Celebrating New Year's Eve Tonight (November 28)

Every religion has its own calendar. According to the calendar of Olympianity, today is November 28: two days after Thanksgiving, one day after Black Friday, and just another day in this year’s 37-day-long season of Bacchanalia stretching from Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s Day (January 1, 2016). Yes, this is the season of the year in which Olympians strenuously seek happiness through conspicuous consumption.

   
Happily, as faithful witnesses to Jesus, we have a meaningful alternative. According to the Church calendar, today is New Year’s Eve. That’s because tomorrow is New Year’s Day: the First Sunday of Advent.

Organized Sports as Religious Experience

America: profoundly Olympian

As witnesses to Jesus, one mistake we make is thinking that American society is secular. It isn’t. It is profoundly religious—but definitely not Christian.

By far the dominant religion in America is Olympianity. Olympianity is the religion of power. It is the world’s oldest, most popular, yet least recognized religion. Like all Olympian societies, America is structured in terms of six false yet conventional gods: (1) Jupiter, god of politics; (2) Mars, god of war; (3) Vulcan, god of technology; (4) Venus, goddess of sex; (5) Pluto, god of money; and (6) Bacchus, god of consumption.

From a strictly sociological point of view, we can easily verify this. The gods served by any society are those who provide two essential services. One, they provide us with security, happiness, importance, justification, and meaning. Two, they protect us from insecurity, misery, unimportance, guilt, and meaninglessness. Because of their significance to us, the gods, and the people who serve them best, are the objects of our devotion and the subjects of our conversations.