> Atheists did you know happiness is a Christian concept?
Christians, did you know that that is not a question, it's a bloody statement? What are you asking, and what kind of answer are you expecting? *sigh*
> Happiness and the concept of happiness was first mentioned in the Bible.
This user is probably coming fresh from Conservapedia's classes. Andy postulated that concepts don't exist before the dates listed as first use of the word in Merriam-Webster.
Anyway - let's examine some old poetry, okay? Our tale begins from so old times that we didn't even have this rubbish about "written tradition"...
"Bring to me a foaming goblet
Of the barley of my fathers,
Lest my singing grow too weary,
Singing from the water only.
Bring me too a cup of strong-beer,
It will add to our enchantment,
To the pleasure of the evening,
Northland's long and dreary evening,
For the beauty of the day-dawn,
For the pleasure of the morning,
The beginning of the new-day."
(If that's too tl;dr for you, here's a summary: "Hey, let's get more beer and we'll have even more fun singing those old mythic poems together.")
This is from the *first* poem of Kalevala, the national epic of Finland. Christianity comes to the country in poem 50. That's the *last* one. Before then, the tale had tons of ups and downs, happy and sad parts. (This being Finland, a lot of downs. We'll grant that.)
> until they broke GOD's law
...which is outlined in the Old Testament, as has been listed many times already, but I still can't get over this - how can anyone trip over such a small detail when making such a giant grandiose claim...
What did we learn today, kids? Do your research. For example, while writing this post, I tried to avert the amateur mistake of trusting only the 1888 English translation of Kalevala (happened to be the only electronic file I had at hand), and had to look at the original text - which, unlike the translation, doesn't specifically mention happiness and merriment until this particular part (The translation uses the expression "merry singing" early on, which doesn't appear in that form in the original text). It would have been mighty embarrassing to be caught on a little detail like that. But the original poster? Biiiig leaps of faith. Without a safety net. Pavement. Face first. That's got to hurt. Please don't make this mistake.
And sorry for other potential mistakes. I need to get to bed soon. *yawwwn*
