20*C+M+B+18

[German_EE]

When I first arrived in Germany I kept on seeing small black rectangles on the tops of door frames marked 20*C+M+B+nn where nn was a small number. The first person I asked about this told me that it was to do with chimney inspections and, until a few weeks ago, I accepted this and just got on with life.

Then my neighbor put up one of these rectangles with 20*C+M+B+18 on it, and he doesn't have a chimney, so I started digging. Here's the story.......

Once a year the local Roman Catholic priest goes down to the local Staples and buys up their supply of white chalk, the sort that you write on blackboards with. He then blesses this chalk and it becomes 'holy chalk'. Each member of his congregation then take home a piece of this chalk and write above their door 20*C+M+B+nn where nn is the year, the phrase means 'Christus Mansionem Benedicat' or 'Christ Bless This House'. All present in the house are then 'protected' for the next year.

I prefer a good insurance policy and a cat with an attitude.

[KL27x]

I went to the grocery store the other day, and I noticed a stack of 2L bottle of Coca Cola that registered as odd. The caps were yellow. Whatever. I wasn't buying Coke, so I kept walking.

Later, I incidentally learned the yellow caps are for the kosher Coke. 

[razberik]

K+M+B in CZ/SK.

Pretty reliable sign of that the people in that house aren't the smartest.

[Mechatrommer]

so I started digging. Here's the story.......
Once a year the local Roman Catholic priest goes down to the local Staples and buys up their supply of white chalk, the sort that you write on blackboards with. He then blesses this chalk and it becomes 'holy chalk'. Each member of his congregation then take home a piece of this chalk and write above their door 20*C+M+B+nn where nn is the year, the phrase means 'Christus Mansionem Benedicat' or 'Christ Bless This House'. All present in the house are then 'protected' for the next year.

interesting.... from my digging...

Christ originally or still literally means or came from the word Christos or Messiah in ancient language. it means prophet aka the chosen one. from time to time since the beginning, the chosen one was descended to convey among others, one very important message (the key). there were many of them (Christos) spread across time. when time goes, these messages got lost quickly because of the nature of human and nature surrounded them, human cannot withstand the same stagnant thing or idea over and over again, so they invented, they evolved they commercialized they put many colors and fashion etc they put logic or unlogic where they see fit they gained influence/respect/power from this thinking. until the original messages no more. that's why there will (was) be new "the chosen one" emerged to get back the original messages into picture again, when the new Christos comes, the "evolution" since the earlier Christos cannot withstand this "correctional emergence". a lot of industries/ideas/influences/religious institution will be lost or had to be closed down to embrace the new correction (original messages), not to mention the resistance due to belief from childhood father and grandfarther's teaching. hence there will be resistance (hard resistances) from many sectors, and they did it cleverly so its not so obvious to mass population who mostly have just a tiny bit of senses and rational reasoning ability (well they think they can reason very well all right, most people think they are clever than the others, but not through hardwork but just out loud from the button hole), believing easily based on hearing these influential figures/parties/organizations/writings (paid)... businessmen, commercial, ruling power, thinkers etc.

this had happened to the earlier Christos' followers. Adam's, Noah's, Jonah's, Abraham's, Moses', Jesus etc. how they put the resistance there are many ways, among others they try to correlates magical power or superiorities to their prophet hood. the word "Christ" was taken specifically for the Jesus' attributes, it correlates to some sort of holy or Godly spirit and anybody who wrote the name on their forehead with that + symbol on the chest will be protected from some delusive elements. anything they will do to show how superior hence how true this religion is, they made it up when the original content or Christos never made such claim, not anything in any ancient scriptures, they translated the scriptures so its like claiming such magical items. well the problem with mortal is that they are lazy to search for this original scriptures, just follow that man or this man or that translation, where in reality these men gained profits in behind be it in the form of material or spiritual (trust). the fact is "Christ" is nothing special its just the attributes for every single man who was chosen, and they themselves are not so important compared to the original messages that's is tried to be conveyed to mass population. Jesus is gone, so do the magical attributes related/privileged to him (meant as an aid for his job for him and only him). any today's' religions that claimed magical items or protection from devils just by writing some shorthand on something are doomed to fail and proven to be false/lie. well its not the religion who is false, its the evolution made up by human. any rubbish you hear today correlated to Jesus, is not actually from Jesus, but Jesus got the blame since some idiots liked to relate rubbish to him. the key is lost (somewhere) in the desert of storm (man made noises) if you think its worthy then its your fate anyway, but the task is not easy not as easy as conversing in virtual reality like this. as you guess if you have even a slight tiny bits of utilized neurons, 99.99% of the task will be to filter out those man made noises, you must have a very very good band pass filter for this one and tuned to the right frequency, sort of like seti's work. ymmv.

[Augustus]

"Star Singers", it's popular among several countries in Europe. They collect money for charity and bless your house (if you believe in such things).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_singers

[Bassman59]

I went to the grocery store the other day, and I noticed a stack of 2L bottle of Coca Cola that registered as odd. The caps were yellow. Whatever. I wasn't buying Coke, so I kept walking.

Later, I incidentally learned the yellow caps are for the kosher Coke.

Kosher for Passover, specifically. Coke is already considered pareve, which means that it's a food item made with neither meat nor dairy, which means it can be eaten (errr, drunk) with either. Remember it's against the kashrut to eat meat with dairy. (The word "pareve" literally means "neutral.")

Possibly apocryphal, but the story is that Coke cleans out its soda-making equipment right before the Rabbi who does the Kosher-for-Passover certifying comes by to give it a look-see and say a barucha and to of course collect the fee for the blessing.

[Bassman59]

When I first arrived in Germany I kept on seeing small black rectangles on the tops of door frames marked 20*C+M+B+nn where nn was a small number. The first person I asked about this told me that it was to do with chimney inspections and, until a few weeks ago, I accepted this and just got on with life.

