Whenever I write about religion, I’m often asked, “What makes you an expert?”

I’ve got news for you.  We’re all experts on religion to one degree or another, every last one of us.  Religion is not like, say, heart surgery or entomology or aviation.  Sure, there are people who spend years in school studying theology and the bible, years in seminaries becoming clergymen.  But there are also people who wake up one morning and decide to start their very own religion, and then do it.  You, if you so desired, could go online and, for a small fee (small compared to the tuition that would be required to get a degree in anything), become an ordained minister, start a church and – presto-chango! – become a tax-free religion (yes, it really is that easy).

In any field of endeavor in which you are free to make it up as you go along, the word “expert” has little or no meaning.

We’re all experts on religion by virtue of our experience with it.  No matter who you are, no matter what your religion or denomination, whether you’re agnostic, atheist, Satanist, Rotarian, Pisces, a Nobel Prize winner or someone who lives in a refrigerator box in an alley with nothing to your name but a grocery cart full of unmatched old shoes, you have had a great deal of experience with religion.  If you live in the United States, you’ve had more than most.

The United States of America is the most religious nation in the industrialized world.  According to a 2009 survey of 21,000 people in 21 countries conducted by the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Religion Monitor, 89% of Americans identify themselves as religious, 62% highly religious.  In the United States — an ostensibly secular nation whose Constitution makes no mention of god, Jesus Christ, the bible, or the ten commandments and mentions religion only to prohibit from government its promotion or hindrance — 76% of Protestants and 65% of Catholics say that religion influences their political views in ways ranging from moderate to substantial.

If you live in the United States, religion is a part of your everyday life, and that religion is Christianity.  Whether you’re religious or not, believer or atheist, Jew or Muslim, Democrat or Republican, outraged by it or indifferent to it, it’s everywhere you go, everywhere you look.  You can’t even sneeze without someone invoking a deity.  Literally!  The only way to avoid it is to stay home and never leave your house.  But even that doesn’t work, because then they will bring it to your door.

We are all experts on religion, whether we like it or not, and that qualifies us to speak out about it.  The only problem is … that’s not really allowed.

Religion has always been an untouchable subject.  We are not allowed to comment on someone’s religious beliefs in any way that does not involve abject praise unless we’re willing to be pilloried by nearly everyone within earshot.  Why?  That is a very good question.

We can argue about politics, sports, movies, history, literature, art, science and any other topic you can imagine to our hearts’ content.  We can disagree about them and with them, criticize them, ridicule them, denounce them, and no one cares.  But when it comes to religion, we are expected — by some unwritten law, some unspoken universal agreement — to respect the beliefs of others and remain silent about them.  No.  Matter.  What.

If a man says he cannot leave the house without flipping every light switch in it on and off 40 times so the earth won’t burst into flames, we might tell him that he has a treatable problem and urge him to get help, and that’s acceptable.  If a man says he can fly and intends to jump off a cliff to prove it, we do everything we can to stop him because we know he is delusional and will kill himself, and that’s acceptable.  If someone says he doesn’t like us because of the color of our skin, or our weight, or our political affiliation, we can tell him to go piss up a rope and that’s acceptable.  But if parents refuse to get medical treatment for a sick child because that goes against their religious beliefs and they are certain that god will intervene and heal the child, we are expected to zip our lips and respect that because it is a religious belief and it is somehow unacceptable to say or do anything that might offend the believer.  Even the state is reluctant to step into such situations, although it sometimes happens — and then many become outraged and complain that religious rights are being violated.  If someone comes to your door on an otherwise peaceful Saturday morning to inform you that your soul is in danger of eternal damnation if you do not embrace their religion and live your life the way they say you should — which, as far as I’m concerned, is the height of arrogance and obnoxiousness because this person has actually come to your home to do it — you are expected to gently, politely decline, thank that person for stopping by and send him on his way with a smile, because it would be unacceptable and offensive to the believer to cut him off mid-sentence and tell him and his bible to get the hell off your porch before you get the garden hose.

Every human being on the face of the earth deserves respect.  But somehow, we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that those human beings who choose to believe in invisible, unprovable, and nonexistent things — and, in turn, to believe that we must believe in those things, too, or we are bad people who will be eternally lost — entitles them to some greater degree of respect, and we must be tolerant and silently endure their presumption, arrogance and simply rude behavior because they believe and have faith — and aren’t those wonderful things?

Well, I disagree with the whole arrangement.  I have nothing whatsoever against people practicing their religion, but when it intrudes on my privacy and disrupts my life, when it is rudely pushed at me, or when it abuses others or is used to break the law, I must object.  I’ve discovered that I am far from alone in objecting, but even most of those who feel as I do are afraid to voice their feelings because of the inevitable response, which is always swift and angry and sometimes even threatening and violent.  And that is unacceptable.

I don’t expect religion to go away.  That won’t happen anytime soon, and certainly not in my lifetime.  Although I must admit that this would be a better world without it.  It would be a freer, more peaceful world and we would have advanced farther and faster than we have with it.  By now, without religion, we’d probably have those damned flying cars we were promised by the year 2000.  At the very least, Salman Rushdie’s security bill would be a lot more manageable.

I am a sincere and enthusiastic supporter of the freedom of religion provided by the United States Constitution.  Hell, I’m a cheerleader for it.  I agree that everyone should be able to worship as they please, believe whatever they want, and apply those beliefs to their lives.  Spirituality is an intensely personal and individual thing for those who embrace or need it, and no one should ever be made to feel that their spirituality must conform to anyone else’s.  Our founding fathers recognized that individuality and wanted to protect it, which is why the Constitution declares that no one religion will be recognized by the United States government, which remains secular and divorced from religion.  That is left up to the individual.  And that is a significant part of what makes that document one of the greatest ever written.

But not everyone embraces or needs religion (or, if you prefer, spirituality) or is even interested in it.  Those of us who fit that description should not have to keep swatting religion away like swarming flies as we go about our business.  We shouldn’t have to deal with pamphlet-bearing Christians who come to our door and claim to have something we cannot live without.  We should not have to listen to politicians, who are annoying enough as it is, talk about god or Jesus or prayer or about how this is a Christian nation when it most certainly is not; it is a secular nation that is populated mostly by Christians — there’s a big difference.

It is not my intention to offend anyone, but in the case of religion, it is virtually impossible not to.  One does not need to attack or insult a religious person to cause offense — one need only to disagree with, question, or in any way criticize that person’s religion.  I have found religious people to be among the most thin-skinned on the planet.  They demand that everyone respect their religion by complimenting or praising it or saying nothing at all — and yet they seem incapable of showing respect as they routinely and casually criticize and condemn others who do not share their beliefs for living lives of which their religion does not approve.  They spout and spew their dogmatic nonsense freely and without pause.  But when others openly disagree or criticize, their response is, “Just shut up!”

The Constitution guarantees us the freedom to believe –- or not believe — as we see fit, but nowhere in that document is there a guarantee that others will agree with our beliefs.  Nowhere is there a guarantee that others who do not share our beliefs will take seriously our gods and rituals.  And there certainly isn’t anything about others being required to show reverence or deference to a god or a belief system that they do not worship or share.  There’s not even any requirement that they take them seriously.

While they may be the majority in the United States, the right guaranteed by the Constitution is not guaranteed to Christians alone.  It is guaranteed to each and every single individual in this country so that individuals can decide for themselves what they believe according to their own conscience.  It guarantees these individuals the right to gather with others who share their beliefs and engage in rituals that uphold those beliefs.

And that’s about it, folks.

But somehow, any response to religion other than respectful silence has become a social crime in our culture!

In an April 23, 1803, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.”  Jefferson didn’t think it was a crime — he thought it was a necessity.  Of course, Jefferson didn’t think too highly of the clergy.  He saw them as corrupt tyrants who controlled the masses with confusion, spiritual threats and mystical intimidation, and who craved ever more power.  Here are two excerpts from letters that serve as perfect examples of Jefferson’s attitude toward men of the cloth:

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
– To Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.  He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.  It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes.”
– To Horatio G Spafford, March 17, 1814

Jefferson did not trust the clergy.  He saw their greed for power and control as a threat to liberty, and it seems that he thought ridicule was one way of preventing that threat from being realized.  It’s pretty hard for something to become a threat to liberty as long as people are allowed to openly criticize it, expose its weaknesses and faults, and even joke about it.

Jefferson thought the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was utter nonsense and had no qualms about saying so.  He believed it was the kind of nonsense only a priest could decode and explain to his flock, using that concocted understanding as a tool to make himself necessary to them and further control their minds and lives.  In a July 30, 1816, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, he wrote:

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.  Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity.  It is the mere abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”

Can you imagine the outrage and uproar such a remark would cause today?  An infuriated and harrumphing Rush Limbaugh would vilify Jefferson for hours and hours on national radio, five days a week.  A sobbing Glenn Beck would denounce Jefferson as anti-American and declare him to be a supporter of concentration camps for Christian patriots.  Ann Coulter would call into question the size of Jefferson’s penis and his ability to use it.  And Fox News would go on red alert and probably hire extra on-air talent to handle the amount of incensed coverage the story would get.  All of that would happen because Jefferson’s fear has become a reality — speaking in any negative way about religion has become such a taboo that religion has been allowed to gain power and control it does not deserve.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s take a look at some of the things this unwritten law, this unspoken agreement has intimidated us into respecting with our silence.

Since 1949, Billy Graham has been the biggest Christian star since Jesus Christ himself.  He has been beloved by Christians around the world, and his “crusades” have always attracted massive throngs that would have made Cecil B. DeMille envious.  He’s the one evangelist people have taken the most seriously and have seen as the most sincere — so much so that he has been the pastor to the presidents.  But all of that should have been called into question when, on Thursday, February 28, 2002, the National Archives released an audio recording of an Oval Office meeting between Graham and then President Richard Nixon.  In reference to the influence the minister thought Jews had on the United States, Graham said, “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.”

“You believe that?” Nixon said.

“Yes, sir.”

Nixon said, “Oh, boy.  So do I.  I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.”

“No, but if you get elected a second time,” Graham said, “then we might be able to do something.”

Do something?  Wow.  Sounds like Billy was ready to fire up the ovens again.  I can see the two of them, Nixon and Billy, standing together in a crowded back yard, each wearing an apron — Nixon’s reads, “I am not a cook!” and Billy’s reads, “Eat this in remembrance of me” — and Billy, holding a spatula, shouts, “Okay, everybody, how do you like your Jews cooked?”

Later in that same conversation, Graham told Nixon that he had Jewish friends in the media who “swarm around me and are friendly to me. … They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”

So, when Billy was preaching Jesus’s love and forgiveness all those years, apparently it did not extend to Jews … even though Jesus, according to the bible, was a Jew.  Another Jew — hmmm.  Tell you what, Billy, while you’re heating up those ovens, why don’t you grab a hammer and some big nails so just in case Jesus does decide to come back, you’ll be ready for him.

Jerry Falwell was a fundamentalist Baptist minister and televangelist who helmed a megachurch (a church that has 2,000 or more members) in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded Liberty Christian Academy and Liberty University, and cofounded the Moral Majority.  He was one of the most prominent and respected Christian leaders in the United States for decades.  During that time, he said some things that were, well … interesting.

