It is a simple question, really.  Did your family come to America from Northern Europe...or do you have Northern European Ancestry?  Well, if you do...then your ancestors were "Heathens."

Many people with Northern European ancestry do not realize that the original religion of our People and our ancient culture was not Christianity.  If you go back a 1000 years or more, prior to the conversions to Christianity in Europe, our ancestors had their own native Folk Religion that was rich and meaningful in their lives.

Our People honored their own Gods and Goddesses, their ancestors, and the spirits in nature.  These original Heathens were the pre-Christian Northern European peoples who lived in the lands aroudn what is now called the North Sea.  These included the people of Anglo-Saxon England, Scandinavia, and other areas of Northern Europe.

We should have posted this piece much earlier than now. Our apologies. -- Ed.

Understandably, there has been some considerable interest in the upcoming lunar eclipse of the Winter Solstice. In a prior post, I shared some of my thoughts on the astrological impact of the Winter Solstice, and what it could possibly mean for us. Now it’s time to take a look at the eclipse itself.

Once again I must start this post with a disclaimer: I am not an astrologist. I’m not an expert at reading charts, let alone trying to create one. What I am is a Pagan with over twenty-five years of experience under my belt, and hopefully I’ve gained a little wisdom over the years. With a bit of research, some meditation, and a touch of inspiration from my tarot cards, hopefully I can come up with some thoughts to share. Mind you…these will be my own thoughts, and you may or may not agree with me.

Oy, Christmas. It just wouldn’t be the same without Jewish songwriters.

Earlier this month, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers released its annual survey of the 10 most-played Christmas songs. Jews wrote half of them: White Christmas, The Christmas Song, Winter Wonderland, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year and I’ll Be Home for Christmas. And that’s just a few crumbs from the kugel.

"Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!" he said.

We are dealing with a very different beast than we have ever confronted before in modern history.

As a follow-on from my recent Australian Conservative article, 9/11 Retrospective – Islam: ‘religion of peace’ or ideology of terror, I thought it might be instructive to explore this issue from the perspective of some of the writers on this topic in the West, who persist in looking at the issue from a “culturally relativist” perspective and literally “bend over backwards” to ascribe the cause of Islamic terrorism to the “alienation” of modern Muslims.

While it is certainly laudable to endeavour to build an approach around the maintenance of the rights to freedom of speech and religious tolerance, we saw in the last article that it is impossible to effectively deal with the issue of “Islamic terrorism” without understanding both “terrorism” and “Islam”, and their implications when taken together, since “Islamic terrorism” is a unique, albeit not a new, phenomenon.

This is a warning we need to heed.

Click here for video.

Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.

This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.

It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.

And here in the US we are paying for extremist imams (like Rauf) and their wives to go on Middle Eastern junkets to raise money for Islamic supremacist Ground Zero mosques. Sick.

What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.

'How can we stop the oil gusher?" may have been the question of the summer for most Americans. Yet for many evangelical pastors and leaders, the leaking well is nothing compared to the threat posed by an ongoing gusher of a different sort: Young people pouring out of their churches, never to return.

As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the Christian establishment.

Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.