It’s a point we atheists make all the time!!! One sect of Christians think they have it right and all other Christians are not “real” Christians and we are supposed to listen to all of them when they can’t even decide amongst themselves what it is to be a “true Christian”. From the atheist perspective, it all looks kind of crazy ass watching them all fight over who’s version of Christian mythology is reality.

This was in the headlines today:

Pope says other Christians not true churches

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

*snip*

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

LINK TO FULL STORY

Here’s a little YouTube video to piss off the fundies who believe they have the monopoly on Christianity:

…and soon there won’t be any mysteries left to solve.

Do you remember my March post Lifting Huge Stone Blocks with your Mind! It caused a minor sensation, to see that moving huge Stonehenge-like stones wasn’t all that difficult to do, even without help.

For your consideration – you can read this article now or later. From YouTube: Ils ont bati les pyramides; la prouesse technologique des anciens Egyptiens (only the title is in French I apologize for not posting the teeeveee – my system is misbehaving tonight…)

The article-link I provided is very informative. However, all due respect to Michel Barsoum, a ceramics researcher: he gives terrible PowerPoint! So think twice about linking to his speech from the article. And my comment has nothing to do with the frequent difficulties stemming from “mic feedback” – he is just one of the worst lecturers I’ve ever heard. Really, it’s too bad, because I was again reminded of this truism about science:

Some discoveries it embraces immediately, like a new species whose DNA shows a close taxonomic relationship. Some discoveries it totally rejects, because it’s too radical. Even though it slowly becomes “the new conventional wisdom”…(So xians should keep looking for that “proof” – but it had better be extraordinary, because science will want to test the hell out of it, before they agree.)

This, in a nutshell, is what the PowerPoint is about: Barsoum’s struggle to get past the scientific-journal gatekeepers. His first abstract was rejected with, “You can’t destroy two thousand years with just four pages!”. His monograph was edited and nitpicked to death. His claim that there are “nanoparticles in there” was just too much for the powers-that-be…

And now he’s invited to lecture everywhere. So, go figure…

Oh, and this has incredible possibilites for building extremely low-cost, long-lasting (2000+years?) buildings, in even the poorest parts of the world!

“A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.” – Ambrose Bierce

A recent post by a dear friend of mine, Beep!Beep! It’s Me, about the topic of marriage, started me weary old brain cells a-percolatin’.

It has occurred to me, that the religious have not only co-opted our language, but have also hijacked those moments in our lives that speak of transition.

Momentous transitions in our lives, from beginning to bonding to end, are viewed overall as requiring some religious institution to oversee them.

Baptisms, to mark birth. Weddings, to mark marriage. Funerals, to provide closure for the grieving.

So many have been brainwashed into viewing any and all rites of passage as needing an obligatory nod from on high.

When indeed, not only marriage, but funereal rites and the welcoming of a new child into the world are as old as our species, long before those ugly monolithic monotheisms came shambling along and dug their metaphorical tentacles into the pulse of humanity.

We are creatures that yearn for structure, and long for routine. A ritual need not be religious in content for it to do us good. Even though the word rite is religious by definition. That, for the record, is another word I’m co-opting, and anyone who doesn’t like it can go take a flying leap.

So I say, we reclaim the rites of passage. No, no padre at the funeral, thanks. Baptisms? No thanks. Circumcision? Fahgetaboutit! Church wedding? I can’t go into a church, since my skin starts sizzling like a steak on a grill when I enter one (oops! Shouldn’t oughta let that slip, ssshhh! Don’t tell anyone!).

So spread the word, let it sound, shout it from the rooftops, spray it on a wall, or whisper it in someone’s ear. Let it be heard:

We want our rites back. Free of the shackles of superstition, free of the fear, free of the whispers of old ghosts that never were.

And I, for one, shall not say please.

(Image: “A magnetic torsional wave near the Galactic Centre traced by a ‘double helix’ nebula.” Nature 440(7082), pp. 308-310 [online at CiteULike.org])

It’s time. In fact, it’s long overdue! America must do a metaphysical DNA test on all religions. I charge that there is very little, if any, of NewTestament-DNA from jesus’ teachings. I accuse all religions of sneaking in a jesus-impostor, in a warming-pan in the dead of night (paragraph 3), and passing off a faux-jesus as the King of Kings.

