S5 E3: A Special What's on My Mind: The Christmas Episode

0:02 Hi, I'm Keiley, hosts of Missy Mysteries. I found the cutest little online shop on Etsy called Wick of the Wood. Wick of the Wood specializes in unique accent candles, with an inventory that consists of one of a kind, handmade candles that fit every variety of spaces and esthetics. Wick of the Wood always have their eye out for new candle molds, thrifted containers, and other inspirations. The idea that everyone can have a candle that fits whatever quirky spaceally need inspires Wick of the Wood to think outside of the candle mold and make any idea you might have a reality. Since she was just a little girl, the owner has always dreamed of making a little shop where she could sell homemade items under the watchful eye of her dog. The owner lovingly handmakes each item, packages them and mails them out to you from Seattle, Washington, and you don't have to take it from me. Here's some testimonials from several Wick of the Wood customers. Susie five stars. I've ordered from this shop and every time it's an amazing experience. Everything smells amazing and the packaging is always so cute and functional. This is my favorite candle shop. Tandra also gives Wick of the Woods five stars. These are so cool. I only burnt three so I could keep one for show l ol. Another five stars from Dior, who says the seller is so kind, beautifully packaged, the candles smell and look amazing. Bought it for my bestie and she loves

1:34 it. Thank you, and thank you for the freebees too. Those are just a few of the amazing reviews of Wick of the Wood. You can check out Wick of the Wood at www Etsy dot com, slash shop slash Wick of the Wood. Follow Wick of the Wood on Twitter at Wick of the Wood. Dark Cast Network. Come on over to the dark Side. We're really nice people, but once you get past the true crime and scary science. Hello, I'm Jackie Moranti. Welcome to Cause of Death one hundred seconds to Midnight. This was going to be a subscription only episode, but I felt that I should put it out on the regular feed. Those episodes are called What's on My Mind episodes. There are things that I want to talk about, but they don't really fit on the normal feed. They don't really have anything to do with global crises or infectious disease. If you like these episodes. You can go to my Patreon page or Apple subscriptions and sign up to hear more of them. Okay, let's begin. People from around

3:04 the world have suffered religious persecution. There are Protestants against Catholics, Christians against Jews, Jews against Palestinians, Christians against Islam, Muslims against Hindies, Christians against Muslims, Catholics against Buddhists. You get the picture. The main thought being if you don't love my God, I'll kill you. There are other things behind these wars, of course, politics and money. Money and politics, but the human race has figured out how to change the narrative, use the magic mirrors and skew the lines of sight. If we make it about religion, then we can hide the money and the politics behind it all.

3:47 I don't celebrate Christmas. I really don't celebrate many holidays. I think that they've become another thing for people to fight over, so I prefer to just not People either love Christmas or hate it. I don't have much of a feeling about it one way or the other. I appreciate the day off from my regular job so that I can do work that's not related to my real job like produce this podcast and write scripts for others. But I do like to participate in some local events that are Christmas themed. When I lived in Albuquerque, it was a tradition to go through the graveyards and see the luminarias.

4:28 Here in Kansas, i went to a living Nativity, and I love to drive through the neighborhoods and see everyone's Christmas lights. I'm not going to get into the history of religious battles. If you want to find out more about the Crusades or the Buddhist Uprising, feel free to look them up. There are plenty of religious battles to read about, and most of them just never end. I've got some links in the show notes to religious conflicts around the world. Knock yourselves out. What I want to talk to you about today aren't the religious differences. I want to talk about religious similarities. I don't really know how many Christian religions exist in the world, but there are plenty of them. All those religions are celebrating Christmas. This is the time of year when Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Christ. This is the time of year when Jews celebrate Hanekah for eight days, Jews around the world celebrate their religious freedom. That's what Hanekah is, a celebration of religious freedom. This celebration has gone on for centuries. We talk about the persecution of the Jews during Holocaust, but this story goes much further back in time.

5:50 During the second century b C, Jews and Judea found themselves under the control of Antiochus the Third, the Seleucid king of Syria. Antiochus allowed the Jews to practice their religion and things were good. Then Antiochus the Third died and Antiochus the fourth Epiphophanes took over as king. He ordered the Jews to worship Greek gods and banned the Jewish religion. In one sixty eight BC, Antiochus soldiers invaded Jerusalem. They raped, they pillaged, and they desecrated the city's Holy Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs inside of the temple. I talk about the four ways that cultures are eradicated in the first episode on Ukraine. One of the first things you take away from them is their religion. You leave them floundering. It's a forced assimilation. Well, the Jews were having none of that, and they chose to revolt against the Cellus in monarchy. A Jewish priest named Matthias and his five sons led the charge. This was no small scale uprising, this was a full on revolt.

