The recent article about rightiousness and if it is a bad word made me think a lot of about things in the realm of faith. Why do folks need to tell others that they are a Christian?

I'm a Presbyterian which equals a Protestant which equals a Christian.

I always wonder why they need to advertize to me the fact that they are a "Christian" rather than a Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian or any other sect of christianity.

Usually when I meet someone who says this to me it is their way of opening a door to teach me their interpretation of the bible and their interpretation of the word of god. As soon as this happens I close down and want to get the heck away from them as soon as possible.

I then wonder about their need to evangilize me, is it to save my soul, is it to gain needed points to enter heaven, is it a form of self rightiousness that they have?

Now if the conversation does travel onto the path of religion and faith I have no problem talking about it but if this "I'm a christain" comes out of nowhere then I suspect I am being manipulated and I really hate when someone trys to manipulate me!

I don't need taught or re-taught the word of god, I grew up with it and have thought about it endlessly through out my life and need not be swayed by anothers doctrine or practice.

As a Protestant I need not go to church to hear the words, or to have a direct path to god. I can pray where ever I want to. That is one of the basic elements of Protestantism. I also do not need any other person to teach me how to be a christian. I protest the need of others to try and sway me or change me!

Here is my one major problem with evangelicals, there are many out there who do a very poor job of it and create more problems for all of us others who have faith.

Perhaps the reason some evangelicals feel that they are not given the proper respect is because the way they preach is disrepectful right off the bat.

Here is my take on this for what its worth, before you try to evangilize a person take the time to learn about that person first, you may then find a person who will listen to you.

I'm a Presbyterian, what are you?

It sounds like the Tea Party Movement’s yearning for a return to yesteryear’s racist national psyche is finally taking root by vilifying interracial marriage. The Tea Party worry of creating a President Barack Obama clone with an African father and American Caucasian mother is now their chimera.  The problem for today’s outed white racists is now love freely transcends race. Biracial is becoming the new normal.  

As a long time Roman Catholic, I am upset that bishops who covered up the pedophilic priests are not going to prison. Priest pedophilia is a widespread problem that requires a paradigm shift in the Church’s selection of who can be a priest. I see the Church trapped in the fallacy of groupthink since its leaders are celibate men trying to dictate beliefs for a sexually active world governed by the laws of nature.

 Having a mother and a father with two different views of christianity was a real visual learning trip for me. I grew up with two differing views of iconography and the sacred nature of the religious object.

My Scottish Protestant church was austere and dark like a cave. Oh it was rich in architecture and quality of wood, church benches, carpets, wall sconces, stained glass, pulpit and crucifix but it tried very hard to show severe austerity and disdain for iconography. I felt like I was praying in a rich mans library instead of a church.

Now my Mom is Roman Catholic and even in the 60's I heard smack on the RC's from my protestant church family. It was weird because they kept complaining about the art and sculpture and over abundence of relics and the ornate architecture.

Now here I am, a young man waking up to his artistic abilities and I was drawn to my Mom's church for the exact nature that my Dad's church complained about. I did feel more spirit within that overly ornate church. The art and beauty was a part of that biggest spiritual message to me.

The sacredness of an object is not the object, it is the message that that object conveys, that is how I see it.

Being an artist I have felt the spiritual nature of creating an object associated with the sacred. I have done work for most faiths so it was my hands that created that object that may become venerated in some fashion many years from now. Now that just blows my socks off if I think about it.

What I have learned is the object takes on special importance for folks in many different ways. It is cherished, used as a weapon, a symbol of support in the most trying times and quiets the troubled soul when it is needed the most, it is sword and shield against the evils that they see or imagine.

For me the creation of the object is imporant on a personal level, I seek to create beauty and meaning. It is the meaning behind the object that takes up most of my thinking when creating an object though, especially objects that deal with the sacred.

I have spent many years studing symbol and meaning, iconography, religious art and artifacts of all the religions of man. For the most part, they all try to convey the same meaning and messages to all human beings.

I guess what I am trying to say is that sometimes the veneration of the object itself can obscure what is most important, the message.

Remember, the object is only a vessel.

Re-Thinking the South's Battle Against Humanism.

I get the sense that right-wing Evangelicals in rural America are, in their own way, trying to protect America from the corporate take-over that has been occurring and causing the breakdown of families and family values.  The problem is that by attacking "liberals" and "humanists" and "intellectuals," they are fighting against their chief allies and handing the amoral and greedy manipulator Christians-in-name-only victory after victory. 

"Christian" values are "Liberal" values, so following the slick demagogues in conservative politics, tele-evangelism and corporate welfare scams does not promote basic values of community, compassion and autonomy.  From where I sit, the SOUTH has been carpetbagged and scalawagged every bit as much since the Reagan era as it was during Reconstruction.  State's Rights?  No. The South and Bible Belt were looking for human rights, for justice and compassion.  There was no need to side with corrupt, cynical, greedy States against the Federal Government.  There was no sense in defeating Darwinism but accepting the anti-Christian social Darwinism of the ruling elites.

Instead of defending greed-based, anti-Christian institutions like slavery, racism and sexism, they could have welcomed mainstream Christian denominations rather than ascribing them to the devil.  They could have stood up for their communities with stronger educational funding and environmental protection rather than the Ku Klux Clan, John Birch Society or their modern counterparts in the Evangelical world.  

Please try again, my friends and fellow Americans.  Try remembering what it was that Jesus actually said and did, even if it means that you'll have to recognize that he was a bleeding heart liberal and a humanist.

The war of words over religion, faith and practice will never go away. In fact I think many folks thrive on this war and enjoy it. The funny thing is most of these folks who war with words all have faith but different doctrines and here in lies the major problem, one wants the other to follow the same practices in order to be considered to have real faith.

Should I hold poisonous snakes in my hand to have real faith, should I wear special undergarments, should I be baptised again as an adult, should I protest at funerals, should I pray everyday, should I knock on doors and press my doctrine onto others not like me, should I denegrate those who have a different doctrine or should I shun those who do not follow the same practices as me?

I grew up in a house with two different doctrines and saw the war of words first hand as a child. my parents loved one another but they would pick at each other over this one small thing, difference in doctrine and practice. This is how they were taught as children and they kept the fires of difference in doctrine burning in our home.

My Sister and Brother never really thought much on this but I did and it has been a part of my thinking for many years. My faith has ebbed and flowed throughout my growth to adulthood. Life is not easy and neither is faith. Both are a struggle. But I cannot ignore the fact that people of faith are fighting over doctrine and destroying faith while they do this.

What makes folks who adhere to their faith distrust and dislike another person who has the same faith? DOCTRINE and PRACTICE!!!

I need not follow your practices to have faith, I do not need to go to your church, listen to your religious leaders or practice your way to have faith. I will not argue with you over words, sermons or portions of the bible. That is not what I read the bible for. I need no ammunition of words to have faith. Do you?

If you wish to hold your doctrine up as the one true practice of faith then you do a great dishonor to yourself and your faith.

If you would denegrate the faith of others of the same faith because your ideas, practices and doctrine should be seen as sacrosacnt then you are the problem with faith today!!!!

I do not need your doctrine, I want your respect!!!!

My faith comes from personal choice, I do not question your personal choice. Why do you need to question mine?

It would seem that your faith is weak if you must make me and all others adhere to your doctrine.

If you cannot accept that others have faith but pratice their faith differently then you are the big problem with faith today. Respect my faith and I will respect your faith.

My faith does not weaken because I don't follow your practices but you do make me want to shun you for your doctrine of manipulation. It is as simple as that.

This has been on my mind for quite sometime now. We see a lot of upset and angry people always biting after one another over their faith or lack of faith when it comes to a system of belief. I just wonder why after all these years living in a country that espouses freedom of religion and the liberty to not have to adhere to any religious belief that we have not stopped this stupid battle.

To my athiest and agnostic friends, no one harms you by talking about their faith. No one harms you if they say they will pray for you. So why do you need to tell them they believe in myths and stories that you feel is not true? Does it harm you to hear and see their words? As long as they are not trying to change our country into a theocrartic nation, they do you no real harm.

To my friends that have faith in God, no one harms you by not believing the same as you. They are not out there trying to change you, your spouse or your children to change their beliefs. If you have faith in God you need not fear those who have no faith in your God. I would expect that your faith would give you more strength than that.

Right now we are fighting an enemy that believes that their faith should run all of society and al of the the governments of the world. These people believe that their faith must rule over everyone and everything. They are willing to kill and destroy anyone that stands in their way, even the people of their own religion are to be killed if they stand in the way of what they want.

The true enemy of us all are those who would use their religion to change us all into people who must adhere to a state sponsered religion. If an American Muslim politician was to suggest that all Muslims should vote for him because they have the same beliefs you would be very upset by that claim. But there are some politicians that use their faith in Christianity to gain votes from those who beleive in Christ. Why do you not question their use of your faith to gain political power?

One line of my family were Anabaptists in Alsace Lorraine in the early 1600's, they were driven out of their homes because they did not adhere to a state sponsered religion. Many Anabaptist were hung, drawn and quartered and there land and all of their possesions were taken from them and given to the state because they held a different belief.

My Father and Mother both came from Chrstian families but different sects of Christanity. They did not fight over who was right or which faith we must adhere to. They let us kids choose and we did choose. I left the church at the age of 11 because I went from a sunday school that taught me the teachings of Christ and went into the adult church where it was all fire and brimstone and pre-destination all the time. I bacame confused at the two differing messages I was receiving and left to find my own way. For many years I was an athiest and had no belieff in God or Jesus but I never quit wondering, thinking and asking questions about what is right, what is the truth.

I will not tell you what I believe or not, that is my own personal outlook and I feel no need to explain to anyone what I believe. all I am aksing is that we try not to continue to beat each other up over this issue of religion. You all have the fundamental right to believe what you want. Isn't that enough for all of us to enjoy?

Let us all just believe in the freedoms that our ancestors came here for, freedom to practice what ever we believe. it is what makes our country strong, when we can support the freedoms for eveyone and not just for one specific group we all become better people and a better society.

The things you learn about your former religion upon further investigation.

Will someone please explain why Pope Benedict XVI needs an M-class Mercedes with double-paned glass when Christ rode into Jerusalem with a mere colt and no armour?

When one considers how poor Christ was, just who does the Pope think he is that he deserves a Mercedes when millions of his followers cannot even afford basic transportation?

Learning about the Holy City might make one feel less safe about one's eternity.

Who knew that Vatican City has one of the highest crime rates in the world (when measured against its population!)?  This sure cancels out all the verses which assure the Lord's protection, chief among them are the words found in Psalm 23 in which David declares that he will fear no evil.

For some, it's something to ponder while they drink their morning coffee while for others, it's something to chuckle at. 

Which side of the line do you fall on?

I chatted with African American Reverend James J. Palmer, III Pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Bluefield WV to get his appreciation for the missing minister in the lives of many people today yet I also wondered why young people were not going to church today.

Reverend Palmer shared that small churches are in a ministerial crisis because many of these churches do not have ministers to preach the word and new people are not stepping up to accept God’s calling to preach.  He felt the minister’s avocation lost yesterday’s high esteem, so potential preachers are turning to secular avocations.

When I pondered Reverend Palmer’s comment on the disappearance of preacher esteem it begged the question why young people are not going to church today for they are the candidate pool for selecting tomorrow’s preachers?  The underpinning issue becomes today’s churches must be able to market God against secular activities on Sunday mornings to motivate peoples’ attendance at their services.  The dismissal of yesteryear’s Blue Laws upended America’s organized religion monopolistic grip on Sunday mornings once enjoyed by the clergy; thereby, thrusting churches into a marketing struggle with secular activities for peoples’ time.

The abolishing of Blue Laws have had the unintended consequence of making Karl Marx’s quote on religions’ impact on the masses come to fruition. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.” However, the current Great Depression II suggests that today’s more educated masses versus yesteryear uneducated populace have not found real happiness with the disappearance of the utopian enchanting ideas in religion especially in depressed neighborhoods.  

Pastors at mega churches have figured out how to market God on Sunday mornings in this materialist generation where they have memberships as many as 25,000 parishioners. This huge flock size may be enthralling for any one pondering a calling from God to become a minister. I do not gather that the mega church ministers’ understanding on competitively marketing God to today’s materialistic people is pervasive in the ministerial ranks.  I, therefore, found myself chatting with people in Battery Park in New Castle DE to get a feel for what is underpinning the modern view of religion by young people on going to church.

A 59 year old Caucasian Presbyterian lady said she insisted that her grown twenty-something children went to church on Sunday while they lived under her roof.  She continued that they were still going to church today since they moved out on their own. This lady shared that her husband prayed that the children would find Jesus Christ in their own rite without parental pressure.

This Caucasian lady said she is a Calvinist who is adamantly against mixed marriages between Christians and Muslims, Buddhists, and so on. She abhorred homosexuality in the church.  I said you are a hardcore conservative. Her facial gesture suggested that I was right on target.

A twenty-something African American couple shared how grandmothers took them to church while they were young. However, they drifted away without the grandmothers’ influence.  A guilty expression etched upon these young peoples’ faces as I asked about going to church. It was as if I was exposing their dirty laundry in public. 

I asked a second African American twenty-something couple about going to church. The young lady said she worked for a church, so she goes. The young man told me he was a college student at Delaware Technical and Community College. This chap appeared highly stressed by my question. He finally admitted that he did not go to church.

I ask this chap what it would take to start him back to going to church. He responded that he might go back some day but he is not ready right now. 

The more people with whom I chatted, it was apparent that parental involvement was a key to putting the value of church into the minds of young people. What appeared to be a major drawback for the religious leaders is many people are me-generation psyche with a materialistic underpinning. Preachers are selling happiness after death in salvation to people who do not see death on their radar screen.

I concluded that church leaders must kindle urban evangelism with urban evangelist recruits made up of neighborhood grandmothers to reach the un-churched young people in the hoods throughout the United States of America.  These grandmothers have street cred with young people in the hood.  It also is obvious that the mega church ministers know how to attract the grandmothers if they will only share their success with staid religious ministers.

The real issue that is very disquieting is whether or not today’s churches are in the business of saving only suburban souls and writing off inner city and rural people.  We use to think of Communist nations as atheistic enclaves, but America now appears headed in that direction unless the religious leadership recommits that they are in the business of saving all souls and in God’s eyes all souls are equal. Is religion now being relegated to the opium of the masses to keep the poor and middle class subjugated while the oil speculators plunder their material wealth through high gouging gas prices?  

To Whom it may concern:

My name is Agapi, from the United States. You may say that I lead a triple life, something hard to pull off in this day and age. One life is my normal life, where you may find interest in the fact that I am Christian. My second life does not concern you nor anyone who may read this message. My third life is displayed in my email; I am a prominent writer on the site newsvine.com, where I, as a humble 16 year old, am able to find a voice in today's headlining issues, and make my own opinions known to a variety of people.

I have watched your church grow in the national spotlight for several years now, and with your messages comes much curiosity. Like many, as I am sure you are aware of, I disagree with. I have friends and family that identify as homosexual that I am quite attached to as people, though I myself am straight.

My question to your church today spawns from years of thinking and writing. It concerns several choice passages in the bible that seem to contrast your views as a deliverer of messages from God.

From Mark 12:31: "Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."

From Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

And finally, from 1 Peter 4:8 "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."

You claim that you travel to spread God's word, as many other churches do. We both know your message varies from mainstream churches, and I am not here to dispute whether your message is true or not. However, your signs often read "God hates _____". The passages above, taken directly from the bible, state that it is God's will that you love your fellow people and treat them the way that you would want to be treated. Instead of following these guidelines, you traditionally spread HIS word through hatred. Why do you choose to go against God's word in this manner, especially when you claim to be spreading it? Wouldn't a more positive tone echo the bible and God's teachings?

I do have one other curiosity, and I apologize for the lengthy email. If you look back in history to the time of Jesus, you will realize that Christianity through Jesus spread from the commoners to the aristocrats, as many religions have done. Jesus gained popularity through his teachings of love and kindness, and his initial followers would have included but were not limited to homosexuals. Would you be so kind to explain this and also why you would wish to diverge from Jesus Christ, the son of God?

I thank you for your time, because I do know that it is precious. Any response to any of my queries would be vastly appreciated and would contribute to my growing high school knowledge about this world and beyond into the heavens. I must let you know that this email will be published onto my column, www.leafydebater.newsvine.com, and any response will be published, including no response. Responses will not be edited in any way and comments from others will be carefully monitored.

Thank you for your time,

Agapi

Even I have to feel sorry for the average mainstream Christian when you consider what didn't happen this past weekend.

They will be the first to tell you that no one knows when Christ will return, yet they are the ones who take the rotten eggs after an event like this because some fool or some charlatan decided to scare everyone by stating that he figured out when the Rapture is going to take place.

First of all, there is a debate within the Christian church as to whether or not there is even going to be a rapture because this philosophy as we know it was first preached in the 1800s. 

John Nelson Darby established this preaching in 1830, stating that Christ would return in 1843.  Another preacher, William Miller, said that the Rapture would happen in 1844.

There have been many fruitcakes since those two came along; trying to guesstimate when Jesus might decide to come down from Heaven and pick up His Church in the twinkling of an eye.  However, every prediction has been proven to be incorrect.

People, like codger Harold Camping, make people of faith seem like total idiots because they attempt to make these predictions and nothing happens.   Next, comes the speculation from people like the author of this article.

"Alright!  How much money did they make off of this publicity stunt?"

One of the worst things about all of this is how this affects children psychologically.

Just think if you are a child and your parents follow a nutball like Harold Camping.

As I drove home from work this morning, I heard on The Mark and Brian Show that people quit their jobs and sold everything they had!  Some people even tried to put their pets down in preparation for what they thought was the inevitable.  Now, it is Monday.  What do you think their kids are psychologically experiencing as a result of their foolish beliefs?

My parents are Christians, but they're not that stupid!  In fact, being members of the Lutheran church, they believe that only God the Father knows when it's all going to hit the fan. 

Hell!  I even joked about it in a call to my mother yesterday, and while she only chuckled, she saw the humour in it.

While I feel sorry for those Christians who would never even try to guess when Jesus might return, I am also horrified by the fact that some who believe in the Rapture run my government-one of them even occupied the White House for eight years.

That's when it gets scary enough to reconsider the idea that people should have the right to publicly practice their faith.

Sam Harris says...."Ten days until the Rapture -- finally a religious claim that is falsifiable. I like these people!

http://www.salon.com/news/religion/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/05/10/rapture_may_21

I wonder how many "end of the earths" have been predicted since man created religion?

TryUsingLogic

Was God so busy helping Obama take out Bin Laden that He forgot to turn the rain spigot off in the mid-west (causing Biblical style floods) and turn it on in Texas where they desperately need, and have been praying for rain?   God does work in mysterious ways.....or maybe... He doesn't work at all!

How about all the children dying of disease and starvation in countries that are pounded by missionaries handing out the Bible with thier blessing that God will help them?  No wonder Mother Theresa lost her faith in Jesus!

Haiti has the most missionaries of any helpless country with the worst possible outcome to their presence.  If God could just make the slightest since to those of us who see through the facades of powerful man made religions.

I hope for a better day for mankind......through enlightenment and reason.

TryUsingLogic

How the Holy Koran Supports Osama Bin Laden Being Buried At Sea A well-recognized quote that many attribute to President Abraham Lincoln reads: "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the p …

"Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens."

A great article in the Washington Post relating to and supports my recent post "The problem with belief...."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-americans-still-dislike-atheists/2011/02/18/AFqgnwGF_story.html 

TryUsingLogic

         I am writing this article because I have always wondered about ,  exactly what god would say to us if he communicated with us again today? Much like he has, as told in stories of scripture, in all 2 major Judaic off shoots and Judaism itself. In most cases god in the past did his talking VIA us humans, but in most of those cases he gave said humans proof of there divine hearing, i.e. miracles and the works. These days many, many people claim to have a divine ear, many claim to know god's word, but in all those cases none of them can shed any proof, and if you prod them for it they use "faith" as their shield.

        In many stories of old the prophets didn't need any faith to prove they where profits, and to me that makes more sense, if God was indeed sending us a message he would know people's doubts and act accordingly to provide some miracle or proof, so it is indeed without question. Ponder this, If we are to believe in God one must also believe in the devil , wouldn't god want us to be sure it's him we are dealing with and not the devil? How do we do that without questioning/testing god and/or his supposed "voices"? We can not , so I assert that blind faith is not only unholy, but a byproduct of evil, and we all know , or should, the greatest trick evil ever pulled was to convince humans it didn't exist.

        Well with all that being said it's apparent god hasn't talked to us in quite sometime. If he did I wonder what exactly would his message be to us? Please lets have a Good discussion about this. let's keep our feelings in check and try to have a intelligent debate/discussion and opinion shedding 

Tonight I watched Rev. Franklin Graham and Bill O/Reilly discuss if Hell actually exists.  Now Bill believes it must exist or there would be no motive to behave morally, and Franklin believes that it does definitely exist and the only way to avoid it is to give your live to Jesus Christ....as he says, It's in the Bible! 

I  watch their discussion with embarrassment for both of them and wonder how man can live in the modern age and promote the most unbelievable fairy tales and untruths.  Bill says he believes in Hell but surely the Jews from the Holocaust didn't go there....but the Rev. Graham dodges the thought and claims if you don't accept Jesus.....you are doomed to Hell.  And then says that the preacher who just announced that he believes in Heaven, but not Hell, is a heretic.  I watch to learn how out of touch most of us are today to reality and science.  It is not a pretty sight!

I think we are living in hell as long as we have to hear relatively informed people babble on about such nonsense! This is not a Democrat or Republican issue......it is a gullible issue!  Obama's personal savior is Jesus...what the hell is he thinking?  When will mankind quit making up the unbelievable and reaching for the supernatural gods?

My answer..10,000 gods later....Never!

TryUsingLogic

Though Christian religion has always played a part in US politics, identify and culture it has never been seen as a danger to the rest of the world. Now things have changed, and the danger is real and tangible as the balance of power among the different religious strands has shifted significantly and this may have dramatic consequences for the US itself, Europe and the rest of the world as whole.  The more conservative and cultish strains of American Protestantism are gaining ground over the traditional Liberal Protestantism that dominated in the US during the middle years of the 20^th Century.

The Presidency of George W. Bush embodies this change and his book, “Decision Points” gives ample insight on how much Religious Fundamentalism had an influence on his actions has a President and this was reflected especially in his Domestic and Foreign Policy decisions.

The Christian Fundamentalist have slowly, but effectively, infiltrated the ranks of the Republican Party, and this explains its moving away from it’s core belief as historically it was founded on the principles of liberty and anti-slavery, into a modern Christian Neo-Nazi White Supremacist political movement whose adherents see themselves as the “Chosen People” and they have a duty to spread their own sense of warped values Throughout the world.