James Dobson and Pat Robertson both possess and control “Hating jesus” and sometimes “Prosperity jesus”. They foment discord and discrimination, preaching against gays, liberals, women – all of whom they fear to the depths of their withered souls. Their followers all want to be little “Paris Dobsons” or “‘Little E’ Robertsons”, living that “oblivious high life”, with faux-jesus blessings. There are even xian investment brokers! Give to the poor? Minister to the sick? Visit the prisoners? What–wait–where is THAT written?

Never mind about camels and needle’s eyes and getting into heaven…

The catholic church (and others – MANY others!) ignore the GoldenCalf/GravenImages proscription, via Fetus-fetishization. Well, if we can’t save jesus from death, there are all those teeny cellular thingies that we can raise up to be good xians, can’t we? Nobody else wants them! And why don’t we take the frozen ones, too? Whaddya mean, nobody wants to do that? Well, force your women, then! Why should we men have to do everything?

Never mind that abortion is NOT mentioned anywhere in either OT or NT! They have their eyes on an imaginary headline: “Numbers of Faithful are on the Rise! Hallelujah!” And they can thank the mindless breeders like the “quiverfulls”, who doubtless quiver with lust to think of having another baby for their lover, Impostor-jesus…

I feel strongly that exhorbitant “administrative costs” and “faith-based-initiative secular tax dollars” are enriching pastors, church boards and staff, media empires, lobbying and PR, church construction contractors, and all the vendors of xian paraphernalia – so much so, there’s little left for Good Works…

I ran this idea by Stardust, for input from a great GifS-brain. This is what she said (and below is what her words sparked in my GifS-brain):

Imposter Jeebus. It just goes to show xians and other god-botherers can make their savior/god anything they want him/her/it to be. They make it up, and alter it, as needed, to support whatever bullshit or “con” they are espousing at the moment.

Meek Jeebus, Mighty Jeebus, forgiving Jeebus, smiting Jeebus, fair and just Jeebus, life-is-not-fair-but-gawd-is-good-Jeebus. Whatever suits their immediate need and fancy.

God and Jeebus (as with all religions) are always, and forever shall be, made in the imagination [and] based on human need and desire.

Ahh, Meek Jeebus, Mighty Jeebus…Impostor-jesus is nothing more than a toy, a dress-up action figure, one of those old-fashioned cardboard figures that had paper clothes you could change – or Colorform-jesus and his Wardrobe! Barbie-jesus, becoming anything you want.

Metamorphosis-jesus! Multiple-personality-jesus! Phantasm-jesus becoming your heart’s desire, for as long as you need… And lest we forget: Field Marshal von Jesus (not to be confused with the uber-macho Jesus’ General, the Francophobe).

There may well have been a young man named Joshua, with revolutionary ideas on love and brotherhood. “A nice jewish boy” who travelled with a few friends, reaching out to one and all. Think: Sean Penn, but without a PR hack…think: Haight-Ashbury and “flower-children”, but without sanitation.

All the rest of young Joshua’s story was invented. And the invention/re-invention continues to this day. Nothing remains of “original Joshua-jesus”. Like a rusting Ford Model-A that has been completely rebuilt, nothing remains of the original car – but it still looks like a Model-A, doesn’t it? Many people will believe it’s a genuine Model-A…

Let’s do the DNA tests. And we’ll find that there is no “Christ” left in “Christ”ianity!

And then we can tax them into the ground.

Some and maybe many of the religious do in fact recognize that the United States was not founded by Xians. And not all believers are entrenched in the misnomer that the Founders were Xian. As noted here by an article in one of their theology journals.

An excerpt From the Journal:

Why do Christians want the founding fathers to be Christians?
Is it because they wish the best for these people? Hardly.

It is because they hope that by demonstrating they were Christians, they can justify their political agenda. Rather than wanting something new (the injection of Christianity into government) they seek to restore something they imagine has been lost.

Reality: nothing has been lost. It wasn’t there to start with. Therefore the whole concept of “taking back America” is a lie. America was never Christian.

This is enough for me to consider how it must be a willful act that the Religious Right and fundamentalists of all sects and creeds have claimed otherwise. Their use of the misstatement “The Founding Fathers were Xian” is just more evidence that they are willing to use any lie to further their specific agenda. Included in that we must also accept that they have done a very good job of aligning themselves with certain types of political expediency that we never allowed in this country prior to the Reagan Bush years. Additionally with the Faith-Based grants their agenda becomes completely funded by taxpayers.

