Chilling video from the Thinking Atheist. What children are being taught in the name of God. And it is all true and not an exaggeration. Those of us who were born into and raised in Christian homes were all told these things and had them drilled into us again and again, week after week in the churches and Sunday school.

I’ve made it abundantly clear in the past that of the Big Three of Abraham, Islam is perhaps the most backwards and barbaric of them. True, there was once upon a time when the Muslims had a ‘Golden Age’ of sorts, where the Middle East was an oasis of culture in the Middle Ages, but repetitive repercussions echoed in the headlines and history over the past few centuries have shown that the religion in question is as backwards as its predecessors. Perhaps more so now than ever before. Such is the result of treating religious beliefs with kid gloves.

In Europe, there are varying degrees dealing with Mohammed’s madness:

France is pushing ahead with plans to introduce a law banning women from wearing full-face Islamic veils in all public places.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet has approved a bill making it illegal to wear in public clothes designed to hide the face, and the measure is now awaiting a vote in parliament.

Parliament has already passed a non-binding resolution condemning the full Islamic face veil as "an affront to the nation’s values of dignity and equality".

Mr Sarkozy has said veils oppress women and are "not welcome" in France.

A French parliamentary committee earlier recommended a partial ban inside public buildings – such as hospitals and schools – and on public transport.

The State Council – France’s highest administrative body – warned that such a law might be unconstitutional and violate European human rights laws.

However, a ban in public places such as schools, hospitals and law courts could be justified for security reasons, to combat fraud and to meet the needs of some public services, it added.

A ban on Muslim headscarves and other "conspicuous" religious symbols at state schools was introduced in 2004, and received overwhelming political and public support in a country where the separation of state and religion is enshrined in law.

Opinion polls suggest a majority of French people support a full ban.

Now, if we were talking about a law that forbids wearing specific articles such as say a bomber jacket (because it might make the wearer seem dangerous – don’t laugh, I used to have one, and was told as much), or a hat from Beach Blanket Babylon (for something outside of a copyright/trademark infringement), or carrying a parasol of a particular color, well, that would smack of Orwellian overtones, and I’d be on my cyber-stump trumpeting away about the invidious efforts of governments trying to conformitize us (yes, there’s no such word, spare me please, I’m playing). However, when we’re speaking of a religion that has a proven track record of persuading people to strap bombs onto themselves (and other family members!), that ‘martyrs’ people for some reified value that only has value in the eyes of the converted, that slaughters their womenfolk for no better reason than some archaic belief system that’s long since been proven valueless, then out it goes  I say. I’m all for diversity in culture, I’m  a raving xenophile (within reason of course), I enjoy multicultural diversity as much as the next liberal, but a custom that can shield a potential suicide bomber has got to go.

Belgium has smartened up quite a bit:

The lower house of Belgium’s parliament has passed a bill to ban clothing that hides a person’s identity in public places such as parks, buildings and on the street.

The bill still needs approval in the Senate.

Although the legislation does not specifically refer to full-face Islamic veils, it would outlaw the use of garments such as the niqab and the burka.

The bill enjoys cross-party support and is expected to be passed, which would make Belgium the first country in Europe to ban the wearing of such Islamic garments.

Currently, the burka is banned in several districts under old local laws originally designed to stop people masking their faces completely at carnival time.

In Antwerp, for example, police can now reprimand, or even imprison, offenders. They say the regulation is all about public safety.

Spain is dancing around a bit with the concept, and are including other forms of headwear:

Though there are no plans for a national ban in Spain, the city of Barcelona has announced a ban on full Islamic face-veils in some public spaces such as municipal offices, public markets and libraries.

At least two smaller towns in Catalonia, the north-eastern region that includes Barcelona, have also imposed bans.

Barcelona’s city council said the ban there targeted any head-wear that impeded identification, including motorbike helmets and balaclavas, rather than religious belief.

It resisted calls from the conservative Popular Party (PP) to extend the ban to all public spaces, including the street.

Britain is of course somewhat divided on the issue:

There is no ban on Islamic dress in the UK, but schools are allowed to forge their own dress code after a 2007 directive which followed several high-profile court cases.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said in January 2010 it was "not British" to tell people what to wear in the street after the UK Independence Party called for all face-covering Muslim veils to be banned.

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who leads UKIP’s 13 MEPs in Brussels, said the veils were a symbol of an "increasingly divided Britain", that they "oppressed" women, and were a potential security threat.

UKIP is the first British party to call for a total ban, after the anti-immigration British National Party had already called called for the veil to be banned in Britain’s schools.

Surprisingly enough, the Netherlands is less than decisive:

In 2006, the Dutch government considered but abandoned plans to impose a ban on all forms of coverings that obscured the face – from burkas to crash helmets with visors – in public places, saying they disturbed public order and safety. Lawyers said the move would likely be unconstitutional and critics said it would violate civil rights.

The government suggested it would instead seek a ban on face-covering veils in schools and state departments, but no legislation has yet been passed.

Around 5% of the Netherlands’ 16 million residents are Muslims, but only around 300 are thought to wear the burka.

Of course, the battle rages on in Turkey:

For more than 85 years Turks have lived in a secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who rejected headscarves as backward-looking in his campaign to secularise Turkish society.

Scarves are banned in civic spaces and official buildings, but the issue is deeply divisive for the country’s predominantly Muslim population, as two-thirds of all Turkish women – including the wives and daughters of the prime minister and president – cover their heads.

In 2008, Turkey’s constitution was amended to ease a strict ban at universities, allowing headscarves that were tied loosely under the chin. Headscarves covering the neck and all-enveloping veils were still banned.

The governing party, with its roots in Islam, said the ban meant many girls were being denied an education. But the secular establishment said easing it would be a first step to allowing Islam into public life.

The picture in this post is of the notorious ‘Burkini’- because of course the sumptuous curves of a female might drive a man wild, cause him to commit all sorts of heinous acts, which under more severe Sharia law, would make the woman culpable, not the man. I don’t even need to Google that, or provide a link. It’s common knowledge for anyone with even the cursory knowledge of this nonsense.

That anyone could treat another human being in such a manner is appalling. That a woman is treated as such brings my good Irish upbringing into a frothy boil. Without women, there’d be no species, no humanity. The mind boggles.

Women have rights. You crazy assholes don’t like it? Move back into caves.

I say nix the niqab.

There’s my nickel’s worth.

Till the next post then.

If sex did not exist, religion would have to invent it so it could prohibit the religious from engaging in it outside of marriage for any reason, within marriage for any reason other than procreation, and with anyone who happens to have the same genitals as they.

Very early in my life, while I was being raised and educated in the Seventh-day Adventist cult, it became clear to me that my genitals and what I did with them were very important to my pastor, my teachers, and everyone who ran the cult, including its long-dead founder and “prophet,” the alcoholic plagiarist Ellen G. White.

Ellen was a Victorian-era religious fanatic who claimed to receive “visions” from god.  One of Ellen’s favorite topics was masturbation, which she called “self-abuse,” “self-indulgence,” or “solitary vice.”  On page 63 of her 1870 book A Solemn Appeal, she wrote:

“Children who practice self-indulgence previous to puberty, or the period of merging into manhood or womanhood, must pay the penalty of nature’s violated laws at that critical period.  Many sink into an early grave, while others have sufficient force of constitution to pass this ordeal.  If the practice is continued from the age of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors.  Some of nature’s fine machinery gives way, leaving a heavier task for the remaining to perform, which disorders nature’s fine arrangement, and there is often a sudden breaking down of the constitution; and death is the result.”

All of this, she claimed, was shown her by god.  Of course, we now know that masturbation is natural, healthy and beneficial.  According to a 2003 Australian study, ejaculating more than five times a week makes men a third less likely to develop prostate cancer.  In women, it helps prevent cervical cancer , clears up urinary tract infections and decreases the risk of heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

Was god simply unaware of these facts about the human body that he is supposed to have created when he warned Ellen G. White of the deadly dangers of wanking?  I’m more inclined to conclude that she was a fanatic exploiting the ignorance of her day to draw people into a cult over which she could have power.  Ellen, however, was not alone in these beliefs about masturbation, and those myths persist today, not only in the Seventh-day Adventist cult (which continues to see Ellen’s writings as the infallible final word in doctrine and scriptural interpretation) but throughout Christianity.

Why is religion so intensely interested in the sex lives of its believers – and even in the sex lives of people who have no interest in religion?  It’s very tempting to conclude that religion simply doesn’t want people to enjoy themselves.  But that’s too simple.  The real reasons are a little more complex, and far more devious.

In his brilliant and highly recommended book, The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, Dr. Darrel W. Ray likens religion to a virus that will do anything necessary to survive and spread.  One of the things it does to achieve these goals, he writes, is create a “guilt cycle” that binds the believer tightly to the virus — or, rather, the religion.  It works like this:

“The guiltier you feel, the more you seek to assuage your guilt with the very thing that induced it in the first place.  This creates a perfect feedback loop from which you cannot escape without outside help.  Much like a computer that gets into a loop and freezes, your brain gets caught in a guilt loop that only gets worse.”