The changes brought by this progressive infiltration of Christian Fundamentalist doctrine within American Republicanism are yet to be fully understood, and are greatly underestimated by Liberals, progressives and Liberal Christians in the US as well as by most of the European nations.

And here lies the danger.

Attempts to emasculate the US Constitution, The Bill of Rights, curtail the rights of abortion; trying enforcing Creationism and Intelligent Design in American Schools, the lack of a nation-wide national curriculum for schools, the ability of parents to take children out of the public school system and home school them so that they can be brainwashed and indoctrinated with Fundamentalist Christian doctrines, and take away any critical or inquisitorial curiosity; legal attacks by State Governors to the very principle of separation of Church and State etc, etc. Tend to be seen as isolated incidents and not part of a global political strategy.

The inevitable results on American education are visible, like here, for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpi7qro4y4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUkkNtOFI60&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fys3MsKMpms&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27f0IimLQpU&feature=fvwrel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0efLWdJWk4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhcnEQnWYDA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpi7qro4y4g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpi7qro4y4g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAfqWZE4HiY&feature=related

This systematic destruction of the American education system and the lack of political will to redress the situation cannot be explained in any other terms than a well thought out political strategy by very able men and women that understand the value of religious populism and intellectual ignorance as a political weapon, to achieve their ends and, or, maintain their financial and political hold on the nation.

To better understand how all this develops in the US one has to look at Protestantism and its history. American Protestantism which grew out of the 16^th Century Reformations of England and Scotland has included many divergent ideologies and worldviews over time. Three strains, however, have been most influential:

1)      A strict tradition that can be called Fundamentalist

2)      A progressive ethical tradition known as Liberal Christianity

3)      A broader “in-between-the-two” tradition that is known as Evangelical.

American Protestantism is composed by all three strains, and though one has to read carefully into a strict interpolation of these strains, because in general American Christians tend to mix and match theological and social ideas from the three without concern for any consistency. Yet it is important to describe the chief features of each strand and what their possible implication could mean in a political contest for US Domestic and Foreign policy.

Protestantism as a religious movement began in Central Europe in the early 15^th Century, in effect separating itself from the central Christian doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.

Though Protestantism may vary in its different denominations it has across the board two basic principles, that of “Justification known as Sola Fide (Sole Faith), and the “Priesthood” of all believers and all Protestants whatever the denomination regard the Bible (Sola Scriptura) as the sole authority in matters of faith for all Christians.

Whatever the Protestant denomination, and American Protestantism is no different; all were affected by the fundamentalist-modern controversy of the early 20^th Century, as in the 1800s most Protestants believed that science confirmed Biblical teaching, but when Darwinian Biology and scholarly “higher criticism” led to the inevitable consequence that the Bible’s authorship and veracity was put into question the American Protestant movement broke apart.

Modernist argued that the best way to defend Christianity in an enlightened age was incorporate the new discoveries into existing theology, and mainline Protestant denominations followed this logic. Fundamentalists strongly opposed to this have always maintained the literal truth of the Bible.

They themselves split into two sub-strands of Fundamentalisms one “The Separatists” arguing that all true believers should abandon those churches or congregations that tolerated modernism in any form. The other, known as Neo-Evangelical (Or New Born Christians as they like to called today), on the contrary, sought a continual engagement within the new social structure.  Meanwhile the Separatists withdrew from both politics and culture.

The three contemporary streams of American Protestantism:

a)      Fundamentalist

b)      Liberal

c)       Neo Evangelical

Lead to different ideas and views on what America’s role in the world should be and on how America should be run internally.

In this context the differences between American mainstream liberal Christian Protestants and the Fundamentalists and the Neo-Evangelicals are deep and profound. While American Protestant Christian Liberalism promotes a vision of a stable, enlightened domestic and international policy for the US and the rest of the world, and places importance between the good relations between believers and non-believers, and this can be seen in the very essence of the US Constitution and the message that the so defined “Founding Fathers” tried to bring across when it was framed. The Fundamentalists and the Neo Evangelical adopt a complete opposite message.

Both Fundamentalist and Neo-Evangelical are profoundly anti-intellectual movements, they couldn’t survive otherwise. Their common denominator lies within the doctrines of the theology espoused by the Christian Identity movement, which includes Anglo-Israelism and British Israelism the basis of Anglo-Saxon colonial policy in Africa (In my country it was the basis of Apartheid). A theological belief that Anglo-Saxons, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic and associated cultures; thus Americans and Canadians (to a lesser extent) as direct descendant of those cultures are composed by the descendants of the ancient Israelites. A virulent, racist and anti-Semitic theology that promotes the belief of racial superiority and provides “the glue” of Fundamentalist and Neo Evangelical Christian Right Wing movements; the rise of Hitler and German concept of “Herrenrasse” (Master Race) shows unequivocally what such groups are capable of given the right economical and political conditions that allow them to take control of the levers of Government.

The above explains why the Christian Fundamentalists and Neo Evangelicals have a profound hatred towards the secular world, secular morality, and are completely intolerant regarding those who do not accept their belief system. While certain groups of Christian Fundamentalist tend to close themselves within closed communities of their peers and not partake in political and social events, the Neo-Evangelicals are more interested in developing an all embracing Christian Worldview, and then systematically trying to apply it to the world.

Like their Fundamentalists Muslims counterparts Neo Evangelicals are very good at working and infiltrating the secular system from within. One thing is to reject the evolutionary science, science, intellectualisms, or even history because of a deep seethed belief, against all evidence to the contrary, of the infallibility of the Bible, another is manipulating a system by developing a pseudo-scientific paradigm like Creationist Science, and seek political office to influence legislation to force secular schools to teach it and withdraw one’s children from schools who do not.

It is not surprising that unlike Europeans, a certain part of Americans want as little Government intervention as possible in issues such as health, education and Federal influence on the legislative autonomy of the single states of the Union, as a strong secular government with a strict idea of separation of church and state, and who force them to pay taxes as they should, would certainly create problems for the Neo Evangelical fundamentalist agenda.

The strings of intellectual and political defeats incurred by Fundamentalist Christianity in the 20s, 30, 50s 60s and 70s has in no way dampened their fanaticisms and has actually made them more determined to follow their ideas to their logical conclusion.

In many ways as far evolution goes they really haven’t evolved at all from the core principles that characterized their forefathers who labored to institute Christian Theocracies under the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell, as well trying the same in New England in the 17^th Century.

Finally the Fundamentalist and Neo Evangelical committed belief of an apocalyptic vision of the end of the world and the Last Judgment, due to the fact that being Biblical literalists (completely devoid of logic or critical thinking), they believe in the dark prophecies in both Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, notably those of the book of Revelation, that foretell great and terrible events that will bring down the curtain of human history. Satan and his human allies will stage a final revolt against God and the elect few; they the believers will undergo terrible persecutions, but Christ will put down his enemies and reign forever over Heaven and new earth.

These visions are not only indicative of racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic beliefs that these people would immediately put into practice if given half a chance, but are a serious threat to the idea of the evolution of a secular world, driven by technological advances and where believers in whatever Religion can co-exist in peace due to a general cooperation of all intelligent people of all religious tradition or of none.

It is impossible for me, the daughter of a diehard Catholic father, to deny that twelve years of parochial education have not had an effect on me. If my math is correct, by the time I graduated high school I had attended 624 Sunday masses and heard an equal number of “burn in hell” sermons that were as close to mind control as one can get without being lobotomized. Add to that figure monthly First Friday services, novenas, benedictions, High Holy Day masses, confessions and the scowl of disapproval on the face of every Franciscan nun who ever wielded a ruler and, well, the damage to my psyche was pretty severe.

By the time I neared 30 years of age, my ability to absorb any more guilt had reached the saturation point. As with all soft, porous substances, the more guilt thrust upon my conscience, the more questions began to leak from my brain… and my mouth. “Something isn’t right,” I would tell anyone who would listen. Fear? Punishment? Eternal damnation? How does that fit in with the picture of a God who loves his children? How could a loving God allow so much cruelty and sadness in this world? The answer I got was the same I had been hearing for decades – God works in mysterious ways. Well, the real mystery to me is why anyone would buy into that nonsense.

In the mid 1980s, my husband and I were still attached to our faith. We enrolled our children in a parochial school and became members of the PTO. Being a parent brings out all the old haunting fears. I pushed my doubts to the back of my mind and buried them deep... but not for long. Five months into the school year, a few of the pre-teens in our church came forward to say that the pastor was “encouraging” them to show their gratitude for his generosity with sexual favors. By encouraging, I mean threatening them. Oh, not in any way tangible, but the message he broadcast to those boys was very real.  They were scared.

As secretary of the Parent/Teacher Organization, I made a formal complaint to the monsignor in charge of the Archdiocese of Newark, and this was the response: “Mrs. Carbone, not only must you catch him in the act but you must get me a picture as well. If I was to transfer every priest who was a homosexual or pedophile, I wouldn’t have enough men to go around.”

My husband’s and my reaction was to remove our children from Catholic school and place them in the public education system. We should have done more, but we were naïve. The other result of that incident was that the questions I had silenced began to roar with a vengeance. Soon thereafter, I traded in my unconditional acceptance of contradictory teachings for reason and logic. Although I cast aside my former belief in a mystical supreme being, I do not consider myself an atheist.

For starters, I hate labels. They are never accurate. There are as many qualifiers as there are shades of grey and the color spectrum is infinite. I believe in god – I just believe that WE are god and, unfortunately, Satan as well. You will notice that I did not capitalize god but did give Satan that honorific. Why? Because mankind will never be “that good” but, sadly, we have become experts at hurting one another.

The elements of good and evil are within each of us. When the religious minded talk about free will, they are merely stating the obvious. We all have a choice and how and what we choose determines on which side of the aisle we will stand -- the politics of faith so to speak.

Now there is the announcement that Pope Benedict wants to canonize Pope John Paul II. To me, saints are the heroes of an ancient work of fiction – the bible. They inspire us to be more than we can be, but like Superman, they don’t really exist and nowhere less so than in the Catholic Church. Remember, a pope doesn’t just materialize on the throne. He comes up through the ranks, and unless he is deaf, dumb and blind, he knows full well what is happening among the clergy. Pretending that evil does not exist is not saintly. It is criminal.

The definition of saint is someone acknowledged as holy or virtuous. I know plenty of people who would fit that description and not one of them ever turned their back on crime. Pedophilia is one of the most heinous acts of abuse. Every pope, every cardinal, every monsignor, every bishop, every priest, everyone in the religious community who knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it is as guilty as those who actually perpetrated the act upon the innocent. And they all knew! Every single one of them – past, present and, unless some changes are made soon, future. Sainthood! Please!

So referring back to the title of this article, “Once a Catholic – Always a Catholic” seems to fit me like made-to-order skin. My mindset is that of someone who loves pizza but hates anchovies. If a pie should arrive on the dinner table covered in the salty fish, I pick them off in order to enjoy the tasty dish below. I’ve done the same thing with my Catholic education -- picked off the anchovies and kept the tomatoes and cheese.

An adherence to morals and ethics, which govern all the decisions I make, are the lessons I learned at the painful end of a wooden yardstick. Honesty and charity, a concern for my fellowman and a desire to leave this world just a little better than when I arrived keep me centered.

Of course, since I believe I will one day return to this earth, you could label me a hypocrite – a label that just might be accurate. There is a method to my madness. I really don’t want to come back to the same world I will be leaving. At least, not unless it is greatly improved, and the only way I can see that happening is if we all start practicing what is preached from millions of pulpits around the world.

Be kind to one another! Kindness, like a virus, is contagious, and I can’t think of a better disease to pass around. Now if only we could get it to reach epidemic proportions. Oh, and remember the children. Please don’t ever turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to their cries. There are no acceptable excuses. And no saints!

Upon watching the History Channel's mini-series on what people consider to be the seven deadly sins, I realized that the ancients had it figured out while those who have shoved religion down our throats in both Europe and America over the past eight centuries were complete idiot …

The law has developed and adapted over time in response to the social norms and issues relevant to the prevailing culture and age. I can only speak with any authority in relation to modern-day English law and English lawyers, but some observations are fairly universal, one of which is that, by and large, lawyers are fairly simple creatures. In so far as is possible we like things to be ‘black and white’ and we look with admiration on those who can explain and define the law with clarity. For example:

Every person being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body

and

An adult who … suffers from no mental incapacity has an absolute right to choose whether to consent to treatment, to refuse it or to choose one rather than another of the treatments being offered … this right of choice is not limited to decisions which others might regard as sensible.

But we live in a complicated world, and the Courts are faced with a seemingly infinite variety of practical circumstances in which these apparently straightforward principles have to be applied. Hence, it must be possible to define what is meant in practice by ‘adult’ and ‘mental capacity’ and how those principles should be applied to children. In short, who is able to give good consent to medical treatment?

Logically, such decisions should be left to the Medical Doctors as a rule, however thanks to negative influences of Christians sects from the United States, Evangelical, and Jehovah’s Witnesses we are experiencing in the UK an increase in Medical Child abuse because of religious faith.

Hardly surprising when one considers that in 2003, Federal Legislation “sanctioned” the killing of children by religious parents in the “Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.” The act requires that states receiving federal grant dollars must include “failure to provide medical treatment” in their definition of child neglect. However, to placate the powerful Christian Science lobby and other fundamentalist groups, legislators included the following caveat: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as establishing a Federal requirement that a parent or legal guardian provide a child any medical service or treatment against the religious beliefs of the parent or legal guardian.”

Only by a twisted, Christian fundamentalist logic — encouraged by a populist class of politicians — in an overly radicalized religious part of the United States, which is one Supreme Court vote away from overturning Roe v. Wade in order to protect the rights of an undifferentiated bundle of cells in a woman’s womb, can defenseless children be allowed to suffer and die because of the fanatical religious beliefs of their parents.

It is unfortunate that parents, who should love their children above all else, regard their faith in a God as more important than the lives of their own children. Between 1975 and 2010, 982 children died in the United States because their parents refused medical treatment on religious grounds. 910 of those children died from conditions which medical science had a 90 percent track record of curing.

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded, “There are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan.”

As Gerald Witt, mayor of Lake City, Florida, said about local faith-based deaths, “It may be necessary for some babies to die to maintain our religious freedoms. It may be the price we have to pay; everything has a price.”

That’s some price to pay! The sheer arrogance and presumption of such a statement is mind boggling.

As informed adults we are normally allowed to engage in behavior that could be considered harmful. Examples may include drinking, smoking, and a certain type of sporting activity We accept these activities notwithstanding their recognized danger and harmfulness, as perfectly legal and we do them because we are consenting adults. I for example don’t drink, but smoke and like to jump out of perfectly good aircrafts with a parachute on my back. I know very well that smoking is unhealthy, and yet I smoke, and like it! My parachute could fail to open and I could end up splattered in a Swiss meadow, and yet I still jump. However, I am a conscious adult that takes full responsibility for his actions.

Children don’t have that kind of discretion, that’s why it is incumbent on us the adults to love and protect them.

What I believe that most of us will concur with is that no one should force another to risk his/her life against their will. And that if you kill some one through such type of coercion you have committed Murder!!

Now, why am I writing this?

Well as most of friends know I am a lawyer and I was asked to prosecute a case (something I rarely do). I cannot go into much detail, either than to say that a two year old boy was denied medical treatment by his parents on religious grounds literally kidnapped from the hospital and that the parents called an exorcist to release him from the grips of the devil that now the child is dead. The original indictment was child neglect and endangerment under the Children Welfare Act 1998, but I had this changed at committal and now the charge is murder, which in the UK carries a mandatory life sentence. Why murder? Because killing a child in the name of some delusional religious conviction is an act of premeditated murder.

This case has touched me, shocked me and angered me and I will do everything I can to make sure that the Law makes them pay for this horrendous act, because such evil cannot go unchecked.

Luckily, unlike the United States, where from what I have been reading and discussing with American colleagues, I have learnt –to my horror- that it is legal to force one’s own children into dangerous and sometimes lethal stances because of religious convictions; such actions are illegal in most civilized countries.

Before I took this case I really had no idea on how wide spread is the killing of children by religious fundamentalists, and quite frankly it is nauseating. Example vary, but there are children that are killed because of normal everyday illnesses such as the mumps, bee stings or diabetes because their parents instead of calling a doctor or taking them to hospital like most sane and rational human beings, get on their knees and pray to some mythical God and the result is the death of the child.

In any criminal prosecution like in any criminal defense any lawyer has to study and try to understand not only the evidence, but the state of mind of the perpetrators. Luck as it, and I am glad that European case law as few examples of these particular type of crimes; while –not surprising- American case law is very rich and well documented on these tragic events.

I had no idea on how frequently these cases occur in the USA, and it shocks me! And what is more shocking is that the US allows in over 50 states religious exemption to child abuse or neglect and that 19 states permit a religious based defense to serious (felonies as they are called in the US) crimes against children. This was confirmed to me by a good friend and prominent attorney in the State of New York.

Some of the case literature he sent me is truly horrific, and quite frankly hadn’t it been sent to me by a lawyer I would have had trouble believing it. Young children stung by bees and left with no medical help for hours because the parents started praying, diabetic children anointed with oils and subject to prayer that could have been saved by a simple insulin injection.

Such absurd beliefs can only arise from the Old Testament, Exodus 15:22-27 “The Lord who heals you.” Or from those allegorical fantasies that are referred to as the Gospels attributed to Mark and Luke that define all doctors as inept charlatans, or that passage in the Epistles of James, where Jesus was supposed to have prescribed prayer and anointment with oil as the ultimate remedy for all bodily malfunctions. That people believe such garbage is bad enough but its their choice as consenting adults, but that children are slaughtered because of it is completely immoral and unacceptable.

I recently watched a 20/20 report on abuses in the IFB church.

A Religious Sub-Culture Of Horrific Sexual & Physical Abuse...Right Here In The USA!
For years I just chalked up the abuse I witnessed and suffered at the IFB Church I attended in Jackson, Mich. as just part of the road I was walking in life. It had to be an isolated situation.....WRONG!

My mother was raised the same and attended Bob Jones University. She died a 3 time divorced drunk with no one. To get us out of the house she made us go to church with our grandparents...and so the indoctrination began.

As children we were taught:

1. All other churches and denominations are wrong, we were the only ones that were right, set aside and chosen. Lesson actualy learned: isolation, closed mindedness and how to be judgemental

2. Men are at the head of the church and the home. Women and children (in that order) fall under the male. Lessons learned: as a child, i am without a voice or opinion, silence is safe. as a male, learned to view women & children as subservient.

3. Scripture is literal, men using women, beating spouses and children, public humiliation & confession and spiritual perfection is attainable and expected. Lessons learned: guilt, fear, hopelessness, pain & confusion

4. (my favorite) Predestination: A term I became familiar with when the youth pastor told me I was no longer welcome at the private school run by the church, and he would rather I did not attend youth group anymore...reason, the pastor's kid and I got caught smoking behind the gym. He told me, it wasn't really my fault, I was a puppet of satan because it was obvious I was not predestined to be a christian...god had not chosen me...and with my evil influence gone, the pastors kid could get on with his christian life..(p.s. he brought the cigarette!) Lesson learned: hopeless, doomed to hell, born bad, depression & self hate

At around age 9, we all went to summer camp. On several occasions on that trip the camp counselor, and a deacon in our church back home, molested me. It seemed to be normal behavior to him, his demeanor was as if he was putting up a tent.

When I got home I told my grandfather, who was the head deacon at the time....he said "good christians do not talk like that, "don't let me hear anymore about it."

The over-all result of my birth into this extremist christian sect is that I am a militant agnostic, with no faith in authority or simplistic religious explanations for unexplainable reality.

This is of course the abridged version. The experience of being chewed up and spit out by these people has left me suspicious of all "religious" organizations and leaders, although I know that it is nuts to think all of them are dirt bags, I have never seen much reason to darken the doorway of another "House of Prayer".

I hope all those affected by these extremists and criminals will find peace and recovery.

© Mark H. (Maddad) Newsvine, 2011

INTRODUCTION:

While Judaism and Islam as religions have a modicum of historical foundation, Muhammad really existed, the Jews were and are a reality, instead one can safely say that Christianity was invented. A collection of fables, myths, borrowed or plagiarized events from other religions, creeds and cults were concocted together to become one of the bloodiest and cruelest creeds that have affected the minds of men for over 2000 years, and that have caused, and still cause untold suffering to mankind. Now, what is more amazing is that the very church where this monstrosity was spawned admits the fraud, and yet the hold of Christianity is such as to nullify any rational capacity of criticisms or admission in the minds of faithful. As far as invention goes, the whole concept of Christianity is brilliant and very deadly in its simplicity, as it has provided few men with absolute control of the minds of many. A weapon far more damaging than the atom bomb.

The Forged Origins of the New Testament:

In the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine united all religious factions under one composite deity, and ordered the compilation of new and old writings into a uniform collection that became the New Testament.

What the Church doesn't want you to know

It has often been emphasized that Christianity is unlike any other religion, for it stands or falls by certain events which are alleged to have occurred during a short period of time some 20 centuries ago. Those stories are presented in the New Testament, and as new evidence is revealed it will become clear that they do not represent historical realities. The Church agrees, saying:

"Our documentary sources of knowledge about the origins of Christianity and its earliest development are chiefly the New Testament Scriptures, the authenticity of which we must, to a great extent, take for granted."
(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 712)

The Church makes extraordinary admissions about its New Testament. For example, when discussing the origin of those writings, "the most distinguished body of academic opinion ever assembled" (Catholic Encyclopedias, Preface) admits that the Gospels "do not go back to the first century of the Christian era" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 137, pp. 655-6). This statement conflicts with priesthood assertions that the earliest Gospels were progressively written during the decades following the death of the Gospel Jesus Christ. In a remarkable aside, the Church further admits that "the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], it is true, do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD" (Catholic Encyclopedia, op. cit., pp. 656-7). That is some 350 years after the time the Church claims that a Jesus Christ walked the sands of Palestine, and here the true story of Christian origins slips into one of the biggest black holes in history. There is, however, a reason why there were no New Testaments until the fourth century: they were not written until then, and here we find evidence of the greatest misrepresentation of all time.

It was British-born Flavius Constantinus (Constantine, originally Custennyn or Custennin) (272-337) who authorized the compilation of the writings now called the New Testament. After the death of his father in 306, Constantine became King of Britain, Gaul and Spain, and then, after a series of victorious battles, Emperor of the Roman Empire. Christian historians give little or no hint of the turmoil of the times and suspend Constantine in the air, free of all human events happening around him. In truth, one of Constantine's main problems was the uncontrollable disorder amongst presbyters and their belief in numerous gods.