Their agenda is now being taken up in so many ways and by all of the politicians. I have little hope that the next elections will do anything more than be a change of face. In fact the most insidious aspect of this is that the moderate Xians, like the ones above, have themselves been marginalized and made to accept that living in a Xian nation is what would be good for all. They fail to grasp that they are not considered as good enough Xians and may need to change their ways.

There is hope though and the letter by High Schooler and Presidential Scholar recipient Leah Anthony Libresco is a good example. When presented with the letter that many of the Scholars signed about no more torture George W. Bush Said “The united States does not torture”. The same old lie and the Scholars knew it. You can read more here:

We no longer need nor want for a politic of religious values but a politic that is responsive to the needs of freedom. And there is scant evidence that any of the current crop of politicians has what it takes.

‘I Believe in an America Where the Separation of Church and State is Absolute’
John F. Kennedy
September 12, 1960,
address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured–perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again–not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me–but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish–where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source–where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials–and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew–or a Quaker–or a Unitarian–or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim–but tomorrow it may be you–until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end–where all men and all churches are treated as equal–where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice–where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind–and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe–a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

No servant can serve two masters. Luke16:13

(Visit Blog Against Theocracy for more.)

There are elements within our country’s government that threaten our Constitution. This is nothing less than Treason. In our government and in our military, there are god-filled men (mostly men; why is that?) who, when forced to make a choice, will probably choose god’s law over Man’s law and deliberately kill our Noble Experiment.

As we have seen in the Department of Justice, there has been a cadre of subversives whose job it was to dismantle the fundamental protections that Americans have depended on.

• The once-respected United States Attorney division has been infiltrated by GOP hacks, hired by neocon and theocon political operatives. Their mission was to replace neutral USAs with partisans who would create chaos by filing bogus charges against liberal political groups and politicians.
• The Civil Rights division was gutted of qualified attorneys whose focus was on minority rights; the xian replacements were redirected to focus on issues of Xian Rights and how they are under attack from secular society.
• The Internal Investigation division drags its feet, failing to dig deep enough to find out how bad this is; or it has been directed by the Attorney General to not co-operate with Congressional investigations, nor to provide subpoena-ed documents.
• In Health and Human Services, the administration persists in filling posts with ultra-religious medical hacks who pursue their narrow agenda of subverting medicine to their worldview; their opinions on birth control and abortion are backward and BronzeAge.
• Bush repeatedly puts medical hacks in charge of reproductive rights programs. His nominees for Surgeon General are more medical hacks.
• In the Department of Education, the operatives are constantly working on introducting the bible into the classrooms, ID into science classes while demoting Evolution to questionable status, and their never-ending effort to revive “prayer in the classroom”.
• In the State Department, Xian Embassy has many adherents who have positions in diplomatic missions around the world, and outreach programs to foreign embassies in DC.
• In the Environmental Protection Agency, they have “doctored” documents to downplay pollution and global climate change. (This also falls somewhat under the heading of “corporatists and cronies”.)

Yet each of these traitors voluntarily took an oath to the US Constitution!

In Congress, there are xian-partisans whose worldview commands them to impose their beliefs on the country. For instance, both birth control and abortion are settled law. But religious conservative politicians do not see it that way. In their minds, women haven’t the intelligence to make decisions about their own bodies; women are mindless and sinful – so men must make the decisions for them. These men (mostly men – why is that?) seem answerable only to their god, not to the citizens of America. Yet each of these traitors voluntarily took an oath to the US Constitution!

In the military is a cadre of religious-minded, proselytizing generals who are zealots and not content with just protecting our country. They feel they must convert their fellow officers and, indeed, all of the enlisted men. They are trying to build an army of Xian Soldiers. Yet each of these traitors voluntarily took an oath to the US Constitution!

If push came to shove, which Master would these men serve first – God or Country?

And do we really want a military that might execute a coup d’etat? Even if only in the name of their deity? If your worldview sees your faith as benign and rooted in goodness, would it ever occur to you that your godly mission was malignant and fatal to the Republic?

And don’t forget that the Line of Presidential Succession is: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Byrd, SecState Rice. Xian Embassy is, in my opinion, worming its way closer and closer toward the White House, from many, many different directions.

In their own words:

“You and I can bring the rule and reign of the cross to America.” Bishop Harry Jackson, 08.04.05, Justice Sunday II

“We need to find ways to win the war” Karl Rove…told a gathering of the Family Research Council in March, 2002. Rove wasn’t talking about the war on terrorism. He was talking about the war on secular society. [Ironically, Hitchens alleges that Rove is not even a believer!]