According to Ray’s illustration, you engage in BEHAVIOR (let’s stick to masturbation as an example) that makes you feel GUILTY, which then creates TENSION, which you then assuage by engaging, once again, in the BEHAVIOR (masturbation).

“As you are bearing this emotional burden of guilt, along comes the priest, rabbi or minister with the promise of help.  He or she accomplishes this by breaking the loop and running it through the religion and back to you.  It goes like this:  ‘You can’t conquer this by yourself.  Give yourself to god and he will help you conquer it.  You will overcome your weakness and get forgiven for your sins.  You will no longer have to live with this burden of guilt.’  The effect is some relief but at a high cost.  Each guilt-forgiveness cycle imbeds the virus [religion] deeper and deeper, making it harder and harder to get relief.”

Every time that guilt returns, it becomes necessary to turn to the religion again for the needed forgiveness.  This makes religion necessary to the person feeling guilty.  An ingenious way of strengthening this need is to attach guilt to something that everyone has in common, a need shared by all.  Sex.

Religion did that a looong time ago.

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” – Leviticus 20:10

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” – Leviticus 20:13

“And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.” – Leviticus 20:18

That last one not only condemns the act of sex but manages to attach shame to another natural biological function, a woman’s menstrual cycle.  It kills two birds with one stone!

I think the best reaction to religion’s need to demonize our sexuality comes from country singer Butch Hancock:

“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things.  One is that god loves you and you’re going to burn in hell.  The other is that sex is the most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save it for someone you love.”

Religion without sex is like The Wizard of Oz without the songs — it just doesn’t work.  Sex is the one thing religion can use to control every single believer.  Of course, this requires a contradictory double-message:

God in his infinite wisdom created your body, which is a temple.

Your body has wicked urges that must be denied.

Your body is a temple, but it’s got some evil nastiness in the basement!  You must deny your natural bodily functions or you will fall out of favor with the god who created them!  If religion can convince you of this, then it has you.  Once it has convinced you that there is sin in the very functions of your body, it has claimed you for its own and any escape will require more than will and effort — it will require virtual reprogramming.  Convincing people that their own biological functions are wicked might sound like a difficult task, but it’s really not.  The work started thousands of years ago.

The book of Leviticus was written sometime around 1440 BCE, and since that time, it has been laying the groundwork for what we have today — a sex-negative environment in the United States that has been driven solely by Christianity.  Leviticus — one of the most evil and bloodthirsty books of the bible — was directed at the Jews, of course, but Christians have no problem using it when it suits their purposes (which is most of the time).  When they’re criticized for their Old Testament views, they’re quick to point out that they are a New Testament religion, but this is just a ruse, another way they wiggle out of reasonable discourse.  Christians have been enforcing Old Testament sex rules from their beginnings and continue to do so today in the United States of 2010.

Christianity has attached guilt to sex, then prohibited sex outside of marriage and sex with anyone other than one’s spouse.  But that sex — the sex that’s allowed — is intended only for reproduction.  These days, most Christian sects will not say this directly, but when you look at their sex rules, that’s what it comes down to:  Sex for procreation only.

When she wasn’t warning people of the dangers of playing with themselves, Ellen G. White was warning them about “marital excess.”

“Sexual excess will effectually destroy a love for devotional exercises, will take from the brain the substance needed to nourish the system, and will most effectively exhaust the vitality. No woman should aid her husband in this work of self-destruction. She will not do it if she is enlightened and has true love for him. The more the animal passions are indulged, the stronger do they become, and the more violent will be their clamors for indulgence. Let God-fearing men and women awake to their duty. Many professed Christians are suffering with paralysis of nerve and brain because of their intemperance in this direction.”
– Adventist Home, Ellen G. White

While it’s true that Ellen wrote that in the 1800s, this attitude still exists in Christianity today, although it is cloaked in more modern terms.  Within Christianity, sex for pleasure exists for only one purpose — to create guilt that will strengthen the bond between the guilty and the religion.

Religion in general and Christianity in particular cannot survive in a sex-positive environment.  The acceptance of sex as natural and healthy and pleasurable removes the oxygen Christianity needs to survive.  Like any religion, Christianity must fully control its flock, and it cannot do that unless it controls the genitals of its flock.  Where sex is treated realistically, as a natural and healthy part of being human, things like birth control are made accessible and comprehensive sex education is appropriately taught to young people.  It is absolutely essential for the survival of Christianity that sex remain attached to guilt and sin.

But Christianity does not limit its rules to Christians.  Here in the United States, it works hard to enforce its laws on a federal level and has had great success so far.  This is a back door tactic aimed at the goal of transforming the United States into a Christian theocracy.  The genitals of Christians alone are not enough to feed Christianity’s appetite for power – it must seize control of the genitals of all Americans.

Christians continue to repeat the lie that America is a Christian nation, when in fact it is a secular nation that provides freedom to all religions, or no religion.  But to Christians, it seems that “freedom of religion” means that, as a religion, they have the freedom to do whatever the hell they please.  If they can transform America’s laws and government into reflections of Christian dogma — which they have been doing at an alarming pace right under our noses — then their lie will become true.

30 years ago, Jerry Falwell created the “Moral Majority” (which, by the way, was neither).  He gathered together a coalition of Christian sects — even pulling in the Mormon faith, which, until that time, was vehemently rejected by Christianity as a non-Christian cult, but, hey, there’s strength in numbers, right? — and began to talk politics on a national level.  Using intimidation and strong-arm tactics, Falwell and his minions blustered and browbeat politicians into bringing religion into the national conversation, forcing them to declare their religious beliefs (which violates the Constitution’s prohibition of religious tests for the nation’s leaders), and bullying them into enforcing Christian rules as much as possible by being anti-sex, anti-choice, anti-science, anti-intellectual, and fighting a “war on drugs” that has failed miserably.

Aided by groups like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, the coalition made the Republican party the political arm of the Christian religion and made “conservative” a code word for “Christian.”  They developed stealth tactics to get Christians into local, state and federal elected offices.  For the most part, these candidates kept their religious zealotry quiet until they got into office, then began working tirelessly to promote a Christian agenda.  Now, 30 years later, they have become entrenched in the American political system and are eating away at the Constitution like termites in a wood pile.  Nowhere have their efforts been more obvious than in the area of contraception, abortion and sex education.

Conservatives — remember, that’s code for Christian — claim that comprehensive sex education and accessible methods of birth control like condoms and the pill encourage teenagers to engage in sexual relations earlier than they would otherwise and before they are ready.  They prefer abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education, which rejects birth control, demonizes abortion, and eliminates a broad discussion of sexuality in favor of a very familiar teaching that can be summed up in one line:

NO SEX UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED!

All of this, of course, is absurd.

Let’s take the idea that comprehensive sex education and/or the accessibility of birth control encourage teenagers to have sex.  This suggests that teenagers need encouragement to have sex.  As we all know, those teens are just sitting around with long faces, dying of boredom, because the thought of having sex has never occurred to them.  The idea of rubbing their bodies together and involving the use of their hands and tongues has not crossed their minds for a moment.  Sex?  What’s that?  I mean, it’s not like teenagers have any natural urge to engage in sexual activity.  It’s not like they’re the hormonal equivalent of Chernobyl, or anything, right?  They’re just hanging around playing video games, talking on the phone, and wondering what’s for dinner.

Along comes comprehensive sex education and accessible methods of birth control and excited teenagers exclaim, “Hey!  Why didn’t somebody suggest this sooner, dammit?  We could’ve been fucking our brains out all this time!”  Suddenly, teenagers are focusing all their attention on newly engorged parts of their bodies they didn’t even know they had before somebody filled them in!  Now everywhere you look, girls are getting pregnant, boys are comparing notes, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant, and the moral fabric of America is destroyed!

Damn you, you immoral secular humanist liberal perverts!

Yeah, right.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage is not sex education.  It is anti-sex and abandons factual information in favor of outright lies that instill guilt and fear.  It teaches young people nothing about sex — nothing truthful, anyway, although it gives them information that is blatantly untrue – it simply tells them not to do it until they get married.  And it’s not new.

In an effort to prevent comprehensive sex education from tipping teenagers off to the existence of their otherwise unknown, dormant sex drives, the United States government has been using taxpayer dollars to support abstinence-only-until-marriage programs ever since the whole thing sounded like a good idea to Ronald Reagan in 1981.  There was absolutely no existing research on the effectiveness of these programs back then, but Reagan was convinced by his conservative Christian cronies — like those in Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” — that it was the right thing to do.

According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS), there are three funding streams for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  The first is the Adolescent Family Life Act:

“The Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) was quietly signed into law in 1981 as Title XX of the Public Health Service Act without hearings or floor votes in the U.S. Congress.  In addition to providing support for pregnant and parenting teens, AFLA was established to promote ‘chastity’ and ‘self-discipline.’”

