hell.

And lest I forget, the Christmas message of peace on Earth and good will to all.

It's a lovely message. Pity it's only once a year!