The majority of modern-day Christian writers suppresses the truth about the development of their religion and conceals Constantine's efforts to curb the disreputable character of the presbyters who are now called "Church Fathers" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1). They were "maddened", he said (Life of Constantine, attributed to Eusebius Pamphilius of Caesarea, c. 335, vol. iii, p. 171; The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, cited as N&PNF, attributed to St Ambrose, Rev. Prof. Roberts, DD, and Principal James Donaldson, LLD, editors, 1891, vol. iv, p. 467). The "peculiar type of oratory" expounded by them was a challenge to a settled religious order (The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature and Art, Oskar Seyffert, Gramercy, New York, 1995, pp. 544-5). Ancient records reveal the true nature of the presbyters, and the low regard in which they were held has been subtly suppressed by modern Church historians. In reality, they were:

"...the most rustic fellows, teaching strange paradoxes. They openly declared that none but the ignorant was fit to hear their discourses ... they never appeared in the circles of the wiser and better sort, but always took care to intrude themselves among the ignorant and uncultured, rambling around to play tricks at fairs and markets ... they lard their lean books with the fat of old fables ... and still the less do they understand ... and they write nonsense on vellum ... and still be doing, never done."(Contra Celsum ["Against Celsus"], Origen of Alexandria, c. 251, Bk I, p. lxvii, Bk III, p. xliv, passim)

Clusters of presbyters had developed "many gods and many lords" (1 Cor. 8:5) and numerous religious sects existed, each with differing doctrines (Gal. 1:6). Presbyterial groups clashed over attributes of their various gods and "altar was set against altar" in competing for an audience (Optatus of Milevis, 1:15, 19, early fourth century). From Constantine's point of view, there were several factions that needed satisfying, and he set out to develop an all-embracing religion during a period of irreverent confusion. In an age of crass ignorance, with nine-tenths of the peoples of Europe illiterate, stabilizing religious splinter groups was only one of Constantine's problems. The smooth generalization, which so many historians are content to repeat, that Constantine "embraced the Christian religion" and subsequently granted "official toleration", is "contrary to historical fact" and should be erased from our literature forever (Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. iii, p. 299, passim). Simply put, there was no Christian religion at Constantine's time, and the Church acknowledges that the tale of his "conversion" and "baptism" are "entirely legendary" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1).

Constantine "never acquired a solid theological knowledge" and "depended heavily on his advisers in religious questions" (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, vol. xii, p. 576, passim). According to Eusebeius (260-339), Constantine noted that among the presbyterian factions "strife had grown so serious, vigorous action was necessary to establish a more religious state", but he could not bring about a settlement between rival god factions (Life of Constantine, op. cit., pp. 26-8). His advisers warned him that the presbyters' religions were "destitute of foundation" and needed official stabilization (ibid.).

Constantine saw in this confused system of fragmented dogmas the opportunity to create a new and combined State religion, neutral in concept, and to protect it by law. When he conquered the East in 324 he sent his Spanish religious adviser, Osius of Córdoba, to Alexandria with letters to several bishops exhorting them to make peace among themselves. The mission failed and Constantine, probably at the suggestion of Osius, then issued a decree commanding all presbyters and their subordinates "be mounted on asses, mules and horses belonging to the public, and travel to the city of Nicaea" in the Roman province of Bithynia in Asia Minor. They were instructed to bring with them the testimonies they orated to the rabble, "bound in leather" for protection during the long journey, and surrender them to Constantine upon arrival in Nicaea (The Catholic Dictionary, Addis and Arnold, 1917, "Council of Nicaea" entry). Their writings totaled "in all, two thousand two hundred and thirty-one scrolls and legendary tales of gods and saviours, together with a record of the doctrines orated by them" (Life of Constantine, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 73; N&PNF, op. cit., vol. i, p. 518).

The First Council of Nicaea and the "missing records"

Thus, the first ecclesiastical gathering in history was summoned and is today known as the Council of Nicaea. It was a bizarre event that provided many details of early clerical thinking and presents a clear picture of the intellectual climate prevailing at the time. It was at this gathering that Christianity was born, and the ramifications of decisions made at the time are difficult to calculate. About four years prior to chairing the Council, Constantine had been initiated into the religious order of Sol Invictus, one of the two thriving cults that regarded the Sun as the one and only Supreme God (the other was Mithraism). Because of his Sun worship, he instructed Eusebius to convene the first of three sittings on the summer solstice, 21 June 325 (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, vol. i, p. 792), and it was "held in a hall in Osius's palace" (Ecclesiastical History, Bishop Louis Dupin, Paris, 1686, vol. i, p. 598). In an account of the proceedings of the conclave of presbyters gathered at Nicaea, Sabinius, Bishop of Hereclea, who was in attendance, said, "Excepting Constantine himself and Eusebius Pamphilius, they were a set of illiterate, simple creatures who understood nothing" (Secrets of the Christian Fathers, Bishop J. W. Sergerus, 1685, 1897 reprint).

This is another luminous confession of the ignorance and uncritical credulity of early churchmen. Dr Richard Watson (1737-1816), a disillusioned Christian historian and one-time Bishop of Llandaff in Wales (1782), referred to them as "a set of gibbering idiots" (An Apology for Christianity, 1776, 1796 reprint; also, Theological Tracts, Dr Richard Watson, "On Councils" entry, vol. 2, London, 1786, revised reprint 1791). From his extensive research into Church councils, Dr Watson concluded that "the clergy at the Council of Nicaea were all under the power of the devil, and the convention was composed of the lowest rabble and patronized the vilest abominations" (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.). It was that infantile body of men who were responsible for the commencement of a new religion and the theological creation of Jesus Christ.

The Church admits that vital elements of the proceedings at Nicaea are "strangely absent from the canons" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 160). We shall see shortly what happened to them. However, according to records that endured, Eusebius "occupied the first seat on the right of the emperor and delivered the inaugural address on the emperor's behalf" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. v, pp. 619-620). There were no British presbyters at the council but many Greek delegates. "Seventy Eastern bishops" represented Asiatic factions, and small numbers came from other areas (Ecclesiastical History, ibid.). Caecilian of Carthage travelled from Africa, Paphnutius of Thebes from Egypt, Nicasius of Die (Dijon) from Gaul, and Donnus of Stridon made the journey from Pannonia.

It was at that puerile assembly, and with so many cults represented, that a total of 318 "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes and exorcists" gathered to debate and decide upon a unified belief system that encompassed only one god (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.). By this time, a huge assortment of "wild texts" (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, "Gospel and Gospels") circulated amongst presbyters and they supported a great variety of Eastern and Western gods and goddesses: Jove, Jupiter, Salenus, Baal, Thor, Gade, Apollo, Juno, Aries, Taurus, Minerva, Rhets, Mithra, Theo, Fragapatti, Atys, Durga, Indra, Neptune, Vulcan, Kriste, Agni, Croesus, Pelides, Huit, Hermes, Thulis, Thammus, Eguptus, Iao, Aph, Saturn, Gitchens, Minos, Maximo, Hecla and Phernes (God's Book of Eskra, anon., ch. xlviii, paragraph 36).

Up until the First Council of Nicaea, the Roman aristocracy primarily worshipped two Greek gods-Apollo and Zeus-but the great bulk of common people idolized either Julius Caesar or Mithras (the Romanised version of the Persian deity Mithra). Caesar was deified by the Roman Senate after his death (15 March 44 BC) and subsequently venerated as "the Divine Julius". The word "Saviour" was affixed to his name, its literal meaning being "one who sows the seed", i.e., he was a phallic god. Julius Caesar was hailed as "God made manifest and universal Saviour of human life", and his successor Augustus was called the "ancestral God and Saviour of the whole human race" (Man and his Gods, Homer Smith, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1952). Emperor Nero (54-68), whose original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (37-68), was immortalized on his coins as the "Saviour of mankind" (ibid.). The Divine Julius as Roman Saviour and "Father of the Empire" was considered "God" among the Roman rabble for more than 300 years. He was the deity in some Western presbyters' texts, but was not recognized in Eastern or Oriental writings.

Constantine's intention at Nicaea was to create an entirely new god for his empire who would unite all religious factions under one deity. Presbyters were asked to debate and decide who their new god would be. Delegates argued among themselves, expressing personal motives for inclusion of particular writings that promoted the finer traits of their own special deity. Throughout the meeting, howling factions were immersed in heated debates, and the names of 53 gods were tabled for discussion. "As yet, no God had been selected by the council, and so they balloted in order to determine that matter... For one year and five months the balloting lasted..." (God's Book of Eskra, Prof. S. L. MacGuire's translation, Salisbury, 1922, chapter xlviii, paragraphs 36, 41).

At the end of that time, Constantine returned to the gathering to discover that the presbyters had not agreed on a new deity but had balloted down to a shortlist of five prospects: Caesar, Krishna, Mithra, Horus and Zeus (Historia Ecclesiastica, Eusebius, c. 325). Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god. A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both divinities became one God. Following longstanding heathen custom, Constantine used the official gathering and the Roman apotheosis decree to legally deify two deities as one, and did so by democratic consent. A new god was proclaimed and "officially" ratified by Constantine (Acta Concilii Nicaeni, 1618). That purely political act of deification effectively and legally placed Hesus and Krishna among the Roman gods as one individual composite. That abstraction lent Earthly existence to amalgamated doctrines for the Empire's new religion; and because there was no letter "J" in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into "Jesus Christ".

How the Gospels were created:

Constantine then instructed Eusebius to organize the compilation of a uniform collection of new writings developed from primary aspects of the religious texts submitted at the council. His instructions were:

"Search ye these books, and whatever is good in them, that retain; but whatsoever is evil, that cast away. What is good in one book, unite ye with that which is good in another book. And whatsoever is thus brought together shall be called The Book of Books. And it shall be the doctrine of my people, which I will recommend unto all nations, that there shall be no more war for religions' sake."
(God's Book of Eskra, op. cit., chapter xlviii, paragraph 31)

"Make them to astonish" said Constantine, and "the books were written accordingly" (Life of Constantine, vol. iv, pp. 36-39). Eusebius amalgamated the "legendary tales of all the religious doctrines of the world together as one", using the standard god-myths from the presbyters' manuscripts as his exemplars. Merging the supernatural "god" stories of Mithra and Krishna with British Culdean beliefs effectively joined the orations of Eastern and Western presbyters together "to form a new universal belief" (ibid.). Constantine believed that the amalgamated collection of myths would unite variant and opposing religious factions under one representative story. Eusebius then arranged for scribes to produce "fifty sumptuous copies ... to be written on parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient portable form, by professional scribes thoroughly accomplished in their art" (ibid.). "These orders," said Eusebius, "were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself ... we sent him [Constantine] magnificently and elaborately bound volumes of three-fold and four-fold forms" (Life of Constantine, vol. iv, p. 36). They were the "New Testimonies", and this is the first mention (c. 331) of the New Testament in the historical record.

With his instructions fulfilled, Constantine then decreed that the New Testimonies would thereafter be called the "word of the Roman Saviour God" (Life of Constantine, vol. iii, p. 29) and official to all presbyters sermonizing in the Roman Empire. He then ordered earlier presbyterial manuscripts and the records of the council "burnt" and declared that "any man found concealing writings should be stricken off from his shoulders" (beheaded) (ibid.). As the record shows, presbyterial writings previous to the Council of Nicaea no longer exist, except for some fragments that have survived.

Some council records also survived, and they provide alarming ramifications for the Church. Some old documents say that the First Council of Nicaea ended in mid-November 326, while others say the struggle to establish a god was so fierce that it extended "for four years and seven months" from its beginning in June 325 (Secrets of the Christian Fathers, op. cit.). Regardless of when it ended, the savagery and violence it encompassed were concealed under the glossy title "Great and Holy Synod", assigned to the assembly by the Church in the 18th century. Earlier Churchmen, however, expressed a different opinion.

The Second Council of Nicaea in 786-87 denounced the First Council of Nicaea as "a synod of fools and madmen" and sought to annul "decisions passed by men with troubled brains" (History of the Christian Church, H. H. Milman, DD, 1871). If one chooses to read the records of the Second Nicaean Council and notes references to "affrighted bishops" and the "soldiery" needed to "quell proceedings", the "fools and madmen" declaration is surely an example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Constantine died in 337 and his outgrowth of many now-called pagan beliefs into a new religious system brought many converts. Later Church writers made him "the great champion of Christianity" which he gave "legal status as the religion of the Roman Empire" (Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire, Matthew Bunson, Facts on File, New York, 1994, p. 86). Historical records reveal this to be incorrect, for it was "self-interest" that led him to create Christianity (A Smaller Classical Dictionary, J. M. Dent, London, 1910, p. 161). Yet it wasn't called "Christianity" until the 15th century (How The Great Pan Died, Professor Edmond S. Bordeaux [Vatican archivist], Mille Meditations, USA, MCMLXVIII, pp. 45-7).

Over the ensuing centuries, Constantine's New Testimonies were expanded upon, "interpolations" were added and other writings included (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 135-137; also, Pecci ed., vol. ii, pp. 121-122). For example, in 397 John "golden-mouthed" Chrysostom restructured the writings of Apollonius of Tyana, a first-century wandering sage, and made them part of the New Testimonies (Secrets of the Christian Fathers, op. cit.). The Latinised name for Apollonius is Paulus (A Latin-English Dictionary, J. T. White and J. E. Riddle, Ginn & Heath, Boston, 1880), and the Church today calls those writings the Epistles of Paul. Apollonius's personal attendant, Damis, an Assyrian scribe, is Demis in the New Testament (2 Tim. 4:10).

The Church hierarchy knows the truth about the origin of its Epistles, for Cardinal Bembo (d. 1547), secretary to Pope Leo X (d. 1521), advised his associate, Cardinal Sadoleto, to disregard them, saying "put away these trifles, for such absurdities do not become a man of dignity; they were introduced on the scene later by a sly voice from heaven" (Cardinal Bembo: His Letters and Comments on Pope Leo X, A. L. Collins, London, 1842 reprint).

The Church admits that the Epistles of Paul are forgeries, saying, "Even the genuine Epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to the personal views of their authors" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vii, p. 645). Likewise, St Jerome (d. 420) declared that the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament, was also "falsely written" ("The Letters of Jerome", Library of the Fathers, Oxford Movement, 1833-45, vol. v, p. 445).

The shock discovery of an ancient Bible:

The New Testament subsequently evolved into a fulsome piece of priesthood propaganda, and the Church claimed it recorded the intervention of a divine Jesus Christ into Earthly affairs. However, a spectacular discovery in a remote Egyptian monastery revealed to the world the extent of later falsifications of the Christian texts, themselves only an "assemblage of legendary tales" (Encyclopédie, Diderot, 1759). On 4 February 1859, 346 leaves of an ancient codex were discovered in the furnace room at St Catherine's monastery at Mt Sinai, and its contents sent shockwaves through the Christian world. Along with other old codices, it was scheduled to be burned in the kilns to provide winter warmth for the inhabitants of the monastery. Written in Greek on donkey skins, it carried both the Old and New Testaments, and later in time archaeologists dated its composition to around the year 380. It was discovered by Dr Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874), a brilliant and pious German biblical scholar, and he called it the Sinaiticus, the Sinai Bible. Tischendorf was a professor of theology who devoted his entire life to the study of New Testament origins, and his desire to read all the ancient Christian texts led him on the long, camel-mounted journey to St Catherine's Monastery.

During his lifetime, Tischendorf had access to other ancient Bibles unavailable to the public, such as the Alexandrian (or Alexandrinus) Bible, believed to be the second oldest Bible in the world. It was so named because in 1627 it was taken from Alexandria to Britain and gifted to King Charles I (1600-49). Today it is displayed alongside the world's oldest known Bible, the Sinaiticus, in the British Library in London. During his research, Tischendorf had access to the Vaticanus, the Vatican Bible, believed to be the third oldest in the world and dated to the mid-sixth century (The Various Versions of the Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1874, available in the British Library). It was locked away in the Vatican's inner library. Tischendorf asked if he could extract handwritten notes, but his request was declined. However, when his guard took refreshment breaks, Tischendorf wrote comparative narratives on the palm of his hand and sometimes on his fingernails ("Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, lecture, 1869, available in the British Library).

Today, there are several other Bibles written in various languages during the fifth and sixth centuries, examples being the Syriacus, the Cantabrigiensis (Bezae), the Sarravianus and the Marchalianus.

A shudder of apprehension echoed through Christendom in the last quarter of the 19th century when English-language versions of the Sinai Bible were published. Recorded within these pages is information that disputes Christianity's claim of historicity. Christians were provided with irrefutable evidence of willful falsifications in all modern New Testaments. So different was the Sinai Bible's New Testament from versions then being published that the Church angrily tried to annul the dramatic new evidence that challenged its very existence. In a series of articles published in the London Quarterly Review in 1883, John W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, used every rhetorical device at his disposal to attack the Sinaiticus' earlier and opposing story of Jesus Christ, saying that "...without a particle of hesitation, the Sinaiticus is scandalously corrupt ... exhibiting the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with; they have become, by whatever process, the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders and intentional perversions of the truth which are discoverable in any known copies of the word of God". Dean Burgon's concerns mirror opposing aspects of Gospel stories then current, having by now evolved to a new stage through centuries of tampering with the fabric of an already unhistorical document.

The revelations of ultraviolet light testing

In 1933, the British Museum in London purchased the Sinai Bible from the Soviet government for £100,000, of which £65,000 was gifted by public subscription. Prior to the acquisition, this Bible was displayed in the Imperial Library in St Petersburg, Russia, and "few scholars had set eyes on it" (The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 11 January 1938, p. 3). When it went on display in 1933 as "the oldest Bible in the world" (ibid.), it became the centre of a pilgrimage unequalled in the history of the British Museum.

Before I summarize its conflictions, it should be noted that this old codex is by no means a reliable guide to New Testament study as it contains superabundant errors and serious re-editing. These anomalies were exposed as a result of the months of ultraviolet-light tests carried out at the British Museum in the mid-1930s. The findings revealed replacements of numerous passages by at least nine different editors. Photographs taken during testing revealed that ink pigments had been retained deep in the pores of the skin. The original words were readable under ultraviolet light. Anybody wishing to read the results of the tests should refer to the book written by the researchers who did the analysis: the Keepers of the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum (Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus, H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat, British Museum, London, 1938).

Forgery in the Gospels

When the New Testament in the Sinai Bible is compared with a modern-day New Testament, a staggering 14,800 editorial alterations can be identified. These amendments can be recognized by a simple comparative exercise that anybody can and should do. Serious study of Christian origins must emanate from the Sinai Bible's version of the New Testament, not modern editions.

Of importance is the fact that the Sinaiticus carries three Gospels since rejected: the Shepherd of Hermas (written by two resurrected ghosts, Charinus and Lenthius), the Missive of Barnabas and the Odes of Solomon. Space excludes elaboration on these bizarre writings and also discussion on dilemmas associated with translation variations.

Modern Bibles are five removes in translation from early editions, and disputes rage between translators over variant interpretations of more than 5,000 ancient words. However, it is what is not written in that old Bible that embarrasses the Church, and this article discusses only a few of those omissions. One glaring example is subtly revealed in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (Adam & Charles Black, London, 1899, vol. iii, p. 3344), where the Church divulges its knowledge about exclusions in old Bibles, saying: "The remark has long ago and often been made that, like Paul, even the earliest Gospels knew nothing of the miraculous birth of our Saviour". That is because there never was a virgin birth.

It is apparent that when Eusebius assembled scribes to write the New Testimonies, he first produced a single document that provided an exemplar or master version. Today it is called the Gospel of Mark, and the Church admits that it was "the first Gospel written" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 657), even though it appears second in the New Testament today. The scribes of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were dependent upon the Mark writing as the source and framework for the compilation of their works. The Gospel of John is independent of those writings and the late-15th-century theory that it was written later to support the earlier writings is the truth (The Crucifixion of Truth, Tony Bushby, Joshua Books, 2004, pp. 33-40).

Thus, the Gospel of Mark in the Sinai Bible carries the "first" story of Jesus Christ in history, one completely different to what is in modern Bibles. It starts with Jesus "at about the age of thirty" (Mark 1:9), and doesn't know of Mary, a virgin birth or mass murders of baby boys by Herod. Words describing Jesus Christ as "the son of God" do not appear in the opening narrative as they do in today's editions (Mark 1:1), and the modern-day family tree tracing a "messianic bloodline" back to King David is non-existent in all ancient Bibles, as are the now-called "messianic prophecies" (51 in total). The Sinai Bible carries a conflicting version of events surrounding the "raising of Lazarus", and reveals an extraordinary omission that later became the central doctrine of the Christian faith: the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ and his ascension into Heaven. No supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any ancient Gospels of Mark, but a description of over 500 words now appears in modern Bibles (Mark 16:9-20).

Despite a multitude of long-drawn-out self-justifications by Church apologists, there is no unanimity of Christian opinion regarding the non-existence of "resurrection" appearances in ancient Gospel accounts of the story. Not only are those narratives missing in the Sinai Bible, but they are absent in the Alexandrian Bible, the Vatican Bible, the Bezae Bible and an ancient Latin manuscript of Mark, code-named "K" by analysts. They are also lacking in the oldest Armenian version of the New Testament, in sixth-century manuscripts of the Ethiopic version and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Bibles. However, some 12th-century Gospels have the now-known resurrection verses written within asterisks marks used by scribes to indicate spurious passages in a literary document.

The Church claims that "the resurrection is the fundamental argument for our Christian belief" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), yet no supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any of the earliest Gospels of Mark available. A resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ is the sine qua non ("without which, nothing") of Christianity (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), confirmed by words attributed to Paul: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain" (1 Cor. 5:17). The resurrection verses in today's Gospels of Mark are universally acknowledged as forgeries and the Church agrees, saying "the conclusion of Mark is admittedly not genuine ... almost the entire section is a later compilation" (Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. ii, p. 1880, vol. iii, pp. 1767, 1781; also, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. iii, under the heading "The Evidence of its Spuriousness"; Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, pp. 274-9 under heading "Canons"). Undaunted, however, the Church accepted the forgery into its dogma and made it the basis of Christianity.

The trend of fictitious resurrection narratives continues. The final chapter of the Gospel of John (21) is a sixth-century forgery, one entirely devoted to describing Jesus' resurrection to his disciples. The Church admits: "The sole conclusion that can be deduced from this is that the 21st chapter was afterwards added and is therefore to be regarded as an appendix to the Gospel" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. viii, pp. 441-442; New Catholic Encyclopedia (NCE), "Gospel of John", p. 1080; also NCE, vol. xii, p. 407).

