Satan’s Garden

In some Protestant churches, mostly Baptist, the old becomes the new as churches return to the practice of shunning those it finds sinful and unrepentant.

Personally, I find this to be great news. The more medieval practices crop up, the more likely these churches will loose congregationalists. They’re eating themselves from within. Furthermore, as the various churches all move to copy this kind of thinking - and they will as they desperately try to restore themselves to “greatness” in society - the more repulsive their behavior will appear to rational people and the more polarized the argument over religion will become.

This will lead to turmoil, certainly, but in the end religion looses. Reason will eventually prevail over nonsense and this action on the part of these churches calls that dynamic squarely to attention and brings down the focus of reason, where it has been lackadaisical before.

Pat Condell has changed my thoughts about debating Christianity (and religion in general.) His points here are simply too compelling to ignore.

“I think to engage dogma in debate is to legitimize it…”

Pat, I think I finally agree with you. That nascent feeling that something was wrong with my approach, swimming in the back of my brain, has been nurtured by this simple message. There is no reason to be polite about this. It is time to stop giving superstitious nonsense anything but a sound, derisive tongue lashing. I’m done with appeals to logic, softly spoken words and side stepping comments that might cause pain through ridicule. Primitive superstition deserves nothing less than complete and utter ridicule and scorn.

I’m done being diplomatic toward nonsense. I’m done with my old hobby.

A sincere thanks, Mr. Condell.

Some things are just so spooky, that no added description needs be written.

Addendum: I should have written this 37 years ago. Moron. (Yeah, that’s me. Thanks to Adam for pointing out the obvious.)

Let this be a lesson to everyone, especially me, to read the faint print… I might as well remove the original response, as not to cloud the issue any with Google hunters.

Now, where did I put that plate of crow?

As this is the Christmas season, my thoughts once more wander to the Christian faith and all of its trappings.

I have a friend who once argued with me that all of the religions resembling the Christ myth, were simply God’s way of preparing people for the coming of Christ. He quoted CS Lewis, who wrote: “We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘pagan christs’: They ought to be there - it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.”

As I see it, you have two choices when it comes to the Christian Passion story:

1. Christianity is a culmination of thousands of years of previous religious myths which are almost identical, including the resurrection myth, virgin birth, et cetera, from Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, Sumerian, Persian, ad nausium other cultures. Evidence of such exists in vast quantities. Many ancient gods can be found who’s story tells of their death and resurrection - some nearly identical, such as Tammuz, an ancient Sumerian and Phoenician god who was said to have been born of a virgin, died with a wound in his side and after three days rose from the dead, leaving a vacant tomb with a rock at the entrance rolled aside. Among the others with similar stories are: Adonis, Aesculapius, Apollonius of Tyana, Attis, Dionysus, Hesus, Indra, Krishna, Mithra, Osiris, Prometheus, Wittoba and even Buddha.
2. The presence of almost identical religious myths from previous cultures going back thousands of years is the prelude set up by God in order to help prepare Pagan cultures for the arrival of Christ.

Version one requires no supernatural influence at all. Myth is passed from culture to culture through time and is influenced by additional story tellers. Version two demands supernatural influence - where all the previous similar stories were influenced by God in order to “prepare” pagan peoples for the upcoming event.

Which is more likely; the natural, or the supernatural? Logic dictates version one to be 100% probable. Faith dictates version two, as a platitude for the data at hand.

Since the discrepancy is over the use of the supernatural in this context, it is up to those who propose such to burden the proof of such claims. Without any mumbo-jumbo, sorcery, godly influence or supernatural manifest, version one works and makes perfect sense.

Version two cannot possibly work, ever, without a belief or faith in the existence of said God to begin with. To believe that version two is even possible, you have to have faith in such because there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever from the outside to support the claim.

In fact, Christianity is unable to provide the tiniest shred of evidence to support their claims. They have testimony of a few anonymous individuals and nothing more. To embrace Christianity is to embrace the antithesis of logic - it is to stumble into the misgivings of faith - faith in an unsupported story.

Digging further in the construction of the Christian equation, it displays a continued disconnect from logical process. The standard argument for the very need of Christ, is for God to fulfill Old Testament requirements for a sacrifice for sin, so that the Jews could understand its significance. That sacrifice must be something valuable of God’s, his best and most personal - requiring the shedding of blood.

Why would you set up a system such as this for a specific group of people, broken down by a specific creed? This would mean that God is racist. As it stands in this system, God still made the rule that atonement was required. Why keep the rule? Is it serve his vanity? There is no logical reason that an omnipotent being could not change the rules to forgive and except everyone no matter what they believed. That would be true compassion.