We’re talking about federally funded chastity, here, folks!  The second is what is commonly referred to as the Welfare Reform Act:

“The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act (TANF), better known as ‘welfare reform,’ was signed into law in 1996.  The welfare reform law added Title V, Section 510(b) of the Social Security Act which established a new funding stream to provide grants to states for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Similar to AFLA, this program was enacted quietly, without public or legislative debate. … With the passage of the Title V abstinence-only program came an eight-point federal definition of ‘abstinence education.’  All programs that receive abstinence-only-until-marriage funds must adhere to this definition which specifies, in part, that ‘a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of all human sexual activity’ and that ‘sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.’”

The third funding stream is Community-Based Abstinence Education:

“In October 2000, the federal government created yet another funding stream to support abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Under this third funding stream, originally known as Special Projects of Regional and National Significance – Community-Based Abstinence Education (SPRANS–CBAE), the federal government awards grants directly to state and local organizations. Until Fiscal Year 2005, SPRANS – CBAE was administered within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2005, however, this funding stream was moved to HHS’ more conservative Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and is now referred to simply as Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE).”

Title V abstinence-before-marriage-only allowed the states to decide which programs would be awarded funding.  But CBAE eliminates that step and allows HHS to give this money directly to these community programs.  They’ve cut out the middleman and now allow the federal government to decide where this money goes.  CBAE funding will only be given to programs that teach the eight-point government definition of “abstinence education.”  This has given conservative lawmakers much more control over the money available to these programs.  In some cases, this control has gone to their heads.  Some of these lawmakers have tried to block money from going to educational media programs and after-school programs because, according to SEICA, “such programs dilute the abstinence message, do not sufficiently focus on marriage, and violate the intent of Title V’s eight-point ‘abstinence education’ definition.”  But it gets worse:

“In fact, in early 2006, ACF released a new funding announcement for CBAE programs.  With this call for new proposals, ACF promulgated a series of assaults on logic, science, and individual dignity, and CBAE programs have become that much more ideologically driven.  The new funding announcement views sexual abstinence prior to marriage as the magic elixir to a more perfect life.  Sexual abstinence before marriage is credited with leading to a happier life, including having a healthier marriage, having more money, having healthier future children, being more ‘responsible’ parents, being honorable and having integrity, attaining a better education, having fewer psychological disorders, avoiding drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, committing fewer crimes and staying out of prison, and having a longer life span.  The problem with ACF’s proclamations, however, is that they have no basis in sound evidence and very little grasp on the reality endured by the vast majority of America’s youth.”

By now, you might be wondering exactly what this “eight-point abstinence education definition” is.  Here are the things these federally-funded programs must teach:

Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act, P.L. 104–193

For the purposes of this section, the term “abstinence education” means an educational or motivational program which:

A.  has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;

B.  teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;

C.  teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;

D.  teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;

E.  teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;

F.  teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;

G.  teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances, and

H.  teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

For the record, I personally have no problem with the last two points on this list.  The other six?  Preposterous twaddlecock.  Not only is there no reliably conducted research to back up any of these points, but there is plenty of existing research that refutes them.  But let’s not let that get in the way of using taxpayers’ dollars to teach our young people what Jesus expects of them.

Oh, sure, there’s no mention here of Christianity or god or Jesus or the bible — but you can be sure that this list of eight “definitions” does not come from experts in human sexuality.  It comes straight out of the Christian rulebook, and what’s behind it is not fact-based scientific research in human sexuality or behavior.  What’s behind it is the message that Christianity has been pounding into the heads of human beings for thousands of years:

SEX IS BAD!  SEX IS WRONG!  SEX IS DIRTY!  SEX IS A SIN!

If you’re a parent who doesn’t like the idea of this message being taught to your children, then you know what?  That’s just too fucking bad.  Because this isn’t being taught by pastors or Sunday school teachers or in private schools — this is being funded by your government with money that comes out of your pocket, and they don’t care what you think about it.  Why do you think this was done quietly without any public or legislative debate?  They didn’t ask for your opinion or anyone else’s.  And your money is being used to fund these programs in spite of overwhelming evidence that what they’re teaching our young people is not only wrong but doesn’t work.

On behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. did a study on the effectiveness of abstinence-only-until-marriage education.  The results were released in a 2007.  From a SEICA report about the study:

“(The study) found no evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs increased rates of sexual abstinence.  In addition, students in the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs had a similar number of sexual partners as their peers not in the programs, as well as a similar age of first sex.”

But it’s even worse than that.  While there was no evidence of increased rates of abstinence, the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs misinformed young people about things like methods of contraception.  From the report:

“Program group youth, however, were less likely than control group youth to perceive condoms as effective at preventing STDs.  Compared with control group youth, program group youth were less likely to report that condoms are usually effective at preventing HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea, and herpes and HPV.  Furthermore, program group youth were more likely than control group youth to report that condoms are never effective at preventing these STDs.”

Is it possible that these programs could be deliberately misinforming teenagers about the efficacy of contraceptives?  Let’s take a look at some excerpts from published materials that are used in these abstinence-only-until-marriage programs (provided by SEICUS):

“There are always risks associated with it [premarital sex], even dangerous, life-threatening risks such as HIV/AIDS.  Using contraceptives does not change this for teenagers.”
– FACTS  Middle School, Student Handbook, p. 50

This is a bald-faced lie.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”

“Couples who use condoms for birth control experience a first-year failure rate of about 15% in preventing pregnancies.  This means that over a period of five years, there could be a 50% chance or higher of getting pregnant with condoms used as the birth control method.”
– Choosing the Best PATH, Leader Guide, p. 18

“At the least, the chances of getting pregnant with a condom are 1 out of 6.”
– Me, My World, My Future, Revised HIV material, p. 257

More bald-faced lies.  According to the June 1999 issue of Consumer Reports (page 46), Studies in Family Planning, January/February 1990, volume 21, number 1 (page 52), Contraceptive Technology, 17th revised edition (New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc., 1998, pages 328-329), and many other sources, when used properly and consistently, condoms are 98% effective in preventing pregnancy.

“AIDS can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.”
– Reasonable Reasons to Wait, Teacher’s Guide, Unit 5, p. 19

Another bald-faced lie.  According to the CDC, “Only specific fluids (blood, semen, vaginal secretions, and breast milk) from an HIV-infected person can transmit HIV.”

“Game Plan does not promote the use of contraceptives for teens. No contraceptive device is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy. Additionally, students who do not choose to exercise self-control to remain abstinent are not likely to exercise self-control in the use of a contraceptive device.”
– Game Plan, Coach’s Clipboard, p. 27

How can you even respond to such a nonsensical statement?  The claim that “students who do not choose to exercise self-control to remain abstinent are not likely to exercise self-control in the use of a contraceptive device” barely qualifies as an opinion let alone a fact.  There is absolutely nothing to support such a claim.  As Christopher Hitchens said, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

Telling human beings — especially young people who are curious and bubbling with hormones — to abstain from sex is to tell them to ignore their own biology.  Anyone who actually expects them to abstain from sex is either mentally disabled, has forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager, or has some other agenda to enforce — and all signs point to the third option.  More on that in a moment.  Telling them to abstain is bad enough, but to deliberately lie to them about contraceptives in this day and age is to endanger their lives.  But that’s what these abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are doing — deliberately lying to teenagers.

The above excerpts from abstinence-only-until-marriage “educational” literature are just the tip of the iceberg.  Here are a few more.

“Girls need to be aware they may be able to tell when a kiss is leading to something else.  The girl may need to put the brakes on first in order to help the boy.”
– Reasonable Reasons to Wait, Student Workbook, p. 96

“A guy who wants to respect girls is distracted by sexy clothes and remembers her for one thing.  Is it fair that guys are turned on by their senses and women by their hearts??”
– Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 94

That’s right, girls – it’s all up to you.  Keeping that wily penis under control is your responsiblity because you’re the one who woke it up in the first place.  And if something goes wrong – if you end up getting pregnant or raped – then it’s your own damned fault!

“One thing that sex education and the media fail to communicate is the power of sex. Spies, who are trained not to give away government secrets, even lose their sensibilities and give in to the power of sex, often because of what a woman is wearing.”
– WAIT Training, Workshop Manual, p. 86

Excuse me?  Did you say ‘spies?’  No, seriously … spies?  Is this a joke?  Is this based on research?  Did someone do a study to see what makes spies “lose their sensibilities?”  What about superheroes?  Do they lose their super powers when they see a woman in hot clothes?  How about space aliens?  Or Bigfoot?  Hey, I can play this wackjob game, too, you know!

“Abortion is not the best choice because it unfairly penalizes the baby for the bad decision the baby’s parents made.”
– Sex Respect, Teacher Manual, p. 7

“Teacher’s Question:  What are the possible consequences of choosing to have an abortion?
Suggested Answers:  Feelings of regret, shame, sadness, guilt; physical complications for girl; continued feelings of shame, sadness, regret; death of fetus.”
– Choosing the Best LIFE, Leader Guide, p. 31

“The unborn infant is a unique never to be repeated human”
– Reasonable Reasons to Wait, Teacher’s-Guide, Unit 9, p. 35

Hmm.  Shame, guilt, regret … this is starting to sound awfully familiar, isn’t it?