In 1999, Falwell saw what he believed to be homosexual indoctrination in the UK TV show for preschoolers called The Teletubbies.  He identified one of the Teletubbies — a character named Tinky Winky — as gay in a “Parents Alert” in his National Liberty Journal.  Falwell wrote, “He is purple — the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay-pride symbol.”  In a statement issued later, he said, “As a Christian I feel that role modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children.”

Some Christians see Satan around every corner, but Falwell saw gays, too.  Judging by some of the other things he said about gay people, one might conclude that Falwell thought Satan himself was gay.  In a March 11, 1984 broadcast of The Old Time Gospel Hour, in reference to the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church, Falwell said the following:

“But these things speak evil of those things, verse 10 (in the book of Jude) which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.  Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches.  Almost, the vote was against them.  But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote.  Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy.  But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there’ll be a celebration in heaven.”

Here are a few other choice quotes attributed to the good reverend:

“The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.”

“The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.”

“There is no separation of church and state.  Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools.  The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.  What a happy day that will be!”

“Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.”

“If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.”

And my personal favorite:

“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.  To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

On September 13, 2001, Falwell appeared on fellow evangelist Pat Robertson’s TV show and said the following about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 only two days earlier:

“I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

The next day, when confronted with this remark on CNN, Falwell backpedaled:  “I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.”  But in May of 2007, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked him again about his remark.  Falwell said, “If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past.”  When Amanpour asked if he stood by his September 13, 2001, comment, he said, “I stand right by it.”  A week later, in a gesture of uncharacteristic consideration for others, Falwell had the good taste to die.

While he was certainly a master of the hateful, batshit-crazy statement, Falwell hardly cornered that market.  He had stiff competition from his good buddy Pat Robertson, who had the advantage of living on after Falwell’s death, thus having plenty of time to outdo Falwell’s sterling record of being a douchenozzle.

Although an ordained Southern Baptist minister, Robertson functions mostly as a political spokesman for conservative Christians in the United States.  Over the years, he has founded a university, a broadcasting network — all kinds of lucrative entities.  And he tried to run for president in the 1988 primaries.  He is, at this moment, probably the most prominent, influential and powerful — not to mention richest — Christian leader in this country.  He is the host of The 700 Club, a Christian TV show that airs throughout the United States.  Robertson has something to say about … well, everything.  It’s usually something jaw-droppingly stupid, obnoxious and hateful, and he usually says it on his TV show.  Here, in no particular order, is a selection of Pat Robertson quotes taken from The 700 Club’s page on the Internet Movie Database:

“The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people.  But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society.  And that’s what’s been happening.”

“The public education movement has also been an anti-Christian movement. We can change education in America if you put Christian principles in and Christian pedagogy in.  In three years, you would totally revolutionize education in America.”

(On homosexuals)  “It’s one thing to say, ‘We have rights to jobs, we have rights to be left alone in our little corner of the world to do our thing.’  It’s an entirely different thing to say, well, ‘We’re not only going to go into the schools and we’re going to take your children and your grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals.’  Now that’s wrong.”

“Why are so many marriages falling apart?  Why is the divorce rate so high?  Why is there such a tragedy in marriage?  Now the basic answer to the basic problem of marriages today is a question of leadership.  The wife actually makes the husband the head of the household and she looks to him and she says, ‘Now you pray, and I’m going to pray for you that the Lord will speak to you.’”

“If the widespread practice of homosexuality will bring about the destruction of your nation, if it will bring about terrorist bombs, if it’ll bring about earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor, it isn’t necessarily something we ought to open our arms to.”

(On Apartheid in South Africa) “I think ‘one man, one vote,’ just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights.”

“Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals.  The two things seem to go together.”

“There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution.  It is a lie of the left and we are not going to take it anymore.”

“I have known few homosexuals who did not practice their tendencies.  Such people are sinning against God and will lead to the ultimate destruction of the family and our nation.  I am unalterably opposed to such things, and will do everything I can to restrict the freedom of these people to spread their contagious infection to the youth of our nation.”

“The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There’s never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I’ll buy some of the feminism.”

(On Planned Parenthood)  “It is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism – everything that the Bible condemns.”

“I am absolutely persuaded one of the reasons so many lesbians are at the forefront of the pro-choice movement is because being a mother is the unique characteristic of womanhood, and these lesbians will never be mothers naturally, so they don’t want anybody else to have that privilege either.”

(A nifty-keen science lesson from Professor Roberts)  “I think the sky is blue because it’s a shift from black through purple to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the farther we get into darkness, and there’s a shifting of color of light into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that’s bouncing off this earth, uh, the darker it gets. I think if you look at the color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on out, it’s the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars singing, and that’s one of the effects of the shifting of colors.”

“NOW (the National Organization for Women) is saying that in order to be a woman, you’ve got to be a lesbian.”

Opposing the equal rights initiative in Iowa, Robertson wrote in a 1992 fundraising letter:

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women.  It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

On page 218 of his book The New World Order, Robertson wrote:

“When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm.  ‘What do you mean?’ the media challenged me.  ‘You’re not going to bring atheists into the government?  How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?’  My simple answer is, ‘Yes, they are.’”

The day after the January 12, 2010 7.0 earthquake in Haiti that killed as many as 200,000 people, Pat Robertson went on TV and said the Haitians had brought the earthquake on themselves:

“They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.”

Of course, the above quotes are the words of only three of the most prominent Christian leaders, but there are many others whose statements are no less horrifying.

This is what we’re supposed to respect?  This is what we’re supposed to tolerate with our reverent silence?  This is what we’re not allowed to criticize?  How did this happen?  How have we been made into people who will sit still for this kind of — and I use this word loosely — thinking?

When we read of the horrific slaughter of certain races or religions throughout history, we often ask, How could this have been allowed to happen?  How could people stand by and do nothing while this was going on? The answer is simple.

We’re living in it!  This is how it happens — what we’re discussing right now, this unwritten law of silence and so called “respect” when it comes to religion in America.  We have been intimidated into silence, into saying and doing nothing while hateful lies spread like a cancer that has metastasized throughout the population, resulting in discrimination, persecution, and even murder.  We have been respectfully silent for a long time now.  And look where it’s gotten us.  Of course, where it’s gotten us is nothing compared to where it will take us if we remain silent.

Now, you might be saying, Isn’t it unfair to base a characterization of all Christians on the ugly remarks of a few TV hucksters?  To you they might be TV hucksters, but to Christians, these guys are (or, in the case of Falwell, were) leaders.  These men represent Christianity in the United States — throughout the world!  How do you think they got so rich and powerful?  Off of bake sales?  Kino winnings?  No.  They got rich off the loving, supportive and generous — not to mention tax-free — donations of their followers.

If these men do not represent the thoughts and feelings of Christians everywhere, then when they make these appallingly hateful and lunatic statements, where is the outrage of Christians who don’t want to be represented by them?  Why haven’t throngs of Christians denounced them?  Why hasn’t the money stopped flooding in?  Why haven’t their television ratings plummeted?

That hasn’t happened because these men and others like them do represent the thoughts and feelings of Christians everywhere.  And we are supposed to say nothing about it.  We have been convinced that it is somehow wrong to criticize this because faith and belief are such sacred things.  And if we do criticize it, then the Christians cry persecution.

Try having a conversation with a Christian about the words of Falwell or Robertson or any of the other tyrannical, homophobic, mysoginistic, hatemongering greedbeasts who represent them.  The Christian will always inject his BUT into the conversation.  Christians have a lot of very big BUTS and they use them as dividing lines.  Before the BUT, you will be told what the Christian thinks you want to hear in an effort to soften you up and get comfy with you, to make you think you’re sympatico.  Then after the BUT, the Christian will tell you exactly what he thinks.  The latter always completely contradicts the former.  It goes something like this:

“I certainly don’t agree with Pat Robertson about the earthquake in Haiti and I think it was wrong of him to say that.  BUT.  He has every right to say it because the Constitution guarantees it, and after all, Robertson has sent a lot of food and money to Haiti to help those poor people.  What have you done for them?  And when you think about it, he’s not too far off the mark.  I mean, historically, he’s right, isn’t he?  Where does voodoo come from?  Haiti!  And that’s Satanic!  I think you just have a problem with religion, that’s all.  I don’t know what’s made you so bitter, but you shouldn’t try to impose your angry personal feelings about religion on others.  Christian-bashing is prejudicial, but these days, Christians are the only people it’s okay to hate in America, and I think it’s terrible.  A person’s religious beliefs are personal and deeply felt and you should show them respect.  Why don’t you focus on all the good things Pat Robertson has done instead of just pointing out his mistakes?”

Good things?  How many good things can possibly be done by someone who says the things Pat Robertson says?  And on the outside chance that he is doing something good while hating women and homosexuals and everybody who isn’t a Christian and drawing on his formidable resources to limit or even abolish the rights of those people, does it really matter?

And there’s that word “respect” again.  We are told, over and over, that we owe our respect to the religious.  But how respectful are they?  Do you see any respect for fellow human beings in the quotes from Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson?  Was Robertson being respectful of others when, on January 14, 1991, he said on his TV show:

“You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.  Nonsense.  I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.  I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don’t have to be nice to them.”

Was Jerry Falwell being respectful when he wrote in his book Listen, America!:

“The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief.  They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.”

Are these people who have respect for others?  If the word “respect” can be defined as “bigotry and hatred shown to all who do not conform to your beliefs,” then yes, they are abundantly respectful!  But what dictionary gives that as the definition of the word?  In the above quotes, both Robertson and Falwell were talking about other religions!  If they don’t show cowering respect for the religious beliefs of others, then why the hell should anyone else?

Respect is a two-way street and it needs to be earned in both directions.  I don’t know about you, but I refuse to show respect for people who speak, write, support or believe the words spoken by these men, or any other words like them.

Christians are quite convinced that they are being persecuted at every turn.  Here’s Pat Robertson again, being interviewed by Molly Ivins in 1993:

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians.  It’s no different.  It is the same thing.  It is happening all over again.  It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians.  Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today.  More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”

Now, you know as well as I do that Christians in America are not being rounded up and ushered into concentration camps.  No one is giving them blankets infected with smallpox.  They are not being tortured and slaughtered.  They are not even being abused or discriminated against.  In fact, every right they have ever had in the United States remains untouched and fully intact — they just want to have more rights while others have fewer.  If anyone is persecuting anyone, I think the above quotes from Robertson make it quite clear as to who is being victimized by whom.  He says women are to be subjugated and they are to like it; he says feminists and lesbians are child killing witches; he says homosexuals are Satanists and child predators and if we treat them like human beings, horrible natural disasters will result; he says the Constitution is for Christians only, that only Christians are capable of properly running the country, and everyone else is anti-American.  And yet he claims that he and his fellow Christians are the ones being persecuted?

Come on, people — did we just fall off the idiot truck yesterday?

Robertson’s claim that Christians are being persecuted in America is, quite frankly, a bald-faced lie.  But it’s a lie told often, and it’s catching on.  And it’s not the only lie — there’s also the lie that America’s founders were all devout Christians, that America is a Christian nation, founded by Christians, for Christians.  These lies, too — despite all the proof available to refute them — continue to be repeated, and they, too, are catching on with an increasingly distracted public that is sadly ignorant of its nation’s history.

Joseph Goebbels, who knew a thing or two about influencing the masses, said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Pat Robertson?  Meet Joseph Goebbels.  Oh, I’m sorry — you’ve already met?  Great!  Then I’ll leave you two alone so you can catch up.

