Two sisters sing Cohens Halleluyah

[razz]

In a week this Youtube video has been viewed over a million times. Quite a beautiful version of Leonard Cohen's song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3N...aStarArmstrong

[frugal-one]

It is beautiful! I have to admit though that the first thing I thought when the music started is that this was the song from Shrek. hehe.....

[catherine]

(really???.... Hallelujah is in Shrek????)

One of my favorite songs ever. Love Cohen's version, Buckley's version (interestingly another Jeff Buckley is in the production credits).

I didn't expect to hear anything new in this version, but I really did. Just beautiful, and beautifully sung. A perfect Easter hymn.

[iris lilies]

This is such a pretty song.

[frugal-one]

(really???.... Hallelujah is in Shrek????)

One of my favorite songs ever. Love Cohen's version, Buckley's version (interestingly another Jeff Buckley is in the production credits).

I didn't expect to hear anything new in this version, but I really did. Just beautiful, and beautifully sung. A perfect Easter hymn.

Shrek....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB67HO8tkQs

[razz]

Shrek....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB67HO8tkQs

Funny to see it on shrek

[Teacher Terry]

Beautiful song! I was just reading how Easter was originally a pagan holiday and then adopted by other religions.

[GeorgeParker]

I was just reading how Easter was originally a pagan holiday and then adopted by other religions.

Not really.

There are four significant solar events every year. The Summer Solstice (longest daylight hours, Sun reaches its farthest north sunrise and sunset position) Winter Solstice (shortest daylight hours, farthest south sunrise and sunset position) Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes (half way between Solstices). All religious rituals that happen near those dates are a man-made reaction to those natural events. https://www.britannica.com/science/vernal-equinox

Primitive people all over the world who had no connection to each other and no knowledge of other people's cultures all observed the Sun and reacted to the Solstices and Equinoxes by creating rituals to either entreat the Sun to move the other direction or to celebrate the Sun reversing course and moving the other direction.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice marks the end of six months during which the days have gotten shorter, the weather has gotten cooler, and the Sun has been rising further south each morning. When it first becomes apparent that the Sun has started rising further north again, people celebrate because the Sun is coming back, even though the coldest days of winter are still ahead. (In the Southern Hemisphere it's the same way, but there the Summer Solstice marks the Sun starting to come back from the cold north.)

In the temperate zones, the equinoxes mark the approximate beginning and end of the growing season (during which game is plentiful and plants flourish) and the equinoxes are the halfway point between solstices, so it's easy to see how planting and harvesting rituals would have naturally developed on dates close to the equinoxes.

And BTW: There is no such thing as being pagan. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used pejoratively in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Alternative terms in Christian texts were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry"

In other words, "pagan" is just a collective slur that means "religions and spiritual practices that are different from what we believe, and the ignorant people who believe in that nonsense." Pagans in the biblical sense practiced a variety of different religions or different combinations of religions and would have identified themselves by the names of those religions/cults, not as pagans.

As to Christian holy days being adaptations of pagan celebrations: yes, of course they were. If most of the world is "pagan" and a lot of those people want to stamp out your upstart religion, the safest time to hold religious celebrations is on days when no one will notice because all the pagans are celebrating too. And if, as an upstart religion trying to win converts, you want to keep your new converts away from the bad influence of the traditional pagan festivals, the best way to do it is by having a Christian celebration on the same date. That is just plain pragmatism. It doesn't mean Christians "adopted" the pagan holidays, even though a lot of pagan symbolism was brought into Christianity by pagans who converted to Christianity.

[razz]

And if, as an upstart religion trying to win converts, you want to keep your new converts away from the bad influence of the traditional pagan festivals, the best way to do it is by having a Christian celebration on the same date.

GP, picky picky picky. If one has an event on the same day to keep the public interest that might be diverted, it is an adoption per Merriam-Webster.
Argue with Merriam-Webster if you wish.

Adopt | Definition of Adopt by Merriam-Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...ctionary/adopt
adopt, embrace, espouse mean to take an opinion, policy, or practice as one's own. adopt implies accepting something created by another or foreign to one's nature.

[catherine]

You could argue that Christian holidays have been "adopted" or "co-opted" by secularists. I remember looking for an Easter card and they had one very small section marked "religious"--I remember laughing and thinking--but Easter IS a religious holiday! Same with Christmas--Christmas IS a holiday founded in Christianity but there's barely a drop of its religious significance left.