Then my neighbor put up one of these rectangles with 20*C+M+B+18 on it, and he doesn't have a chimney, so I started digging. Here's the story.......

Once a year the local Roman Catholic priest goes down to the local Staples and buys up their supply of white chalk, the sort that you write on blackboards with. He then blesses this chalk and it becomes 'holy chalk'. Each member of his congregation then take home a piece of this chalk and write above their door 20*C+M+B+nn where nn is the year, the phrase means 'Christus Mansionem Benedicat' or 'Christ Bless This House'. All present in the house are then 'protected' for the next year.

I prefer a good insurance policy and a cat with an attitude.

I suppose that is all a whole lot less messy than the Passover instruction to put the blood of a freshly-slaughtered lamb on the doorposts of your house, so that the Angel Of Death passes over it as it looks for first-born sons to slay.

(The Angel of Death doesn't seem to be very smart, if it can be fooled into thinking "I've already been here" with the blood on the door. One assumes that the Angel also marks the doors with blood after each doing in the first-born in each house.)

[German_EE]

Yeah, the housemeister wouldn't be too keen on the blood thing, he's the sort of man who goes around after the cleaners to make sure the work has been done to his standards.

[pelule]

Augustus
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2018, 01:29:15 AM »
"Star Singers", it's popular among several countries in Europe. They collect money for charity and bless your house (if you believe in such things).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_singers

Marking the house in that way is not just "blessing" - it also shows, the house is/was visited (do not ask twice).

[HighVoltage]

This seems to be a southern Germany thing.
In northern Germany I have not seen this sign anywhere and in Bavaria almost every house and apartment has it.
When I asked the first time about the meaning, I was told it is a local TV show participation.
LOL!

[ebastler]

How the heck did this discussion end up in the "Dodgy Technology" section?! It's a Christian tradition, to which one may or may not subscribe. But arguing that it's pointless is kind of pointless...

[SL4P]

Not that technology and religion are mutually exclusive, but I can easily understand why this thread ended up in the ‘Dodgy...’ thread!  Or perhaps a parallel to the audiophoolery topics.

[German_EE]

"How the heck did this discussion end up in the "Dodgy Technology" section?"

I did think about this and so far as I'm concerned signs on the door written with 'holy chalk' belong in the same section as magic stones and thousand dollar cables that are meant to improve your audio. Of course, YMMV, but I have yet to see a reply giving evidence of a positive benefit.

[Halcyon]

Without any disrespect to any practising Muslims out there but I have a story from a very reputable source from within the meat industry.

At a certain "Halal certified" abattoir in NSW, Australia, all of the meat is processed in exactly the same way (which comes as no great surprise) except that the so-called Halal meat is "blessed". However half of the time, the guy that does the blessing either isn't there or just couldn't give a crap, blesses a few in the batch and the rest of the slaughter and processing carries on like normal. Nevertheless, all the meat is certified Halal (and is more expensive than the non-Halal meat).

To me it's akin to slapping the word "organic" on vegetables. Regular bananas from my local supermarket, $2.50 per kilogram. "Organic" bananas... $9.00 per kilogram. Granny Smith apples, $2.50 per kilogram... the organic variety... $8.50/kg. Both come from the same place and neither have any added waxes to make them shiny.

[ebastler]

"How the heck did this discussion end up in the "Dodgy Technology" section?"

I did think about this and so far as I'm concerned signs on the door written with 'holy chalk' belong in the same section as magic stones and thousand dollar cables that are meant to improve your audio. Of course, YMMV, but I have yet to see a reply giving evidence of a positive benefit.

Well, the fact that you keep seeing all these houses with "20*C+M+B+18" marks gives clear evidence that they have not burnt down yet! 

I don't claim this works, obviously; and proving that "religious beliefs work" will be a challenge in general. But labelling a religious belief as "dodgy" is a sign of intolerance in my book, and labelling it as "dodgy technology" is a sign of a strangely narrow engineering mind.

[Mechatrommer]

I have yet to see a reply giving evidence of a positive benefit.

there are, one of it is you will be treated warmly in the fellowshipness... its about community tie and talking to people and be happy. this is human nature even to members around in this blog. people can get crazy if got secluded, this is nature.

But labelling a religious belief as "dodgy" is a sign of intolerance in my book, and labelling it as "dodgy technology" is a sign of a strangely narrow engineering mind.

i dont believe this thread has religion in mind in the first place, because thats what the OP figured out later where everybody thought it has something to do with technology. everybody have a right to their own opinion. ie they need sensible prove to the effectiveness because thats how they were educated since childhood.

[IanMacdonald]

"Not that technology and religion are mutually exclusive"

Religion typically requires the adherent to accept statements that cannot all be true at the same time. If anyone points out an inconsistency, they are told that they should not be analyzing things, but just accepting the dogma. YouTuber Darkmatter2525 has done a good job of exposing most such issues in religion. Not that it seems to make any difference, the adherents just continue worshipping anyway.

I feel sorry for the brainwashed children in the Bible Belt of the USA, who are denied even the right to know the truth about the origins of the universe. It's criminal that such things go on even in a technological society today. We may justifiably criticise North Korea, but this is just as bad.

[Cerebus]

The practice of "Chalking the Door" as well as being a Christian Epiphany (12th night) tradition also has a place in Scottish Landlord and Tenant law, where it is a prelude to eviction. As Michael Caine wouldn't say "Not a lot of people know that!".

[amyk]

I saw those before and, being electrically minded, thought they were referring to what breakers the circuits were connected to, and just something the power company does... I've been in a few places where the sockets were labeled, like this:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Electrical_outlet_with_label.jpg