"The Great Insertion" and "The Great Omission"

Modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke have a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible. Six of those words say of Jesus "and was carried up into heaven", but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today ("Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels", F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113). Ancient versions do not verify modern-day accounts of an ascension of Jesus Christ, and this falsification clearly indicates an intention to deceive.

Today, the Gospel of Luke is the longest of the canonical Gospels because it now includes "The Great Insertion", an extraordinary 15th-century addition totaling around 8,500 words (Luke 9:51-18:14). The insertion of these forgeries into that Gospel bewilders modern Christian analysts, and of them the Church said: "The character of these passages makes it dangerous to draw inferences" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. ii, p. 407).

Just as remarkable, the oldest Gospels of Luke omit all verses from 6:45 to 8:26, known in priesthood circles as "The Great Omission", a total of 1,547 words. In today's versions, that hole has been "plugged up" with passages plagiarized from other Gospels. Dr Tischendorf found that three paragraphs in newer versions of the Gospel of Luke's version of the Last Supper appeared in the 15th century, but the Church still passes its Gospels off as the unadulterated "word of God" ("Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", op. cit.)

The "Expurgatory Index":

As was the case with the New Testament, so also were damaging writings of early "Church Fathers" modified in centuries of copying, and many of their records were intentionally rewritten or suppressed.

Adopting the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63), the Church subsequently extended the process of erasure and ordered the preparation of a special list of specific information to be expunged from early Christian writings (Delineation of Roman Catholicism, Rev. Charles Elliott, DD, G. Lane & P. P. Sandford, New York, 1842, p. 89; also, The Vatican Censors, Professor Peter Elmsley, Oxford, p. 327, pub. date n/a).

In 1562, the Vatican established a special censoring office called Index Expurgatorius. Its purpose was to prohibit publication of "erroneous passages of the early Church Fathers" that carried statements opposing modern-day doctrine.

When Vatican archivists came across "genuine copies of the Fathers, they corrected them according to the Expurgatory Index" (Index Expurgatorius Vaticanus, R. Gibbings, ed., Dublin, 1837; The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, Joseph Mendham, J. Duncan, London, 1830, 2nd ed., 1840; The Vatican Censors, op. cit., p. 328). This Church record provides researchers with "grave doubts about the value of all patristic writings released to the public" (The Propaganda Press of Rome, Sir James W. L. Claxton, Whitehaven Books, London, 1942, p. 182).

Important for our story is the fact that the Encyclopaedia Biblica reveals that around 1,200 years of Christian history are unknown: "Unfortunately, only few of the records [of the Church] prior to the year 1198 have been released". It was not by chance that, in that same year (1198), Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) suppressed all records of earlier Church history by establishing the Secret Archives (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xv, p. 287). Some seven-and-a-half centuries later, and after spending some years in those Archives, Professor Edmond S. Bordeaux wrote How The Great Pan Died. In a chapter titled "The Whole of Church History is Nothing but a Retroactive Fabrication", he said this (in part):

"The Church ante-dated all her late works, some newly made, some revised and some counterfeited, which contained the final expression of her history ... her technique was to make it appear that much later works written by Church writers were composed a long time earlier, so that they might become evidence of the first, second or third centuries." (How The Great Pan Died, op. cit., p. 46)

Supporting Professor Bordeaux's findings is the fact that, in 1587, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) established an official Vatican publishing division and said in his own words, "Church history will be now be established ... we shall seek to print our own account" Encyclopédie, Diderot, 1759). Vatican records also reveal that Sixtus V spent 18 months of his life as pope personally writing a new Bible and then introduced into Catholicism a "New Learning" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. v, p. 442, vol. xv, p. 376). The evidence that the Church wrote its own history is found in Diderot's Encyclopédie, and it reveals the reason why Pope Clement XIII (1758-69) ordered all volumes to be destroyed immediately after publication in 1759.

Gospel authors exposed as imposters

There is something else involved in this scenario and it is recorded in the Catholic Encyclopedia. An appreciation of the clerical mindset arises when the Church itself admits that it does not know who wrote its Gospels and Epistles, confessing that all 27 New Testament writings began life anonymously:

"It thus appears that the present titles of the Gospels are not traceable to the evangelists themselves ... they [the New Testament collection] are supplied with titles which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those writings." (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 655-6)

The Church maintains that "the titles of our Gospels were not intended to indicate authorship", adding that "the headings ... were affixed to them" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. i, p. 117, vol. vi, pp. 655, 656). Therefore they are not Gospels written "according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John", as publicly stated. The full force of this confession reveals that there are no genuine apostolic Gospels, and that the Church's shadowy writings today embody the very ground and pillar of Christian foundations and faith. The consequences are fatal to the pretence of Divine origin of the entire New Testament and expose Christian texts as having no special authority. For centuries, fabricated Gospels bore Church certification of authenticity now confessed to be false, and this provides evidence that Christian writings are wholly fallacious.

After years of dedicated New Testament research, Dr Tischendorf expressed dismay at the differences between the oldest and newest Gospels, and had trouble understanding...
"...how scribes could allow themselves to bring in here and there changes which were not simply verbal ones, but such as materially affected the very meaning and, what is worse still, did not shrink from cutting out a passage or inserting one."
(Alterations to the Sinai Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1863, available in the British Library, London)

After years of validating the fabricated nature of the New Testament, a disillusioned Dr Tischendorf confessed that modern-day editions have "been altered in many places" and are "not to be accepted as true" (When Were Our Gospels Written?, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1865, British Library, London).

Just what is Christianity? :

The important question then to ask is this: if the New Testament is not historical, what is it?
Dr Tischendorf provided part of the answer when he said in his 15,000 pages of critical notes on the Sinai Bible that "it seems that the personage of Jesus Christ was made narrator for many religions". This explains how narratives from the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, appear verbatim in the Gospels today (e.g., Matt. 1:25, 2:11, 8:1-4, 9:1-8, 9:18-26), and why passages from the Phenomena of the Greek statesman Aratus of Sicyon (271-213 BC) are in the New Testament.

Extracts from the Hymn to Zeus, written by Greek philosopher Cleanthes (c. 331-232 BC), are also found in the Gospels, as are 207 words from the Thais of Menander (c. 343-291), one of the "seven wise men" of Greece. Quotes from the semi-legendary Greek poet Epimenides (7th or 6th century BC) are applied to the lips of Jesus Christ, and seven passages from the curious Ode of Jupiter (c. 150 BC; author unknown) are reprinted in the New Testament.

Tischendorf's conclusion also supports Professor Bordeaux's Vatican findings that reveal the allegory of Jesus Christ derived from the fable of Mithra, the divine son of God (Ahura Mazda) and messiah of the first kings of the Persian Empire around 400 BC. His birth in a grotto was attended by magi who followed a star from the East. They brought "gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh" (as in Matt. 2:11) and the newborn baby was adored by shepherds. He came into the world wearing the Mithraic cap, which popes imitated in various designs until well into the 15th century.

Mithra, one of a trinity, stood on a rock, the emblem of the foundation of his religion, and was anointed with honey. After a last supper with Helios and 11 other companions, Mithra was crucified on a cross, bound in linen, placed in a rock tomb and rose on the third day or around 25 March (the full moon at the spring equinox, a time now called Easter after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar). The fiery destruction of the universe was a major doctrine of Mithraism-a time in which Mithra promised to return in person to Earth and save deserving souls. Devotees of Mithra partook in a sacred communion banquet of bread and wine, a ceremony that paralleled the Christian Eucharist and preceded it by more than four centuries.

Christianity is an adaptation of Mithraism welded with the Druidic principles of the Culdees, some Egyptian elements (the pre-Christian Book of Revelation was originally called The Mysteries of Osiris and Isis), Greek philosophy and various aspects of Hinduism.

Why there are no records of Jesus Christ:

It is not possible to find in any legitimate religious or historical writings compiled between the beginning of the first century and well into the fourth century any reference to Jesus Christ and the spectacular events that the Church says accompanied his life. This confirmation comes from Frederic Farrar (1831-1903) of Trinity College, Cambridge:
"It is amazing that history has not embalmed for us even one certain or definite saying or circumstance in the life of the Saviour of mankind ... there is no statement in all history that says anyone saw Jesus or talked with him. Nothing in history is more astonishing than the silence of contemporary writers about events relayed in the four Gospels."
(The Life of Christ, Frederic W. Farrar, Cassell, London, 1874)

This situation arises from a conflict between history and New Testament narratives. Dr Tischendorf made this comment:

"We must frankly admit that we have no source of information with respect to the life of Jesus Christ other than ecclesiastic writings assembled during the fourth century."
(Codex Sinaiticus, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, British Library, London)

There is an explanation for those hundreds of years of silence: the construct of Christianity did not begin until after the first quarter of the fourth century, and that is why Pope Leo X (d. 1521) called Christ a "fable" (Cardinal Bembo: His Letters..., op. cit.).

Since God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it.

"How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us."

Pope Leo X (1513-1521)

I have been through a few rapture predictions, the first few had me reading and thinking about it all, the end of the world by fire and sword, the goods ones, those special few who get grabbed up and get to watch the action down below up in the clouds. What is interesting is that fact that there is a little bit of factionalism going on within this special religious community of like minded souls. Are they amillenials, postmillenials or post tribulationists or those who sit between each group. Will there be a pre-tribulation, a mid-tribulation, pre-warth, a partial rapture and a post-tribulation?

While the idea of rapture seems to appear first with the thoughts of the Great American Puritans, Cotton Mather and his son Increase, it is John Nelson Darby who first brings up the rapture as a real possibility in 1827, he is now the big Daddy of Dispensationalism.

The first time I heard about the rapture was in the 1970's when it again became a popular concept. In 1980, guess what, rapture predictions. But it seems it was not the first prediction, William Miller predicted Jesus would return between March 21, 1843 to March 21, 1844. When the rapture didn't come it caused what is known as 'The Great Disappoinment'.

Well the 1981 rapture predicted by Chuck Smith came and went, the 1988 prediction published by Edgar C. Whisenant "88 reasons why the rapture is in 1988" missed the mark, the 1989 re-prediction of Edgar titled "The Final Shout-Rapture Report 1989" was a big hit and sold many copies but alas did not get near the bullseye. Also his 1992 or 1995 predictions were not on target or any other year after that.

1992, a Korean group called Mission for the coming day Prediction tried to get it right.

1993 was the big one comin', 7 years to 2000 (the fin de siecle), but before that another predictor predicted June 9, 1994 and still another champion of the end times predicted September 27 1994. And now we have this same guy Harold Camping with his new and improved prediction, May 21, 2011. Seems Harold's first numbers were a little off because he mis-calculated, ahh, the divine science of mathimatics was the problem not Harold's mis-interpretation of words and symbols.

Familiarity breeds contempt and I have both for this new prediction and the whole "end times' shebang for many reasons.

I have tired of it all for one thing. The struggles we have in developing, keeping and holding some type of spiritual life has been continually repressive in nature from all sides. My thoughts, my actions, my faith or lack of faith is somebody else's ballywick to play in. Their need to see me confrom to a set of dictates that they believe in has made me weary. Oh I know their need to help is so much more important than my internal dialogue because they see my faith or lack of faith as needing help. I don't need help in this, I think about my spiritual self every day.

I am so tired of it that I cannot even describe what I want to be anymore in a life of the spiritual. There are so many possibilites of spiritual growth that I have learned and thought about that it seems like calling myself a christian would be laughable to many of you and even to me.

A 'born again' friend told me once I was a "baby Christian", the laughable thing is I know I have read and thought more on the subject that she could ever do. She is not one to pick up a book that is not her bible. And she quit painting and doing art because they were abominations. What the Hell, she was one of the best portrait artists I knew and her subject matter was people, where was the abomination?

I have watched this slide back into fear many times, it is cycilical and lemming-like and pisses me off. it seems so many who profess faith lack a lot of it in their fellow Americans and they continue to tell us how we suck and they don't. Well I ain't joining a fold that has such an underlying message to promote to me or anyone else. I wrestle with the angels, I look into the eyes of demons and see hate and hear the worry and feel the strife and I have to ask "what have you really done to make it all a better world to live in?" That is the one tenent that I have learned from all religions. Seems like it is your turn to do more than point fingers and create religious strife. Return to the inner life of the spirit and watch it grow, you do not grow it by demanding, scaring or even pleading for us to change. You do more by your actions than your words.

Who am I really? I am a dog who looks out and wonders about it all so don't ruin it for me or for yourself.

Concepts of G*d.. monotheism..

Well you know, God has been hatin' a lot since the Malleus Maleificarum of monster ministers arrived on the scene. You know his name, it is household famous, Fred (yabba dabba do) Phelps and his boiled oily, flim flammeist, snake eating scam church of the Westboro "Saints", a cheap religious farm team that wants to play in the majors.

Now Fred and his day glo sign carriers hates human bundles of wood and he would like nothing better than to place said 'human' bundles onto real bundles of wood and create his own little conflagration. Fred the Wolf and his ignorant flock also bleat hateful words at the funerals of our dead soldiers and ask for us to stand and take it because their rights superscede good judgement, showing respect for the dead and graciousness towards family members who have lost a loved one. Hey, I dig their rights and understand and will accept that fact. No problemo Fred.

Now Fred and his falange of faithful fruities says God hates Liz. Now I know God does not hate the actress who played Velvet Brown. I know God has National Velvet in his/her movie collection. And come on here, you going to tell me that Heaven does not show, Father of the Bride, Life with Father, Cleopatra, Butterfield 8, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe at least once a week somewhere up there? Hell, I bet they even like the Sandpiper on at least one cloud.

So here is my thoughts on Liz, Fred, Westboro church and God. Maybe it is good to sort of re-visit the past when we are discussing morals. If Fred wants to be the old 'timey' moral arbitor for all of us then I must accuse him and his followers of being witches, followers of evil and possibly a very good candidate for Anti-Christ and I demand a trail by fire, water and earth. I do feel that we must use the dunking stool to find out if his daughter is a witch, I feel that branding irons may need to be brought into play if we do not get the results we want and need in order to feel safe and I do think Fred must be chained to his convictions with real iron ones.

A good stout stone wall to hold him straight and narrow so that he does not sin as we delve into the mystery of his evil ways.

Let's get medeival on this sucker, he wants to play Dark Ages we'll give him the darkest of ages, the age of Inquisition!!!

I have had it up to here (holds hand a foot above head). I am sick and tired of people invading my personal space on my own property to evangelize to me. You may know exactly who I mean but let me just mention the name of these folks before I get into my rant, Jehovah's Witnesses.

When we lived in the city they would come once a week because I was nice and would talk a little with them. I was polite, I smiled and said "no thank you" to them when they offered me their magazine 'The Watchtower'. They would never get the point that I was not interesed at all. Finally one day my wife came out and said in a very demanding voice "dog get in here and eat your breakfast, it's getting cold", after that we would just leave for the day and not be home when they came. I mean they drove us out of our own house because they think their right to evangelize is more important than my right to privacy.

When we moved to the country it was peaceful and serene for us both. Then about there years ago they found us and started coming every weekend. Again I was gracious and very respectful when they came and shooed them away as quickly as I could manage. I even would let the dog out so he would jump up on them and soil their nice clothes.That did not deter them at all. Finally I was up in the barn one day, it was sunny, I had the barn doors open and I was smiling and enjoying my work day and I saw a car pull into the driveway, the man stayed in the car and the woman got out and proceeded to walk up the barn bridge towards me, I saw the Watchtower in her hand and and I just blew up. Here I was again, working and just enjoying my day and they were again invading my private life on my own property. I stepped out, held my arm up and pointed at their car and said in my strongest voice "turn around, get into your car and NEVER come back here again". It worked, they never came back and we have been free of them till yesterday.

Yesterday I went out to get the mail and there was this fat envelope that was handwritten, I looked at the return address and did not recognize the name of the people who were writing to us. The envelope was even addressed to both of us. I was excited to get a letter and tore it open as I walked back to the house. I started reading the letter and it said that these people had stopped by a couple of times and had missed us and they were really interested in talking to us. I read further and what they wanted to talk to us about was " the story of Adam and Eve". BOOM, My blood pressure just hit the ceiling. They also said they would be back and they hoped I enjoyed their magazine and that we would read it in preperation of their next visit. I looked back in the envelope and there it was The Watchtower!

I will be prepared and they will not like the preperations I have in mind.

I'll tell you what, I have really just had it with these people and I will talk to them about the Right of privacy, property rights and trespassing. I will also do this with my loudest and angriest voice because that seems to be the only way to get MY MESSAGE across to them. I hate that I am being forced to do this but I have no other recourse. My privacy is a right I will fight for. They have crossed the Rubicon and I will show them how cross a mad dog can be.

An Associated Press article out of Pennsylvania yesterday dealt with the arrest of Monsignor William Lynn, who from 1992 to 2004 served as clergy secretary under (former) Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. He is charged with endangering children by allegedly transferring predator priests from parish to parish without informing the resident pastor of the newcomer's history of deviant behavior. Most recently, Monsignor Lynn has served as pastor of St. Joseph's Church, a large parish in the suburb of Downingtown.
According to the bio published on St. Joseph's website, Monsignor Lynn was ordained in 1976 at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He served as Parochial Vicar at St. Bernard in Northeast Philadelphia for four years and then at St. Katharine of Siena in Wayne for four years. From 1984 to 1992 he served as Dean of Men at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.
The St. Charles Borromeo Seminary has quite an impressive list of trustees, administrators and staff. The website glows with adherence and investment in Christian principles through studies including The Spiritual Formation Program for the pre-theology seminarian. The course is designed "to enable him (seminarian) to develop a Christ-centered life that is oriented to priestly commitment."

The curriculum catalog is extensive and varied, but the course description that caught my attention was Ethics: "A study of Thomistic (inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas) natural moral law. Topics include: objective morality as rooted in the first moral principle and the moral norm of right reason, act vs. intentionality, the role of conscience, virtue and the good as end, natural rights, and the perennial significance of natural law within the contemporary ethical context. The latter part of the course will focus on the application of the natural law's ethical principles to such problem areas as life, sex, health, and war."

In short – St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the fundamental principle of the natural law is do good not evil. Too bad so many men who chose a religious life failed to practice those principals when dealing with children.

Monsignor Lynn's attorneys are preparing to do battle against the state by claiming that their client was never directly responsible for children. In referring to the 124-page grand jury report, one of the Monsignor's lawyers, Thomas Bergtrom, said, "… we'd get (is) an opportunity to find out what the commonwealth's theory is on our client endangering the welfare of a child. It's a stretch."

Here's where I get personal. It's not a stretch at all. Twenty-five years ago my husband was the president of the PTO at the parochial school our children attended. I was the secretary. One evening, prior to calling the meeting to order, a young man (early teens) hesitantly approached us to report that a parish priest had propositioned him and his male friends. The list of bribes was long and disgraceful but nowhere near as disgraceful as the response I received from the Archdiocese of Newark when I made a formal complaint.

From the Monsignor in charge (name withheld): "Mrs. Carbone, not only must you catch him in the act but you must get me a picture as well. If I was to transfer every priest who was a homosexual or pedophile, I wouldn't have enough men to go around."

My husband's and my reaction to such a cavalier attitude was to remove our children from Catholic school and place them in the public education system. We should have done more, but we were naïve. The media had not yet become aware of the high incidence of abuse against children by the clergy. Had we known…

We all know now! However, from antics in the courtroom, it would appear that Monsignor Lynn's parishioners at St. Joseph's refuse to accept that he might, indeed, be guilty of a crime(s). One such supporter voiced his support by shouting, "We love you! We love you!" during proceedings.

The problem lies not in "loving" (supporting) the Monsignor but in who/how he loved. Loving children (too much and in the wrong way) is what got us here in the first place.

As a final note, this disclaimer appears on the Saint Charles Borroeo Seminary website:

Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary and its student body support the rights of all its members to pursue their work in an environment free of unlawful harassment, including sexual, racial, and national origin harassment, whether physical or verbal.

Wouldn't it have been nice to extend those same rights to the children?

PROSELITIZATION OF RELIGION: A RECEPY FOR CHILD ABUSE, TORTURE, RAPE AND GENOCIDE.

Two things led me to write this article, one is a case at the Old Bailey, the oldest Crown Court in London, where I had the pleasure of seeing convicted to 25 years the father and mother of my friend, Miss.M. Miss M. Is a 39 year old woman, who went through a gruelling childhood where she was routinely sexually abused by the father, a New Born Christian and the abuse took place with the knowledge and the help of the mother. Their defence was a string of bible quotes that in their view not only justified such behaviour, but it was sanctioned by God. The other was a recent article I have been following on Newsvine, ‘God hates Morons’.

What comes as apparent from such a case, that during the numerous court hearing one had to control not only one’s temper, but also the overwhelming feeling of nausea that such people generate, is that the sexualisation of children is institutionalized in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Jehovah impregnated a 12 year old girl named Mary at her Batmitzva, and that Christians dare call this Immaculate Conception. Paedophiles (who go Church on Sunday and scream Jesus at the top of their lungs) consider this a good thing. I assert that under English Law, or under any law in the Western World Jehovah should be tried and convicted as a sex offender. The worship of such a pervert should be prohibited as it is quite obviously the root of a culture of child sex abuse, rape, torture, and ultimately Genocide (the latter will be subject of another essay) that sees one in four children in the Western World victims of such practices.

The Bible, the Thora and the Qur’an encourage a casual lack of regard for the right of the child from the outset. Common stories in the three books, like the story of Jehovah approaching Abraham of the desert tribe of the Habiru with an ultimatum “Abraham” he said “Take your little boy to the top of the mountain and slice his throat, do this and your descendants will out-number the grains of sand on the beach.” Abraham showed Jehovah that like the desert from he came, he too was barren, empty and gutless, and in fact clearly showed Jehovah that he was more than willing to sacrifice his own son to a voice. Such a man is worthless, not only he doesn’t care for his own son, but he is more than willing to kill him in the name of his paramount worship to Jehovah.

Extreme violence against children is quite obviously overtly or subconsciously encouraged by the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and dogma all over the world. Solomon, it is alleged, when two women were claiming to be mothers of the same child ruled that the child be divided in half and each should take a piece. Once again we are confronted with a casual disregard for the child. Christians love to celebrate Christmas, as the birth of Jesus Christ, son of Jehovah and yet conveniently choose to ignore that according to their own dogmas, the birth of their Saviour was preceded by a brutal act of infanticide committed by King Herod.

Christianity has an Ace of Hearts in respect to Judaism or Islam in that Christians are taught to practice forgiveness. That makes the whole scenario even more unbearable as it allows paedophiles to get away with almost total impunity.