“No humanist is fit to hold office.” Tim LaHaye, in Mind Siege: The Battle for Truth in the New Millennium; he co-authored the novel which describes a xian “army” rising up to battle secular humanism.

“The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society.” and

“We are in an eternal battle. The battle is between right and wrong, between truth and lies, between life and death. And if we ever forget
what it is about, if we think we are in a battle for electing people
to hold office, simply controlling political parties…then we will
not accomplish what we are to achieve. We need to hold to our principles, and stick to them regardless.” Paul Weyrich, Oct/1995

“It’s going to be a spiritual battle. There will be Satanic forces…. We are not going to be coming up just against human beings, to beat them in elections. We’re going to be coming up against spiritual warfare.” Pat Robertson, 1991 at a Christian Coalition Road to Victory gathering

“God has called us to engage the enemy in this culture war. That is our challenge today.” and

“How much more forcefully can I say it? The time has come, and it is long overdue, when Christians and conservatives and all men and women who believe in the birthright of freedom must rise up and reclaim America for Jesus Christ.” D.James Kennedy, in Character & Destiny: A Nation in Search of its Own Soul, with Jim Nelson Black

“Christians are mandated to gradually occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.” Sara Diamond, Z Magazine, 1985; author of Road to Dominion, she is credited with recognizing dominion as a political goal.

“With the apathy that exists today, a small, well-organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree.” Pat Robertson, The Millenium, 1989

“Americans must be ‘Christocrats’ — citizens of both their country and the Kingdom of God. And that is not a democracy; that is a theocracy. That means God is in control, and you are not.” Rod Parsley, the Ohio Restoration Project

“We think the Lord is going to give us this nation back one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time, and one state at a time.” Ralph Reed Christianity Today, 04.03.90

“I think it’s a huge impact, because you have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as we advise the Chairman and the Secretary of Defense. Hallelujah.” Maj.General Jack Catton, praising Christian Embassy in a CE promotional video

“These Godly men are taking Godly principles that they learned in Christian Embassy Bible studies…. As a result, they gonna go out and they gonna lead men. Their soldiers are going to benefit from that fact that they are military men that are also Godly men.” Lt.Col. Lucious Morton, US Army, CE promotional video

Both Catton and Morton appeared in full US military uniform in the videos.

And I finish with The Woman in the Mink Coat, by Joan Bokaer:

The year was 1986. I was on a speaking tour of Iowa, talking about the Religious Right’s support for nuclear weapons. As usual, after the talk several people approached me. But this time one woman stood out. She was wearing a mink coat. I remember her because it wasn’t often in the nuclear disarmament movement that you see someone wearing a mink coat, especially indoors. As she spoke to me, she was visibly shaking, fighting to hold back tears. She said that she couldn’t bear to go to Republican Party meetings anymore and handed me a memo from Pat Robertson. It read:

How to Participate in a Political Party

• Rule the world for God.

• Give the impression that you are there to work for the party, not push an ideology.

• Hide your strength.

• Don’t flaunt your Christianity.

• Christians need to take leadership positions. Party officers control political parties and so it is very important that mature Christians have a majority of leadership positions, God willing.

Treason? You be the judge…
__________

Military Missionaries: Christian Embassy Recruits Converts with Pentagon Help, ThinkProgress

Naked Power Grab, Americans United for Separation of Chuch and State

Center for Christian Statesmanship (defunct) was launched in 1995 to convert members of Congress and their aides to evangelical xianity: Coral Ridge Ministries, via CQ

Center for Reclaiming American for Christ (defunct) was lobbying group for advancing the xian agenda in Congress: Coral Ridge Ministries, via CQ

Most of the “in their own words” quotes came from Theocracy Watch website, from Cornell University.

Joan Bokaer, from Talk to Action.org

(For Blog Against Theocracy)

I found this a hard post to write, not because I didn’t have subject material, but because I had too much. In addition, everything about the separation between church and state brings up such strong feelings in me I literally can’t find the words to express them. Sometimes it seems the only action that might do my stance justice is standing on the edge of a cliff and screaming at the top of my lungs until I lose my voice.

But I don’t have a cliff (Florida is notoriously flat) and screaming like that would get me locked up (unless I screamed “I hear you, God!” – maybe), so this little musing will just have to do – for now.

