The world’s 3 Semitic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, frequently have festivals or periods of observance that overlap, coincide or occur very close together,
One of those periods is happening right now towards the end of the second week of February. Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and prayer, started yesterday, whilst Lent, the Christian period of repentance and fasting leading up to Easter, began today.
The starts of the two periods of religious observance were duly announced on its Facebook account by Bedford Borough Council, a procedure no doubt emulated by their Bedford’s counterparts around the land.
However, one bigoted respondent took the council to task for allegedly showing favouritism to Islam and claiming that the country is apparently first and foremost a Christian country, as shown by the following thread.
Imagine the ignominy of being corrected and taken down a peg or two so comprehensively by an English local authority since these are organisations not universally renowned for their competence, let alone deep knowledge of religious matters.
One final point. If Bedford Borough Council – or any other local authority – had had some authority over the decisions of the (first) Council of Nicaea, then perhaps the date of Easter would be founded on a basis that did not play havoc with council bin collection dates. 😀