There is considerable theological, academic, legal, and anecdotal material written about Christianity and Abuse. There is little, though that focuses on the victim’s perspective and subjective experience. To understand that one has to understand how Christian theological teachings impact on the psyche of the child that is being sexually or physically abused and their effects once the child becomes an adult; in this respect they are truly insidious. The following themes constitute the basis of the Christian Dogma:

• The value of Suffering and self-sacrifice (which is necessary for salvation).
• The value placed on obedience to authority figures: male God, male ‘Headship’, female submission, Honour your Father and Mother, etc.
• The necessity of remaining sexually pure: no sex before marriage
• The virtue of forgiveness and repentance.
• God will protect you
• Suffering and self-sacrifice is necessary for salvation.

‘Jesus died on the Cross to save us’ is the lynchpin of the whole Christian indoctrination process. Jesus suffering was redemptive therefore ours will be. This are three very insidious messages here that play in the subconscious of Christian Believers:

• We should not therefore reject suffering; indeed in fact we should suffer.
• Suffering is good.
• To be of value we should sacrifice ourselves.

These beliefs inculcated in children since birth shape their acceptance to abuse, and are in a perverse way, a form of abuse in themselves, as children have no defence against the imposition of such beliefs by their parents.

The central image of Christ on the Cross as a saviour of the world communicates unequivocally that suffering is redemptive. If the “best person that ever lived” gave his life for others, then to be of value we should likewise sacrifice ourselves. Any sense that we have a right to cater for our own needs is in conflict with being a faithful follower of Jesus. Furthermore this insidious doctrine sais: ‘every theory of atonement commands the suffering of the disciple’. For the Christian, and more so for the extreme right wing New Born Christian the goal is to be like Jesus – such an identification with the figure of Christ manifests first and foremost as an obedient willingness to endure pain.

It is not uncommon to find survivors of sexual and violent abusive behaviour believing that they have no rights to protection – that what they suffered as children or adolescents is somehow good not bad. Carrying one’s Cross is how the abuse is justified throughout childhood. Christian child and adult survivors of sexual and violent abuse make excellent victims, dying (suffering) so others might live, and believing that this is what a good Christian ought to do. The brainwashing is so pervasive and insidious as children that they will continue to believe this as adults, and such beliefs comes from the Christian message to serve, to obey and to suffer as all in the end lead to salvation and redemption. A message common to all Religions, as in reality Religion isn’t about faith it’s about control.

This glorification of suffering encourages victims who are being abused to be more concerned about their victimizers than about themselves. This is evident in child abuse where children try to protect their, usually, male abusers; in domestic violence where women feel guilty about reporting their abusers, in clergy related cases, like the recent scandals in the Catholic Church, or the many ongoing cases of abuse, rape and murder committed by Evangelical New Born Christians, and Catholic missionaries in Africa, and Latin America that have come recently to light. Here too it is common to see that male, women or children victims of abuse will do anything to protect the priests and the respective Churches and so on.

Serving others before self is a concept that is indoctrinated and stamped in the subconscious of children that are born to practicing religious households from the outset. The very act of Baptism committed on the child in Catholic/Christian households or the circumcision of the male Jewish or Muslim child is in effect the very first form of child abuse. Females in these households are taught to obey and serve the males around them.

“Jesus then rose from death triumphant, victorious”. The allegory of the Christian common view that response to suffering should be patience as by being patient something good will come of it. The whole concept of Christian suffering, of the suffering of Jesus to be more precise, is that it has a ‘purpose’. What is that ‘purpose’, well aside from a series of meaningless quotes from the Bible no Christian can really tell.

Any rational human being with a minimum of intellect cannot accept such views. Victimization never leads to triumph. It can lead to extended pain and extensive mental imbalance if it not fought or refused. It will lead almost inevitably to the destruction of the human spirit through the death of the person’s sense of power and self-worth, dignity, creativity, and self-assurance. It can lead to death through depression and suicide.

Many Christians victim of abuse, and Miss M was no exception, believed they had to suffer. Some were unclear as to why, but that overall that what they suffered seemed the right thing, as they were ‘bad’, within the contest of their respective families faith. If you are ‘bad’ then suffering is an understandable repercussion! This feeling of ‘badness’ came from being abused; but in the Christian woman/child this is felt as sin. Being abused means that you are ‘bad’, therefore ‘bad’ girls and boys are sinners – bad and sinners often meaning the same thing.

Another Christian victim of abuse, a woman, said: ‘it has always been my firm conviction that you are not born sinful, but that someone had to plant the seed of sin deep inside you’. Evidently the reference to the sexual violation is clear. This belief in Christian indoctrinated women and men victims of sexual abuse as children is far more common than one imagines, and the whole thing is further compounded, especially in women, by the patriarchal beliefs that girls and women are “naturally sinful” by nature, inheriting the myth of Eve who tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. In fact it is a common misnomer uttered by members of Christian Fundamentalists Churches, and also a theological assumption in main stream churches, Catholics, Protestant, Anglican, etc; that women or girls are the main cause of their own abuse. A theology that doesn’t quite make sense, especially in the light of the many abuses that have come to light in the Catholic Church, since many boys are sexually raped and abused. It does ‘fit’ if one sees, by the study of individual case files how the abused boys feel emasculated following the abuse. The sense of personal guilt and shame of the abused, whether male or female, makes it so that victims pray to God to to purify themselves from their essential sinfulness and actually give thanks to the abuser for having brought on them the rightful chastisement of God, in this case the sexual act in itself, to show how inherently sinful they are.

Furthermore, as Christian children are taught that Jesus did not complain about his suffering, indeed he acquiesced, neither should they, as this is the right and Christian thing to do. This insidious form of indoctrination consequentially brings on the concept of the identification by the victim of Christ’s suffering and that will inevitably numb any willingness to confront violence and abuse.

Paradoxically the acceptance of suffering could well save the life of the victim, and here Christian Theology safeguards as well as numbs. It is Un-Christian to complain, and this translates as un-Christian to report the abuse or violence to Professionals or anyone outside the family or the clan. This is evident in the response of both families and Christian communities when a victim does report. It is seen as un-Christian, disloyal, a betrayal and wrong not right! In one Church in Birmingham, victims were spat on and insulted by the rest of the Congregation for reporting the priest of sexually abusing them. Victims of abuse have stated in police reports that their Pastor told them not to report, as it says in the Bible that if you have anything against your brother it should be dealt within the community – you must not go to court or the police, meaning the secular agencies. Neither must you seek therapy, since God and prayer will heal you. These arguments are extremely strong within the fundamentalist Evangelical, Pentecostal, Baptist Fellowships or House Churches.

Did the Christian God make sacred suffering? Does he sanction child abuse by allowing ‘his’ son to be killed on the Cross? A worrisome number of victims of sexual and violent child abuse within the Christian communities actually believe this to be so, ‘If he didn’t save Jesus he’s not going to save me.’

There is a strong Christian (Judaism and Islam as well) message that the adult is not to be questioned; Honour thy Father and Mother. Now in a normal family that wouldn’t be a problem, however in a discordant family such indoctrination stifles the ability of the child to challenge, question, or report their abuse experience. Suffering being already a ‘Christian virtue’ is then compounded by the silence of the victim. The whole foundation of this attitude to authority, which the Church has developed since the fall of the Roman Empire, has been established in the anthropomorphic concept of the Christian deity being a male and in the consequent human relationship with God.

In Christian (Jewish or Islamic) theology the honouring of both mother and father, in reality concentrates on the father, deemed the head of the household and in most cases of abuse, the abuser. The mother must obey the father. This special role is a direct result of the belief that God is male. For most victims of abuse this image is horrific: “I was taught that God was my father in Heaven and that my Father was God on Earth.” Miss. M during her cross-examination at trial.

One doesn’t need to be a psychiatrist to understand that victims of child abuse from religious households come to perceive God as the abuser – Just like her/his father. These are not rational or articulated thoughts by the victims but rather subliminal messages absorbed over time in a Christian home, particularly in the more fundamentalist and therefore ignorant and bigoted Christian homes where the headship of the male is paramount.

A male God teaches female children that males are superior to females, that they are more God-like than women. Male children are taught this legacy from the outset. For male victims of abuse this is compounded by the thought that they are somehow like a ‘female’ in being a victim, and therefore not powerful or God-like; the fact that Jesus was a victim doesn’t help either gender in reality. The trauma is a lifelong experience.

Catholic children and adult survivors of abuse have had to deal with the additional misogyny where the headship of the male is taken much further. In the Catholic Church (the largest Christian fellowship on the planet), only males can be priests, meaning that the male body (not the mind) is a true reflection of God and that only the man/God can inseminate (with a spiritual penis) Christianity into the faithful. Within Catholic Christianity it isn’t difficult to believe, given this premise, that Mass for some (and I wish to emphasise SOME!) is essentially a sexual act. To my horror, I discovered this reading an article in a Catholic newspaper (l’Osservatore Romano, November 5^th, 1995). The author, who doesn’t identify himself, but is definitely a Catholic priest, wants to clarify why women cannot be priest. He says, “in Christ, God penetrates the world to seed a new creation – his bride, the Church. During the Mass the (male) priest allows Christ to use him, to ‘penetrate’ his creation (the congregation) once more – nourishing his bride with his own flesh and blood. The metaphor in such a statement is nightmarish.

This in female victims translates in:

• Fear of God who, with a penis has the potential to abuse them also.
• Fear of priests who just like their male abusers (if not the abuser themselves) have the potential to abuse them. They don’t trust other women who are really misbegotten males (St.Augustine). Fear of speaking to mother of the abuse, especially when the mother is helping in the abuse, either by ignoring it, or by justifying it.
• The beliefs that only men have the skills to help them, since they are ‘man/God’ figures and yet because of that they too can’t be trusted.
• Developing a sense of endless guilt, a feeling of self-rejection as they feel that they got what they deserve because of the natural sinfulness of the woman.

While in male victims this translates in:

• A profound crisis of identity as they cannot see themselves as man/God, as they like women are victims. A profound feeling of inferiority and almost non-existent self esteem.
• A complete lack of trust in women as they are inferior and don’t have the physical attributes (penis) of the man/God.
• A lack of trust in the man/God figure as they see in it the abuser.
• A feeling of sexual inadequacy with women, as they feel their man/God masculinity taken away from them, and a feeling of self hate as they feel responsible for being so weak and sinful that God has punished them for their inherent unworthiness to have taken his shape as man/God.
• Furthermore the hidden trauma that the abuse of males is in most cases an homosexual act, that further compounds that feeling of self-guilt as that is a sin in itself.

One of the most controlling aspects of Christian indoctrination surrounds the issue of purity and all that it entails. The shame of sexual violation is pervasive in both male and females. Shame is linked with self-blame. Girls are brought up to keep their virginity intact, while boys are taught to be strong therefore both feel guilty for ‘allowing’ their respective violation.

The suffering that follows the rape is not just physical but spiritual and metaphysical. The importance placed on virginity by Christian doctrine makes women especially vulnerable after such an event. ‘Dirty and sinful’ is a common feeling among victims, and their confusion is deep.

However, of all the Christian doctrines the most insidious is the ‘concept of forgiveness’. There is no discussion, one must forgive! As it is promulgated this forgiveness has to be ‘unconditional’. One has to forgive no matter what. Though this doctrine of Christian forgiveness isn’t exactly black or white, as if one reads with attention their book, the Bible (In my opinion one of the most mentally damaging books in history), one finds in Luke: 1-3 a passage that actually sais: “if your brother does something wrong, reprove him, and if he is sorry (or repents, in some translations) forgive him”. Nevertheless, accepted Christian theology tends to ignore this and goes for unconditional forgiveness. Christian children and adults are taught (erroneously) to forgive without repentance from their transgressors, and if they cannot they become the sinners. Once a child or adult sais that he/she has been abused the peer pressure is applied to forget and forgive. Why?

Two main reasons can be identified:

1) The person who firstly hears the plight of the victim, in most cases a close relative, simply doesn’t want to hear such a thing because it is too horrible to acknowledge, brings to the surface a feeling of personal responsibility, and puts into question the very dogmas of the faith.

2) The Churches and their representatives simply deny at first, and then if the abuser is a priest or a pastor close ranks, create a wall of silence, and begin to focus in a negative way on the victim.

So what we see is the Church, the family, the friends, the clan all ganging up on the victim, leaving her/he alone to cope with the trauma, the self-guilt and all consequences of the abuse. Therefore Sexual abuse becomes a social collective exercise in hypocrisy!

What the victims are left to cope with can be summed up as follows:

1) Human Experience

Mum will punish me, Dad will punish me

FEAR

Spiritual Experience

I will go to hell, Even God hates me

2) Human Experience

I’ll never trust men/women again

TRUST

Spiritual Experience

I can’t trust God – He’ll let me down too

3) Human Experience

Why is this happening to me? Why me?

ANGER

Spiritual Experience

Where is God? Why doesn’t he stop it? He has the power to stop it!

4) Human Experience

My abuser is stronger than me

POWER

Spiritual Experience

God is bigger – Divine – greater than me. He has control over my life, can do anything he wants with/to me. He is God!

5) Human Experience

Everyone thinks it was my fault. I am dirty, horrible!

STIGMA

Spiritual Experience

I have sinned sexually – I must go to confession

6) Human Experience

I allowed this to happen, I temped him/her.

GUILT

Spiritual Experience

I feel anger, bitterness, hatred, I can’t forgive. I am the temptress, I am the sinner.

7) Human Experience

They all think I am mad, that I am liar!

SELF-INJURY

Spiritual Experience

The ‘ultimate sin’! Now I will burn in hell.

The above shows how feelings permeate both realms and make for a cocktail of trauma that is not seen in secular survivors of sexual child abuse.

As Jennifer Manlowe says, ‘religious language which promotes sacred victims such as Jesus Christ, promotes the concept of a sole male authority in the home, confuses the issues of Church vs. State is an extremely dangerous discourse because it spiritualizes political and social passivity’. A passivity that all religions need, in greater or smaller extents to exercise their social and political control over the masses.

To quote an infamous Christian: “The masses of the people will more easily fall to a big lie than to a small one”. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

I'm gonna live until I die  

then I'll pass on here by and by,  

'cause ain't no way to change  

the ways here of this world.  

Now I may sin a sin or few  

it's just somethin' all people do  

until we're caught up into the air  

not into the sky!  

~~~   

Where the soul  

      (Oh, where the soul)  

shall never die  

      (no, never die!)  

Not flyin' away, we're just movin' on  

to the other side  

      (the supernal side)!  

For in the air, here's where we'll be  

but we'll be more than you can see  

as comprehension expands  

so far beyond the eye.  

~~~   

There in a new world that's awaitin'   

once the Lord defeats ol' Satan  

we'll all be changed, it's said,  

in the twinkling of an eye!  

We'll see things beyond imagination  

as we go through transfiguration  

into a soul that I've been told  

shall never die.  

~~~   

Where the soul  

      (Oh, where the soul)  

shall never die  

      (no, never die!)  

Remember God hates those  

who teach that souls must fly.  

      (don't believe the lie)!  

Oh, raise your hands, shout Hallelujah  

as the good Lord sock's it to ya!  

Yes, we'll inherit the earth  

not some fancy pie in the sky!  

~~~ 

Where the soul 

      (Oh, where the soul)  

shall never die  

      (no, never die!)  

Not lyin' down, we're just movin' on  

to the other side  

      (by our Savior's side)!  

Yes, in the air, here's where we'll be  

but we'll be more than you can see  

as comprehension expands  

so far beyond the eye.   

When I was a tot, I'm told, I ran my hand in circles on the wall at bedtime and said the names of everyone I knew. No one could figure out why, and when my aunts and uncles talked about it at family gatherings years later, I didn't remember why, either.

I hadn't thought of this until recently when it hit me - an odd, random thought, literally out of the blue - I was God blessin' everyone.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.

God bless grandma, grandpa and mommy. Ann, Juanita and Ralph. Lonnie, Donald, John, Nancy, Linda...

What made me think of this as I was walking in the parking garage at work? I have no idea! I'm nearly 49 and haven't heard this story or thought about it in years.

Isn't it amazing how our brains hold onto memories and pull them to the forefront at the oddest times?

One of the first things to come up when questioning the existence of God and the extent of his powers is the question: "Is god all knowing and all powerful?"

You may have heard of this statement before, or a variation, and in an essay for Theology class one night, I made my view clear, setting aside my views of religion for logical and analytical purposes. Here is what I said:

If god is an omnipotent (infinitely powerful) being, can he create a bowl of cereal too big for him to finish?

First, we must set a standard for the term “God”. According to this question, God is omnipotent, meaning infinitely powerful, and must remain all powerful through the end. Now, with that in mind, we must look closely at the question. God is trying to create an object “Y” that is greater than him, “Y” being the bowl of cereal. Now we get presented with a catch: If God creates this bowl of cereal and succeeds, the bowl of cereal would be more powerful than him, setting God outside the standards of omnipotent. If God was not able to create the bowl of cereal, he would fail to meet the requirement and then again be set outside the standards of omnipotent. Since we have defined God AS omnipotent, neither of the scenarios is allowed to take place.

To make the bowl of cereal more powerful than him, God would have to be forced to stop eating the cereal. However, if he was more powerful than the cereal he would be able to finish the bowl. With that in mind, God can create an infinitely large bowl of cereal because he is all powerful. However, again, because he is all powerful, he will never be forced to stop eating, but because the bowl is infinitely large, he can never finish. Therefore God and the bowl have reached a scenario with no defined outcome and the question has no answer, making the entire paradox meaningless. And because God created a being that is equal to him, and the bowl of cereal can not complete the same task, god can unquestionably again be placed at all powerful.

According to Wikipedia, the most widely agreed upon answer to this question (when Y refers to a “stone that he can not lift”) is:

“One can attempt to resolve the paradox by asserting a kind of omnipotence that does not demand that a being must be able to do all things at all times. According to this line of reasoning, the being can create a stone which it cannot lift at the moment of creation. Being omnipotent, however, the being can always alter the stone (or itself) later so that it can lift it. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox)”

However this answer leaves several loopholes that generate new questions, as explained later in that paragraph. The new answer covers many of the loopholes that the other answer left open, while defining God as omnipotent throughout it.

What is your opinion?

Do you buy this claim, "Some geneticists believe there may be a God gene . . . The migration of races from Africa (or genetic drift from God's original design) is Africans --> Arabs--> Indians--->Asians---->Europeans.

Teaching and learning are the twin faces of growth and success. In this day and time we should not be still arguing over the importance of education for everyone in our society and for our country. We should all be looking at what works and expand our education system onto many different paths.

One of the issues that gets thrown back and forth is what do students need to know and what do they need to learn. Visual and verbal learning helps knowing but knowing may take experiences in order for the lessons to kick in. The kinesthetics of the learning process, the doing is also important. So doing things with your hands and mind with interaction, or working out a problem on paper or developing an object may be one of the best solutions for developing learning further. Hands on work, solving a riddle, doing experiments with tools and materials, active instead of passive participation is essential to develop skills and to enhance 'self teaching'. This is not a new concept, this is a very old concept, teach by showing then doing.

The problem with developing this approach in our day and age is because it is 'old school' and of course we are Post Modern Americans now. Technology and psychology mixed with a bit of sociology and politics have created numerous schools of thought on education.

"It is the tools and technology that is important, no, it's the students feelings or home life that matters most, no it's the amount of money spent or not spent that matters most, no it's the parents fault and responsibility to take care of this."

Pick your argument and go to town and forget the centuries of old ways of education and learning and knowing how to do something. Pedagogy trumps history because we are so superior to those old schoolers! What the Hell do they know anyway!

Teaching is hard work but we continue to throw huge obstacles in front of our teachers, new rules, psycho babble, pedagogical mish mash, new technologies to learn and then teach with, budget cuts, lack of material and books, local and national political manipulation, snotty administrators and parents, that is just scratching the surface folks. And you wonder why we have a problem. We need to consolidate our thinking on education a little more, quit developing new schools of thoughts and look back at old schools of thoughts on education.

We need more hands on education and educators, more apprenticeship programs at an earlier age, special schools that are focused on math and science and the arts. We need new crafts programs, free computer camps, integration of local and regional work programs, we need to work at this problem and not just write and talk about it anymore. We need to look back and what used to work well and make it modern again.

How old is this argument between knowledge and learning and gaining experience by doing the work? It is old and I will leave you with the words of a Master who thought and wrote about such things, Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo was apprenticed at the age of 14 years of age and went on to become a master of many things. Here are his words;

KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING AND EXPERIENCE

.....I know well that, not being a man of letters it will appear to some presumptuous people that they can reasonably belabor me with the allegation that I am a man without learning. Foolish people! Do they not know that I might reply as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying that they who adorn themselves with the labours of others do not wish to concede to me my own; they will say that since I do not have literary learning I cannot possibly express the things I wish to treat, but they do not grasp that my concerns are better handled through experience rather than bookishness. Though I may not know, like them, how to cite from authors, I will cite something far more worthy, quoting experience, mistress of the masters.

Even back in the 14th century they were arguing over learning, knowledge and experience. Seems like we should have figured something out by now.

"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." [Darwin] " …

We were at Trader Joe's, an upscale kind of grocery store, the Thursday before Christmas, my wife and daughter and me. My daughter, just 3-1/2 years old, was being very demanding of my attentions, insisting I carry her through the store.

We finally, arduously, made it to the check-out line and I put Darci down to walk and push the food-cart. She kept trying to push it into the woman in front of us in line, and I had to get between the cart and that woman in line, and Darci screamed with objection, "Nooooo, Daddy, No!" And I scolded her and told her that if she didn't behave, Santa would skip our house on Christmas Eve night.

A few minutes later, we payed for our goods. They were bagged and we stood at the receiving end of the check-out line. Out of nowhere that I could see, a fellow in a Santa Claus outfit was standing by my daughter, reaching down to offer her a little wrapped candy cane. I looked at Darci and at Santa and asked her, "Do you know who that is?" She was in complete awe, took her candy cane and said nothing.

Taking her out to the snowy parking lot, we wandered off to find our car. Ahead of us, I saw the Santa fellow walking off through the parking lot. Was my child the only one he needed to visit at that Trader Joe's store that day? He wandered off into the snowy distance like a high plains drifter of Clint Eastwood's old magic style.

I didn't think much of it at the time. But looking back, I'm wondering if I met the real article, whether there really is such a magical person, and whether we adults really believe as much in him as we possibly should.

Do you think the jolly ol' elf might just be real?

God damn! As I read over my page, I realize that the articles which have recieved the most votes over the past two years are those articles which concern religion.

As I watch the debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens at the Munk Debates which took place in Toronto this past November, I ask myself, "What kind of stupid question is that?" Let's see.....

Liberation is believed to the epitome of achievement of the human form. But the phenomenon of liberation is riddled with a great paradox.

'The medium is the message' was coined by Marshall McLuhan in his 1964 book titled Understanding Media: The Extension of Man.