“Men sexually are like microwaves and women sexually are like crockpots … a woman is stimulated more by touch and romantic words. She is far more attracted by a man’s personality while a man is stimulated by sight. A man is usually less discriminating about those to whom he is physically attracted.”
– WAIT Training, Workshop Manual, p. 37

“A young man’s natural desire for sex is already strong due to testosterone … females are becoming culturally conditioned to fantasize about sex as well.”
– Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 11

That’s right, girls – those aren’t real sexual fantasies you’re having, you’re just being conditioned to pretend you’re having sexual fantasies.  Because as we all know, women don’t have sex drives.

Whenever you have absolutely no research or factual information to back up what you’re saying, it’s always a good idea to keep a bunch of stereotypes on hand.  In the two examples above, we have some tried and true gender stereotypes that are always helpful in clouding a discussion when there are no supporting facts available.

“These are simply natural consequences.  For example, if you eat spoiled food, you will get sick.  If you jump from a tall building, you will be hurt or killed.  If you spend more money than you make, your enslavement to debt affects you and those whom you love. If you have sex outside of marriage, there are consequences for you, your partner and society.”
– Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 11

“The only safe sex is in a marriage relationship where a man and a woman are faithful to each other for life.”
– Game Plan, Student Workbook, p. 38

“Teenagers who are sexually active in high school will find that their schoolwork suffers.”
– Reasonable Reasons to Wait, Student Workbook, p. 41

Question: What are the risks of being sexually active?
Answer: Teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, low self-esteem, loss of reputation, feelings of being used.
– Choosing the Best PATH, Teacher’s Guide, p. 6

“Each time a sexually active person gives that most personal part of himself or herself away, that person can lose a sense of personal value and worth. It all comes down to self-respect.”
– Choosing the Best PATH, Teacher’s Guide, p. 7

What about gay teenagers?  There seems to be nothing here for them.  Abstinence-only-until-marriage does not even acknowledge the existence of gay teenagers.  And even if it did, they would be up shit creek without a paddle, because they aren’t allowed to get married!  They have been ostracized from this discussion and left to fend for themselves.  In a lot of ways, they’re probably better off.

Are you starting to get a feel for what’s being conveyed here?  These aren’t facts.  None of this is meant to inform teenagers about their sexual options.  The only options being given here are shame, guilt, disease, low self-esteem … or abstinence.  Add all of this stuff up.  Do the math.  What do you come up with?

This is stealth Christianity.  Everything being taught by these abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is straight out of the Christian sex rulebook.  They don’t mention Jesus or god or the bible or salvation, but abstinence-only-until-marriage is made up entirely of Christian guilt.  Attach guilt to sex and everybody feels guilty, and as soon as that guilt sets in, Christianity steps up and says, Hey, we can help you with that. And then it’s got you.

Even better for the Christian religion, this guilt is being aimed at young people.  Before their minds are fully developed, before they’re able to think critically, these young people are being taught that sex is bad, their bodies have wicked urges, and they must be ashamed of and resist them.  If you can instill this in them early, it will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Best of all for the Christian religion, it doesn’t even have to do this in a religious way.  Religion turns a lot of people off; as soon as they know someone is trying to foist religion onto them, they become immediately unreachable.  This isn’t being offered as religious teaching — in fact, it isn’t even being offered.  This is Christian guilt and shame that has been federally mandated, Christian dogma that is being funded by your tax dollars and shoved into the minds of children in public schools.

It started with Ronald Reagan and has been continued by every president since then.  You might think a Democrat like Bill Clinton would put a stop to it, but that’s what you get for buying into the illusion of the two party system.  You might think Barack Obama — the first president to acknowledge nonbelievers in his inaugural address while pointing out that America is a nation of many religions and no religion — would do something about this very unconstitutional state of affairs, but you would be way off in thinking that.

Earlier this year, during the battle that raged over health care legislation, everyone was so busy analyzing it and arguing and speculating about it that nobody noticed the $250 million extension for abstinence-only-until-marriage education that was slipped into it like a ruffie being slipped into a supermodel’s appletini.  From a March 31, 2010 Huffington Post article by Advocates for Youth President James Wagoner:

“Lost in the shuffle of analysis of the new health care reform legislation, is the fact that Democrats included over $250 million for failed Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  The funds had been inserted in the health care reform legislation by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) during Senate Finance Committee consideration of the bill.

“Never mind that these programs place the health and lives of young people at risk by denying them medically accurate information about condoms and birth control.  Never mind that an exhaustive eight-year evaluation by Mathematica published in April, 2007 showed that these programs have ‘no impact on teen behavior.’  Never mind that 22 states had rejected TitleV funding in the past because they did not want to spend precious matching funds on programs that don’t work.  Never mind that Speaker Pelosi condemned these programs at the Netroots conference in 2008.  Bottom line is they are back, and Democrats seem none too eager to own up to who threw young people under the bus!”

How does this throw young people under the bus?  By giving them inaccurate information about condoms and sexually transmitted diseases, by keeping them ignorant about their own sexuality.  Sex education classes that lie to students about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases and tell students that having sex outside marriage will destroy their lives — and even society! — is like a home economics class that tells its students the kitchen is dangerous and will kill them, so they should stay out of it no matter how hungry they become.  It also makes about as much sense.  This kind of “sex education” results in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.  Why would our government enforce taxpayer-funded programs that result in the exact opposite of what proponents of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs claim?

Because underneath all the moralizing and guilt-tripping, underneath all the unsupported claims made by the people who support these programs, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies are the GOAL of abstinence-only-before-marriage programs!

Before you roll your eyes, let me explain.

Telling teenagers not to have sex until they get married and then expecting them to obey is not only unreasonable, it is completely untethered from reality.  From a December 19, 2006 article on the website of the Guttmacher Institute:

“The vast majority of Americans have sex before marriage, including those who abstained from sex during their teenage years, according to ‘Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003,’ by Lawrence B. Finer, published in the January/February 2007 issue of Public Health Reports.  Further, contrary to the public perception that premarital sex is much more common now than in the past, the study shows that even among women who were born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 had sex before marriage. …

“‘This is reality-check research.  Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades,’ says study author Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute.  ‘The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12–29-year-olds.  It would be more effective to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.’”

If premarital sex is the norm, then it’s not true that it causes people to have low self-esteem, emotional problems, and difficulty remaining faithful to one person later, all of which are taught to students by abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  Take a step back and place a religious template over this, and suddenly everything falls into place.

Christianity claims that sex outside of marriage is immoral.  Christianity claims that abortion is not only immoral but the murder of precious unborn lives.  In the Christian religion, whenever the subject of sex comes up, you are faced with two conflicting orders — 1.) Don’t have sex, and 2.) Have that baby no matter what.

What do abstinence-only-until-marriage programs teach?  1.) Don’t have sex, and 2.) Have that baby no matter what.

The diseases and pregnancies that result give Christianity what it needs to survive in an increasingly secular United States of America:  Guilt and children.

Premarital sex — especially if it results in a sexually transmitted disease or an unwanted pregnancy — creates guilt that your local Christian church will offer to rid you of if you’ll just come to church and be a part of the Christian family.  Unwanted pregnancies result in children, which Christianity desperately needs to propagate itself.

According to studies by Nazarene Church Growth Research and the International Bible Society, 83% to 85% of all Christians “make their commitment to Jesus between the ages of 4 and 14, that is, when they are children or early youth.”  After the age of 14, the chances that someone will convert to Christianity decline rapidly as a person ages.  That means only a very small percentage of Christians are converted as adults rather than being raised in the religion.  The great majority of Christians are born into their religion and indoctrinated from infancy onward or, at the very least, are convinced to “make their commitment to Jesus” at a very young, vulnerable age, before they can think critically and analyze Christianity reasonably.

From an Advocates for Youth article titled “Adolescent Sexual Health in Europe and the U.S.—Why the Difference?”:

“Regularly since 1998, Advocates for Youth has sponsored study tours to France, Germany, and the Netherlands to explore why adolescent sexual health outcomes are more positive in these European countries than in the United States.

“Rights.  Respect.  Responsibility.®  The study tour participants – policy makers, researchers, youth serving professionals, foundation officers, and youth – have found that this trilogy of values underpins a social philosophy regarding adolescent sexual health in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.  Each of the three nations has an unwritten social contract with youth:  ‘We’ll respect your right to act responsibly and give you the tools you need to avoid unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.’”

According to Advocacy for Youth, this method has worked out very well.  Teen pregnancy in the United States is more than six times that of the Netherlands, nearly four times that of Germany, and triple the rate of teen pregnancy in France.  The teenage birth rate in the U.S. is nine times higher than the Netherlands’, almost six times higher than France’s and more than four times higher than Germany’s.  In every category — the rates of teenage abortion, HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, and the use of condoms and birth control pills by teenagers — the United States compares abysmally to these European countries.