Theocracy is basically another form of absolutist, totalitarian, fascistic government – in other words, a dictatorship, be it by an individual or group of people. Authority with a capital “A,” headed by someone with whom you can’t argue: God or gods. The only problem is that whether or not these deities exist in any kind of reality the vast majority of functioning human beings can come close to agreeing upon, by and large gods don’t make personal appearances, and so by necessity they and their so-called wishes, rules, laws, regulations, what-have-you, are represented by people.

People like you and me. People who because they speak for these divinities (usually just because they say so, or a majority or hugely influential group says so) assume the mantle of heavenly power themselves. People who, now that they speak for their god, expect the same obedience and subservience they say their god should receive. And very few gods (we are told) brook any kind of questioning, doubt, disagreement, or refusal in regards to their commands.

And so the theocracy, which isn’t really a government being run by a deity but by people who claim to be carrying out this deity’s will, becomes an Authority in people’s lives, expecting absolute submission to it at the cost of their individuality. Following the rules in appearance, speech, and behavior becomes far more important than following your own path. Curiosity, ingenuity, diversity, and tolerance disappear from the public arena and the private usually falls in step. Rather than human beings, people become numbers, ciphers, stripes on a bar code, ticks on a tally sheet – holes in an IBM punch card.

Because Authority doesn’t have to answer to anyone except an invisible, inaudible, intangible, ineffable thing that may or may not (and for us agnostic/atheists, doesn’t) exist. People are not important; that idea, concept, figment of imagination called a god is. The value of human life and experience degenerates until conformity is assumed and any upset to it is automatically punished. The suffering caused by poverty, abuse, disease, and crime is justified and thus somehow acceptable. Deliberately inflicted physical discomfort, violence, outright torture, and killing become not only palatable but also reasonable responses to anyone or anything that might conceivably be viewed as some kind of threat in any way.

Not a supernatural agency in sight. Just people who don’t value any other people except themselves and their own, and oftentimes even their own are expendable. You’ve all heard most of the quotes, like “absolute power corrupts absolutely” and “for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Civil, individual, human rights? What the hell are those? And why do you need them, when God Himself has chosen me to rule over you and tell you what’s best for you, even though you don’t even believe in my idea of God?

One of the most openly and publicly “devout” administrations to ever assume power in the United States is also going down in history as one of the most corrupt, unethical, immoral, treasonous, and un-American of governments through which we have ever had to suffer. Balance of power? Please. Checks and balances? Don’t make me laugh. Respect for the Constitution? The what – oh, yeah, that old piece of paper I’m burn—putting in a safe place. And you already know about those pesky rights (see above).

If government by the Christian God (in this case) were so much better than government by mere people, then why is it such a fiasco? After all, our President is absolutely sure that he is doing the right thing. That he is doing God’s will. That he is certainly not answerable to (fegh!) human beings; he is answerable only to God (never mind that even some of those who do believe in the same God are hearing different messages)!

I’d like to leave you with the opening scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which I saw recently:

A slow, steady drumbeat. Flanked by rows of impeccably uniformed soldiers standing stiffly at attention, a ragged column of people of all shapes, sizes, states of health, dress, stations of life, and ages (including a child in line), all chained together, shuffle up toward a gallows.

The prisoners are lined up side by side on the scaffold; nooses are tightened round their necks; and with the pull of a single lever, the trapdoors under their feet open and they are hanged. With military precision the bodies are removed; the ropes replaced; the trapdoors closed once more; and the next row of victims is lined up. And so on, over and over again, until even the child is executed in the course of this relentless process.

While the masked executioner efficiently performs these hangings in front of the equally impassive soldiers, and the drums unhesitatingly measure out the rest of the prisoners’ lives, an immaculately groomed officer stands to one side and reads an official decree in a clear, calm, emotionless voice, so that each word falls with the same inexorable cadence as the drumbeat and choreographed executions (paraphrase):

“In response to the increase in piracy, the governor decrees that without exception, anyone who might be suspected of piracy or of in any way dealing with anyone who might be suspected of piracy or of being in league with pirates is automatically sentenced to death. This absolute authority also suspends the following rights completely and indefinitely:

“The right to freedom of speech and expression – suspended.

“The right to freedom of assembly – suspended.

“The right to freedom of the press – suspended.

“The right to habeas corpus – suspended.

“The right to trial by a jury of peers – suspended.”

Each chilling “suspended” punctuates the suspension of a body on the hangman’s rope.

Who woulda thunk it: a big summer blockbuster making a not-so-veiled political statement…

First Freedom First