The very idea of damning a person to eternal torture because they don’t accept another person’s testimony (with no corroborating evidence to back it up) is a ludicrous system for an omniscient being to instate. It would mean that gullibility is considered a virtue and logic is a vice.

Furthermore, Christianity does not answer any problem that exists outside of Christianity. The concept of sin, redemption and salvation from eternal damnation are all part of the same package that promises the answer to avoid such by believing and following the system. Without Christian mythology stating that there is a Heaven and Hell, there is nothing to be afraid of. Ultimately, it’s a protection racket.

Without Christianity, there is no Hell to be worried about. It uses a simple scare tactic: to accept the message of salvation, one must first accept the existence of a horrible afterworld to be saved from. Christianity does not provide evidence for either. It asks one to believe in an undetectable supreme being in order to avoid going to an undetectable horrible place and instead go to a better undetectable place after you die. Not a shred of evidence exists to support this construct. Even if the construct were true, it supports the general notion of a cruel and malevolent God. A merciful God would at least cause a cessation of existence to one who rejects him. Only an utterly selfish and evil being would condemn someone to eternal life in utter torture - for any reason. Why would anyone feel compelled to worship something with such an evil streak?

As for omniscience and free will - they are mutually exclusive. For free will to exist, the outcome cannot be known. If the outcome is known by God, and the being is created anyway - that is fate and a lack of free will. The only possible way that free will could occur while God is omniscient is for every possible choice by everything to happen in a construct of infinite parallel realities to this one, playing out all possible directions of decision simultaneously. In this you have free will and an omniscient God, but salvation and damnation by definition are simply impossible, as you would be required to inject fate by deciding which reality line to choose as being the only one that ultimately counts, out of an infinite number of realities. (You cannot pick a percentage of reality’s decisions either, as you cannot make a percentage of infinity.) Once you have made that decision, free will is rendered moot - the timeline of ultimate decision becomes a simple edict of God’s will of who is saved or not, even if they have made choices that would have lead them to salvation in other realities now ignored. The whole system falls apart.

When faced with the stories of Christianity and the acceptance of any of the material in question, it will always boil down to the question of faith. Faith is making the assumption that the material you are told or otherwise given is true, based on the perceived merits of the teller. No empirical evidence is required. This benefits the teller greatly, when no empirical evidence need be presented.

As Dan Barker, a former evangelist puts it, “Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.”

In the case of Christianity, you must accept that the Bible is the word of God and therefor true. What support does this claim have? Nothing other than the Bible itself saying that it is the word of God and the Church who claims to believe this and make the same statement. Pardon? Couldn’t any material prop itself up this way?

Even if I were to stoop to taking such serious questions as religion attempts to answer, on the basis of faith in witnesses alone, I am wary of the Christian witnesses. In his book, “The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence,” John E. Remsburg lists over 40 authors who lived during the time, to within a century of the time that Jesus supposedly lived and there is not a single mention of Jesus by any of these authors.

As Remsburg writes, “Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.” (Many thanks to positiveatheism.org for providing this material online.)

Let’s not forget some of the events which were supposed to have occurred. Miracles left and right by Jesus himself; a Virgin Birth, resurrection from the dead, feeding the multitudes with fish and loaves that are pulled from thin air, and so on. One can easily imagine news of these events making the writings of the local literary craftsmen. However, even this pales to the sun turning dark, the earthquake and the temple curtains tearing and the saints rising from the graves and being seen by the multitudes in Jerusalem. That was the first century equivalent to the Hiroshima bombing: someone outside of a few anonymous authors of the Canon would have written about this! That they did not, is very, very telling.

Stories. The Bible is just a collection of stories, handed down in the latest recycling of a myth which has existed since ancient Babylonia at least. It is a work of semi-historical fiction.

Testimony, as it is, is worthless to the prime questions of existence. My challenge to any religious thought will always remain the same, please provide empirical evidence for your claims. Some may say that this is a “hard nosed” approach, or even disrespectful, but I have to counter that with a simple question: Why should I segregate religion into a different mental arena than the one I use for all of the rest of existence? I demand empirical evidence from science. I demand empirical evidence from government. I demand empirical evidence from everything else. Why am I a villain when I demand empirical evidence from religion?

There is nothing wrong in demanding evidence. It is what separates the mental wheat from the chaff. It is the demand of a logical process of thought.