It has been a long while since I read his book but the message McLuhan makes has stuck in my head for all time. As a visual artist I understand the prevailing meanings and messages in everyday symbols and I use them to manipulate the viewers senses and emotions with color, line, direction, dark, light and shape. Some symbols are so 'Universal' that I can get almost the same response in people.

McLuhan also stated that " The light bulb creates an environment with its mere presence". Now think about that for a minute and say televison instead of light bulb when you again say the phrase. What does that make you think about?

A painting or a piece of art, an advertisment, photographs can only convey so much. A head, moving in a light box, talking to you in your living room, looking straight at you, voice inflecting, smiling or grimicing has a lot of pull and push power to elicite emotional responses from you. We are mesmerized by the content of the story but do we ignore the subtle messages being conveyed with this medium?

Tell me what you think about Marshall McLuhan's message.

This is no ordinary bank: The ATMs are in Latin. Priests use a private entrance. A life-size portrait of Pope Benedict XVI hangs on the wall.

Nevertheless, the Institute for Religious Works is a bank, and it's under harsh new scrutiny in a case involving money-laundering allegations that led police to seize euro23 million ($30 million) in Vatican assets in September. Critics say the case shows that the "Vatican Bank" has never shed its penchant for secrecy and scandal.

I would like to start this article with extracts from a letter my mother wrote to me on 17^th October, 1975 while I was in the Army and far away from home.

“Riccardo my beloved son, neither Papa or myself forced you, your brother or sister to choose a religion, as that, whether you choose it or not, will be your choice and yours alone. The one thing that I cannot take away, though I wish I could, is the fact that I am a Jew, and Jewishness isn’t a matter of observance or belief, but a racial mark not indifferent to how we mark our horses and cattle on our estates, that will make people who are not Jews always hate you and condemn you for it, and Jewishness my son passes always from mother ( never from fathers) to sons and daughters. So irrespective of what you will believe, or not believe in your life you will always be a Jew, and considered a Jew to any and all who want to persecute or kill you. You’ll be hated for your success or hated for your failure; you’ll be hated in any case. The Christians will hate you for killing their Jesus Christ, the Muslims for being an infidel, the world will hate you simply for being a Jew and son of a Jew, that my sons I can’t take away from you, though I wish I could with all my heart”. Don’t fall in the trap of the Rabbis, don’t listen to their lies, don’t accept your destiny and go to get slaughtered like a sheep, just because a Rabbi tells that that is the punishment we deserve for betraying God, for we The Chosen People, have betrayed Yahweh. Don’t listen to any of these lies, because lies they are, all our religion, like all religions is based on groups of men wanting to exert power on other men, their arrogance, their lies have killed us in the millions, but remember you can choose not believe in Yahweh, or God, but you will never be able to choose not to be a Jew, and for that my son I hope you’ll forgive me”. (My Mother, Francesca LoMonaco-Rosenthal 16 July, 1931 – 20 January, 2007)

One of the three great monotheistic world religions, Judaism began as the faith of the ancient Hebrews, and its sacred text is the Hebrew Bible, particularly the Torah. Fundamental to Judaism is the belief that the people of Israel are God’s Chosen People (Chosen by who?), who must serve as a light for other nations. History contradicts this belief held by practicing Jews, as more than a light to other nations and people we have been considered more like a “historical punch-bag”, where all the other frustrated religious nuts have vented their repressed frustrations throughout history, through massacres, deportations, killings, tortures, pogroms, and “cherry-on-the-cake” the Holocaust.

In Judaism, a prophet is seen as a person who is selected by, and speaks as a formal representative of the “God of Israel”, oouch! That’s already the first point of contention, because of the God (or Gods) of Egypt for example, will have something different to say and probably in contradiction to the the God of Israel is saying creating inevitably the premises of something rather brown “hitting the proverbial fan”. The intention of the alleged message is always to effect a social change to conform to God's desired standards initially specified in the Torah dictated to Moses. Of course, what would be the object of the message of God, spoken for some inexplicable reason through the mouth of a “third party”, if not to instigate a social change, and a change in the political direction and in the distribution of power, from those who had it before the message, to those who were chosen by “God”, to bring the message to a gullible and ignorant population. This goes to show that though time passes, technology makes great advances, the stupidity of man remains constant through the ages.

In Hebrew, the word navi, spokesperson traditionally translates as "prophet". The second subdivision of the Hebrew bible TaNaKh (for "Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim") is devoted to the Hebrew prophets.

The meaning of navi is perhaps described in Deuteronomy 18:18, where God said, "I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him." Thus, the navi was thought to be the "mouth" of God. Now, as to why God, who should be multi-lingual in any case, and therefore show a proficient mastery of ancient Hebrew, the minimum requirement for a God that created the Jews and moreover made them the Chosen People, should need to speak through the mouth of a third party, in an historical period where tooth paste and mouth wash didn’t exist, is truly beyond my understanding, and actually I find this rather disgusting. The root nun-vet-alef ("navi") is based on the two-letter root nun-vet which denotes hollowness or openness; to receive transcendental wisdom, one must make oneself “open”. Cf. Rashbam's comment to Genesis 20:7. Ah! The Book of Genesis, just as true and factual as a Harry Potter novel, and jus as easy to prove.

In addition to writing and speaking messages from God, Hebrew prophets often acted out prophetic parables. How else can get messages across to an ignorant population; for example, in order to contrast the people’s disobedience with the obedience of the Rechabites, God has Jeremiah invite the Rechabites to drink wine, in disobedience to their ancestor’s command. The Rechabites refuse, wherefore God commends them, and probably sits with them and has a Bloody Mary. Other prophetic parables acted out by Jeremiah include burying a linen belt so that it gets ruined to illustrate how God intends to ruin Judah’s pride, pretty complex message for the intellect of the day, and I wonder how long it took for the linen belt to get ruined before Judas understood what Jeremiah was on about? Likewise, Jeremiah buys a clay jar and smashes it in the Valley of Ben Hinnom in front of elders and priests to illustrate that God will smash the nation of Judah and the city of Judah beyond repair, and I am pretty sure that it must have gone down well with the elders and the priests who probably thought; “who is this nutcase smashing clay jars”? God instructs Jeremiah to make a yoke from wood and leather straps and to put it on his own neck to demonstrate how God will put the nation under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and here we can actually the example of the origin of SM. In a similar way, the prophet Isaiah had to walk stripped and barefoot for three years to illustrate the coming captivity, and got away with it then but today he’d be charged with indecent exposure and prosecuted; and the prophet Ezekiel had to lie on his side for 390 days and eat measured food to illustrate the coming siege, that gives a whole new meaning to siege warfare and I am sure it had a real impact on who was actually watching all this.

God made a covenant first with Abraham and then renewed it with Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. Let’s look at these men:

1) Abraham: is the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, and the Midianites and kindred peoples, according to the book of Genesis. Considering that the source of his existence is a book of fairy tales, and proven to be so, then a serious “pinch of salt” should be applied to any truthfulness about his existence, let alone the rest. According to the Bible, Abraham was the tenth generation from Noah and the twentieth from Adam. He was originally named Abram, and his father's name was Terah; he had two brothers, Nahor and Haran his wife was Sarah, and he was the uncle of Lot. He was sent by God from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to take possession of the land of Canaan. In Canaan, Abraham entered into a covenant with God: in exchange for recognition of Yahweh as his God, Abraham would be blessed with innumerable progeny and the land would belong to his descendants, of course, sex and money have always made the world go round. God's promise to Abraham that through his offspring all the nations of the world would come to be blessed is interpreted in the Christian tradition as a reference particularly to Jesus Christ and his message of salvation for all men, but that’s another story. So to summarize, here we have a man, Abraham, that God contacts, and in exchange for absolute recognition and exclusivity promises him a great sex life and lots of land and power for himself and his heirs. Sounds about right. The recurring themes of Abraham’s story are the various agreements that he had with God, because these “covenants” were actually repeated and entered into several times. True to his promise God, (but mistrustful as God was, he actually at one point told him to sacrifice a son, Isaac, and that in the land of Moriah [now we fully understand the Mines of Moriah in Lord of the Rings], and when Abraham was about to cut his own son’s throat some angel came down flapping his wings and gave him a lamb instead, which is something that today would cause absolute chaos with the Animal Welfare Associations; now what kind of God would demand the human sacrifice of the son of one of his most trusted spokesmen on earth in order to prove to himself the absolute loyalty of his ambassador? And moreover, what kind of man would accept to kill his own son to appease the whims of a God?) gave him a damn good sex life, quite a few sons, at 99 he got another visit and was ordered to circumcise every male, he had a wife that died at the ripe old age of 127 years, and he himself died at the ripe age of 175 years old. And this is the founding father not only of Judaism but of the other two cousins, Christianity and Islam. All very credible, of course.

2) Moses: In the Hebrew Bible all the stories concerning Moses, another fascinating character, can be found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. In his early youth he was set adrift by his mother as one unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh got up in the morning on the wrong side of the bed, and decided that all Jewish children had to be killed. Old habits die hard. He ended up adopted by a shepherd, who gave him his daughter Zepporah in marriage and gave the control of the herds. God was hiding behind a bush when he approached Moses for the first time. Why not? A bush is as good a place to hide if you are God. God not only commanded Moses to go Egypt and deliver the Jews from the Egyptian yoke, but also taught him how to change his walking stick into a serpent (a neat trick), cure leprosy, and subvert the flow of running water. On his way to Egypt, God for some reason (a very strange passage that is not easy to translate) gets really pissed off at Moses, and nearly has him killed because he forgot to circumcise his son. Ooops! Anyway, when he gets to Egypt the unknown pharaoh is dead, and the new that took his place is the Pharaoh of the Exodus. As the story goes we all know, and by hook or by crook, causing death and pestilences amongst the civilian population, he manages to get the Israelites out Egypt, and take out the evil Egyptian army by drowning them like rats. Now the fact that there is nothing, no record whatsoever of any Jewish settlement in ancient Egypt, and nothing that proves all this; is irrelevant, why cloud with facts and logic such an interesting fairy tale.

The worship of Yahweh (God) was centred in Jerusalem from the time of David. The destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (586 bce) and the subsequent exile of the Jews led to hopes for national restoration under the leadership of a messiah. The Jews were later allowed to return by the Persians, but an unsuccessful rebellion against Roman rule led to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce and the Jews’ dispersal throughout the world in the Jewish Diaspora. Rabbinic Judaism emerged to replace the beliefs and practices associated with the Temple at Jerusalem, as the Jews carried on their culture and religion through a tradition of scholarship and strict observance. The great body of oral law and commentaries were committed to writing in the Talmud and Mishna. The religion was maintained despite severe persecutions by many nations.

Two branches of Judaism emerged in the Middle Ages: the Sephardic, centred in Spain and culturally linked with the Babylonian Jews; and the Ashkenazic centred in France and Germany and linked with the Jewish culture of Palestine and Rome. Elements of mysticism also appeared, notably the esoteric writings of the Kabbala and, in the 18th century, the movement known as Hasidism. The 18th century was also the time of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala). Conservative and Reform Judaism emerged in 19th-century Germany as an effort to modify the strictness of Orthodox Judaism. By the end of the 19th century Zionism had appeared as an outgrowth of reform. European Judaism suffered terribly during the Holocaust, when millions were put to death by the Nazis, and the rising flow of Jewish emigrants to Palestine led to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. In the early 21st century there were nearly 15 million Jews worldwide.

So, if one compares the three Abrahamic religions in an overall contest, the Jews thus believing in more or less the same fairy tales that the other two cousins, Christianity and Islam, differs in perception because of exclusive nature of Jewish religious belief, the “Chosen People”, this great Myth that influenced Jewish theological thinking for over 4000 years, and pisses off everybody else, as a religion tends to keep very much to itself does very little proselytism, as conversion to religious Judaism is not so easy for a non Jew, and confines itself in general within the strict confines of the Jewish Community in its practices and rituals. Sure, like all these religions Judaism has its own fanatics, but they are more or less a nuisance than a threat, and have a ridiculous dress code, that annoys everyone including secular non practicing Jewish atheist like myself. This cannot be said of Christianity that tends as a matter of course to proselytize or Islam that not only proselytizes but wants to kill or eliminate anyone who doesn’t accept Allah or his Prophet.

What's an atheist to think when thousands of believers (including prominent rabbis and priests) are praying for his survival and salvation—while others believe his cancer was divinely inspired, and hope that he burns in hell?

I thought it would be interesting to try and form a discussion based on snappy answers to profound questions. So without further ado, here goes.

THE RULES:

1. The topic of your question can be about anything in relation to religion, non-religion, religion in politics, atheism, God, evolutionism vs. creationism, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.

2. From there, the next person in the thread must answer and ask their own question, sticking to the same choice topics as above.

3. Straying from the topic will not be allowed and the Code of Honor will be strictly enforced. It's called snappy answers to smart questions for a reason.

So without much else, let's begin.

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age.

As the red flag of Populism waves angrily out in the nether lands, I sit and ponder the actions and reactions and think of history, the end ofa century and the beginning of a new one. Scary place to be here right now folks.

We have passed the fin de siecle, the end of the century and we barely survived all the prognostications. Y2K had people hoarding food and sizing up their neighbor for the meat hook, building shelters again in the back yardsof the suburbs, making plans and buying guns for that time, that end of the world scenario. How the heck did we get roped into this menagerie of fear and hopelessness? Well we listened to those first fears and prognostications of some and we saw doom for the lifestyles we had created. Damn, I hate having to make a fire in the morning and then going out to the woods to do what bears do!

Well anyway, We humans go crazy at certain times and this streak of Populism crops up especially when fear, anxiety and loss of an internal order displaces many of us. We all start to feel the heat on our own lifestyles. Who will be next to get the axe at work, why can't I pay all the bills I used to pay off every month, when will we begin to starve, who will help us?

America, the only people who have helped us is ourselves. The People.

From The Whiskey Rebellion till now we have fought against the same problem, the few over the many, the powerful over the weak, the power of money against the rights and wishes of the mass or the individual. It is the fight of the wants over the needs!

American Business, are your companie's wants more important than your workers needs? Does your global image superceed your national identity?

Politicians and party members, is you identity as an American less important than your political persuasion, is your TV station your image maker and argument creator, is one damn political celebrity more important than you or your family?

To all Americans, would you like people to open your door and throwin their trash, do you walk through your home and kick a beer can out of the way, or jump over an old pizza box on your trip to the kitchen? Well if you don't live like that then why do so many throw their garbage and used items out on the streets everyday. And whydo so many driveor walk right by it as they go to and from places?

Why do you walk past your neighbors house and not help if you see they need it, Ask if they need their grass cut! Go clean up your neighborhood with friends and family. You make your neighborhood what it is. Find out who your darn nieghbors are, meet them and help them.

Why let the smallest and weakest Americans wait in shame for health care, a job and a place tokeep clean just because you are scared too? Think how afraid they are everyday. Put yourself in someone elses shoes for a change.

This week we will all being thinking of thanks in some manner or other. Some will receive the gift of food from others, some will gain a little shelter from the storm.

Some of you are those people who will help and aid those in need. My heart and mind thank you for your help and your time doing this great thing, helping others is helping all of us. I cannot say it enough, thank you for your humanity.

Thismy friends is what it means to be an American, it is not how strong we are, it is not how rich our nation is, it is not the power or the glory of god, it is not a certain lifestyle or living space.

It is our nature to help those who need it, anyonein the world that may have strife, death and destruction knows there is one place that may offer sacntuary from the storm outside.

We are a Nation of helpers. Help our nation by doing more for it and its people.

You help others and you help yourself, it is really that simple.

Let's say you are not one of those people who acts out the charade on Sunday only to be like the rest of us during the rest of the week. It must be very difficult for you to read what has come off of the newswires today.

Poor Jesus.

There are two Viners whom I wish to thank publicly.

I happen to wonder about this topic a lot. People will just naturally believe very strongly in their particular religion. Predominately this is a Christian country, so much of what we get in terms of rhetoric follows along those lines. The Bible is seen as the living Word of the Creator by some Christians. If moving away from the "Bible Belt", not necessarily as a geographic locator, but speaking conceptually, there may be some Christians who do not rely exclusively upon the Bible for guidance. There would naturally be variations. Taken for the Judeo-Christian tradition, then other Holy books come into play, which would also have an influence on particular sects. After all, Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi, not a Christian.

If we are to go farther back into mankind's history, then we find the concept of many Gods. Gods which ruled various aspects, therby perhaps explaining the wraths and glories of nature, which we now reference as, e.g. Roman and Greek mythology. Mythology to us, but Religion to them. Of course these belief systems were not confined to Rome or Greece, and were found in many areas of the world at approximately the same time.

The Druids of Western Europe preceded Christianity.

Ahura Mazda was the one true God of Zoroastrianism, and preceded Islam.

Many of these ancient Religious beliefs and practices then largely died out, although some remnants remain to this day and are interwoven into the Relgions which followed. A fascinating lineage.

Of the worlds' modern, yet ancient, religions which have survived, then a few examples would be Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Shintoism, to name but a few. These may be a mixture of oral, monastic, and Holy books as valid as the Bible is to mainstream Christianity. Some follow their own Holy books as the sole intent of the Creator, just as some Christians might follow the Bible exclusively. With respect, I have never read the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Holy Quran, the Kojiki, the Nihon-gi, the Torah or the Talmud. Therefore I am ignorant, as I believe that most of us are largely ignorant of Religious beliefs outside of our own.

As for the Religious practices of the aboriginal peoples of any land, there would not have been any books to guide them, as far as I know, at least in the earliest of times. Guidance would have been passed down orally by Tribal Elders. Guidance was also received through their innate awareness and reverence of Mother Earth and the anima which resides within and without. Those who have gone before, the ancestral Spirits, were and are heavily relied upon to reveal an afterlife. Naturally there would be great differences in practices and interpretations between various native tribes.

I do not claim to know much about any of this. I would be interested to hear from people of all faiths and belief systems in order to learn about other mysteries concerning the here-and-now, the afterlife and their various interpretations. In other words, I wish to know more about all ways of believing, other than the prevailing Christianity, which is certainly more well known to me than other Religious and/or Spiritual practices.

And I wonder what The Jewish Rabbi known as Jesus would think of our world today. Would he find Christians to be the disciples he envisioned.........carrying on his teachings of love, patience and tolerance?

Would he see the similarities or the differences between Religions?

Is it a strength or a weakness to seek the unfamiliar? Are you curious or afraid? Can you give it a try? Are you willing to venture outside of whatever may be your Religious belief system in order to understand another?

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany 527 years ago today, on November 10, 1483 (It's still November 10 in California!).

To those who read my previous article and proclaimed that United States is still a Christian nation, I would like to ask you something. If the United States is still led by God, as many assert, why don't Americans behave in a Godly manner?

Many of the replies I recieve from those who claim that the author does not know God are quite amusing. Could it be that they might feel this way because they go to church on Sunday while the author does not?

By Chapman Cohen, The Pioneer Press, 1923

Chapman Cohen was a noted atheist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in September of 1868 and died on the fourth of February, 1954 at the age of 85. His career between the two dates was largely taken up by the promotion of freethought and secularism. He attended elementary school, but was otherwise largely self-taught. Having moved to London in 1889, he soon joined the National Secular Society, and began regularly giving lectures-- sometimes as many as 200 in one year. He was elected vice president of the society in 1895 and in 1898 became assistant editor of G. W. Foote's Freethinker. On Foote's death in 1915, Cohen was appointed both editor of the Freethinker and president of the National Secular Society. He held the latter role until 1949, and the former until 1951. Author of numerous books and essays on freethought and atheism, he published the following essay in Essays in Freethinking (first series) of which there were five separate series. This first volume in the series was published in 1923. Although there are a few of Cohen's works available online, I believe that this is the first time this essay has been posted online in its entirety.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

The extension of the principle of the survival of the fittest from the biological to other fields was a natural and rapid outcome of the perception of its truth. And to recognize its truth only one thing was necessary to understand it. For when properly understood the teaching associated with the names of Darwin and Spencer is much in the nature of mathematical demonstration. The survival of the fittest is true because we cannot conceive it as untrue. To say that the " fittest" does not survive is to make a statement that can only be accepted so long as we refrain from trying to understand clearly the terms of the proposition laid down. Once we do understand clearly the terms we use, it is realized that to say the "fittest" survive is almost, if not quite, axiomatic. Organisms survive because they are the fittest; their fitness is shown by their survival. There may be discussions as to the adequacy of the hypothesis to account for the origin of species, there can be none as to its actuality. That is self-evident.

A great truth, once enunciated, spreads, and it was not long ere the principle of evolution had penetrated all departments of thought. It obviously struck hard at those explanations of the origin of the world which were identified with the current religion. What Spencer called the carpenter theory of creation was put hopelessly out of court by the hypothesis that variation and survival were really active processes in nature. Instead of admiring the ingenuity of a mechanician designing the inhabitants of a colossal Noah's ark, we had to work out all the details of a single, self-adjusting principle. Instead of applauding the goodness of a deity whose care for animate life was evidenced by the adaptation of organism to environment, we were taught to see how a Nemesis waits upon all maladaptation, and that each case of adaptation is a register of myriads of failures that preceded it. The theory left God with nothing to do. The statement made some half century since, that evolution turned God out of his own universe was only questionable so far as it assumed the ownership of the universe by Deity. If he existed, it certainly turned him out. True, it was said that the theory left it an open question whether there might not be a God behind the evolutionary process. But a God who is merely behind things, a God who, so far as man is immediately concerned, does absolutely nothing, is not likely to trouble mankind for long.

One influence of evolution on religion was seen in the production of essays and sermons dealing with what was called the preparation in history for Christianity. These productions, on the purely intellectual side, took the religious ideas existing before Christianity, and argued that inasmuch as they resembled in some respects doctrines afterwards known as Christian, this was an evolutionary deity's way of preparing the world for Christianity itself, much as the eye in its present form is preceded by less perfect organs of vision. On the historical side it was argued that the widespread Roman Empire, the growth of one language as a vehicle of literary communication, the development of means of communication and transit in the empire, and the feeling of a common citizenship, was God's method of preparing the way for the conquest of Christianity. Of course, this was reading the thing backwards; but religious reasoning usually proceeds in this manner. Scientifically, these people were unconsciously explaining the origin and development of Christianity. They were showing that the ideas and beliefs known as Christian were blends of religious beliefs current long before Christianity was a sociological phenomenon no more demanding a supernatural explanation than does the development of the British Empire.

A bolder line is taken by those who accept the principle of the survival of the fittest, and argue that the persistence of religion is really an illustration of its operation. If it is said things survive because of "fitness," then the survival of Christianity, it is argued, is a clear proof of its being the fittest to survive. In spite of attacks Christianity lives, and this being the case the freethinking evolutionist must admit that Christianity contains something of value to man in his life struggle, otherwise it would long since have disappeared. Either the evolutionist must admit this or pronounce his own philosophy invalid.