Now, you might be saying, Sure, they’re nuts, but they have every right to believe whatever they want to believe.  They’re harmless.  Just ignore them.

Harmless?  Just ignore them?  Really?

While interviewing syndicated columnist Joel Mowbray, author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Endangers National Security, Robertson said:

“I read your book.  When you (the reader) get through, you say, ‘If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that’s the answer.’  I mean, you get through this, and you say, ‘We’ve got to blow that thing up.’”

Foggy Bottom is a Washington, D.C. neighborhood where the United States Department of State is located.  The term “Foggy Bottom” is frequently used to refer to the State Department.  So let me make sure this is clear –- in the above statement, Pat Robertson, on national television, advocated the destruction of the United States Department of State with a “nuclear device.”  If you or I did that, we would, at the very least, be on a watch list so fast that all the Dramamine in the world wouldn’t keep us from puking.  But Pat Robertson is a man of god, right?  He represents the biggest religion in the United States, so to criticize this remark would disrespect his religious beliefs and offend Christians throughout the country.  And we just can’t do that.  Right?

On his TV show, Robertson once said the following about Islam:

“I want to say it again and again and again:  Islam is not a religion, it’s a political system meant on — bent on world domination, not a religion.  It masquerades as a religion, but the religion covers a worldwide attempt to exercise power and to subjugate the world into their way of thinking.”

Now read the following Pat Robertson quotes and tell me — doesn’t his description of Islam above apply just as accurately to his description of Christianity in America?

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to say this very clearly.  If the people of the United States — all across America, in their churches and in their civic groups and in their legislatures — decide that they’re not going to allow the Supreme Court to dominate their lives in the fashion that it has been in this nation, the Supreme Court does not have the power to change that.  They are not going to be able to overturn the will of a hundred million American people.  And I think the time has come that we throw off the shackles of this dictatorship that’s been imposed upon us.  We had a war in 1776 that set us free from the shackles of the arbitrary rule of the British crown … And I think the time has come that we do that.”
– The 700 Club, quoted in Conrad Goeringer’s article “A Not-So-Modest Proposal – Post the Commandments, Spare Not the Rod”

“We have enough votes to run the country.  And when the people say, ‘We’ve had enough,’ we are going to take over.”
– in a speech given to the April, 1980 “Washington for Jesus” rally

“We at the Christian Coalition are raising an army who cares.  We are training people to be effective — to be elected to school boards, to city councils, to state legislatures, and to key positions in political parties. … By the end of this decade, if we work and give and organize and train, the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political organization in America.”
– a July 4, 1991, fundraising letter

These are not the words of a man who wants to spread the love of Jesus Christ.  These are the words of a man whose religion is nothing more than a disguise for a political system bent on dominating and subjugating others.  These are the words of a revolutionary who wants to overthrow a free and secular nation, abolish its Constitution, and establish a theocracy.  These are words of sedition.

But we can’t criticize these words because they wear the sacred cloaks of religion?  We aren’t allowed to stand up and say, This is wrong!  This is anti-American! because it might offend the faithful believer in the exercise of his constitutional freedom of religion?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I call bullshit on that.

The same Constitution that gives these people the right to say these horrible, hateful things also gives everyone the right to denounce and condemn those things.

But there’s that unwritten law, that unspoken agreement that we won’t say anything negative — anything at all — about the sacred, constitutionally protected religious beliefs of others.  We are to respect it!

You don’t want to offend anyone?  You don’t want to make waves?  You don’t want to exercise your constitutional right of free speech?  Fine.  Then don’t complain when, someday in the not too distant future, the government tithes you as well as taxes you.  Don’t come whining to me when prayer in schools becomes mandatory and your kids come home from school to watch reruns of The Flintstones because their science teacher says it’s a documentary and it’s part of a homework assignment.  You’ll have no room to gripe when your favorite sex act becomes illegal because it offends god.

Because that is what these people want.

Silence may be golden, but in this case it’s deadly.  Remember what Jefferson said about the priest being “hostile to liberty” and always being “in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”  And remember what he said about ridicule being “the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions” and the only way to preserve “the purity of religion.”  If Jefferson were somehow able to rise from the grave and see how “free argument, raillery and even ridicule” regarding religion have been smothered into silence, and see how severely religion has been allowed to encroach on the freedoms of this secular nation, he would simply drop dead and have to be buried again.

The silence is being broken finally, thanks to the work and encouragement of great writers and thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and others.  But it’s happening too slowly.  America is experiencing trying times right now — economically, socially and politically.  Times like these make any country vulnerable to drastic change — often not for the better.  Times like these are often irresistible to those who want to dominate and subjugate, especially when the people being dominated have been convinced that it’s wrong to speak out and resist the very tools those dominators use to achieve their goals.  We can’t afford to be silent right now.

Speak up.  It’s your Constitution, too.

I guess you’ve heard about the Bermuda triangle
There’s something going on
Nobody seems to know just what it is
And the air force won’t let on
It might be hole down in the ocean
Yeah or a fog that won’t let go
It might be some crazy people talking
Or somebody that we ought to know
Down in Bermuda, the pale blue sea
Way down in the triangle, it’s easy to believe – Fleetwood Mac, Bermuda Triangle

Few things capture the public’s imagination like disappearances. We see the occasional child on the back of a milk carton, sometimes a billboard where someone has simply vanished and the frantic efforts of the family to find the vanishee, we hear anecdotal tales where somebody simply wasn’t there suddenly, and of course tales abound of mysterious freighters whose crews seemed to have blinked out of existence. But of all the wild tales, the famous Bermuda Triangle has spawned a series of books and movies, and anyone American instantly recognizes the phrase and its implications.

As I am fond of repeating, everything on earth has a rational, logical explanation. Everything. Five minutes on Wikipedia usually tends to thrash the wild rumors:

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared mysteriously. Popular culture has attributed these disappearances to the paranormal or activity by extraterrestrial beings. Documented evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the incidents were inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature of disappearances in the region is similar to that in any other area of ocean.

Naturally, the true ‘believers’ will concoct some conspiracy theory or whatnot. Or say you need to ‘read between the lines’, or start rattling off ‘facts and figures’  that are demographic to that specific area without comparing to any similar areas or statistics.

The boundaries of the triangle cover the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean island area and the Atlantic east to the Azores. The more familiar triangular boundary in most written works has as its points somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.

The area is one of the most heavily traveled shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.

With that density of transport going on, of course there’s going to be ‘disappearances’, or lost ships/planes. It’s just numbers.

The earliest allegation of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in a September 16, 1950 Associated Press article by E.V.W. Jones. Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door", a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand’s article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion Magazine. It was claimed that the flight leader had been heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars." Sand’s article was the first to suggest a supernatural element to the Flight 19 incident. In the February 1964 issue of Argosy, Vincent Gaddis’s article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" argued that Flight 19 and other disappearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region. The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.

Ah, excuse me: Fate? The handbook of the delusional? And Argosy is a boy’s adventure pulp magazine, specializing in fiction.

Others would follow with their own works, elaborating on Gaddis’s ideas: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr. 1973); Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974); Richard Winer (The Devil’s Triangle, 1974), and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.

All of which are out of print.

Luckily, there was someone about who actually had a critical eye:

Lawrence David Kusche, a research librarian from Arizona State University and author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975) argued that many claims of Gaddis and subsequent writers were often exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable. Kusche’s research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz’s accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. Kusche noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier recounted by Berlitz as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents that sparked allegations of the Triangle’s mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was simple: he would review period newspapers of the dates of reported incidents and find reports on possibly relevant events like unusual weather, that were never mentioned in the disappearance stories.

Kusche concluded that:

• The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
• In an area frequented by tropical storms, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious; furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms.
• The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat’s disappearance, for example, would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port may not have been.
• Some disappearances had, in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937 off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.
• The legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery, perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism.

And further:

When the UK Channel 4 television program "The Bermuda Triangle" (c. 1992) was being produced by John Simmons of Geofilms for the Equinox series, the marine insurer Lloyd’s of London was asked if an unusually large number of ships had sunk in the Bermuda Triangle area. Lloyd’s of London determined that large numbers of ships had not sunk there.

Yeah…none of the ‘true believers’ thought to ask a major insurer? What a surprise.

United States Coast Guard records confirm their conclusion. In fact, the number of supposed disappearances is relatively insignificant considering the number of ships and aircraft that pass through on a regular basis.

Do I need to repeat it? Numbers.

The Coast Guard is also officially skeptical of the Triangle, noting that they collect and publish, through their inquiries, much documentation contradicting many of the incidents written about by the Triangle authors. In one such incident involving the 1972 explosion and sinking of the tanker SS V. A. Fogg in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies, in contrast with one Triangle author’s claim that all the bodies had vanished, with the exception of the captain, who was found sitting in his cabin at his desk, clutching a coffee cup.

That one sounds vaguely familiar, probably from the days I read Fort.

The NOVA/Horizon episode The Case of the Bermuda Triangle, aired on June 27, 1976, was highly critical, stating that "When we’ve gone back to the original sources or the people involved, the mystery evaporates. Science does not have to answer questions about the Triangle because those questions are not valid in the first place… Ships and planes behave in the Triangle the same way they behave everywhere else in the world."

I’m stealing that line about ‘science doesn’t have to answer questions’, because it fits so well for so many debunkings. The following paragraph will no doubt sound familiar:

David Kusche pointed out a common problem with many of the Bermuda Triangle stories and theories: "Say I claim that a parrot has been kidnapped to teach aliens human language and I challenge you to prove that is not true. You can even use Einstein’s Theory of Relativity if you like. There is simply no way to prove such a claim untrue. The burden of proof should be on the people who make these statements, to show where they got their information from, to see if their conclusions and interpretations are valid, and if they have left anything out."

And the following is Sad But True, #2:

Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Taves and Barry Singer, have noted how mysteries and the paranormal are very popular and profitable. This has led to the production of vast amounts of material on topics such as the Bermuda Triangle. They were able to show that some of the pro-paranormal material is often misleading or inaccurate, but its producers continue to market it. Accordingly, they have claimed that the market is biased in favor of books, TV specials, and other media that support the Triangle mystery, and against well-researched material if it espouses a skeptical viewpoint.

No surprise there. SIGH.

Finally, if the Triangle is assumed to cross land, such as parts of Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, or Bermuda itself, there is no evidence for the disappearance of any land-based vehicles or persons. The city of Freeport, located inside the Triangle, operates a major shipyard and an airport that handles 50,000 flights annually and is visited by over a million tourists a year.

Wow. Has any of these pro-Triangle folk interviewed any inhabitants of Freeport, and checked for weird stories? I’d bet the rent on NO.

One of my all time favorites about this ‘mysterious patch of ocean’, is the famous ‘compass gone crazy’ crap:

Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic anomalies may exist in the area, such anomalies have not been shown to exist. Compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to the magnetic poles, a fact which navigators have known for centuries. Magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true) north are only exactly the same for a small number of places – for example, as of 2000 in the United States only those places on a line running from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. But the public may not be as informed, and think there is something mysterious about a compass "changing" across an area as large as the Triangle, which it naturally will.

As was mentioned earlier, this is one of the heaviest travelled shipping lanes in the world. If compasses didn’t work there, logic would dictate it would be one of the least travelled shipping lanes, not vice versa.

