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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religion did that a looong time ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your body has wicked urges that must be denied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NO SEX UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED!

All of this, of course, is absurd.

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

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

Damn you, you immoral secular humanist liberal perverts!

Yeah, right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The third funding stream is Community-Based Abstinence Education:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before you roll your eyes, let me explain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet the world persists, 21 years later…

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

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

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

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

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

My question is: were there any volunteers at all?

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

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

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

I wonder, sadly, I wonder…

Till the next post, then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frightening, no? It gets worse:

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

And worse:

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

And even more sickening:

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

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

Some comeuppance was en route, but unsatisfactory:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Till the next post, then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Case For Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

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

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

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

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

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

The Case Against Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

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

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

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

‘Nuff said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Till the next post, then.

“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.