So runs the argument, and it possesses a plausibility which commends it to many. It is to be met with in learned-often painfully learned-magazine articles, in sermons, and in the popular superstition that the destruction of Christianity might involve some very disagreeable consequences. It is, indeed, curious that those apologists who argue that Christianity was indestructible in the past because it possessed the qualities that demonstrated its "fitness" over all competitors and enemies are precisely those who fear most for its disappearance. Much of this state of mind may be accounted for by a misapprehension of the word" fitness." Most, if not all, of those who defend Christianity on the grounds of its fitness to survive, give to the term a moral or ethical significance to which it has no proper claim. What is actually the fittest in a given environment and what is the ideally best may be, and often are, two very distinct things. If we allow the possibility, Shakespeare among savages, or a primitive savage in a highly civilized community, would be equally" unfit," and would be crushed out. Whether the quality determining survival is an ideal quality or not is entirely a question of environment, and the Christian by no means demonstrates that the perpetuation of Christianity is a desirable thing, even though he is able to show that it has survived because it was the" fittest."

Further, if anyone will take a map of the world and note those places in which Christianity has undergone the least alteration-Abyssinia, parts of the South East of Europe or Spain-it will be noted that these are also the least progressive portions of the world. Here its survival has been quite in accordance with its own non-progressive character: If, on the other hand, we take the progressive portions of the world, it will be noted that there Christianity has only survived by so great a modification of its practice, and even teaching, as to hardly appear the same faith. Or, in other words, real Christianity has not survived at all. There has been a continuity of possession, even of formula; but to point to Christianity existing in England, America, France, or Germany as a proof that Christianity has demonstrated its survival value is simply absurd. Under civilized or progressive conditions its survival value is of the poorest possible kind. An organism or an institution that can only survive by some profound modification of its structure or character has really demonstrated that in its original character it could not have survived at all.

Yet again, the biological formula could only be properly applied to Christianity if the mental variations had been allowed to enter into a free competition with the normal type. But this never has been and is not even now the case. For many generations the Church weeded out all variations as carefully as it could, and, on the whole, with considerable success. And, at the same time, the environment was also kept, as far as possible, of an uniform character; or, to put it in another way, Christianity created and perpetuated an environment that placed a heavy premium upon the religious type. Under these circumstances, the survival of Christianity could be no more a proof of its social value than the existence of a heavily subsidized commercial concern proves its ability to live amid the competitions of the open market. How small was the survival value of Christianity was shown by the fact that so soon as changes in the environment were effected, first by the influence of the civilized Mohammedan world, then by the revival of the study of classical literature, and later by various scientific discoveries, Christianity had either to be modified or disappear.

The same lesson faces us today. Christianity is so little able to maintain itself under open competition that the energies of its professors are chiefly devoted towards the maintenance of an environment suitable to its continued existence. The maintenance of armies of preachers, the compilation of a special literature to encourage belief, the careful shielding of believers from all those influences that might unsettle their faith, the social influences that place a premium upon belief and attach a penalty to unbelief, are all examples of the creation of an artificial environment suitable to Christianity. The whole of the contest over education is but another example of the same kind. It is but the effort to surround the young with an atmosphere suitable to the growth of Christian belief; and all these efforts are so many confessions that, by itself, Christianity responds so little to the real and permanent needs of mankind, that if things were let alone it would soon disappear. Christianity has, as a plain matter of fact, continued to exist only because an environment suitable to its existence has been artificially perpetuated.

So far, then, as Christianity has survived, it does not follow that it survived because of its superiority over competing forms. There has, indeed, been no competition worth speaking about. A group of animals competing with other groups, individual animals fighting against climatic conditions or difficulties in the way of getting food, survive because of some genuine natural advantage. In the contest of ideas and systems certain of them survive because they are, for the time at least, more in harmony with con-temporary intellectual conditions. But the survival of Christianity was due entirely to the accident of its possessing power enough to crush its enemies with weapons that were really alien to the contest. In the early ages the criticisms of cultured pagans were not removed by adequate replies or by superior reasoning, but by the civil power of the Church ruthlessly stamping out their writings. A little later the dungeon and the stake served the same purpose still more effectually. And, later still, legal imprisonment and social boycott have enabled Christianity to secure a passing victory over its enemies. Tried by any reasonable application of the principle of Natural Selection, the survival of Christianity proves nothing-except how great an evil the accidental possession of power may be in unscrupulous hands. And if there is one thing more than another that clearly demonstrates its intellectual and moral unworthiness, it is that, in spite of all that has been, and is being done, Christian belief represents a declining force in the life of civilized mankind.

A more plausible argument than any of those I have examined runs as follows: An organism survives in virtue of its possessing some quality not possessed by others, or in virtue of a greater development of a quality possessed by all in common. With a change of words the same principle holds good of ideas and systems. The basis of survival is, therefore, utility. An organ or a quality may persist after its period of usefulness has departed, but so far as we can see development can only occur upon a basis of utility. Now, whether it be a good thing or an evil thing, the persistence of religion in human history is an unquestionable fact. I do not say the development of religion, because I hold that what people call the development of religion is really an account of its growing limitations. A thing cannot be properly said to develop when every step of its career involves a limitation of the area over which it exercises control. But religion has persisted; and those who do not agree with the religious position are called upon to explain how, if an organ only arises on. a basis of utility, it can be held that religion does not play a serviceable part in the history of the race.

This difficulty has been met by some writers confining the good influences of religion to the earlier history of mankind, and to the Iess developed members of civilized society. At a certain stage of development man needs some large, obvious, and awe inspiring force to make him amenable to the social yoke, and this purpose is served by religion. The objection to this position is that it assumes a condition of things that we have no reason to believe ever existed. It assumes that mankind once existed in the form of a number of isolated, lawless individuals who had to be broken in to social regulations as one breaks in a wild animal. The truth of the matter is that mankind is never met with save in a gregarious form, with all the capacities for cooperation that gregariousness implies. Moreover it is the social qualities that are transferred to religion, not religion that creates social qualities.

Another form of defence is that the essence of religion lies neither in specific doctrines nor beliefs, not even in the belief in a personal deity. but rather in the synthesizing of man's highest ideals and aspirations into a single whole. This is the main thesis of a work by Professor G. D. Foster, of the University of Chicago, on The Function of Religion in Man's Struggle for Existence. Both the God idea and the belief in a soul, as ordinarily held, Professor Foster puts almost contemptuously on one side. There is no such thing, he tells us, "as a self-dependent soul freely active or interactive within an organism which we call the body, just as similarly there is no self-dependent deity freely active or inactive within that larger body which we call the cosmos. All this is a survival of primitive animism, which populated the whole world with spirits, demons, hobgoblins." Perfectly true; although it is puzzling to see in what respect Professor Foster's own deity is more than a still more refined survival of this same primitive animism. Primitive man pictured his gods exactly as he was himself. Later ages refined this conception, giving to the gods all that was most admirable in man, physical and mental. Still later ages put on one side the physical qualities, and retained the mental only, leaving God, like a cosmic vagrant, without visible means of support. Still more recent apologists, seeing that to give God human intelligence is no more justifiable than to give him red hair, drop this also, and refer to deity as though he were a mere abstract force. And now we have the process carried yet a step further, and God reduced to a subjective, although a necessary, fact. It is the same process from beginning to end. The gradual weakening of the God idea before advancing knowledge; the last term being as fundamentally indefensible as the first.

Professor Foster reaches his conclusion by a method that is extremely fanciful and wholly wrong. He assumes that in the course of evolution certain organs arise because there exist certain" needs." Thus, the eye is developed because there is a need for sight, the ear because there is a need for hearing, and so, too, religion, arises because of man's need to satisfy the idealistic aspect of human nature, But this, I repeat, is wholly wrong. An organ does not develop in response to a "need" ; the "need" is the outcome of the organ being there. Function and structure are not two distinct things, one of which creates the other. They are two aspects of the same thing. The only intelligible meaning of organ is the capacity of any structure to do what its inherent properties necessitate its doing. Had this been borne in mind a deal of Professor Foster's book would never have been written.

The function of religion in the struggle for existence, we are informed, is that it preserves the higher life of man. But there is no evidence that religion has ever done this. Historically, there is scarcely an improvement in the human outlook that has not met with opposition from religion. And it is glaringly untrue if we take religion in its beginnings. " The gods were created," we are told, " for the sake of the most vital practical interests. They were created in the interest of overcoming the evils that beset the human organism and of appropriating the good that would redound to the weal of that organism. Need is the mother of the gods." This might be accepted if one were sure that it did not attribute to early man a greater speculative power than he possessed, and if it did not assume that the gods were created as a modern, scientific inquirer frames a law to cover certain observed facts. Unfortunately Professor Foster, like all other religious apologists, insists on reading into the beginnings of religion its latest manifestations, instead of testing religion as a whole in the light of the knowledge we possess of its origin.

Now, primitive man is neither a metaphysician nor an idealist. He does not concern himself with the origin and destiny of the universe, nor even with its nature, except so far as 'his necessities compel him to form some conclusions as to the nature of the forces around him. His gods are in no sense a creation of an "idealising faculty," they are the most concrete matter-of-fact expressions. It is not even a question of morality. He does not say, "Let us make gods in the interest of morality and the higher life," it is the sheer pressure of facts upon an uninformed mind that leads him to believe in these extra-natural beings, whose anger he is bound to placate. They are there as some of the supposed normal facts of existence, And their existence is due to nothing more nor less than the exercise of the same qualities that gradually leads to the development of science as a whole. The gods are, in brief, merely an early attempt to explain phenomena. There is no need whatever to deal with them from any other point of view than that adopted when we are examining an early theory of things in the light of later and more adequate knowledge.

The curious thing is that Professor Foster admits that improvement in the character of the gods is a reflex of the improvement in humanity itself. One questions, though, whether the full importance of the fact is seen. Still, it is admitted that "morals were first achieved by the human, then they were carried over into the divine. Just as there would have been no god of thunder had there been no experience of thunder, so there would have been no god of holiness, love, and faithfulness." Well, if this is so, what is the value and importance of religion? Professor Foster replies that it reacts on humanity, and gives a coherence and a validity to human ideals they would not otherwise possess. If religion is a humanization of the world, so is art, so is science.

On this one may make two comments. In the first place, no one who understands the nature of scientific conceptions questions that such phrases as force, law, cause, attraction, etc., are mere symbols. But they work, in so far as they help us to frame for ourselves a realizable conception of the universe. But once admit that "God " is a mere word, and not the indication of a positive, external existence, and religion, in any real sense, is destroyed. Next, the statement that religious beliefs react on human nature, so far as it is a mere statement of the principle of action and reaction, may also be admitted. But the important thing here is, not that it reacts, but that it reacts uniformly in the direction of a higher life. This religion does not, and cannot, do. On Professor Foster's own showing religion, having no other means of improvement than that which springs from humane society, can never be in advance of human development. And, as a matter of fact, it is always behind the better aspects of human life. Admitting, for the moment, that the religion of a people represents a synthesizing of that people's ideals, it is always the ideals of a past generation. Hence we have the age¬long struggle of religious beliefs with progressive thought-the attempt to rule the present by the less developed ideals of the past.

And this brings me to what is really the kernel of the whole matter. Religion is, as Professor Foster suggests, largely a transplanted sociology. Man reads his mental states and social feelings into the world around him. And as a natural consequence, as society develops so the religious ideals of the past are brought into contrast with a more developed mind and feeling, with the inevitable result that on the one side we have the opposition to all that challenges inherited beliefs, and on the other an attempt to restate religion in terms of the newer and larger life. In an earlier stage of civilization men naturally express their ideals in terms of religion, because the state of knowledge is such that religious beliefs cover a large portion of life. But as this area is limited, so men learn to express their artistic, scientific, literary, and social ideals in more appropriate forms. It is not true, therefore, that religion, as religion, contains anything useful and with which humanity may not safely dispense. All that IS claimed for it belongs really to other things with which in the course of evolution It has been associated. And some of us are optimistic enough to hope that one day mankind will realize itself for what it is, and see in itself not only the creator of all the gods, but also of necessity their executioner.

A sexually transmitted condition, one hundred percent fatal. It comes fully assembled, but without instructions, warranties, or guarantees. Your actual mileage may vary.

We all enter life the same way: helpless, naked, wet and screaming (some also exit life like that). We rely entirely on caregivers to make sure we're warm, fed and safe (again, results vary).

If you've ever seen a baby interact with the world at large, it's quite delightful. Eyes wide open, happy to giggle and chortle at anything colourful. Babies have no knowledge or real fear of anything - they're just absorbing everything they see, taste, hear, smell or touch and everything is a shiny, brand new discovery. It doesn't matter what country or culture the baby is in - all babies behave exactly the same way in any given situation. Grab it, taste it, spit it out if it's icky, drool all over it if it's not. Eat. Poop. Sleep. Repeat.

When we're old enough to walk and begin to communicate, we learn to interact and play with other children. Watch a group of four-year olds in the park - they don't notice differences in skin colour or whose clothing is a designer label. The don't ask the other kids about what church their families attend. They accept each other at face value - who has the ball, who wants to play on the swings, do you like bugs?

But once we begin developing higher intellectual interactions, all bets are off. This is when life begins to get complicated. Our parents and mentors begin to point out that little Tommy isn't the same colour we are, or his parents are divorced or (god forbid) both men, and so he's different. They make it sound like a bad thing, and even though we may not understand why, the intent is lodged into our little developing subconscious, left there to fester until another day. We begin to learn that "different" means "bad" or "less". We start looking at our friend Tommy with new eyes. Poisoned eyes. We don't get it - Tommy likes bugs and Tommy's family has always been really nice and they always make sure the snacks are fresh and they take us to the park. But the people we trust the most have surreptitiously suggested that Tommy isn't as good as we are, so Tommy and his family must be bad.

They start teaching us other things, too. They teach us that there are people all over the world that don't believe in our god. Their god is different. (We begin to see a repeating pattern of different equals bad, here). But again, these are the people we trust and love the most, so of course they know everything about everything and they want to teach it to us so we can be as smart and wonderful as they are. So, eyes wide open, we listen. We learn. We begin to distrust Tommy because he's different, just like the people who have a different god over on the other side of the world. Tommy ceases to be a friend. Tommy never learns why.

This same conversation goes on between children and their caregivers and teachers all over the world. Someone, right this minute, 15,000 miles away, is telling their child that our god is different from their god. Different. Bad.

As we get older and more responsible for our lives, we begin to seek out further knowledge. Our efforts are often limited to the font of information that is immediately available - and since people tend to congregate in communities where beliefs and cultures are shared, we find that our neighbours seem to have received the same basic information that we did. Therefore, it must be Truth. Any argument to the contrary must be Untruth. We begin interacting with larger groups of peers, many of whom spent their formative years in a different culture or community. Different. Bad.

We learn about conflict. We learn about manipulation. We get very defensive over what we have always been told is truth, and very offensive when someone tries to tell us a different story and paint that as truth.

The real truth?

Go back to when we were four.

OK, Who wants a holy war?

Does it make ANY sense?

When I saw headlines about folks burning the Koran, I could not believe it, then I felt sick in my heart.

But, to be honest, I’m not surprised.

Why? Well, its the sign of the times isn’t.

It is not as if this kind of hatred did not exist before 9/11. In fact, it seems to be building momentum. Back in the 70’s, this kind of thing was simply unheard of. But now we have people of the Christian faith doing just that.

So, lets talk profit. That is, who would profit from such a thing?

I think there are those who believe great profit could be had.

I think there are those who believe such a thing as a holy war between Islam and Christianity would bring about the next stage of the end of times, and the fulfillment of prophecy, so that Christ can return to earth and bring about his reign.

Are these guys serious? Well, I they are.

I also think they are extremely dangerous, and just as bad as Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

I think if they looked in the mirror they would see little to difference between each other.

So, what do you think?

By Chapman Cohen, The Pioneer Press, 1923

Chapman Cohen was a noted atheist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in September of 1868 and died on the fourth of February, 1954 at the age of 85. His career between the two dates was largely taken up by the promotion of freethought and secularism. He attended elementary school, but was otherwise largely self-taught. Having moved to London in 1889, he soon joined the National Secular Society, and began regularly giving lectures-- sometimes as many as 200 in one year. He was elected vice president of the society in 1895 and in 1898 became assistant editor of G. W. Foote's Freethinker. On Foote's death in 1915, Cohen was appointed both editor of the Freethinker and president of the National Secular Society. He held the latter role until 1949, and the former until 1951. Author of numerous books and essays on freethought and atheism, he published the following essay in Essays in Freethinking (first series) of which there were five separate series. This first volume in the series was published in 1923. Although there are a few of Cohen's works available online, I believe that this is the first time this essay has been posted online in its entirety.

WE have been dealing above with the curious decision of an American Board of Education to suspend the reading of the Merchant of Venice in its schools because the play was held to be an affront to Jews. This principle, if admitted in the case of the Jews, should in fairness be admitted in the case of others. No decent person wishes to place the Jew under a special disability-mentally and morally, one would have to work hard to get lower than anti-Semitism. But on the other hand, no just minded man wishes them to have special privileges. And there is something to be said on behalf of not permitting whole groups of people to be misrepresented under conditions where they are powerless to offer a defence. Decency and justice demand that. But there is at least one case in which not merely a group but practically the whole of the people of America and of Great Britain are libelled year in and year out with official sanction, and, apparently, without the majority of them being aware of it. Nor are we certain that the majority will feel obliged for our calling attention to the fact. On the principle that a man is not robbed if he is ignorant of his loss, they will say that if the people are not aware of the libel then no libel exists. But as we hold that robbery consists in taking unlawful possession, so we hold that misrepresentation and slander consists, not in our awareness of the fact, but in the utterance of the words themselves.

There is at least one book that really is a libel on the people of this country. We refer to the Bible. And it it is quite easy to prove the statement. Suppose that a visitor from another world made a tour of the schools, and knowing nothing about us except what he had gleaned from listening to religious lessons and reading the Bible, which he would be told was the "sacred" book of the country, immediately departed this planet. What kind of an impression of us would he take away, and what kind of a people would he imagine us to be? He would, probably, report that we were a people of incredible childishness in scientific matters; that we believed in the sudden creation of the world from nothing, that the general belief was that some "God" created every species of animal exactly as it is now, that he made a man and a woman -the one from dust and the other from a bone- and that all men and women are descended from them; that he hung the stars in a solid sky to light up the night, and the sun to give light by day; that he suddenly confused the tongues of the people, and that all languages owe their origin to that miracle; that serpents and jackasses talk, that diseases may be laid upon people by divine order and cured by an act of faith, that children may be born without a father, that a man may walk on the water, that the dead may be raised, that people may be possessed of devils, and that these devils may be transferred to others at the word of command. He would further report that the people worship a God who can condemn the whole of the race because the first man and woman disobeyed his commands, who drowns the whole race, with the exception of a mere handful, who orders his followers when they capture a city to kill everything that breathes, except the young women whom they are to take to gratify their lusts, who causes a number of children to be devoured by bears because they called one of his followers" baldhead ," who promises to punish the children for the faults of the parents, till the third and fourth generation, and who is depicted by his worshippers as vengeful, capricious, deceitful, cruel, bloodthirsty, and intolerant. And he would not unnaturally conclude, on the basis of the only knowledge possessed by him that we were a very childish, a very brutal, a very ignorant, and an altogether primitive type of human being. And his extra-planetary audience would heartily agree with him.

Now, if ever there was a libel uttered against the British people this would be one. We are not so educated, nor so intelligent, nor so humane, as one would wish, but we are not really such fools, or such primitive ignoramuses as the ascription to us of these beliefs would make us appear. We do not believe these stories, we simply repeat them. We are much better informed than this recital of our beliefs would make it appear. We do not act as we should act if we really believed in these stories. We do not believe that the rainbow had its origin in a bargain between the deity of an uncivilized Semitic tribe and his followers. Nor do we accept the moral standards implied in this deity's dealings with men. The man who acted on that principle would soon find himself in prison. And if counsel for the defence were allowed to speak, he would urge that we did not make this deity nor his standards of conduct, nor did we invent the accounts of the origin of things which the visitor found. We simply inherited them, and we are no more responsible for their existence than we are for the existence of a rudimentary tail or rudimentary ear muscles. Our responsibility consists in permitting these records to be read in schools, and so slandering ourselves and misleading children as to what we really do believe. 'the straightforward course would be to say to the world that we decline to be judged by our religion, that we do not wish our moral standards to be criticized from the point of view of the Bible; and the only criticism that could be passed upon that would be, "If you do not believe in the God of the Bible, or in the teachings of the Bible, why not remove it from the schools, and retain there only those teachings in which you do believe?" Pity that religion and truthfulness have only a bowing acquaintance?

Emerson went to the root of the matter when he said that you must never judge a people by their religion. The only qualification needed is the introduction into the sentence of the word "civilized." For you can judge an uncivilized people by their religion. Between them and their god there is an agreement so close that one may say, given the god one may tell the character of the worshipper. That is because we are dealing with the conditions that give the gods their being. He is fashioned in the likeness of his worshippers, and he reflects the social and ethical conditions that brought him into the world. There is all the connection that exists between the mould and the cast. But in civilized times gods are no longer born, they are only buried; and man's function in relation to them passes from that of a midwife to that of an undertaker. 'the gods come to civilized man from the past, they are fashioned in the likeness of the man of the past, the ethics of religion reflect the moral ideas and the social conditions of the past, and it is a gross libel upon the men and women of the present to pretend that the best of them are no better than the Bible Deity, although it may be admitted that the worst of them may feel that they are in congenial company. We can say of the art, the literature, the science of a country, that, given a knowledge of them, we know the people. And that is because these things spring from life, and are open to the modifying influences of developing life. But all religion belongs to a life that no longer has a being, and so, to exist, it becomes a stronghold of obscurantism, untruthfulness, and general hypocrisy.
There is no question but that if someone were to go into an assembly of educated men and women, and, without letting it be seen that the beliefs named were Christian beliefs, were to say that those present believed in the absurd stories that are to be found in the Bible between Genesis and Revelation, they would say it was false, and treat the imputation as an insult. And false it would be, because they do not really believe such stories. It is a libel upon their intelligence to presume that they believe them. It is a slander upon their character to assume that their moral sense endorses the conduct of the God they are supposed to worship. The thoughts, the ideals, the feelings of civilized man reach forward to the future, but his gods are always reminiscent of the past. That is why, the world over, there is a never-ending conflict between the forces of progress and religion. There may be an occasional armistice, but there is no peace. Religion commences in a reflection of human nature, and the gods are man writ large. But it proceeds by an attempt to keep human nature down to its own level, and it ends by being left hopelessly in the rear; while man, with his face towards the rising sun of progress, discovers the gods to be but outgrown images of his own undeveloped self.