So, in conclusion: if you’re planning a trip to Bermuda, it’s perfectly safe, no matter what fish story you may have heard.

On April 27, I posted an article on this blog titled “It Kinda Sorta Maybe Could Be … Noah’s Ark,” about a group of “evangelical archaeologists” from Noah’s Ark Ministries finding what they believed to be the remains of the big biblical boat in Turkey.  I am deeply and profoundly unsurprised to announce that they were wrong.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, a former member of the Chinese-led team, evangelical Christian archaeologist Dr. Randall Price, said, “If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that’s fine.  My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be.”  From the Monitor:

Dr. Price, who is director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., was the archaeologist on the Chinese-led team in 2008 when this alleged discovery was first made. He says he has “difficulties with a number of issues related to the evidence at hand.”

Price declined to elaborate. However, a leaked email from Price – which he confirms that he wrote – shows that he has reason to believe that a group of local Kurdish men trucked wood up to the mountain and staged an elaborate hoax for the Chinese team.

A group of Kurdish workers “are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area (where the photos were originally taken) at the Mt. Ararat site. … During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film,” Price writes in the email.

Boy oh boy.  When somebody from Liberty University says your ark is a hoax, you’re sunk.

On his blog Pharyngula, biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, PZ Myers wrote, “You can hardly blame the Turks around Ararat. There’s a lot of money being poured into the local economy from these numerous creationist expeditions.  It only makes sense to salt a few sites with chunks of wood.”

This is far from the first claim that Noah’s ark has been found, and it’s doubtful that it will be the last.  The search for the big boat is so neverending that a community of ark-search enthusiasts has grown around it, not unlike UFO enthusiasts who gather to rehash stories of Roswell and alien abductions.  Some searches seem to crumble into nothing while others are revealed as deliberate hoaxes.  In an article titled “Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax” in volume 2, number 3 of Skeptic magazine, Jim Lippard tells the long, involved and wildly entertaining story of how CBS — the television network — was duped into airing a “documentary” called The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark from Sun Pictures International.  You might remember Sun Pictures — they were responsible for such “documentaries” as Ghosts from the Dead, The Lincoln Conspiracy, The Bermuda Triangle, and one about Bigfoot called The Mysterious Monster, as well as the 1980 feature film about a government conspiracy involving space aliens, Hangar 18.

The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark featured a segment in which a man named George Jammal spoke of visiting the ark on Mt. Ararat and showed a piece of wood taken from the structure.  Had Sun Pictures done any research on Jammal, they would’ve found that others in the ark-search community doubted his story from the beginning.  But they did not.  The “documentary” presented Jammal’s story as fact, and during a “dramatization” of his visit to the ark’s resting place, the narrator claimed, “Samples of the wood taken from the vessel have been dated to the time when the Bible indicates a worldwide flood occurred.”  But in fact, the wood hadn’t even been tested.  Jammal later admitted his story and the wood were a hoax.  Even worse, Jammal wasn’t the only person featured in the “documentary” whose story was questionable.

Sun Pictures claimed that it presented all available information and did not have an opinion about the ark one way or the other.  But as Lippard points out, that clashes with the very title — The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark — which claims not only that the ark exists, but has been discovered.  So Sun did have an opinion from the outset.  Also damaging Sun’s credibility was the background of its chief researcher, David Balsiger.  In his article, Lippard points out that Balsiger –

has a past history of involvement with Christian hoaxes.  During the early seventies, Balsiger wrote both books and newsletter articles for the Christian publisher Logos International. He ghost authored or co-authored a number of “autobiographical” books giving Christian testimonies, including Fernand Navarra’s Noah’s Ark: I Touched It, self-proclaimed former Satanist turned Christian comedian Mike Warnke’s The Satan Seller, and faith healer Morris Cerullo’s The Back Side of Satan.  Warnke’s story was exposed as a hoax in a lengthy article in the Christian magazine Cornerstone in 1992, though Balsiger continues to defend it.  Cerullo, for whom both Balsiger and Warnke worked prior to the formation of Warnke’s own ministry, has come under heavy fire from Christian critics for his incredible claims (e.g., that he was taken from an orphanage by angels and transported to heaven for a face-to-face meeting with god) and unorthodox theology.  Logos International, which is no longer in business, also published a hoaxed biography of a former rabbi turned Christian and a book which initiated the “urban legend” about NASA computers discovering a “missing day ” and proving the biblical account of Joshua making the sun stand still.

Noah’s Ark, Satanists, faith healers, missing days … what’s with all this Christian hoaxing?  To hear them talk, they have the only truth.  Everyone else, it seems, is wrong — the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the New Agers, the Scientologists, the scientists, the atheists, the Democrats, the poor people of Haiti who brought that terrible earthquake down on their own heads, the entire population of San Francisco, to name just a few.  The Christians possess the One and Only Absolute Truth of salvation through their lord and savior Jesus Christ.

So if it’s so true, why all the hoaxing?

Perhaps we can uncover some explanation for that by going to the source, the bible, where we find the story of Noah and the ark.

According to the Book of Genesis, god was startled to discover that humankind had become deeply wicked.  Apparently he hadn’t been keeping track.  Perhaps he’d been busy with other things and we’d gotten naughty while he wasn’t paying attention.  No particular offenses are specified, but we’re told that humanity was just really, really, really not good.  God decided he was sorry he’d created the damned things and, not in a very good mood, decided to wipe them off the face of the earth.  But there was one man god liked.  His name was Noah.  He was 600 years old.

Wait, wait — where are you going?  I’m not making this up as I go along.  That’s what the book says — that he was 600 years old.  Really!

So, instead of just blinking his eyes or twitching his nose and making the nasty human race disappear from the earth, god decided to send a flood to wipe out everyone and everything he’d spent six whole days out of his busy schedule creating.  He told this 600 year old man to build a gigantic boat in which he could save a bunch of animals from the flood.

Now, there seems to be some confusion in the infallible revealed word of god as to god’s instructions to Noah regarding the animals.  According to Genesis 6:19, god told Noah, “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.”  However, according to Genesis 7:2 and 3, god said, “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.  Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. ”  Now, many bible believers explain that what god really meant in this passage was that Noah was to take seven pairs of animals — that way, it matches up with the verse in chapter six.  Of course, the only problem with that explanation is that, according to the book, god didn’t say seven pairs, he just said seven.  Maybe it was a clerical error — even god might have trouble getting good help.

So, following god’s instructions, this single solitary man — who, remember, was 600 years old — built this massive boat big enough to hold two or seven — depending on which verse in Genesis you prefer (seven pairs if you believe the believers) — of every species of animal on the planet.  And he built it out of cypress wood and pitch.  Did I mention that he did this by himself?

Once the ark was built, god sent all the animals to Noah.  The bible does not describe how god got animals from other continents on the planet to congregate around Noah and his big boat, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for the whole thing that god, in his infinite and infallible wisdom, has chosen not to share.  Then, Noah and his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives, entered the ark.

A week later — “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month,” according to Genesis 7:11 — water exploded from under the ground and it began to rain, and the entire planet, including all of its mountains, was submerged.  It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the earth remained flooded for 150 days because god wanted to make sure that everything was damned good and dead.  “And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth,” according to Genesis 8:13, and Noah and his family and all of the animals came out of the ark and completely repopulated the entire globe.

Yes, that’s right.  Noah — who was 600 years old — and his wife — who I’m guessing was no debutante — and their three sons and their wives — how young could they be if Dad was 600? — repopulated the whole planet all by themselves.

Oh, and all of the earth’s wildlife was located in one spot.

That’s the story of Noah and the ark.

But, Ray, you say, how can anyone take that story as a literal record of an actual event? How is it possible that anyone living today, knowing what we now know about the earth and water and all the laws of science, could believe to be true such an obvious myth?

Well, they do.  I certainly did.  For a while, anyway.  It was early in my life, somewhere in that age range between, “Of course eight flying reindeer can get Santa Claus to every single house on the planet in one night,” and, “Why wouldn’t the Easter Bunny deliver colored hardboiled eggs?”  As I got older, though, I began to have my doubts.  These doubts were expressed by a still, small voice somewhere in the back of my mind.  The adult figures of authority in my life — every last one of them Seventh-day Adventists — identified the still, small voice as the holy spirit trying to guide me and keep me on the path to the truth.  But I was pretty sure the holy spirit wouldn’t say the things that were being said by the still, small voice in the back of my mind.  Things like, “Do you believe this shit they’re saying?” and, “Are these people out of their fucking minds?”

Unfortunately, when it was explained to me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny didn’t really exist, Noah and the ark — and Moses parting the Red Sea and god poofing the earth into existence by magic and Joshua stopping the sun as it revolved around the earth and a virgin giving birth and a dead man rising from his grave — were not included in that explanation.  All of those things, I was told, really did happen and any information to the contrary came directly from the devil himself.  And everyone in my life — all my friends, all their parents, all the adults, and even people who weren’t Sadventists — backed that up.  So when those things just didn’t seem to make sense to me and that still, small voice in the back of my mind started saying things like, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” it conflicted with what I perceived to be — what I had been taught was — reality and I thought the fault was with me.  In fact, my questions and doubt were specifically identified by all those around me as some kind of dysfunction, a common ailment among Christians known as “the work of the devil.”

As I got older, I found that even outside the very tightknit world of Sadventism, people believed these stories to be literal truth.  It wasn’t just people in my own church who accepted these things as reality — it seemed to be almost everyone.  So even when I reached and passed the age when I should have known better, my questions had been browbeaten into silence and I had been conditioned to believe the cognitive dissonance in my life was a shameful dysfunction of mine.

And that, my friends, is how it happens.

Now, looking back on those years, I recognize that dysfunction as rational thought, which was deliberately strangled in me.  At no point was I given a choice.  No one said to me, “Would you like to believe that these colorful, exciting stories are absolutely true and happened exactly as described in the bible, or would you prefer to think rationally?”  I wasn’t offered the choice between blind belief and rational thought, and as a result, I had no idea there was a difference.   My rational thinking was stamped out like a lit cigarette.  And it continues to be stamped out all around us, every day, in homes and churches and private schools — all too often (despite that pesky United States Constitution), even in public schools — so that today, in the year 2010, there are people out there searching for Noah’s ark … and the ark of the covenant, and the spear that pierced Jesus’s side, and maybe even the holy grail of “evangelical archaeologists” — a fossil of a person riding a dinosaur!  Yabba dabba doo!

So, back to my question:  Why the deception?  Well, for one thing, when the story you want to convince people is true is the story of Noah’s ark, you pretty much have no choice but to rely on hoaxes, do you?  But I think there are primarily two reasons for the deception.

First of all, when the belief system that informs your entire life requires you to believe something like the story of Noah’s ark — to accept it as fact — life is much easier when everyone else accepts it as fact, too.  Unfortunately for you, there is an expanding group of people who refuse to accept such stories as true.  They call the bible mythology — or worse, superstition.  Clearly, these people are thinking too much.  They are afflicted with that disorder that has reached epic proportions throughout the world — “the work of the devil” (aka rational thought).  They are in danger of losing eternal life.  Somehow, this must be remedied.  If they can be made to believe one of the stories of the bible is true, then perhaps they will reconsider all of them.  If they were to believe that Noah’s ark had been found, they might be saved.  Sure, a hoax would be dishonest — but it would be for a noble purpose.  Besides, Jesus will forgive you.  That’s his job.

