Discussions About Christmas And Prayer

I've been involved in a couple of discussions at another web site that might interest some of you.

Here's a discussion about the infancy narratives, especially whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem, with a liberal Anglican. The thread began on another topic, but shifted to the Bethlehem birthplace and the infancy narratives in general. He seems to have gotten much of his information from sources like Marcus Borg and John Spong, and he repeats a lot of the common liberal objections to the infancy narratives: Matthew and Luke contradict each other, no other source mentions the Bethlehem birthplace, Mary and Joseph would have received more hospitality in Bethlehem in an ancient Jewish context, it was only recently that people began interpreting the Bible as Evangelicals interpret it today, etc. I don't know whether the thread will remain up much longer, given how far it's gone off the original topic and given some of the comments I've made about this man's ignorance. The moderators might get some complaints.

And here's a thread about prayers to the dead and angels. A lot of issues have come up: the definition of prayer, whether human communication with angels through angelophanies justifies prayer to angels, whether Psalm 103:20-21 justifies prayer to angels, the significance of the harrowing of Hell, etc.