Why?  Because in those countries, sex is treated like a natural function of the human body, a biological and emotional need that is not a source of shame or guilt, something that is not a sin.  Instead, it is incorporated into the everyday lives of the citizens in a way that allows them to engage in it responsibly and as safely as possible.

But not in the United States, where Christianity has infiltrated the government and used it to pervert sex.

While Dr. Darrel W. Ray’s idea of looking at religion as a virus is an excellent one, religion — any religion — also can be seen as a parasite.  It attaches itself to the host and takes and takes and takes.  It needs money, it needs people, it needs acceptance, reverence and respect, and to propagate itself it needs children and it needs to instill guilt and shame in everyone around it.  More than anything, it needs power.  It takes credit for things it does not do and holds itself up as something necessary and authoritative, something to be revered — as something it is not.  In return, it gives … nothing.  Well, it gives nothing positive.  It provides plenty of guilt and shame and fear and condemnation and division and bigotry.  In nurtures ignorance while it suppresses facts.  It hinders progress while it condemns real knowledge.  It vilifies the natural and glorifies the unnatural.  It kills the soul with the self-loathing it instills.  It marginalizes and demonizes anyone who meets with its disapproval.  It craves war while it tells the lie that it comes in peace.

If you ignore what Christianity says about itself and the things it does and look only at the results of its actions, you quickly see that a large gap separates the two.  Whenever it talks about itself — what it stands for, what it does, what its motivations are — Christianity is lying.  To see this, all you have to do is hold Christianity to a verse from the very book on which it claims to be based:

“Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Matthew 7:16

The fruits of Christianity bear no resemblance whatsoever to the claims of Christianity.

“What have been Christianity’s fruits?  More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
– James Madison (Fourth U.S. President)

Ignore Christianity’s words and look at its fruits.  Everything it does — absolutely everything — is done to protect and propagate itself and to gain power and money.  Look closely at the things it does as charity.  The charity comes with conditions.  Ever been to a Christian homeless shelter or soup kitchen?  If you want the shelter and food, you have to take the religious guilt, condemnation and indoctrination, too.  When Christian missionaries go to a third world country, do they educate the children with real-world knowledge and work toward making the country self-sufficient and productive?  No.  They immediately indoctrinate the people in the religion.  Any food and medicine provided is conditional on acceptance of the religion.  No third world country has ever been brought out of poverty and ignorance by Christianity.  Ever.  If anything, conditions worsen as Christianity makes the populace dependent upon it and its teachings.

It’s the same here in the United States.  Christians say that sex is immoral and they are concerned for the salvation of America’s young people.  Not true.  They are attaching guilt to something that is natural and healthy in order to make people dependent on their religion.  They say they want teenagers to abstain from sex to avoid diseases and unwanted pregnancies.  Not true.  They want those diseases and unwanted pregnancies because they produce the guilt Christianity needs to retain power over people and the pregnancies produce the children it needs to survive.  They say abortion is immoral and they care about the unborn humans it kills.  Not true.  They see those unborn babies as the future of their religion.  They represent young, defenseless minds that can be captured and indoctrinated before they are developed enough to rationally examine Christianity and make an informed choice about it.  These are the things Christianity needs in the United States.  It wants the government to provide them and you to pay for them.

All of this is true of any religion/parasite.  But in the United States, the parasite is Christianity.  It has attached itself to the government and it is now sucking from it money and power.  If it is not stopped very soon, then it won’t be long before it consumes our public school system and replaces facts with myths, enlightenment with fear, and textbooks with bibles.

Next time you hear a conservative complaining about government programs he identifies as “socialism,” ask him how he feels about socialism for Christianity.  Because that is exactly what abstinence-only-before-marriage programs are — socialism for Christianity.  And there are plenty of other forms of socialism for Christianity currently in effect, as well.  Christians say they oppose socialism.  Not true.  They’re all for it — as long as it is socialism that gives their religion power and money.

Christianity’s latest socialist victory?  $250 million of your money have been picked from your pocket so the parasite can thrive.  And there is only one person can do something about it.

You.

Before and after (a video is inserted below, but will probably be removed from YouTube soon like others have been.)

Naomi wrote about this “Touchdown Jesus” statue some time ago. There is even a song about “Big Butter Jesus” on YouTube. Well, it’s now rubble. I guess Zeus must have been jealous.

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. The fire department would release a monetary damage estimate Tuesday, he said.

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.

I wonder what imaginative stories the builders, financiers and worshipers of this statue will make up to explain this one. I bet they will blame it on the debbil.

The video:

(Hat tip to the Dribbleglass for these…stultifying glimpses into the religious mindscape.)

MUSLIMS RIOT OVER SANDAL
Riots in Bangladesh killed one and injured as many as two hundred when Muslims reacted violently in protest of a new sandal which carried a design that they said resembled the Arab script for Allah. Executives of the Canadian-based Bata Shoe Company were ordered into court to explain the design.

I’m guessing here, they don’t want to walk a few feet, let alone a mile, in those shoes…

RETRIBUTION
The Reverend W. N. Otwell, Texas gubernatorial candidate in 1990, declared that the floods and other natural disasters that had bedeviled Texas since 1986 were the Lord’s retribution for all the attacks on Otwell. Said Otwell, "We’ve been keeping stats on this."

So…the imaginary sky daddy is focusing solely on some whackadoo in Texas, cataloguing all the ‘attacks’ on this guy, and besieging Texas? Can you say ‘narcissist’, boys and girls?

IRS USES 666
During 1980 and 1981 the Internal Revenue Service asked taxpayers to enter the number 666 as a code on a form reporting individual retirement accounts. The IRS said that the Social Security Administration chose the number because scanner could read it easily. After complaints from fundamentalist Christians, the IRS changed the number on 1992 forms to 555.

Bad news, fundies: IT’S JUST A NUMBER! And all that crap in Revelation? Pure fiction.

MAN CHANGES NAME TO GOD
Californian Enrique Silberg changed his name in 1985 to Ubiquitous Perpetuity God after a judge refused to allow him to change it to simply "God."

Yes, because the universe is all about YOU, Enrique…are you kidding?

KITTY DIES, END OF WORLD NEARS
Late in July of 1989 a kitten with eight legs and two tails was born in the village of Machala in Ecuador. Rejected by its mother, it died within hours. The devout Catholic population there saw it as a bad sign. "We are nearing the end of the world because people are so decadent," said one.

And yet the world persists, 21 years later…

CATHOLICS BRAWL OVER LATIN MASS
A fist-fight broke out when 60 traditionalist Roman Catholics tried to take over the main altar at Saint Maclou Cathedral near Paris so that they could celebrate the mass in Latin. The brawl lasted over an hour until a priest agreed to move to a side chapel for his Latin service.

Yeah, religion shore do improve pay-pul, dunnit?

FARRAKHAN SHARES WORD OF MOTHER WHEEL
Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, says he experienced a vision in which a UFO took him from a Mexico mountaintop to a "mother wheel" where the voice of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the religious sect, told him to tell the world that then-President Ronald Reagan was planning a war. Farrakhan said that the later air attack on Libya was partly foiled by the Mother Wheel. "The Wheel was, in fact, present and interfered with the highly sensitive electronic equipment of the aircraft carrier, forcing it to return to Florida for repairs."

Things like the paragraph above give me a conclussion – that is to say, when an otherwise intelligent and rational individual is exposed to an insane conclusion, it gives them a concussion.

BIBLE LESSONS TAKE SHOCKING TWIST
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baptist minister Dwight Rymer used electric shocks to help him teach the Bible to children. He asked for young volunteers to sit on a stool wired to a six-volt lantern battery in order to demonstrate that sometimes God "can shock you into hearing His word."

My question is: were there any volunteers at all?

MYSTIC NAILED FOR WORLD PEACE
On nationwide television in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, a mystic named Patrice Tamao had himself nailed to a cross "as a sacrifice for world peace and understanding." An unforeseen snag developed when Tamao’s foot became infected the following day and physicians ordered him pried loose and taken down. His wife Marita then volunteered to be hammered up in his place.

Let’s see: world peace? No. And Marita – that’s your husband’s cross to bear.

The ability of the human mind to turn a blind eye to obvious idiocies still stuns me, after 51 years on this earth. I love humanity, but holy crap, are we dim or what?

I wonder, sadly, I wonder…

Till the next post, then.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it” -  Macbeth, Act I, Scene IV

In a recent post, Mr. Garton expounded upon the sexual horrors that some would perpetrate upon us. Sadly, American history is rife with those who would gird our loins for war against our wills. Anita Bryant, for instance, led a vicious movement against gay rights that was religiously motivated. The AFA (American Family Association – what a gentle name that hides the insanity of its members) to this day is virulently anti-gay and labors mightily to foist other violations that run contrary to the (many) principles upon which this country was founded.

As outrageous and horrid as these recent efforts to deprive the few of the liberties granted to all, a brief history lesson will chill the blood and clench the knuckles white with rage. We can breathe a sigh of relief that these days are past us, but we must always be on guard lest the past come back with foaming jaws to bite us in the ass.