That reason, of course, gives them the benefit of the doubt and assumes that they are at least somewhat sincere.

The other reason?  What else.  Money!  Finding Noah’s ark — or being a former Satanist, or being a faith healer — is the kind of thing that sells books and videos and fills auditorium seats with the butts of Christians eager to believe … and eager to give till it hurts when the plate is passed.

So this time, in the case of the “ark” discovered in Turkey by Noah’s Ark Ministries, it was the Christians being hoaxed, but for the usual reason — money.

But they’re still looking.  And there are plenty of people behind them.  According to a February 16, 2004, Washington Times article, an ABC News poll conducted among 1,011 adults with a margin of error of 3 percentage points found that Americans, as we know all too well, take bible stories very seriously:

61 percent of Americans believe the account of creation in the Bible’s book of Genesis is “literally true” rather than a story meant as a “lesson.”  Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah’s ark and a global flood, while 64 percent agree that Moses parted the Red Sea to save fleeing Jews from their Egyptian captors.

As Myers wrote, there are enough Christians spending a lot of money in their search for the ark for the locals to go to the trouble of devising hoaxes to keep them coming.  And spending … and spending … and spending.  All of this money comes from the owners of those Christian butts that fill those seats to hear the promise of making this bible story a reality.  A lot of them are people who (as I once was) are not even aware of the fact that they have a choice between blind belief and rational thought — and worse, don’t even know the difference between the two.

I find this need for proof confusing and, at times, infuriating.  Have a long enough discussion with any Christian about his beliefs and at some point, he will say, “I don’t have to provide proof of anything to you because this is my faith, and faith doesn’t need proof.”  Fine.  I can buy that.  But this same Christian will seize upon the smallest shred of apparent evidence to prove that his faith is fact.  That kind of faith is not very strong.  Or perhaps it’s only faith when his back is against the wall in a conversation in which he hasn’t a leg to stand on.  The rest of the time, however, it’s fact, and all he needs is one little bit of “proof” so that everyone else will see that it’s fact, too.  After all, the only way to deal with those party-pooping nonbelievers is to convince them your faith is fact with proof because … well, because you just can’t burn them at the stake anymore.

Not right now, anyway.  But give them time.

"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.

“What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American Public.”
– Zalinksy (Dan Aykroyd) in Tommy Boy

“Ha-ha-ha!  You said ‘nuclear.’  It’s ‘nucular,’ dummy.  The ‘s’ is silent.” – Peter Griffin in Family Guy

“The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.”

Those are the words of Thomas Jefferson.  He knew a thing or two about what makes this country work, and he repeated one of those things over and over and over.  He says it again here:

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.”

And again here:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

If Jefferson were alive today, I think he would quickly come to one unavoidable conclusion:  We have a problem.  A big problem.

The word “elite” is thrown around a lot these days.  It is used sneeringly, with disdain.  A significant portion of the American population uses the word “elite” to indicate that a person or group is pompous, arrogant, overeducated, and most importantly, wrong.  It is a derogatory term meant to disparage its target.

Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines “elite”: “The choice part; cream; the best of a class.”

Here is Sarah Palin talking with Brian Williams on NBC News and giving her definition of “elite”:  “Oh, I guess just people who think they’re better than anyone else.”

According to Merriam-Webster, “elite” describes someone who excels, someone who is the best at what they do.  According to Sarah Palin, “elite” describes … what?  People who disagree with her?  People who criticize her?  From the sound of it, Palin wants you to think that the elite – the people who have worked hard to excel in their field – think they’re better than you.  In other words, people who are smarter than you should not be trusted because you have all you need to know as long as you … I don’t know, watch Fox News and read your bible?  Actually, it doesn’t matter what Palin’s definition means – what matters is that it resonates with her target audience, with her base.  Who are they?  Well, they’re people who like the sound of Sarah Palin’s definition of “elite.”  It rings true to them – He’s really good at something?  Really smart?  Then he thinks he’s better than me!

Never mind that her definition has absolutely nothing to do with the word’s actual meaning.  Her definition – which she is far from alone in applying to the word – transforms “elite” into a label for people who are … well, knowledgeable; people who tend to point out inconsistencies of logic; people who are prone to be articulate and well-spoken.  Palin herself is none of those things.  Neither are most of the people who make up her base.  Those who are those things are considered suspect by Palin and her many admirers.  They are not to be trusted.  Their knowledge and abilities are really nothing more than arrogance.  They are rejected, mocked and smeared.  And keep in mind that Sarah Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate in the election of 2008.  Keep in mind that she fills auditoriums when she speaks.  Keep in mind that Palin’s book Going Rogue sold 300,000 copies it’s first day.  None of those things would be true if Sarah Palin were alone in the opinions she holds.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, said, “Well, the jury is still out on evolution, you know.”  He also said, “The bird flu virus could evolve to a form that can be spread easily from human to human.”

In a 2007 debate of Republican presidential candidates, the following question was asked:  “Do you believe in evolution?”  Three candidates – Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Mike Huckabee and Representative Tom Tancredo – said they did not.  Those three men were not elected to their offices in a vacuum.  They have a lot of like-minded supporters.

According to a Gallup Poll, fully one third of all Americans believe that every word of the bible is literally true and accurate.  That means they believe, among other things, that animals may talk, that a bush can burn without being consumed by the flames, that the sun can be stopped in the sky during its rotation of the earth, that eight people repopulated the entire planet after a global flood, that it’s sometimes okay for a man to have sex with and impregnate his own daughters, that a woman can get pregnant and have a child while still remaining a virgin, and that people sometimes come back from the dead and live and function as they did before dying.  This requires them to reject science whenever it contradicts these beliefs.  It also requires them to reject anyone who does not share these beliefs.  Don’t believe me?  Watch this political campaign advertisement.

That campaign ad pointed out that Bradley Byrne does not hold the beliefs listed above, but does accept the scientific theory of evolution and does not think that every word of the bible is literally true and accurate – and it pointed all of that out in an effort to discredit him.

America’s founding fathers repeatedly made clear their conviction that America was a secular nation that neither endorses nor enforces any religion, but allows all religions, or no religion.  The evidence of this is abundant.  There’s George Washington’s letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, in which he wrote, “For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”  There’s the Treaty of Tripoli, endorsed by Washington and ratified by John Adams, which states without ambiguity, “The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.”  There’s the Constitution of the United States, in which the only time religion of any kind is mentioned is to prohibit it from government.  There is more, too, plenty more.

And then there’s this.

Despite the abundant evidence that they are flat wrong, a hefty segment of the American population shares Sarah Palin’s opinion in the video linked above that America is “a Christian nation” that merely “tolerates” other faiths out of the goodness of its heart and views these other faiths as inferior.  These people will passionately argue that America was founded on Christian principles by Christian people so Christians can live here in a nation of Jesus-loving Christianity, that the United States is the nation that Jesus built.  I was recently in an argument about this with just such a Christian, and when I pointed out that nowhere does the Constitution mention god or Jesus Christ, he said, “Yes it does!  The Constitution is dated this way:  ‘In the Year of Our Lord!’  And our lord is Jesus Christ, the son of god!”

Are you beginning to see why “elite” has become such a dirty word in America?  It has replaced the once popularly maligned word “intellectual” – because, one might presume, it is shorter and easier to spell.  Intellectuals are usually the early targets of any dictatorship as it comes into power (it seems dictators don’t like the “elite” any more than Sarah Palin and her fans).  Why kill them?  Noam Chomsky answers that question:  “Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.”

Those damned pesky elite intellectuals – always asking questions, and worse yet, often answering them!  They’re so troublesome and annoying to corrupt leaders who don’t like it when their actions are criticized or their motives questioned.

In an interview with Cincinnati Magazine, musician, writer, poet, actor, talk show host and punk rock legend Henry Rollins put it well:

How can you argue with someone who applauds when Sarah Palin says we need a real commander-in-chief, not some scholar?  Oh, I see, we don’t like intellectuals.  We don’t want a smart guy as president because he won’t start a war with Iran.  We like the dumb guy better, who couldn’t pronounce any leader’s name and couldn’t find a country on a map; who struggled with the English language like a guy trying to hold on to a live eel.  Yeah, that’s, you know, the coarsening of the intellect.  Who feared smart people?  Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Putin … interesting.  And Palin.  And her flock. “I like Sarah because she’s like me and she’s a good person.”  Well, what about her policies?  “Oh, I don’t know about them, but she’s a good person and that’s why she should be president.”

Of course, here in America, we can’t go around killing intellectuals the way Hitler, Mao and Stalin did … can we?  No, not really.  It wouldn’t look good.  It would be all over the news, Oprah would disapprove, and the media might even make a “reality” TV show about it.

Of course, just because we can’t kill them doesn’t mean we can’t assassinate them in the arena of public opinion.  Listen to right-wing radio talk show host Michael Savage on any day of the week and you will hear him venomously refer to President Obama as, “That university professor!”  As if it’s an epithet on a par with calling him the N-word.  Listen to any of the right-wing radio talkers and you will see how contemptuous they are of well-educated people who’ve devoted their lives to a particular field.  Former Saturday Night Live cast member Dennis Miller, once one of America’s wittiest, most intelligent and acerbic comedians, whose material was peppered with a wide variety of intellectually challenging references that ran the gamut of art, science, pop culture, and history, now hosts a right-wing radio talk show on which he says, multiple times every day, “I’m not much for no fancy book-learnin’.”

But if you think this rejection of intelligence, knowledge and excellence happens only on the right, you’re mistaken.  This past week, movie actor and vocal leftist John Cusack (whom I follow on Twitter) posted this message (I am reproducing it here exactly as he wrote it):

hope we can believe in– ban the ivy league! i kid but not really… lets see what happens when the” best and brightest” dont rule–

Let me repeat that last part again: “Let’s see what happens when the ‘best and brightest’ don’t rule.”  Yes, let’s shove the best and brightest aside and go down the ladder a ways to find our leaders.  Maybe this country would be better off if we put it in the hands of people with no historical frame of reference, people who don’t reach decisions through critical thought and reasoning but rather according to their religious beliefs and ancient religious texts written thousands of years ago by ignorant, superstitious men.  How would that be, huh?  Can you imagine a time when that’s the kind of thinking we use to choose our leaders?

Oh, wait … we’re already there.  Are you scared yet?

In 2008, Susan Jacoby was interviewed by Truthout.org.  Jacoby was a reporter for the Washington Post and the program director of the Center for Inquiry in New York City.  She is now the author of several books, including The Age of American Unreason.  She discussed the common attitude toward knowledge, intelligence and excellence in America and gave the following example of this phenomenon on the left side of the aisle:

At the end of the primaries, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain endorsed a gas tax holiday for Americans this summer. Every economist, both liberal and conservative, said this would do nothing to help matters.  And when Hillary Clinton was asked by the late Tim Russert, “Can you produce one economist to support the gas tax holiday?” she said, “Oh that’s elite thinking.”

Now to say that economists have nothing intelligent to say about whether a gas tax will give people economic relief is like saying that you don’t ask musicians about music; you don’t ask scientists about science.  It’s not just an attack on a political idea; it’s an attack on knowledge itself. … Of course, she doesn’t believe it for a minute. It shows that a lot of politicians think they have to play to ignorance and label anything that goes against received opinion as elitism.