Until someone can prove to me that embracing the illogical is a better method of thinking, I will demand empirical evidence for claims. The wilder the claim, the more evidence I will want to see. As Carl Sagan put it, “Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence.”

I’ve gone off against this crazy religion a few times, but I’ve never seen a video that quite so vividly captures the insanity of the followers of this cult. From straw man accusations to stalking the cameraman, they display the traits which so vividly show that these people are not beyond criminal intimidation, and probably not beyond criminal violence, in order to “protect” their insane belief system. You can find more at XENUTV.

This BBC report is not as frighteningly “in your face” with the craziness of this church, but it has a great deal of amazing information showing it all for the fraud it is.

Rep Pete Stark, (D-California) has become the first congressman to declare that he is atheist. This makes Stark the highest ranking elected official in US history to publicly acknowledge that he doesn’t believe in God, or any other supreme being. Political annalists claim that Stark has little to fear over his proclamation, as California is one of the most, if not the most secular state in the Union. Claims were made by others that such a proclamation just a few years ago, would have been “political suicide”.

Let me see if I have this straight. A congressman declares that he is atheist, that he doesn’t believe in a mysterious, unprovable conjecture with no supporting empirical data of any kind, and this would constitute “political suicide”?

If that doesn’t give a prime example as to the dangers of mixing religion and politics in general, I don’t know what does.

Frankly, I’d rather have a political servant devoid of dangerous delusions and immune to the wiles and wills of any religious organization, than one who firmly believes in the unprovable assertions of any supernatural dogma. Why is it that ignorance and uncritical thinking are given merit in someones personality, anyway?

The facts are simple: there is not a single religion that has been able to prove that their religious beliefs are valid. There is not a single religion that has been able to even provide the tiniest shred of evidence for the existence of their god, or any other god. They depend entirely on faith: belief in spite of lack of evidence or the presence of contrary evidence.

Putting aside all religious questions for the moment, is there anyone who can logically argue that electing individuals who believe things that have no evidence to support the belief, is a good thing? You would think that just a casual glance at the Bush administration would be proof of the dangers of belief without evidence.

Max Blumenthal has made quite an interesting and scary short movie on his experiences at the Christians United for Israel’s (CUFI) Washington-Israel Summit, held on July 16th. Find his blog and movie entry here.

I’ll be frank: these people are insane. They’re taking active measures to hopefully bring about the end of the world, as their dogma describes it. Worse still, some of our politicians are among their ranks, including Sen. Joseph Lieberman. They are taking active steps to pressure an invasion of Iran and firmly believe that Satan is behind the Muslim religion and all activities against Israel’s goal of expansion.

On July 19th, 1692, the first five convicted of witchcraft are hanged in Salem, MA. George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., John Proctor and John Willard paid with their lives, over the irrational rantings of a religiously feed bureaucracy, more concerned with a fast trial than a fair one. Later in September, Giles Cory is killed by pressing (heavy weight continually added onto the chest in order to make breathing difficult) as they tried to extract a plea from him over two days of this torture. More are hanged. By the time it was said and done, twenty people had been murdered by their own government, based on nothing more than testimony about dreams and visions - spectral evidence.

We look at these events today with a shake of the head and bewilderment. How is it that anyone could fall for such moronic beliefs? How could anyone view the world with such irrational eyes? We view ourselves as more enlightened than they were.

Are we?

In 1999, a full 307 years after the Salem witch trials, Brandi Blackbear, a 15 year old student in Union High School, in district nine of Oklahoma, was suspended for 19 days when the school accused the Wiccan girl of casting hexes on one of her teachers, causing the teacher’s illness. Afterward, her father and the ACLU sued the school district for their actions. Timothy Blackbear, Brandi’s father, was quoted as saying, “It’s hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft brought by her own school.”

This was not a decision based on the actions of one nut in the school. Defendants named in the lawsuit were Union Eighth Grade Center Principal Jack Ojala, Speech Therapist Catherine Miller, Union High School Assistant Principal Charlie Bushyhead (this name is a little too ironic) and Counselor Sandy Franklin. It was a decision of many.

Aside from the various asylums for the insane, this lack of logic, this absence of rational decision making, this delusional mindset is only found in one place in our modern American society: in radical Christians. Yet, these dangerously delusional individuals are not only holding places of importance in our society, such as school teachers and principals, they’re running our society’s government.