Anthony Comstock was a sexually repressed control freak, who left vivid scars on the sexual psyche of America:

Comstock was born in New Canaan, Connecticut. As a young man, he enlisted and fought for the Union in the American Civil War from 1863 to 1865 in Company H, 17th Connecticut Infantry. He served without incident, but objected to the profanity used by his fellow soldiers. Afterward he became an active worker in the Young Men’s Christian Association in New York City.

In 1873 Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that year, Comstock successfully influenced the United States Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made illegal the delivery or transportation of both "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material as well as any methods of, or information pertaining to, birth control. George Bernard Shaw used the term "comstockery", meaning "censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality", after Comstock alerted the New York police to the content of Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Shaw remarked that "Comstockery is the world’s standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all." Comstock thought of Shaw as an "Irish smut dealer." The term comstockery was actually first coined in a New York Times editorial in 1895.

The actual content of Shaw’s play was quite benign by today’s standards. It was more of an effort to humanize an otherwise ‘taboo’ topic.

Of course, this ass-clown rivals even the modern-day Taliban in their ludicrousness:

Comstock’s ideas of what might be "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" were quite broad. During his time of greatest power, even some anatomy textbooks were prohibited from being sent to medical students by the United States Postal Service.

I suppose that gynecologists had to use guesswork in those days? Of course, he had a great many detractors:

Comstock aroused intense loathing from early civil liberties groups and intense support from church-based groups worried about public morals. He was a savvy political insider in New York City and was made a special agent of the United States Postal Service, with police powers up to and including the right to carry a weapon. With this power he zealously prosecuted those he suspected of either public distribution of pornography or commercial fraud. He was also involved in shutting down the Louisiana Lottery, the only legal lottery in the United States at the time, and notorious for corruption.

Frightening, no? It gets worse:

Comstock is also known for his opposition to Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, and those associated with them. The men’s journal The Days’ Doings had popularised lewd images of the sisters for three years and was instructed by its editor (while Comstock was present) to stop producing images of "lewd character". Comstock also took legal action against the paper for advertising contraceptives. When the sisters published an expose of an adulterous affair between Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton, he had the sisters arrested under laws forbidding the use of the postal service to distribute ‘obscene material’–specifically (and ironically) citing a mangled Biblical quote Comstock found obscene–though they were later acquitted of the charges.

And worse:

Less fortunate was Ida Craddock, who committed suicide on the eve of reporting to Federal prison for distributing via the U.S. Mail various sexually explicit marriage manuals she had authored. Her final work was a lengthy public suicide note specifically condemning Comstock.

And even more sickening:

Comstock claimed he drove fifteen persons to suicide in his "fight for the young". He was head vice-hunter of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock, the self-labeled "weeder in God’s garden", arrested D. M. Bennett for publishing his "An Open Letter to Jesus Christ" and later entrapped the editor for mailing a free-love pamphlet. Bennett was prosecuted, subjected to a widely publicized trial, and imprisoned in the Albany Penitentiary.

“Weeder in gawd’s garden’ my homesick ass. He was a morality monster, one of those beasts that is so afraid of human sexuality, it warps the weft of the mind.

Some comeuppance was en route, but unsatisfactory:

Comstock had numerous enemies, and in later years his health was affected by a severe blow to the head from an anonymous attacker. He lectured to college audiences and wrote newspaper articles to sustain his causes. Before his death, Comstock attracted the interest of a young law student, J. Edgar Hoover, interested in his causes and methods.

Wait – JEH? Not that old Lola of FBI fame?

During his career, Comstock clashed with Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger. In her autobiography, Goldman referred to Comstock as the leader of America’s "moral eunuchs". Through his various campaigns, he destroyed 15 tons of books, 284,000 pounds of plates for printing ‘objectionable’ books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures.

Yes, because of course freedom of speech only applies when good church-going folk decide that it does, right?

Comstock boasted that he was responsible for 4,000 arrests and 15 suicides.

That anyone claiming to be human could ‘boast’ about driving people to suicide, illustrates what an evil, evil little man Comstock was.

His legacy obviously continues today. It should end here, in the 21st century, where religion is losing its invidious grip on hearts and minds, where science has expanded our intellects to the juncture that these anachronistic atavistic throwbacks are more a cause of comic relief than mystic dread.

Carry on the fight, my friends, lest the old days returneth with blood and shouting and pain.

Till the next post, then.

We all recall that nonsense back in 2005, when Muslims protested the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Protest? Madness, more like. It illustrated the issues of religion (and one specifically that keeps hollering that it’s a ‘religion of peace’), the dark dank fingers of imaginary friendships with invisible people stirring up and brings out the worst of the reptilian hindbrain.

And now, we have more issues – apparently the accomodationists are out in force, weeping politically correct crocodile tears over the hurt feelings of ignorant millions.

Yesterday a number of cartoonists and activists around the world partook in "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." The campaign encouraged people to submit caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad to Facebook and the Internet at large (which resulted in Pakistan temporarily banning Facebook). It was billed as a free speech statement against recent threats toward cartoonists and entertainers for portraying the religious figure. Some commentators, however, found it tasteless and needlessly offensive toward Muslims, many of whom consider drawing Mohammad to be blasphemous.

Political Cartoonists Are Split, reports Michael Cavna at The Washington Post:

"Shock for shock’s sake." "Choreographed punditry." And "wrong, childish and needlessly provocative." That’s what some critics think of Thursday’s Facebook-ignited campaign titled "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." But those aren’t Islamic extremists speaking. Those are the words of pro-free-speech political cartoonists…

As far as I care, pouting and hurt feelings are for children.

But petition signee Mark Fiore, whose clients include SFGate.com, says his political animation Thursday will incorporate Muhammad. And noted Islamic critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose book "Nomad: From Islam to America" was published this week, says the protest "is a positive campaign" that can "promote self-reflection among Muslims."

And yes, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been the target of death threats. So has prominent critic Salman Rushdie. And no, these aren’t isolated examples – people are genuinely afraid to leave this barbaric anachronism.

The Case For Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Why This Is an Important Campaign  According to Mark Goldblatt at Reason:

Our tip-toeing around Islamic sensibilities is nothing more than plain, old-fashioned cowardice. MSNBC stooge Lawrence O’Donnell, for example, repeatedly slandered Mormonism during the 2008 presidential campaign as a sidebar to his creepily obsessive verbal jihad against then-candidate Mitt Romney. But when asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would insult Muhammad the way he’d insulted Joseph Smith, O’Donnell replied with rare candor: “Oh, well, I’m afraid of what the… that’s where I’m really afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly, but I’m afraid for my life if I do. … I’m not going to say a word about them." That’s the problem in a nutshell. But it’s not just O’Donnell’s problem. It’s our problem. America’s problem. The West’s problem. We lack the moral courage to walk the walk.

Cartoonist Split Proves Benefit  National Review’s Veronique de Rugy reflects on the cartoonist who regrets proposing the idea at all. "Isn’t the existence of the cartoonist’s fear even more reason to come up with ideas like hers?" De Rugy praises "courage and commitment to free speech."

We’re Fighting For Free Speech  Reason’s Matt Welch recalls the Dutch cartoon controversy. "It is unconscionable that–under murderous duress!–those in the free speechin’ business would suddenly cede the authority to depict a really existing historical figure to a loud minority’s religious preferences. … by reprinting one of the cartoons, we would be demonstrating solidarity not with the sentiments contained within it, but with the foundational notion that people ought to be able to publish stuff like that (and worse), period, let alone without fear of having their heads lopped off." He later writes, "in a free society, every day is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

• And of course, the PC apologists blather their usual nonsense:

The Case Against Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

It’s Needlessly Insensitive, counters Wonkette’s Ken Layne: "To equate the bizarre/violent behavior of a handful of fanatics with the cultural-religious traditions and harmless taboos of a billion of the world’s people, well that’s about as dumb as T.P.ing your neighborhood Sunday School because you don’t like Fred Phelps." He accuses proponents of "childishly prodding angry, impoverished people into rage and violence so you can snicker from the safety of your computer."

Well, actually, it’s not a handful of fanatics. Riots occur  over stupid reasons. This happens quite frequently, in fact. Obviously Layne is using selective perception.

• Offending For No Reason Ann Althouse sighs, "I have endless contempt for the threats/warnings against various cartoonists who draw Muhammad. … But depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren’t doing anything (other than protecting their own interests by declining to pressure the extremists who are hurting the reputation of their religion)."
• Jury’s in: Ann’s a moron.By ‘declining to pressure extremists’, that’s also called ‘enabling’ in rehab code.
  • Conservative blogger Erick Erickson adds, "On drawing Mohammed, I’d be offended if ppl had a day to mock my Lord, so why reciprocate? ‘Course I w/n go killing ppl who mocked Jesus."

‘Nuff said.

Why It Unreasonably Offends  Christian Science Monitor’s Husna Haq explains, "I am Muslim and I am American. I love my Prophet Mohammed, and I love my First Amendment right to free speech." However:

To depict him in a bear suit or with a pig snout – as he has been in two recent cartoons – is free speech, yes, but it is intensely offensive. It betrays a willful determination to refuse to see the world through Muslims eyes – to understand how innately the Prophet is loved by his followers and how profoundly flippant disrespect for him wounds us.