We live in a country in which many brilliant, well-educated people feel they have to play dumb in order to get elected.  They feel the need to pander to the most ignorant among us to get votes, to throw their own knowledge and intelligence out the window and say things they don’t really mean or believe in order to get votes.  And do you know why they do it?  Because it works.

In the same interview, Jacoby gives another example of the frightening way knowledge has been rejected and ignorance embraced:

I’ll give you an example of how stupid this country has become.  I’m one of the village atheists on Faith, a panel sponsored by the Washington Post and Newsweek.  In a recent post I wrote that when I was 7 years old, I was taken by my mom to visit a friend who had been stricken by polio and was in an iron lung. Polio has basically been eradicated, but I grew up when polio was still a real threat to children, before the Salk vaccine.  This childhood friend had been playing and running only three weeks before, and now he was in an iron lung. And I asked my mom, “Why would God let something like that happen?”  And to her credit, instead of giving me some moronic answer, my mother said, “I don’t know.”

After posting this on Faith, I received an e-mail saying, “All childhood memories are unreliable.  We construct narratives to justify what we now think.”

Of course it would be stupid if I’d said I became an atheist at the age of 7.  But I hadn’t said that, only that I remembered this childhood experience as making me begin to question what I’d been taught.  The whole tone of the e-mail was that nobody’s memory about anything could possibly be accurate – no fact could possibly be true.

… One of the points I make in my book is that unreason pervades our culture. It’s not just a matter of right-wing religious fundamentalism. There are all kinds of unreason and suspicion of evidence on both the Right and the Left.

We often hear about the vast promise of technology to educate and enlighten us, to put oceans of information at our very fingertips.  But how can all that information be useful … if we have no frame of reference to apply to it?  Susan Jacoby again:

In my talks to people, I often mention a statistic from the National Constitution Center that almost half of Americans can’t name even one of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. A student stood up at a university in California and said, “That doesn’t matter because you can just look it up on the Internet.” But if you don’t know what the First Amendment is in the first place, you don’t know what question to ask the Web.  Garbage in, garbage out. The Web’s only as good as our ability to ask questions of it. The ability to access information means nothing if you don’t have an educated framework of knowledge to fit it into.

But aren’t we at least smart enough to know that we don’t know a lot?  How could we possibly get ourselves into this situation?  Susan Jacoby says:

A fundamentalist is one who believes in a literal interpretation of sacred books, and a third of Americans believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  That’s about 10 times more than any other developed country in the world.  It’s entirely possible to be a religious believer and to accept science, but not if you’re a literal religious believer.  You can’t believe that the world was literally created in six days, and be open to modern knowledge.

There’s also something else:  We’ve always had more faith in technology than other countries. One of our problems with computers is that we believe in technological solutions to what are essentially non-technological problems.  Not knowing is a non-technological problem.  The idea that the Web is an answer to knowing nothing is wrong, but it’s something that Americans – with our history of believing in technology as the solution to everything – are particularly susceptible to.

Why is it that such a large percentage of the Americans read every word of the bible literally?  Jacoby again.

That’s in my previous book, Freethinkers.  One reason, oddly enough, is our absolute separation of church and state.  In secular Europe – as it’s often called sneeringly by people like Justice Antonin Scalia – religious belief and belief in political systems were united.  So if you opposed the government, you also had to oppose religion.  That wasn’t true in America because we had separation of church and state.  Many forms of religious belief survived in America, because you could believe anything you wanted and still not be opposed to your government.

The freedom of religion in America gives us more freedom, it’s true – but it also gives us more religion, and that freedom provides no balance whatsoever.  People are free to believe whatever idiotic nonsense happens to appeal to them – and they do.  But shouldn’t education provide a balance for this?  Sure, our educational system is a bit problematic these days, but it’s still the best in the world, because America is number one – right?  Jacoby says:

… Americans are unwilling to look at how really bad our educational system is because we’ve all been propagandized with the idea that we’re number one.  That may have been true after World War II, but not anymore.  The idea that we’re number one and special and better than everybody else is a very powerful factor in American life, and it prevents us from examining certain respects in which we’re not number one.

Is Jacoby exaggerating?  Is the educational system really that bad?  After all, America is number one … right?  Well, let’s see.  According to the December 12, 2004 issue of the New York Times, the United States ranks 49th in the world in literacy, 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy and American workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that businesses in the U.S. spend $30 billion a year on remedial training.  According to the January 7, 2005 issue of The Week, 20% of all Americans think the sun orbits the earth, and 17% believe the earth orbits the sun once every day.  On page 78 of Jeremy Rifkin’s book The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, he notes that the International Adult Literacy Survey found “that Americans with less than nine years of education ’score worse than virtually all of the other countries.’”

If you don’t believe any of this and think I’m exaggerated or my information is incorrect, please watch this video, which is a few years old, but still quite relevant.  And be afraid.  Be very afraid.

From the time that I was a boy, I watched my father retreat from the world because the world refused to conform to his opinions and beliefs.  When he was in the sixth grade, his teacher wanted him to give an oral book report in front of the class.  He didn’t want to.  The teacher insisted.  So Dad threw a tantrum, walked away from school halfway through the sixth grade with his signature I’ll show them attitude and never looked back.  He went through life with that same attitude, and the older he got, the angrier he got, because he found that his attitude was not well received.  When I was a child, he used to come home from work angry every day – everyone else was stupid, everyone was out to get him, everyone else was to blame for all of his problems.  After having back surgery, he applied for disability and got it.  He wasn’t disabled – he did plenty of hard work around the house – but he no longer had to face a world of people who knew more than he, who thought more clearly than he, who refused to tell him he was right about everything when he was right about virtually nothing, and who refused to tolerate his tantrums when this fact became clear.  He continued to retreat from the world until he almost never left the house, even to go to church (he was quite religious and was fond of wildly misquoting the bible he never read).  The excuse he invented was, “I don’t like being around crowds.  It’s my nerves.”  My mother played along.  The little house in which they lived became his entire world, and in that world, he knew everything, he was always right, and everyone else was crazy and ignorant and full of crap on every conceivable topic.  And if you didn’t believe him, just ask Mom.  She would nod and smile and say, “That’s what Dad has always said.”  As if always saying it makes it right.

If you had a discussion with him about anything and you happened to disagree with him, you didn’t simply hold a differing opinion – you were saying that he was wrong.  Opinions weren’t just opinions to him because in any conversation, someone had to be right and someone had to be wrong – and he had to be right.  As a result, he walked away from every conversation by angrily snarling his favorite words:  “I know what I know!”

Dad used to pronounce the word “realty” as “reality.”  This drove me crazy.  Finally, I pointed out to him that he was mispronouncing the word.  “Realty refers to the sale of real estate,” I said.  “Reality is a different word and has an entirely different meaning.”

“But I’ve always pronounced it ‘reality,’” he said.  My family was big on the idea that repeating something a lot made it true.

“I know you have, but it’s always been wrong.”

“Well, I prefer to say it my way,” he said.

“Then no one will know what you’re talking about, Dad.”

“That’s their problem.”

I wanted to say, No, Dad, that’s your problem, but I said nothing, and if you’d known my dad, you would know why.

Life in America is starting to bear a terrifying resemblance to life with my parents.  I’m 47 years old, have been married to my wife for 20 years, and yet it seems that, with increasing frequency, when I engage others in conversation on topical subjects, I feel like a little boy again trying to have a conversation with my father.  This is due, I think, to a combination of phenomena that have created a perfect storm of willful ignorance in America.

Fully one third of the population believes in the infallible accuracy of a book that claims it’s okay to abuse or even kill your children, that seas part so people can walk across them, that women are unclean during their menstrual cycle and everything they touch during that time must be burned, that virgins have babies and people rise from the dead.  These people in turn reject any scientific information – sometimes even evidence that is right in front of them – that contradicts this book.  And let’s face it, folks – if you believe all that not only without a speck of evidence to support it but in the face of hard, cold proof to the contrary, then there is no limit on what you will believe.

We live in an era that is bloated with information.  Once upon a time, there were only three, four, maybe five television channels available to most people.  Now there are hundreds.  News channels now have 24 hours to fill every day, which has made everything “news” – the latest celebutard drug overdose, political sex scandals, missing puppies and updates on American Idol contestants are now given the attention and significance once reserved for national policy decisions, wars and natural disasters.  “Reality” TV has invaded every area of television – the major networks, MTV, cooking channels, it’s everywhere – presenting as “reality” the very worst elements of humanity.  Selfish, arrogant, angry, deceptive, promiscuous, ignorant, small-minded people get their own TV shows today and are held up as celebrities, and people tune in to follow their exploits.  They’re soon popping up on shows other than their own – talk shows, panel shows, “news” shows, and in magazines where they pose for glossy, glamorous photo shoots.  They become the topic of watercooler coversations in workplaces around the country.  These people – the stars of “reality” TV shows who have, as a result, become TV stars, celebrities, and the subject of stories that pass for “news” these days – have rapidly become cultural touchstones for us.

On top of that, our culture has become dominated by things like Twitter, Facebook and cell phone texting, all of which have positive aspects.  But a significant portion of our population has come to believe that it’s very important that everyone know exactly what we’re doing at every moment and that we share every little thought that pops into our heads.  It has given us a sense of self-importance we did not have before, the feeling that the minutiae of our lives is somehow special and of great interest to others.  Hey, if those unpleasant, obnoxious, proudly stupid people on The Jersey Shore can have their own TV show, then I can be a celebrity, too, right?  We have become celebrities in our own minds, filled with a false sense of our own importance.

Add to all of the above another factor, one that perhaps does the most damage.  Just as wealthy, pampered celebrities tend to surround themselves with “yes men” who tell those celebrities only what they want to hear, it is now possible for us to structure our own personal lives to confirm only those things we believe about ourselves and our world.  You’re a Christian conservative who believes that America is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles to be ruled by Christians?  Then watch Fox News and CBN and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham and go online and read Newsmax and WorldNetDaily (both of which have a long history of outright lies).  You believe that the scientific theory of evolution is a lie and the world was created in six days by a silent, invisible god?  Well, there are plenty of well-funded organizations that agree with you and are working hard to spread the word that your belief has scientific support and is being unfairly rejected by the American educational system in favor of its wicked, godless teachings.  In no time at all, you will be absolutely convinced that you are right about everything!  You don’t even have to listen to anything that disagrees with you!  After all, you have TV shows and reporters and news websites and celebrities and shiny organizations to back up everything you believe.  Suddenly, all those who disagree with you become the “elite” – people who think they’re better than you, people who think they know more than you.  What more do you need to know other than the fact that you’re right!

Now, ignorance and stupidity are not only allowed, they are actively encouraged and nurtured!

During the eight years that George W. Bush was president, I nearly pulled my hair out every time I heard him speak.  Whenever he opened his mouth and words came out, he butchered the language, said appallingly ignorant things, and made it very clear that he just wasn’t thinking clearly, as if all the wrong synapses were firing at all the wrong times (“Is our children learning?” … “You need to put food on your family.” … “The jury is still out on evolution.”) Whenever I openly complained about this, it seemed there was always someone who spoke up and said some variation of the following:  “Leave him alone!  At least he’s not one of those people who says everything exactly right all the time, like he’s better than everybody else, like knows more than everybody else!  He talks like a normal person!  He talks like me!”

Every time they said that, what I heard them saying inside my head was, I like him because he’s dumb like me! I heard my father saying, I know what I know! I heard him saying, That’s their problem.