7:11 The Jews used guerrilla warfare and sneak attacks to overcome Antiochus armies. After his death in one sixty six b c. Matthias's son took over the rebellion, Judah Maccabee, who was also known as the Hammer, and he was a force to be reckoned with. Within two years, the Syrians had been driven out of Jerusalem. Judah asked his people to cleanse the Second Temple and rebuild the altar and light the Minorah. The seven branches of the Minorah represented knowledge and creation, and they were kept burning every night. There are a couple of legends that follow this event, but I'm going to tell the one that I like the best. It's my show I can do that. According to the Talmud, those who took part in the rededication of the Second Temple poor witness to a miracle. There was originally only enough oil to keep the candles of the Manorah burning for one night, but the flames continued to burn for eight nights. This gave them time to find more oil, so the candles never burned out. This is why Hanakah lasts eight days. The manorah has nine branches, and after sundown on each of the holidays eight nights, another candle is added to the manorah. The ninth candle, the shamash,

8:41 is used to light the other candles. The manorahs displayed in a window of the house to remind others of the miracle that occurred so many centuries before. Buddhism is another culture that celebrates during our Christmas time. Buddhis celebrate Rahatsu. This is Japanese meaning the eighth day of the twelfth month. This is the celebration of the enlightenment of Buddha. In Japanese monasteries, Rahatsu is the last day of a week long hshine, a meditation retreat in which all of one's awake time is spent in meditation no matter what else they are doing. They strive to keep meditation focus at all times. They are not allowed to speak unless it is absolutely necessary. During the celebration, meditation periods get longer every night of the celebration until on the last night. Meditation lasts the entire night.

9:50 The story of Rahatsu begins with Buddha searching for peace. He searched for several years but couldn't find it anywhere. His future self, Sidhartha Guatma, was determined to find peace through meditation. He sat beneath a body tree and began to go into a meditative state. When he was deep in meditation, the demon Mara came to him and tempted him to give up. Mara first brought his beautiful daughters to seduce Sidhartha, but Saidhartha refused to move. Mara next sent a demon army to scare said Hartha into giving up, but yet Sidhartha didn't move. Mara then sent screaming demons to terrify Sidhartha, and still said Hartha didn't move. Mara finally demanded to know what Sidhartha had done to deserve enlightenment. Mara told of his own spiritual accomplishments, and his demon army backed him up by crying out, we bear witness. Mara asked Sidhartha, who will speak for you? Sidhartha reached his right hand down and touched the earth, and the earth cried out, I bear witness. The morning Star then rose in the sky, and Sidhartha gained enlightenment and became Buddha. Neither

11:22 Buddhism nor Judaism recognize Christ, but both of them celebrate holidays around Christmas time, and similar stories can be found in the Bible. Buddha's enlightenment can be compared to the forty days that Christ spent fasting in the Judean desert. This is where he was tempted by Satan. The persecution of the Jews can be compared to the death of Christ, and it's also mentioned in the Book of Moses, where the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians for many many years. Other religions celebrate the rise of their savior during other seasons. Ramadan is celebrated during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. For the entire month, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. Not even water is allowed during the daylight hours.

12:16 This is not only an act of worship, but is also a way to empathize with those who are less fortunate. Family and friends will gather for the evening meal called Iftar, and then many will gather for the night prayer called Tarawi. The night prayer is in addition to the five daily prayers that are said every day and are the core of Islam. Lay At al Khadar, or the Night of Power, is celebrated on the twenty seventh of the month of Ramadan. Muslims believe that this is the night that Muhammad received the first Holy Koran. The celebration ends with Aid alpit Their, a feast that celebrates the breaking of the fast. Friends and families gather from meals and gift exchanges. The families also give gifts to the poor. There are more celebrations from different religions around the world, but I have to save some of them for next year. We all know the traditional Christmas story, but most of us don't follow the entire Christmas celebration. We cut it down to one day and call it good two days if you count Santa coming on Christmas Eve.