Well, killing people in Muhammed’s name (PB&J be upon him) counts as a helluva lot more than some hurt feelings.

Imagine Martin Luther King Jr. portrayed as a monkey and you begin to understand the depth of Muslims’ revulsion to such images.

Since there’s nobody up there, it hardly matters. What’s important, is what’s going on in the here and now.

In Islam, as in Judaism, iconography is prohibited out of fear that creating images of sacred figures could lead to dependence on, and even worship of, icons rather than God. The Prophet lifted his people from the worship of many gods to love for the one God. To depict him is to violate a fundamental tenet of Islam as a joke.

And I say there is no disrespect – because there is no Allah, no Jehovah, no Vishnu, no Krishna. Brahma is a bull and Jehovah a joke. It is time for people to realize that time spent on their knees murmuring is wasted time: there is no one up there listening. That all these ‘holy texts’ are curios only, no longer cautionary tales nor tenets to live by in this world of today.

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the metaphorical timbers shaking in the house that illusion built.

Till the next post, then.

Religion has given itself such a bad name that even some believers don’t want to be associated with it.  “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual,” is something that’s usually said by people who believe in god but don’t want to be included in his army of uptight, church-going, dogmatic, judgmental, hypocritical, unreasonable, irrational, bullying followers bent on overthrowing the United States and turning it into a Christian theocracy.  If someone says this and you ask what it means, you most likely will find it’s shorthand for something like this:  “Well, I’m just not comfortable with the idea of a godless universe, so I believe in something, but I haven’t really worked out exactly what, and it’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about, so I just try to keep a good moral center, but I’m not religious.”  Whatever their beliefs, that’s the one thing the “spiritual-but-not-religious” folks have in common – they don’t want to be mistaken for one of those people.  And who can blame them?

Now “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual” is in the news.  According to a study conducted by Lifeway Christian Resources, 72% of the 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed described themselves as “more spiritual than religious.”  In an article in USA Today, Lifeway president Thom Rainer says that if this trend continues, “the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships.”  This reflects the findings of other surveys by the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) and the Pew Forum.

According to ARIS, despite the addition of 50 million adults to the population in the last 18 years, religion is steadily losing ground.  In fact, the “nones” – people who claim no religious affiliation or no belief at all – now outrank all other religious groups in the United States except for Catholics and Baptists, and its numbers are growing.

Across the board, more and more people are turning their backs on organized religion.  None of the surveys I’ve found have asked why they’re doing this – I wish someone would do that study.  I suspect high on the list of reasons would be rampant hypocrisy among the religious, as well as the elitist, judgmental and bigoted attitudes of American Christians and the bullying behavior that demands respect from everyone but shows no respect to others.  Another reason might be the overwhelming authority churches claim to have over their members (and even non-members) without any real support for it.  They dip their hands into people’s lives, telling them how they should and shouldn’t live.  This is typically done by the men in the pulpits – pastors and priests who have decided to devote their lives to telling others how to live theirs.  These are usually men who have no formal training in anything but being pastors and priests, and yet they have the arrogance to counsel others on serious life issues, including marriage and family problems, which is especially disturbing in the case of priests who are not allowed to marry and who remain celibate – well, in theory, anyway … as long as you don’t count sex with kids.  As their source of authority and wisdom, they point to that ancient book written in a time of astonishing ignorance and superstition, the bible.  But that seems to be carrying less weight these days, too.  People are steadily seeing the weakness of the bible as a source of divine authority, morality or even good sense.

According to a Gallup poll, one third of the American population believes the bible is the infallible word of god and should be taken literally – an average of 31% between 1991 and 2007, a number that has dropped from 38% in the period between 1976 and 1984.  The level of education one has seems to be a factor in how literally they take the bible – the more educated, the less seriously the bible is taken.  A third of the country might seem like a hefty percentage – until you realize just how little the believers themselves know about what’s in the bible.  In his book No Place for Truth, theologian David Wells wrote, “I have watched with growing disbelief as the evangelical church has cheerfully plunged into astounding theological illiteracy.”

According to an article titled “Crisis in America’s Churches: Bible Knowledge at All-Time Low” by Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D., the most widely known bible verse among adult and teen Christians is, “God helps those who help themselves” – which isn’t even in the bible.  Valch writes, “One-third could not put the following in order: Abraham, the Old Testament prophets, the death of Christ, and Pentecost. … One-third could not identify Matthew as an apostle from a list of New Testament names … half did not know that the Christmas story was in Matthew, half did not know that the Passover story was in Exodus.”

According to Christian researcher George Barna, “Literally millions of Americans who declare themselves to be Christians contend that Jesus was just like the rest of us when it comes to temptation—fallen, guilty, impure, and Himself in need of a savior.”

If so many Christians are unfamiliar with the information in the bible that is relevant to their religious beliefs, then how many more have no familiarity at all with the ugly, hateful, immoral and downright horrifying material in the bible – the stuff their pastors and priests never cover in church, the stuff that doesn’t make it to buttons and bumper stickers and T-shirts?  A lot.  In fact, I’ll go so far as to say all of them (but I have no statistical study to support that – it’s just an opinion based on my experience with Christians).

Whenever I have any kind of discussion with a Christian about religion, sooner or later they fall on the old, “But the bible says so!” argument.  Oh, the bible?  You mean the old book that condones and advocates things like slavery, child abuse, torture, rape, incest, murder, genocide and communism?  That bible?  That, of course, is always met with indignant cries of, “It does not!” to which I calmly reply, “Yes, it does.”  Sooner or later, they say to me, “Prove it!”  That’s always fun.  Because I can.  And when I do, almost without exception, they are thrown into stammering, stuttering, slack-jawed speechlessness because they had no idea that the book they’d always believed to be the infallible word of god, the manifesto of god’s merciful love for his children, is actually the world’s oldest and bestselling horror novel in which the bloodthirsty monster is god.

My wife Dawn recently had a conversation with a friend who’s the daughter of a Christian minister.  The friend said something about the bible being “god’s word of love,” and Dawn laughed.  She suggested that a god who would command his people not to kill then tell them to wipe out an entire people by killing all the men, women, children, pets and livestock and take any surviving girls home for sex, was not too loving.  Her friend insisted the bible contained no such thing.  Dawn told her to ask her minister father about it, and the friend said she most definitely would.  She never brought the subject up again.  I assume Dad filled her in and she preferred not to talk about it anymore.

Throughout the Old Testament, god kills men, women and children, orders his people to kill their own children and loved ones, to burn nonbelievers, and to murder, rape and pillage entire civilizations.  He encourages slavery and even tells his people it’s okay to sell their own daughters into sexual slavery.  But the great majority of Christians are unaware of this because they don’t read the bible, they just listen to their pastors and priests tell them about it, and the pastors and priests tell their congregations only what they want them to know.  Those who are familiar with it have a number of standard defenses for its litany of obscenities.  My favorite is, “Things like that were cultural norms at that time.”  This, of course, makes no sense, because these same people will adamantly insist that god never ever changes and remains the same god he’s always been in every way.  But if what god deems acceptable behavior – slavery, rape, torture, child abuse, etc. – changes from one culture to the next, then obviously god does not remain the same and is heavily influenced by what humans deem acceptable behavior … which is awfully conveeeenient, as the Church Lady used to say.  But try pointing that out to them and see what happens.  The conversation will become uncomfortable at best, hostile at worst.  Usually hostile, by my experience.

Of those who say they believe the bible to be the word of god, how many know exactly what it is they’re claiming to believe in?  How seriously are we to take people who claim this book came from god when they don’t even know what’s in it?

Back to the Lifeway Christian Resources survey.  65% of those surveyed call themselves Christian, but Rainer says, “Many of them are mushy Christians or Christians in name only.  Most are just indifferent. The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith.”

This brings up the elitist and judgmental attitudes of Christians that I mentioned earlier.  Mr. Rainer has no qualms about letting us know that he is capable of deciding which people are real, sincere Christians and which ones are “mushy Christians or Christians in name only,” or “indifferent.”  The bible assures Christians that “whosoever believeth in him (Jesus Christ) should not perish but have everlasting life.”  (John 3:16)  In that particular part of the bible – the bible goes through wild mood swings throughout – all that’s required is belief.  But apparently Mr. Rainer knows better and has found many of those who claim to be Christians to be, in truth, severely lacking in some way.  I have no idea what he’s basing this on, and frankly, I don’t care, because along with being appallingly arrogant and judgmental, Mr. Rainer is full of hot air.  His dismissal of those whose brand of Christianity he disapproves of is actually a pretty good description of most of the Christians in this country.