No.  It’s our problem.  It’s the entire country’s problem.  And it’s a problem that is rapidly getting worse, metastasizing like a cancer.  Thomas Jefferson was right – the functional operation of this country as it was conceived by the founders is absolutely dependent on an informed electorate, on reasoning and informed intelligence.  All of that is disintegrating right before our very eyes.

Don’t wait for the educational system to fix this.  Don’t wait for the government to correct it.  It will only get worse unless we start doing something about it ourselves, individually, one at a time.  Educate yourself and stay informed.  Think – and think critically.  Turn off the television and radio and stop listening to the many talking heads who want to do your thinking for you.  Go to the library or a book store, do some reading.  Seek out information and opinions that challenge you and will keep you from saying, I know what I know.  Examine each issue thoughtfully, using reason as your guide, not devotion to a religious belief or allegiance to a political party or the popular opinions of our time.  Keep in mind that the majority opinion is seldom the right one – that the majority once wanted black people and women to remain second class citizens without voices or rights.  Arm yourself with the facts, then speak up when you hear those facts being trampled or twisted.  Don’t remain silent in the face of willful ignorance and disinformation.  Point it out, correct it, and then denounce it.  If we don’t do that with frequency and conviction, we will find ourselves traveling backward in time with terrifying speed, and we will land in a place ruled by ignorance, superstition and anger.  We’re halfway there right now.  In that place, there will be no freedom, no individuality, no thinking.  There will only be the constant repetition of the words, I know what I know … even if what is known is nothing at all.

Chris Hedges, via Alternet, via TruthDig

Religious Institutions are Ruled by the Morally Bankrupt — But Should We Be Cheering It’s Demise?

As we devolve into a commodity culture, in which celebrity, power and money reign, the older, dimming values of another era are being replaced.

It is hard to muster much sympathy over the implosion of the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant denominations or Jewish synagogues. These institutions were passive as the Christian right, which peddles magical thinking and a Jesus-as-warrior philosophy, hijacked the language and iconography of traditional Christianity. They have busied themselves with the boutique activism of the culture wars. They have failed to unequivocally denounce unfettered capitalism, globalization and pre-emptive war. The obsession with personal piety and “How-is-it-with-me?” spirituality that permeates most congregations in narcissism. And while the Protestant church and reformed Judaism have not replicated the perfidiousness of the Catholic bishops, who protect child-molesting priests, they have little to say in an age when we desperately need moral guidance.

[...]

But I cannot rejoice in the collapse of these institutions. We are not going to be saved by faith in reason, science and technology, which the dead zone of oil forming in the Gulf of Mexico and our production of costly and redundant weapons systems illustrate. Frederick Nietzsche’s Übermensch, or “Superman”—our secular religion—is as fantasy-driven as religious magical thinking.

[...]

The great religions set free the critical powers of humankind. They broke with the older Greek and Roman traditions that gods and Destiny ruled human fate—a belief that, when challenged by Socrates, saw him condemned to death. They challenged the power of the tribe, the closed society. They offered up the possibility that human beings, although limited by circumstance and human weakness, could shape and give direction to society and their own lives. These religious thinkers were our first ethicists. And it is perhaps not accidental that the current pope, as well as the last one, drove out of the Catholic Church thousands of clergy and religious leaders who embodied these qualities, elevating the dregs to positions of leadership and leaving the pedophiles to run the Sunday schools.

These religious institutions are in irreversible decline. They are ruled by moral and intellectual trolls. They have become arrogant and self-absorbed. Their sins are many. They protected criminals. They pandered to the lowest common denominator and illusions of personal fulfillment and surrendered their moral authority. They did not fight the corporate tyrants who have impoverished us. They refused to denounce a caste of Christian heretics embodied by the Christian right and have, for their cowardice, been usurped by bizarre proto-fascists clutching the Christian cross. They have nothing left to say. And their aging congregants, who are fleeing the church in droves, know it. But don’t think the world will be a better place for their demise.

As we devolve into a commodity culture, in which celebrity, power and money reign, the older, dimming values of another era are being replaced. We are becoming objects, consumer products and marketable commodities. We have no intrinsic value. We are obsessed with self-presentation. We must remain youthful. We must achieve notoriety and money or the illusion of it. And it does not matter what we do to get there. Success, as Goldman Sachs illustrates, is its own morality. Other people’s humiliation, pain and weakness become the fodder for popular entertainment. Education, building community, honesty, transparency and sharing see contestants disappeared from any reality television show or laughed out of any Wall Street firm.

[...]

The consumer culture, as Nietzsche feared, has turned us into what Chalmers Johnson calls a “consumerist Sparta.” The immigrants and the poor, all but invisible to us, work as serfs in this new temple of greed and imperialism. Curtis White in “The Middle Mind” argues that most Americans are aware of the brutality and injustice used to maintain the excesses of their consumer society and empire. He suspects they do not care. They don’t want to see what is done in their name. They do not want to look at the rows of flag-draped coffins or the horribly maimed bodies and faces of veterans or the human suffering in the blighted and deserted former manufacturing centers. It is too upsetting. Government and corporate censorship is welcomed and appreciated. It ensures that we remain Last Men. And the death of religious institutions will only cement into place the new secular religion of the Last Man, the one that worships military power, personal advancement, hedonism and greed, the one that justifies our callousness toward the weak and the poor.

My take is that the “Last Men” he refers to are the present-day fundamentalist, evangelicals, and under-educated lazy-thinkers of FuxNews.  Surely he couldn’t mean me!

A pessimist?  Or a clear-eyed realist?  Or both?

It’s a helluva read.  It gave me chills and will probably pop  into my mind, at inopportune times, for the next few weeks or months.  If he’s right, I’ll remember this whenever I see events that Hedges predicted.

But, by that time, it will be too late.  Armageddon’s tipping-point is probably nearer than I think.

There are strange, small pools of thought that emerge sporadically from the landscape of any culture. Oddities that come bobbing to the surface like so many bits of driftwood on the beach of obscurity, that do not enrage the heart but cause a furrowing of the brow and a stroking of the chin by the fingers.

One of these oddities was one John Humphrey Noyes.

Noyes was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and was not even 21 before he started voicing his first "heretical" ideas. While studying at Dartmouth College, Andover Theological Seminary, and Yale Theological College he used his skills at theological argument. He combined this with his skill in religious science, and the common sense he had gained as a farmer, to “make the application of a revolutionary religious doctrine to everyday life, an application that produced a social revolution.”

Where have we heard that one before?

It was in his second year at Yale that he made his first theological discovery. He was trying to determine the date of the second coming of Christ, and determined it had already occurred. His conclusion was that Christ’s second coming had taken place in 70 A.D., and that “mankind was now living in a new age.” With this in mind he became increasingly concerned with salvation from sin and with perfection. He began to argue with his colleagues that unless man was truly free of sin, then Christianity was a lie, and that only those who were perfect and free of sin were true Christians. This internal religious crisis brought about a religious conversion within Noyes. From there he began to proclaim that he “did not sin.” The idea of Perfectionism—that it was possible to be free of sin in this lifetime—caused his friends to think him unbalanced, and he began to be called a heretic by his own professors. From the moment of his conversion Noyes maintained that, because he had surrendered his will to God, everything he chose to do was perfect because his choices “came from a perfect heart”. His theory centered around the idea that the fact that man had an independent will was because of God, and that this independent will came from God, therefore rendering it divine. The only way to control mankind’s will was with spiritual direction. And Noyes proclaimed “it was impossible for the Church to compel man to obey the law of God, and to send him to eternal damnation for his failure to do so.” Noyes claimed “his new relationship to God canceled out his obligation to obey traditional moral standards or the normal laws of society.” As a result Noyes started acting on impulses from his intuition rather than giving thought to the actions or consequences. On February 20, 1834, he declared himself perfect and free from sin. This declaration caused an outrage at his college, and his newly-earned license to preach was revoked.

This obsession with ‘perfection’ has laid many low, and may eventually be the downfall of the human race.

Upon his expulsion from Yale and the revocation of his ministerial license, he returned to Putney, Vermont, where he continued to preach, declaring, "I took away their license to sin and they go on sinning; they have taken away my license to preach but I shall go on preaching". At this time his Putney community began to take shape. It started in 1836 as the Putney Bible School and became a formal communal organization in 1844, practicing complex marriage, male continence and striving for Perfection.

Like so many people before him, upon being cast out by his peers, he went out and founded his own community:

Community structure

Even though the community reached a maximum population of about 300, it had a complex bureaucracy of 27 standing committees and 48 administrative sections.

The Oneida Community was a self-supporting enterprise. Its primary industries were the growing and canning of fruits and vegetables, the production of silk thread, and the manufacture of animal traps. They were the primary supplier of animal traps to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The manufacturing of silverware, the sole remaining industry, began in 1877, relatively late in the life of the Community, and still thrives.Secondary industries included the manufacture of leather travel bags, the weaving of palm frond hats, the construction of rustic garden furniture, and tourism.

All Community members were expected to work, each according to his or her abilities. Women tended to do much of the domestic duties. Although more skilled jobs tended to remain with one person (the financial manager, for example, held his post throughout the life of the Community), Community members rotated through the more menial jobs, working in the house, the fields, or the various industries. As the Community thrived, it began to hire outsiders to work in these positions as well. They were a major employer in the area, with approximately 200 employees by 1870.

Interesting, but little more than a raised eyebrow.

Gender roles

As a goal subsidiary to achieving religious and social revivalism, Noyes believed that one of the major purposes of the Community was to regenerate relations between men and women, which he believed to be deteriorating in the larger society. In theory, males and females had equality and equal voice in the governance of the community.

However, scholars disagree about whether gender roles at Oneida were, on the whole, feminist or conservative. On the one hand, women were relieved of the special duties of childcare by a community nursery, which provided care for infants and children so that both parents could work. Females adopted a style of dress, believed to have been copied from the Iroquois, consisting of a short skirt over trousers (bloomers). This allowed them much greater freedom of movement than contemporary women’s styles.

On the other hand, Marlyn Klee-Hartzell has shown that women were disproportionately assigned to tasks—like nursery duty, housekeeping, and laundry—that were traditionally considered women’s work. Some women may have been required to wear bloomers against their will by Noyes, who believed that allowing women to wear dresses would make them materialistic.

Hmmm…some sexual equality, but a disparity between theory and practice is to be expected. Now here’s where it gets interesting –

Complex marriage

In theory, every male was married to every female. Status at Oneida was based on people’s spirituality. Community members were not to have an exclusive sexual or romantic relationship with each other, but were to keep in constant circulation. To help prevent a "special love" from forming, each Community member had his or her own bedroom. This extended even to couples who came to the Community already married. A married couple entering the Community was not required or even encouraged to legally dissolve their union, but rather to extend the borders of it to the rest of the Community in complex marriage. The average female Community member had three sexual encounters, or "interviews", a week.

I would imagine that if they’d gotten farther than one generation, the diversity may have well broken down into the third and fourth generations, contingent on the restrictions of community.

Postmenopausal women were encouraged to introduce teenage males to sex, providing both with legitimate partners that rarely resulted in pregnancies. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for the young men. Likewise, older men often introduced young women to sex. Noyes often used his own judgment in determining the partnerships which would form and would often encourage relationships between the non-devout and the devout in the community, in the hopes that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the non-devout.