"Those who wish that there would be no mosques in America have already lost the argument: Globalization, no less than the promise of American liberty, mandates that the United States will have a Muslim population of some size. The only question, then, is what kind, or rather kinds, of Islam it will follow. There's an excellent chance of a healthy pluralist outcome, but it's very unlikely that this can happen unless, as with their predecessors on these shores, Muslims are compelled to abandon certain presumptions that are exclusive to themselves. The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Those who pretend that we can skip this stage in the present case are deluding themselves and asking for trouble not just in the future but in the immediate present."

"The chief impetus of anti-Semitism remains theocratic, and in our epoch anti-Semitism has shifted from Christian to Muslim: a more searching inquiry into its origins and nature might begin by asking if faith is not the problem to begin with. This would also entail the related and essential question of whether the toxin of anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews."

One isolated incident or . . .

Everyone sins-even God. I know what you're thinking! "How in the world can God sin? Our Heavenly Father can't sin!" Ah! But He does-every single day! Did He not tell Peter to kill and eat something which was not kosher in Acts 10:13?

How the Christian Right Preys on Your Ignorance and Fears

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/obama-the-antichrist-how-the-christian/#ixzz0yQqeBuDL

These attacks on President Obama started long ago, if any of you remember James Dobson. Not surprising about the various groups trying to prove he is really a Muslim and not born in the United States.

I am cutting and pasting from a website re more unfounded attacks on Obama.

You can go directly to that site listed above and read for yourself.

Also, the last paragraph, in my opinion accurately describes how the Christian right, supported I believe, by the Republicants, and the Tea party groups.

The wolves who present themselves as "concerned" Christians prey on the absolute ignorance of their church members - indeed on all Christians. The viral emails going out from the Christian “right” painting Obama as the Antichrist are first and foremost shameful, and second are complete “biblical” fabrications.

In the New Testament there are only four references to the Antichrist. These are: 1 John 2:18; 2:22; 4:3 and 2 John 1:7.

Here is what you can point out to anyone sadly ignorant enough to accept such lies as the “gospel”: The Antichrist is never mentioned by Jesus Himself. All references are in the two later books of the NT, 1 John and 2 John.

All are references to people who are living in that day who are denying that Jesus Christ is "come in the flesh" or that Jesus and God exist. Some of the quotes are referring to people who were at one time part of the church but then left it.

In 1 John 2:18 the author is stating that there are many Antichrists and that this is proof that "[we] are living in the last times" [read end times]. There is no reference to the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation. Many right wing Christians try to use some of the definitions of the "beast" and the "dragon" as qualifications for the Antichrist - which is completely wrong.

Also not that in 2 John 1:7 we have this qualification for what the (or an) Antichrist is:

[7]For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. [8]Look to yourselves, that ye lose not the things which we have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward. [9]Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son.

There are those, in politics, business, and religion (and very often all three) who are so utterly desperate to hold on to power they will stoop to take any action. When we hear someone utter profoundly ridiculous statements — when we know they’re simply parroting garbage they’ve heard on right wing radio or FOX, please, ask them kindly, “Where did you discover those facts?” Keep asking them to supply their unimpeachable source of information until it becomes clear to them, and to any listeners, that what they’ve been spouting is nothing but lies...

It only takes a moment, but a little truth, like a drop of bleach in a gallon of water, can purify a mind from ignorance.

I agree with President Obama's statement below:

Barack Obama says Christian right has hijacked faith

“Somewhere along the way faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart… Faith got hijacked partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us. At every opportunity they’ve told Evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and Intelligent Design.”

Quel surprise!

Anyone who examines the ideology of socialism will see the contrast between the socialist doctrine and the doctrine of the Church.

Overthrow [of] the entire order of human affairs
Socialists assail the right of property sanctioned by natural law
The dream of re-shaping society will bring socialism
The condemnation of socialism should never be forgotten
"No one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist
The Church will fight to the end, in defense of supreme values threatened by socialism
No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism
Too often Christians attracted by socialism tend to idealize it in terms which, apart from anything else, are very general: a will for justice, solidarity and equality. They refuse to recognize the limitations of the historical socialist movements, which remain conditioned by the ideologies from which they originated
Socialism: Danger of a "simple and radical solution
We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything

Disguised as religion, Islam has penetrated democracies with the aim of replacing civility and liberty with the barbarism of 7th century Islamic theocracy and Sharia law. Islam's multi-pronged attack aims to destroy all that liberty offers.

America, with a long tradition of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the "hands off" practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as religion. A thorny problem is in deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call. We must keep in mind that to be a loyal and faithful Muslim, a Muslim must adhere to and perform many obligatory acts, as specified in the Quran by Allah and the Hadith/Sunna, during his entire life.

This could come from his Muslim environment when a child. He never comes out strongly in support of Israel. Do you think that is because he is afraid of offending Muslims? Do you think Obama would go as far as being a Holocaust denier to pander to the Muslims?

What do you think?

If we can place an orthodox synagogue, Israeli Consulate Office, a Jewish Bible Study Room, a Jewish Religious object store in the same complex as this Mosque, okay by me.

In fact, why can't it be an interfaith complex? Oh, right because the Muslims do not tolerate any other religions.

Just imagine the fireworks from Muslims the world over. Intolerance with a capital I.

Otherwise, why do the Muslims need a so-called Community Center so close to ground zero.? There is a mosque down the street and they are using the dilpidated building the Muslims want to tear down to pray in regularly.

Think about it, just think about it.

The British government and the Roman Catholic church colluded to cover up the suspected involvement of a priest in a 1972 bombing that killed nine people and injured 30, a new report said Tuesday.

Note: Study of the Koran is required.

Let them go to their beloved and sacred motherlands and study. This is a big mistake.

At least in France, they understand, no more Mosques!

"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian"

Is money the ultimate goal, the end of all means?

Nowadays, it seems, everything is not just measured in terms of money, but everything needs to be, has to be, in terms of money. Money is set as the goal, over anything.

Money is meant to be just a media for exchange of goods and services, not a goal on itself, yet our society has corrupted onto making of money a statement beyond life, family, marriage and most definitively above love and truth. Such a philosophy has degraded our souls to the point of denying everything that is in conflict with the value of money.

Even when charity is concerned, it seems mercy can only be measured in monetary terms, as if charity could be measured by anyone except God alone. If there is crusade or cause to be enrolled, the only acceptable way has been institutionalized as the amount of money it can be contributed, regardless of the individual efforts that could be applied or spent.

Money is for people the way to represent a value a price on the exchange of goods or services and for businesses it is too a way to keep score as the terminology used in accounting to produce a picture of the state of a particular enterprise.

Profits are only a value that is produced representing growth and as can be represented in terms of monetary value, they need to be assessed in terms of the common good they have produced in a just and fair perspective. The morality of business and individual gains therefore, can only be as good as the social impact they produce which needs and must be placed in perspective.

The goal of a business is to make money, but is in the meaning of making money where resides the value of such an expectation.

Jesus warned us not to seek richness making it clear that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to reach heaven.

The only way money can be driven towards just causes is by making it a task for the individual to use it adequately in concordance with the commandments of God resumed in the two mentioned by Christ; loving God over and above everything and our neighbor as ourselves. The only way to preserve the freedom God has given us is to use all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, from the individual to the society.

It is highly absurd and fallacious to surrender our ability to love, to be charitable, to others, very particularly, governments of every level, as not only this will remove from us the intention, but it will also surrender our freedom to that entity as well as make us renounce the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the elites that will feed out of the ones that need it most, negating the prosperity people need to satisfy the divine mandate of growing and multiplying.

It is not surprising how as the invasion of our lives by government dictates increase, families and marriage are being attacked imposing the killing of children, born or unborn as well as elders and incapacitated and sodomy is seen as the only possible life style, because sodomy is a creed of selfishness that rejects family and life.

When we let elites decide on how to define the proper role of government, we do surrender to them our ability to love, our freedoms, and renounce the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The distorted value money is given can be corrected by, for starters, exercising pressure over our governing bodies to eliminate taxes of every kind oriented to substitute love, thereby forcing the reduction of the size of the government apparatus to its minimum, or to limit it to the role is meant to assume which is of serving the people and administering common good and safeguarding social justice and for this matter, for this objective, the role of government must be restricted to that of protecting life and freedom, by legislating in simply and concise pieces that life starts at conception and through natural death and that there cannot be rights that suppress basic and fundamental liberties.

As much as we live in a world where the two identifiable forces are capitalism versus socialism, ignoring Christianity; we are being distracted from the truth of the fact which is that what is being imposed through either one is the culture of collectivism which is encompassed in the culture of death and the culture of money, of individualism, hedonism and over and above everything; selfishness, as all this reign of the absurd is only oriented towards satisfying the self, the ego, the I, me and mine, in complete disregard of our neighbors and therefore in denial of love as the natural force of goodness and which can only come from the individuality of the human person.

It is from the individual and by the individual, that a change needs to be forced so that society takes a turn for the better and finds love and truth as the only path towards faith, hope and charity, defeating the fear of the government, replacing it with fear of God, overcoming the despair and desperation, replacing them with hope of eternal life trusting God first, and recovering from having lost our dignity by surrendering our freedoms and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and our ability to love our neighbor and be happy by enjoying the little is needed.

The Vatican on Thursday issued new rules on the handling of abuse cases amid a worldwide scandal, ordering quicker investigations of paedophile priests and extending the statute of limitations.

The pope on Sunday called the raids carried out by Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse "deplorable" and asserted the right of the Catholic Church to investigate abuse alongside civil law enforcement authorities.

When asked about their religion, more and more people have been referring themselves as "Spiritual but not religious". And I couldn't help but wonder what people really mean when they say that.

When you read the definition of spirituality, it says:

"

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; such practices often lead to an experience of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

"

Spirituality seems to be automatically related to religion however in my point of view, there is a difference. Religion to me is a sort of "organization" and I do not believe in it. There are way too many religious/churches in the world and each of them will tell you that they are right...or teach something else and try to convince people to follow it.

I believe that religion confuses people way too much and some of them even take the opportunity to kind of brainwash the weakest minds.

However, I consider myself spiritual. I wonder where we came from and where we go to after we die. I have a lot of respect for our planet/nature and every living being.

I believe that everything on this planet and the universe connects somehow...it forms a circle of life and there are reasons why things in nature are the way they are. Why it's that way and how it started is what's mysterious and what makes me wonder and respect a source that I do not know or understand.

Does that mean I have faith in something I don't even know? I mean, can one really be Spiritual and not religious at the same time? Can people who do not at all believe in God or a powerful being be considered Spiritual but not religious?

I think that we don't really know what or who is right when it comes to our existence. I have many questions regarding the bible and the way things are done, and why so many bad, horrible, terrible things are allowed to happen to people. Some things really don't make sense....

But maybe that's exactly the point...we are not supposed to know...if we were, we would know!

Some people take chances...some people may act a certain way because they fear going to hell... or because they are scared of what may happen when they die because they didn't follow the "rules".

I think every person has his or her own beliefs, regardless of what it is. There is nothing wrong with it. But it seems to me that religion kind of takes away the spiritual individuality [or individual spirituality]. And just maybe people sometimes start to believe in what others believe [as a group] rather than making their own choice.

As for myself, I will keep thinking that we are here to live our lives to the fullest. To be good to others, to respect ourselves, life and the universe...to take care of the planet we live in;

It's not being materialistic...its being selfless and really caring for others without looking at who they are, what they look like, what language they speak.

What I know is when our bodies die, we take and leave nothing but feelings that we shared. And I believe that what really counts are the times we made others happy, smile, feel loved and cared for.

And this is why I consider myself Spiritual but not religious...because I believe our bodies will perish but our essence will never die.

The hunt for Human Origin, our shared quest for the true story of the demarcation point for our uplift from simple animals to reasoning beings. This quest has been consistently thwarted through the ages by religious dogma and repression of scientific thought.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about these things as of late, I have even broke out some religious writings and my old copy of The Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and am concreting some ideas I’ve been playing with.

One - Most people of this Earth believe that we sprang from the earth:

• Odinistic - Odin and his brothers packed the hollow cores of logs from a pair of beached Ash and Elm trees with sand and loam, Odin then blew breath upon them and Man and Woman were created. (pretty freaking cool, if’n you ask me)
• Christian, Judaism and Islamic - God created Man from clay, then created Woman from a stolen rib of his first creation. (sounds kind of like Medical Experimentation to me)
• Many Native American Tribes - Have a variation of this theme; The first tribes of the Earth emerged from the inside of the ground itself. (or as Ducki aptly put it “the earth birthed the first tribes” - Thanks Ducki!)
• Secular Scientific - Has proved that we share 99% DNA with Chimps

My Acceptance of our terrestrial origin should be clear… If not, Yes I have a strong idea that; We Are From The Earth!

Two - Most People of this Earth believe in some form of “Higher Power” and have rules and traditions that govern their lives. (This is where the trouble starts.)

• Odinistic - There are many traditional rules for an Odinist. For example; To become a hero in the Odinistic tradition a warrior seeks out a stronger opponent, engages that opponent in close combat (hand-to-hand or blade combat), and seeks no advantage (use of magik or poison) over that opponent.
• Christian, Judaism, and Islamic - There are numerous rules and regulations that the One True God lays down on it’s followers. The ones that stick-out in my mind is the food restrictions. (Like the One God give a Rat’s Ass what any one human consumes on any one day… Right)
• Many Tribal Peoples from around the World - Their beliefs restrict an individuals travel and settlement by making geographical locations sacred and taboo.
• Secular Scientific - Even scientists have standard practices and procedures that allow for the proofing of theory with the thought of the repeatability of experimentation

Point two reflects the need for human social structures to create rules to govern the lives of a population. This I can also accept - to a limit though. When folks want their rules to bleed-over into other groups, that is where one of the limit lines would be, for me.

Three - Many people of the world believe that their gods (or agents of their god ) actually walk the earth and interact with Mortal Humans in some form or another.

• Odinistic - Odin is said to cloak himself in human garb and interact with us: King Hrolf Kraki had an encounter with a one-eyed old farmer upon his return to his kingdom after a successful heroic campaign against his Swedish rival King Adils - the hooded farmer greats the Danish King and congratulates the king on his victory and the bravery of his warriors, and then offered the king weapons and assistance. King Kraki declined the offer out-of-hand… only later to realize that the old farmer was Odin, and the King’s doom was set. One does not offend Odin without repercussions.
• Christian, Judaism, Islamic - The whole Burning bush dealio
• Native American Tribalist - The gods of nature surround them… and even take the form of animals for communication perposes
• Secular Scientific - Many scientists are working on experimentation that could be loosely described as “Translating the language of the Universe”.

Point three I can give some credence to… but as far as the last thousand years or so they Gods have seemed to abandoned us to our own devises.

Four - Mono-theism has been a repressive force over scientific endeavor (the hunt for our origin especially) for many ages and the hold that religious fanatics had over science is only recently begun to break.

• Giordano Bruno (16th century Roman Catholic Scholar) - Burned at the stake as a heretic for espousing that the universe was made up of an infinite number of worlds, and many were inhabited.
• Johannes Kepler (16th century Protestant seminarian and school teacher) - A brilliant mathematician that worked out the geometry of the solar system (specifically: the math that explained the motion of the planetary bodies), and all the while having to reconcile the truths he was finding against established dogma. His 74y.o. mother, Katharina Kepler was accused of witch craft - about the time Kepler wrote one of the first “Sci-Fi” novels in the world called The Dream. Science Fiction was a new concept in that day (to say the least) and the book was used as evidence at Katharina’s trial. He successfully defender his mother, this was all happening during the Thirty Years War. Kepler was eventually excommunicated for stubbornly holding on to his theories and died soon after. His gravesite was obliterated by the fighting during the Thirty Years War.
• We all know the Galileo story - Imprisoned and threatened with True Torture (not that pussy-whinny water-in-the-face clap-trap… nope we be speaking of Hot Pokers up the Bum style torture) if he did not retract and refute his heretical thoughts. (Shame on those pucker-butts)

Point four is pretty freaking apparent!

Five - this is not a point, but a question… If we were created (be it a genetic engineering uplift procedure or some fuzzy-nutted omnipotent deity), why were we created?

• Odinistic - We are a partner race to the Gods - Human Warriors will eventually fight at Odin’s side in the final battle called Ragnarok. (I like that, sounds like fun)
• Christian, Judaic, Islamic - The One True God’s plan is an eternal mystery (yeah, that instills confidence)
• Zakaria Sitchin - Puts forth the hypothesis that an alien race came a calling on our fair planet and uplifted apes to human beings… for the purpose of mining gold and other slave type work. (This explains the Human affinity for Gold)

I can’t say why we were created, but I have ideas…

Conclusion-
Ok four points identified and explored (with a quick question thrown in)… Ideas are solidifying but I must say the Gods of my Volk kind of irritate me (but like America - sure there may be problems, but it is still the best country on the planet - They are the best Gods to honor ) I think the Gods of Asgard abandoned the planet long ago but so did the other Gods… allowing a cult to a distasteful desert deity to raise up in the vacuum. I also have the idea that we humans became more powerful and began to understand the tech of the Gods , so they may have felt a bit threatened by their creations (another cool thought).

No Matter how Irritated I get with the Gods of Old… I will continue to honor their legacy (such that it is) not only because they are the Gods of my blood, but they are also the only deities that I have come across in my comparative religious reading that do not want their Human Partners to Bow, Beg, Grovel at the base of their thrones. They just may have been one of many alien races fighting over this planet 100,000 years ago, who knows? Odin, Thor, Freyja, Loki, Tyr are all just way more fun to follow than Mono-theistic One True God and the overblown soap-opera screenplay known as the Bible/Torah/Koran that accompany that belief system - that is clear to me.

Besides how can any Warrior follow a weak Demi-God (the product of a God and a Mortal) prophet, Jesus - and his absentee Father Yahweh who allowed a bunch of unwashed @!$%#s nail “his” boy to a big wooden cross (Mono-theism is even worse when one considers the Islamist views on some things). Oh but he sure could burn Sodom & Gomorrah to the ground because the people there followed their hungers - Pathetic! At least that is my read on the situation.

I have been wondering about an old Hopi creation myth(?) about humans, namely us, journeying from other planets to get here to earth. In fact, according to the myth, Earth is the fourth to be populated through migration.

Since I have heard this tale nearly a decade ago, I have always felt it to hold kernels of truth.

So here is the question: How did we do it?

A better question: Why?

THE epithet "denier" is increasingly used to bash anyone who dares to question orthodoxy. Among other things, deniers are accused of subordinating science to ideology. In his book Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives, for example, Michael Specter argues that denialists "replace the rigorous and open-minded scepticism of science with the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment".

I didn't know it then, but I met my wife back in junior high school.

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the church's own sins for the clerical abuse scandal — not a campaign mounted by outsiders — and called for profound purification to end what he called the "greatest persecution" the church has endured.

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday accepted the resignation of a German bishop who admitted he beat children in a Catholic orphanage and also faces a paedophilia probe, the Vatican said.

As a child, you go to your place of worship and learn what you should believe. You entrust your heart and your soul to that very institution....and then, something goes wrong.

Just when you thought someone found Noah's Ark, the truth comes out.

While today's Christian church advocates an unholy alliance between unbridled capitalism and religion, the early Christian church did quite the opposite.

When Sandra Cisneros took the podium, it was clear from her demeanor that she is adept at leading writers into a respectful and deep engagement with their spiritual selves. She began by citing the "Compassionate Code of Conduct" of the Macondo foundation, which states, "We have an opportunity to create the world we would like to live in every day." Although she only had a short time to talk, she cut to the core of the experience of writing with, surprisingly, a bible passage. In Genesis 32:24, Jacob spends all night wrestling with an angel. When day breaks, the angel asks to be let go, and Jacob responds by saying, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." Of course, in Cisneros' reading, the angel to be wrestled is the piece of art itself, which must be entangled and wrestled with to the point of exhaustion, but the artist cannot let it go until it reaches the point where it blesses its maker by revealing something about him or her.

A senior cardinal staunchly defended Pope Benedict XVI from "petty gossip" on Sunday as the pontiff maintained his silence on mounting sex abuse cover-up accusations during his Easter message.

Sodano defended the church's priests as well as the pontiff.

"Especially with you in these days are those 400,000 priests who generously serve the people of God, in parishes, recreation centers, schools, hospitals and many other places, as well as in the missions in the most remote parts of the world," the cardinal said.

5 Soul - Winning Questions

1. Do you have any kind of spiritual beliefs?

James 2:19
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

2. To you who is Jesus?

John 10:30

I and my Father are one.

3. Do you think there is a heaven or a hell?

Matthew 3:2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Revelation1:18
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

4. If you died tonight, where would you go? Heaven or a Hell.

Mark 1:15

And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

For Hell - Do Nothing

5. By the way, if what you were believing is not true, would you want to know?

This article is from the March 1904 "The Missionary Review of the World."

Richard Bennett, a former Roman Catholic priest, is President and founder of Berean Beacon Ministries which proclaims the Good News of Salvation (the Gospel of Jesus Christ). A ministry of truth, love, and compassion to Roman Catholics, and plain Biblical truth to Evangelicals embracing a false ecumenism.

Christopher Hitchens' venomous attack on Pope Benedict XVI ("The Great Catholic Coverup", 18 March, 2010) is a revelation that deserves wider attention. Were it not for its appearance in Slate in the United States and in the National Post in Canada, it would be difficult to believe that a reputable newspaper would publish such absurdity.

“The highest form of goodness is like water.

“Water knows how to benefit all things without striving

with them.

“It stays in places loathed by all men.

“Therefore, it comes near the Tao….”

Lao Tzu.

Water.

This is so true I think, especially in terms of finding and exploring dark places. My dreams tell me things that I’m aware of, and things I’m not. Even the stuff I have no desire to know.

Question:

What do I do with the stuff? Especially the stuff I have no desire to know about myself?

Long ago, I set a path to unlock doors and break down walls in myself, in my dreams, so that I can expand my understanding….

So burying ‘stuff’, even the unpleasant stuff, is against what I’m about spiritually, (unless, of course, I want more of it….). As for trying to control it, I don’t think that works either.

Time and again, ‘control’ has let me know that I will sometimes set myself up to be blindsided by that which I have control of.

Instead of burying it, or controlling it, I accept some of the unpleasantness as part of my nature, or inner mysticism, as part of a cosmic balancing act.

Or, as part of a cosmic flow, as a current among currents, as water that is neither attached nor apart.

There is probably more to this, I’m just feelin’ my way through….

Any thoughts?