13:31 How many of you celebrate Holy Innocence Day? This is the day that Christians honor those children who were killed by Herod. Herod was the king ruling Jerusalem when Christ was born. Of course, news traveled really fast to Herod that there was a new king in town, and this king would be King of the Jews. Herod really didn't want anyone to usurp his position, so he decided that every child under two years old in the kingdom must die, and he sent his soldiers out to do the deed. I don't know how many children were murdered to satisfy King Herod's greed, but he missed the one he wanted. He was looking for. Christ Mary and Joseph checked out of the manger and took the first uber donkey out of town, escaping with Jesus.

14:26 So all the carnage that Herod put upon the children at Bethlehem was for nothing. So there is a purpose to telling Christmas stories from various religions, the method to my madness, if you will. The time has come, my friends, for us to stop judging others by their belief systems, the color of their skin, the way they comb their hair or do their makeup, or who they love or marry. We talk about peace, love and light at Christmas time, but what about the rest of the year. Part of the reason that the Doomsday clock covers at one hundred seconds to midnight is that we, the entire human race, don't respect one another. We choose to be hateful and make fun of one of the most important parts of different cultures, their belief systems. That alone can break down a culture, and it causes mistrust and ill will. It starts with us, just your normal, everyday people. Remember that it doesn't matter whether the stories are true. They're beautiful and believed and special to everyone who celebrates a religious holiday. Not every story has to be true, not everyone has to believe it, but we all need to respect one another. I refuse to call any of these stories myths. I think that it's disrespectful and it takes away from cultural belief systems.

15:54 Every culture has a creation story, and with that they have someone in their culture that came to save them from evil. These stories are amazing and they have lessons built in. Religion is the owner's manual that shows us how to live together, how to treat one another. The unfortunate part of this episode is that we don't use religion in that way, none of us do. We wield it like a weapon and demonize others with our literal hoholier than thou attitudes. We've lost the meaning of all of it. It's gone, and our societies are crumbling for it. Religious persecution has been the cause of hatred and war for thousands of years. Attempts to bring peace to warring religious factions have failed time and time again. Sometimes the attacks become personal. One on one violence against someone of a different faith isn't uncommon. An article in Modern Diplomacy from October fifteenth of twenty twenty, called Religious Conflicts around the Globe and a Solution summed up the religious conflicts perfectly. Basically. The article calls out that neither party involved actually knows their own religion very well, but they want to prove that it's the best thing out there. Something about that rings true when we're talking about religious fervor, doesn't it? Just like anything,

17:26 We don't want to admit that we don't really know what the Bible says. We only know snippets that we apply to any situation willy nilly as it suits us. Believers in all religions do this. I'm going to interject a personal story. When I was in college, I would take the bus from one campus to another to save on parking fees. CSU is insanely expensive, and they charge you an insane amount of money for everything you do on campus. On top of the ridiculous tuition. Anyway, I would take the bus from one campus to another since I worked on one and went to school on the other. There was a theology professor who used to ride the bus about the same time that I rode. He and a reverend from one of the local churches would debate frequently. You see, the professor was Jewish and the reverend was Christian. They would have some pretty lively debates going back and forth on the bus. It was interesting to listen to them talk. They never got angry or violent. They actually enjoyed each other's opinions, and they both knew their religions very well. It wasn't a competition. It was more like comparing note I thought it was very healthy, and for me it was super educational.

18:55 I learned a lot about conflict resolution listening to these men talk. No, I didn't learn anything about Judaism or Christianity. I learned about conflict resolution. I learned that when people respect one another and even admire one another, great discussions can be had. Even when you don't agree with one another. It's up to us to level the playing field. If you want empathy, you have to show empathy and if you want respect, you have to respect others. We can strive for this, We can do it. Prejudice is often fueled by fear, but in reality, there isn't anything to fear.

19:40 Our gods aren't different. We just celebrate them in different ways. We have different stories. We are different people. But each culture, each religion, each belief system is important and should be celebrated. The differences and similarities are fascinating. I love learning about religious beliefs and cultures, tolerance, my friends live and let live. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy Ratsu, and in spring I'll say blessed Ramadan. A little love goes a long way.

20:23 Let it start with you. Thank you for listening to Cause of Death one hundred seconds to midnight. Take a look at the show notes for various ways that you can support the show. I'm not a very religious person, so if there are people out there who know more than I do about the varying religions that I talked about in this episode, please reach out. In other words, if I mess something up, let me know I'll issue a correction. Have a wonderful holiday season no matter what you celebrate, and please be kind and accept one another, and I'll see you in two weeks.