Interesting, and this sort of practice would have discouraged the raging ageism we see today.  Here’s where I get a tad irked:

Noyes believed that sex had not only biological, but social and spiritual purposes as well. To Communitarians, it was yet another path to perfection. Generally, it was believed that older people were spiritually superior to younger people, and men were spiritually superior to women. Noyes and his inner circle were at the top of this hierarchy in the Community. In order to improve oneself, one was only supposed to have sexual relations with those spiritually superior. This was called "ascending fellowship." Once a Community member had reached a certain level (usually determined by Noyes and his inner circle), they were then to turn around and practice "descending fellowship" with those Communitarians trying to work their way up.

The idea of ‘perfection’ seems to always include some hierarchal concept of superiority – and I myself have met many older men and women who were anything but ‘superior’ in any way.

I found this intriguing:

Mutual criticism

Every member of the community was subject to criticism by committee or the community as a whole, during a general meeting. The goal was to eliminate bad character traits. Various contemporary sources contend that Noyes himself was the subject of criticism, although less often and of probably less severe criticism than the rest of the community. Although this could sometimes be a harsh process, the majority of community members appreciated this criticism because it allowed them to try to better themselves.

I think a great many folks in this day and age should embrace criticism (as long as it’s constructive and not constrictive), but we tend to lead with our emotions and confuse our opinions with ourselves.

Here’s where it gets a little scary…

Stirpiculture

A program of eugenics, then known as stirpiculture, was introduced in 1869. It was a selective breeding program designed to create even more perfect children. Communitarians who wished to be parents would go before a committee to be matched based on their spiritual and moral qualities. 53 women and 38 men participated in this program, which necessitated the construction of a new wing of the Oneida Community Mansion House. The experiment yielded 58 children, nine of whom were fathered by Noyes.

Once children were weaned from breast milk (usually at around the age of one) they were raised communally in the Children’s Wing, or South Wing. Their parents were allowed to visit, but if those in charge of the Children’s Wing suspected a parent and child were bonding too closely to one another, the Community would enforce a period of separation.

This is truly illustrative of how a slippery slope argument actually does work. First, the environment is too controlled and structured. Second, interfering with a parent-child bond violates some serious ethical imperatives. Third, perfection of any sort is a plateau: you cannot by definition become more perfect – A. it’s an impossibility, and B. there’s utterly no yardstick for this falsehood.

Of course, since this community was too close-knit and too internally diverse in so many ways, it started to come apart at the seams (and you folks will love one of the factors):

The community lasted until John Humphrey Noyes attempted to pass the leadership of the Community to his son, Theodore Noyes. This move was unsuccessful because Theodore was an atheist and lacked his father’s talent for leadership. The move also divided the Community, as Communitarian John Towner attempted to wrest control for himself.

Them durned atheists! And of course the eventual confusion about sex:

Within the commune, there was a debate about when children should be initiated into sexual rituals, and by whom. There was also much debate about its practices as a whole. The founding members of the Community were aging or deceased, and many of the younger Communitarians desired to enter into exclusive, traditional marriages.

Noyes had a penchant for the youngsters:

The capstone to all these pressures was the harassment campaign of Professor Mears, of Hamilton College. John Humphrey Noyes was tipped off by trusted adviser Myron Kinsley that a warrant for his arrest on charges of statutory rape was imminent. Noyes fled the Oneida Community Mansion House and the country in the middle of a June night in 1879, never to return to the United States. Shortly afterwards, he wrote to his followers from Niagara Falls, Ontario, advising that the practice of complex marriage be abandoned.

And the polygamy/polyandry/universal marriage thing came apart at the seams (a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one):

Complex Marriage was abandoned in 1879 following external pressures and the community soon broke apart with some of the members reorganizing as a joint-stock company. Marital partners normalized their status with the partners they were cohabiting with at the time of the re-organization. Over 70 Community members entered into a traditional marriage in the following year.

On a final note:

The joint-stock corporation still exists as of 2008 and is a major producer of cutlery under the brand name "Oneida Limited". In September 2004 Oneida Limited announced that it would cease all manufacturing operations in the beginning of 2005, ending a 124 year tradition. The company would continue as a marketer for products manufactured overseas. The company has been selling off its manufacturing facilities. Most recently, the distribution center in Sherrill, New York was closed. Administrative offices remain in the Oneida area.

Hence the ‘spooning’ joke in the title.

Thus endeth the history lesson. While Noyes had some interesting (and eclectic) ideas about communal organization, gender roles, etc., it is readily obvious that he would have failed regardless of whether religion was involved or not. However, it’s safe to say that religion usually ends up helping these oddballs screw the pooch even sooner.

Till the next post, then.

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out. – Dawkins

Today is that day the Christians hail as fundamental to their belief system, the resurrection of the larger-than-life mythical being we know as Jesus. In real life, we usually realize that when a story is chock full of ‘miracles’, it’s more likely than not what is termed a ‘fish story’ (to those of us who aren’t wide-eyed and gullible, that is). Until recently, we as a culture have been told ‘hands off’ when it comes to religious topics of any sort (unless they tend to be absolutely bugfuck crazy – then it’s okay to mock) – but recent events as well as archeological discoveries have been the gale wind to knock down houses built on foundations of sand.

The first item on the agenda: the empty tomb. Somehow this has become one of those hoary old chestnuts we’re fed as children, inundated by cheery Xmas songs and the inculcated idea that the bible has any shred of veracity whatsoever. Yet, as we’ve seen over the past few centuries (as the religious tend to argue and war over petty items), nobody can seem to agree on where the damn thing is. The most basic point is best: this location would have been inundated by pilgrims from the get-go, especially if the mass conversion of many thousands in the Middle East was true. In fact, the standard measuring point in any form of historical veracity is the same as it is in the retail motto: location, location, location. Yet somehow this is overlooked in any discussion of the topic among the Christians.

Item two: the missing body. I think Richard Carrier puts it best:

In Acts’ history of the Church, from the moment the Church first goes public, right in Jerusalem, nowhere do either the Romans or the Jews ever show any knowledge of a missing body, nor do they ever take any action to investigate what would only be to them a crime of tomb robbery and desecration of the dead (both severe death penalty offenses), or worse. The Gospel of Matthew even claims the Jewish authorities accused the Christians of such crimes before Pilate himself (Matthew 27:62-66, 28:4, 28:11-15). Although that is certainly fiction (as I have argued elsewhere, external and internal evidence confirms Matthew’s story is a poetic and apologetic fabrication), it reflects what could not fail to have happened–if any body had gone missing.[17]

Since Christians were supposedly capitalizing on this fact, they would be the first suspects–or at least the second ones if (as the Gospels claim) Joseph of Arimathea was the last person known to have had custody of the body (Mark 15:43-46, Matthew 27:57-60, Luke 23:51-56, John 19:38-42). In that case he would be the first man hauled in for questioning. Yet he vanishes completely from this earliest history of the Church, as if no one knew anything about him, or he didn’t exist at all. Though Christians would be suspects in a capital crime of grave robbery, and Acts records case after case of them being interrogated at trial before Jews and Romans on other offenses, never once in this history of the Church are they suspected of or questioned about grave robbery. It’s as if there was no missing body to investigate, no empty tomb known to the authorities. Which means the Christians can’t have been pointing to one. If they had, they would have been questioned about it (and possibly convicted for it, innocent or not). Yet Acts shows there were no disputes at all regarding what happened to the body, not even false accusations of theft, or even questions or expressions of amazement.

Thus, either Acts deliberately suppresses the truth about what happened to the body and what was really being argued, said, and done about it (which entails the truth must have been severely embarrassing to Christians), or there was no missing body and no one was claiming there was. In alignment with the latter conclusion are the facts already surveyed above, which suggest the original Christians were preaching that Jesus rose in an entirely new body, not the old one left in the grave, and the fact that Acts fails to mention any debate or discussion about any tomb being empty or any body being missing (e.g. it never occurs as an argument or a defense in any of the trials or debates it records).[18] Such an incident was evidently entirely missing from the history of the original Church.

The Romans would have had an even more urgent worry than body snatching: the Christians were supposedly preaching that Jesus (even if with supernatural aid) had escaped his execution, was seen rallying his followers, and then disappeared. Pilate and the Sanhedrin would not likely believe any of this resurrection or ascension nonsense (and there is no evidence they did), but if the tomb was empty, and Christ’s followers were reporting that he had continued preaching to them and was still at large, Pilate would be compelled to haul every Christian in and interrogate every possible witness in a massive manhunt for what could only be in his mind an escaped convict (guilty of treason against Rome for claiming to be God and King, as all the Gospels allege: e.g. Mark 15:26; Matthew 27:37; Luke 23:38; John 19:19-22). And the Sanhedrin would feel the equally compelling need to finish what they had evidently failed to accomplish the first time (finding and killing Jesus). Yet none of this happens. No one asks where Jesus is hiding or who aided him. No one is at all concerned that there may be an escaped convict, pretender to the throne, thwarter of Roman law and judgment, dire threat to Jewish authority, alive and well somewhere, and still giving orders to his followers. Why would no one care that the Christians were claiming they took him in, hid him from the authorities, and fed him after his escape from justice (according to Acts 1), unless in fact they weren’t claiming any such thing?

The best explanation of this strange omission is that the body was still in its grave, since then all the Christians’ claims could be legally ignored. That’s why those claims are dismissed as mere madness (Acts 26:24), involving no possible criminal charge of any kind under Roman law (e.g. Acts 18:12-17, 23:26-35). Otherwise, the crime of either robbing graves or aiding and abetting an escaped felon and royal pretender would certainly have been obvious grounds for an inquest or trial. Yet neither occurs. Thus, if Acts records any truth about the history of the first Church, its narrative all but entails there was no empty tomb, the body of Jesus was not missing, and that the earliest Christians, including Paul, were instead preaching a resurrection by transfer to a new body, residing in heaven (at least after the Pentecost), a fact known only by private revelations and interpretations of scripture.

Item three: the evidence of absence, or an argument from silence. We know of Julius Caesar quite well, for instance. There are statues and coins a-plenty. He wrote quite a few items – memoirs, some poetry. His enemies spoke/wrote of him, as did his extensive family. Yet the Christians make the claim that Jesus was indeed a historical figure, more so than any other. Yet there is a dearth of evidence surrounding this mystery figure. Of forty historians of that time period, not a word. Not from Philo Judaeus, nor Seneca the Elder or the Younger, not from Velleius Paterculus nor Livy. For someone who allegedly attracted droves of followers (so many that some were trampled underfoot), this is a suspicious silence. Josephus mentions him (among numerous other Jesii), but contemporary sources fall silent. Note that Flauvius was born seven years post ex facto, and brief mentions of rumors heard do not an account make. There is indeed, not one written account from an external source who looked in the face of our mystery man – no one who wrote about that day on Golgotha, or sat and ate a meal with him. Not a whisper. It’s well-established fact  that the Synoptics were written well past the given date by a century or more of the alleged event.

And there you have it. Three simple items that would not only make the less gullible amongst us pause, but those of us who have a sharpened sense of critical analysis laugh out loud. But it is difficult, when the meme has had centuries to take deep root, and the resistance squashed by those who claim to practice ‘turn the other cheek’ but in reality cannot internalize the concept.

Welcome to the 21st century, where finally these anachronistic superstitions will be laid to rest in a shallow, unmarked grave.

Till the next post, then.