Going by my experience with Christians – which is reflected in the experiences of most people I know – most use their religious belief rather than live it, and they use it only when it suits them.  Others – even nonbelievers – are expected to live by their religion’s rules while they do whatever they like and claim to be “not perfect, just forgiven.”  Little or no attention is given Jesus’s instructions.  He tells them to pray in private, but they want public prayer mandated.  He tells them to be humble and meek and not judgmental, and … well, we all know how that’s worked out, don’t we?  It has been my consistent and unwavering experience throughout my life that the most Christ-like people are those who do not believe in or worship Christ.  So when Mr. Rainer claims that only some of those who profess to be Christians are actually Christians, which suggests that others are fine, devout, loving, Christ-like Christians, I can’t help but laugh.

According to the Lifeway study, 65% of those surveyed “rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.  65% rarely or never attend worship services.  67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts.”  Among those who still believed they would go to heaven “because they have accepted Jesus Christ as savior, 68% did not mention faith, religion or spirituality when asked what was ‘really important in life.’  50% do not attend church at least weekly.  36% rarely or never read the Bible.”

But who are these Christian young people between the ages of 18 and 29?  Chances are extremely good that they were born into the religion or targeted by evangelism at a very early age, and the statistics – gathered by Christian researchers – back that up.

According to studies by Nazarene Church Growth Research and the International Bible Society, 83% to 85% of all Christians “make their commitment to Jesus between the ages of 4 and 14, that is, when they are children or early youth.”

Between the ages of 4 and 14.  I know that’s when I made all of my significant life commitments with full knowledge of precisely what I was doing – how about you?

According to an article by Michael Rohling, Manager of Youth and Family Interventions at Southern Illinois Regional Social Services (SIRSS) in Carbondale, Illinois, “Teenagers do not look as complete in brain development as researchers previously thought.  According to Barbara Strauch, the medical science and health editor of the New York Times, in her recent book, The Primal Teen [First Anchor Books Edition, September 2004], the notion that the brain was complete at age 13 or 14 has been thrown away.  The latest neuroscience is finding that structural changes are not finished until age 25 or so.  And, although there are numerous hormones involved, brain development plays a larger part in teen impulses.”

In a San Francisco Examiner article, education professional and Lifeline Foundation Inc. co-chair Sharon Biggs wrote, “Prior to full brain development children exhibit the following behaviors more coincidentally vs. consistently:  Decision making, use of appropriate judgment; rational thinking; integration of emotion and critical thinking; ability to think clearly about long-term outcomes that stem from behaviors; global thinking vs. self-centered thinking.”

Howard Culbertson, professor of missions and world evangelism, writes on the Southern Nazarene University website, “This data illustrates the importance of influencing children to consider making a decision to follow Christ.  Because the 4 to 14 period slice of the pie is so large, many have started referring to the ‘4 to14 Window.’”

So the reasoning behind the “4 to 14 Window” goes something like this: We need to get them before they can think straight.  This makes sense, of course.  According to the Nazarene Church Growth Research study, only 4% of Christians converted to the faith after the age of 30.  Older people, especially those who’ve been educated – those who have fully-developed brains and have integrated their emotions with critical thought, those who are capable of consistently making rational, carefully thought out decisions – are a little harder to sell on the idea of the earth being poofed into existence in six days, talking animals, seas opening up so people can walk across them, a pregnant virgin, and people rising from the dead than are children between the ages of 4 and 14 whose gray matter, like a mold of unfinished Jell-O, has not yet set.  People at 30 and older are not as likely to be convinced that if they don’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, his loving and merciful father will make them suffer and burn for all eternity in hell.

It’s not suprising that, according to Culbertson, “Many people serving as career cross-cultural missionaries have testified that they first felt god calling them to missionary service during that 4-14 age period.”  Was that really “god calling them,” or was it the high-pressure fear-mongering and guilt trips of adults who know that kids of that age are the easiest to convince, the easiest to dominate and indoctrinate, the targets most likely to yield successful results?

Let me repeat the words of Howard Culbertson: “This data illustrates the importance of influencing children to consider making a decision to follow Christ.”  Replace the word “influencing” with the word “indoctrinating.”  I would suggest using the word “brainwashing,” but that would imply that prelearned information is being erased and replaced with new information – we’re talking about children who don’t have any prelearned information to erase.  Their young, new minds are being shaped and sculpted at the earliest stages, particularly those who are born into religion and indoctrinated from infancy onward.

No one asked me if I wanted to be a Seventh-day Adventist.  That decision was made for me.  My earliest memories are of fear of the “last days,” of the “national Sunday law” that Adventism teaches its children will be passed, possibly at any moment, forcing everyone to worship on Sunday – Adventists observe the Old Testament Sabbath and worship on Saturday.  I was taught that when that happened, we would have to drop what we were doing, flee to the hills and hide in caves so the Catholics and other “Sunday-keepers” couldn’t find us, imprison us, torture us, and execute us for our beliefs.  I lived in such terror of this happening that every time a TV show I was watching was interrupted for a “special news bulletin,” I had a panic attack for fear that the announcement would be about the abrupt passage of the Sunday law.  Children born into religion are taught to see the devil around every corner, to prepare for the end of the world, to keep a watchful eye for the antichrist, and all kinds of scary things – all injected into a small child’s mind before it can reason or think clearly or choose.

How often have you heard this:  I think it’s important for children to go to church so they get some kind of moral, Christian training. I’ve heard my wife’s sister say this many times.  It’s not an uncommon thing for the parents of young children to say.  According to a friend of mine who used to be involved in Christian ministry, “Our experience in ministry was that the vast majority of the newcomers to our church – the previously unchurched – between the ages of 25 and 35 started attending solely because they wanted their children to grow up with some form of religious/Christian training.  They did not start the church thing for themselves.  They only chose our church because it was enjoyable.  It didn’t really matter to most of them what denomination just so long as it didn’t bore the hell out of them.  But their commitment was generally pretty flimsy.  They never ‘caught fire’ as we would say.”

It’s typical for people to think that religion and morality are the same thing.  Religion has spent thousands of years claiming that it virtually invented morality.  It has commandeered morality and claimed it for its own.  Christianity claims that its morality comes from the bible.  You remember the bible — that book that condones and advocates things like slavery, child abuse, torture, rape, incest, murder, genocide and communism?  Yeah, that bible.  That’s where they claim their morality comes from.

The fact is that morality – right and wrong, good and bad – exist independent of religion and always have.  But that’s another blog post.  Unfortunately, those who’ve bought into the lie that religion is the source of morality often decide they must turn their children over to what is in fact a system of indoctrination that is ready and waiting to seize control of the minds of those children.  Rather than being taught morality or the difference between right and wrong, they will be taught a false morality, taught to believe in myths and invisible, unprovable beings that have nothing to do with morality.  They will be taught that they are inherently bad, that they are filled with sin and are worthless unless they accept a non-existent being who will forgive their sins and give them worth.  They are told that this being died a horrible death for them and they are obligated to accept him and devote their lives to him, and if they don’t, they will burn forever in hell.  What does this have to do with morality?  What does this have to do with being a good person?  Nothing.  But these children will be told otherwise, and they will be told at a time when their minds are vulnerable and defenseless.

Sure, they would like you to convert and join their church.  But what do they really want?  They want your children.  That’s where their future lies.

There’s just one problem.  It seems this system of indoctrination isn’t working as well as it used to.  Young people are walking away from religion more than ever before.  And people like Thom Rainer of Lifeway Christian Resources are worried that this trend could cause churches to close “as quickly as GM dealerships.”  Interesting he referenced car dealerships.  It probably would have been more accurate to specify used car dealerships.

But Christians are not surprised by this.  They say they’ve always known this would happen in the last days before Christ’s return – the great apostasy, the falling away of Christians as predicted in the bible.  When I was a boy living in fear of those last days, I was constantly being reminded of the many signs that we were living in them.  Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, horrible diseases.  Never mind that there have always been earthquakes, floods, volcanoes and horrible diseases – don’t confuse them with the facts, they hate that.  The one that always confused me, found in Daniel 12:4, was this:  “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”  This was always quoted to me as if an increase in knowledge were a bad thing (to say nothing of running to and fro).  This made no sense to me.  Wouldn’t an increase in knowledge be a good thing?  That’s what I always thought.  But everyone I knew seemed so afraid of that idea.

The young people who are now rejecting religion in greater numbers than ever before are living in a time of tremendous knowledge.  We now know more than we’ve ever known about our universe, our planet, our origins, and our bodies, and knowledge only continues to increase faster than ever.  The internet has made that knowledge instantly accessible.  A quick internet search can answer just about any question you might have about anything.  A lot of questions are being answered – questions about god, the bible, religion.  Before the internet, these questions were asked of pastors and other church leaders; they were given vague or evasive answers, and if the questioner continued asking, he or she was accused of the sin of doubt and was told to shut the hell up.  Now there are other places to get answers, and those answers are being pursued.  While it’s true that being spiritual but not religious, or rejecting religion but maintaining a belief in some kind of god, is a little like saying, “I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I believe in Santa Claus,” it’s a start.  Knowledge is increasing.

“And knowledge shall be increased” is scary to Christians.  But it’s not a sign of the end of the world.  It’s a sign of the end of their reign.