Currently we have a government body in this country, which consists of a good number of these zealots. The Bush administration has filled position after position of federal government with recruits from Regent University. In fact, at least 150 graduates of Pat Robertson’s school of Biblical interpretations of reality, have been placed by the Bush administration into high levels of government. This means that at least 150 people, with frighteningly delusional mindsets, have been put in charge of federal organizations that affect all of us. Even if you are a Christian (I’m very sorry, I can cure this for you if you’re willing to discuss actual evidence) it should worry you that so many in the radical fringe of the religion are in positions of power. These people, with their irrational views of reality, are supported by a mass of the same type of individuals in the country’s general populace. Together, they encompass an intolerant dogma, which would much rather destroy an opposing viewpoint than to discuss anything.

Like the torture of Giles Cory, they are willing to torture those who will not confess to crimes they haven’t committed. Like the bureaucracy of Salem in the 1600’s, they will lock people away, accusing them of crimes, based on less than even spectral evidence. Like that 300 year old government, they are more than willing to force their beliefs onto others by the muzzle of a gun, under the force of law. The trappings of this madness are seen in Guantánamo Bay, in the current terrorism legislation of spying and abduction based on hollow political labeling, the quest to “return” the USA to a theocracy and in the main-streaming of these ideals through the mass media. A good portion of the population is walking right along with it.

It leaves me to question what went wrong. Over the course of the twentieth century, this country was making steady progress in toppling the old and abusive social policies, the foolish delusions and working toward the embrace of logical, scientific analysis of events and subjects. It wasn’t perfect and it needed a lot more work, but it seems of the last decade that we’ve been sliding backward. Rational discourse is ignored for belabored ranting, based on “gut feelings” and unsubstantiated claims. Those who embrace logic and education have become pariahs, scorned for not following the established dogma. Currently those who are doing nothing more than questioning the official story of what happened on Sept. 11th, 2001, are ridiculed and attacked by those who will not accept even the possibility of error on the part of the commission’s report - as rabidly as a born again Christian rages against an atheist’s demands for evidence for their beliefs in Biblical accounts.

The new mindset is that of utter submission to authority.

What frightens me the most over this dynamic is not so much that people are embracing delusions, but that they are embracing them to the point of violence. This dynamic has been seen in history, time and time again and it never ends up leading to good. From the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Inquisition, to the Nazi Third Reich and the Stalin Purges - this mindset of unquestioning obedience leads to tyranny and most often genocide. As if things couldn’t be worse, relate all of this to the fact that the largest majority of the enemy the Bush administration has chosen, are members of another radical, delusional religion - Islam - which just happens to be diametrically opposed to theirs! Two gigantic delusions coming head to head, with the body count rising on an hourly basis.

I have to wonder, as our military weakens and the resolve of the Iraqi “insurgents” rises, does our government keep this war going because of a lust for oil, or for the lust for an Armageddon they feel obliged to instigate? After all, a major part of the belief system of the radical Christians in America, is a belief that we are “in the End Times”. You can get some crazy behavior from people who think they’re about to die, so it stands to reason to find even more insane behavior from those who believe they are going to die for the honor and glory of their god.

In spite of all this, there are holdouts - those who do not blindly accept authority. Most of these individuals are well educated, intelligent in general and are fairly even keeled. However, a large majority of these people can be controlled, through the tool that fanatics have always resorted to when dealing with the masses - fear.

I have a horrible worry that we are going to see another “terrorist attack” in this country before long, as a tool to promote terror in those who would not support this administration’s actions otherwise. Fear is the Achilles Heel of the otherwise rational. Fear is the only tool at the disposal of the zealots to affect the thinking of the intelligent. The zealots, even in position of high power, are not numerous enough to control this mess without the support of the majority. With blind faith on behalf of the followers, and fear on behalf of the otherwise distanced, those who wish to manipulate the course of our culture will get their way.

It is not just a wise move, but I feel it is a duty, for those who are not blinded by the delusions of the faithful in authority, to resist the temptations of fearful response and keep their heads about them! Those of us who can think through things clearly and understand the manipulations being pulled, must resist the ease which comes in caving in to the weight of hasty response in the face of adversity. We must resist the urge to appease our fear through radical action. We must weigh our decisions carefully, logically and as emotionless as we can be be. If we can do this, then in spite of their current holdings, the delusional cannot drag the nation into their delusion.

Zealots, after all, will never quit, no matter what the personal damage suffered. If the rational succumb to fear, then the zealots win and all is lost.

Just in case you missed the news, the Pope has official declared the Roman Catholic Church to be the only true path to salvation.

Protestant leaders are pissed off, and rightly so.

Despite the harsh tone, the document stressed that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

“However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants, but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith,” the commentary said.

I wonder when the Inquisition will be kicked back into high gear?