I can remember at school a friend being asked by a forbidding nun why the day we celebrate on August 15, when Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was taken up into Heaven is called the feast of the Assumption. "Well," he said, thinking commendably quickly on his feet. "Since Mary disappeared and we don't know what exactly happened to her we just assume she was taken up to Heaven."
"In Japan you will still find shops that sell images of Father Christmas nailed to a cross"
Gerard Baker writes about religious misunderstandings: