A guest blogger wrote of Religious Freedom Day in yesterday’s Washington Post. I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting the opening paragraph to reflect reality.

The original:

Across the globe, religion and belief continue to matter deeply in the lives of people and their cultures. From worship to prayer, births to funerals, weddings to holy days, almsgiving to thanksgiving, religion is a central source of identity, meaning, and purpose for billions of human beings.

The reality:

Across the globe, religion and belief continue to worm themselves dangerously into the lives of people and their cultures. From self-abasement to talking to oneself instead of taking action, physically deforming male and female children without their consent to delusional thoughts of deceased loved ones being in a better place, from fighting to allow only a man and a woman to commit to a life together to strange ceremonies concocted by imaginative goatherds of old, giving huge sums of money to support the very system that seeks to control their lives to giving credit to superstition instead of science, religion is a central source of pain, suffering and misery for billions of human beings.

You’re welcome!

Contemporaneous Accounts of Jesus?

I’ve been challenged on my assertion that there are no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus’ existence. The proof offered was Cornelius Tacitus and Josephus. I’m not a history expert, but here’s what I find:

Cornelius lived from 56 C.E. to 117 C.E., instantly disqualifying him from this challenge, but I’ll give a quick summary of what I see.

Here is the passage in question:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.^[31]

So we have Tacitus mentioning “Christus” or “the messiah” in passing in one of at least 16 books in the Annals group on the Roman empire.

What’s curious to me is that, in this mention, Tacitus is referring to Christianity not as a positive group but describes them as promulgating “a most mischievous superstition” from Judea “the first source of the evil” to Rome “where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre.” What a glowing report!

Historian David Fitzgerald discusses this passage in his book “Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All.” He points out that Tacitus is discussing the beliefs of these cultists as background for a different point of Roman history.

At the time of this mention, 116 C.E., this was a story any Christian-on-the-street would have known, it is not in any way based on an eyewitness account. He almost certainly didn’t find this tidbit from historic documents. The Romans did not keep detailed records of the great number of crucifixtions carried out and any records that may have existed at all were undoubtedly destroyed in one of the repeated burnings-to-the-ground of Rome in the intervening years. 

And the Romans would hardly have referred to Jesus Ben Joseph of Nazareth as “Christus”, or “The Messiah!” He also points out that Christ is the Greek translation of a Jewish religious title.

Josephus, or Titus Flavious Josephus, lived from 37-100 C.E. disqualifying him also from this discussion, but, what the hell. Let’s see what he had to say.

Josephus fought in the first Jewish-Roman war and is an early claimant of divine revelation. He correctly predicted that Vespasian would become emperor. After this actually happened he wrote that his revelation had taught him three things: “that God, the creator of the Jewish people, had decided to “punish” them, that “fortune” had been given to the Romans, and that God had chosen him “to announce the things that are to come”

Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews was written in 93 or 94 C.E., was widely read and had the additional feature of being disingenuous in how it presented Jewish history. The passage in question does not even appear until the 4th century. There are no mentions of this passage, the “Testimonium” until 300 years later.

“Nailed” mentions that historians also note that the paragraph is out of context of the preceding and following paragraphs, uses a different style and non-Josephean vocabulary. Josephus’ books were among the most widely read of that period in time. That there is no mention of this paragraph until the 4th century is wildly telling.

Fitzgerald points out that when the Testimonium begins to get mentioned it’s by Bishop Eusebius, against whom over two dozen complaints survive including poor scholarship, deliberate misrepresentations of history and lack of integrity.

So I’m going to stick with the incredulous and skeptical here and conclude that there are still no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus, let alone accounts of his miracle-working ways. History is a cruel taskmaster, ain’t it?

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All

Hellish Dreams of Hell

I just bought, and cannot wait to have delivered, a book titled “Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment”, by Janet Heimlich. I expect to see a fair amount of my background in this book, having been raised by fundamentalist, evangelical parents.

Ms. Preach and I were talking last night about my involvement in the freethought, atheistic and humanistic causes. She was with an unprejudiced eye asking why it meant so much to me, and a little about why it is something that I think about all the time. I was surprised that my answer was a revelation (pun intended) to her. After all, we’ve been together for over 20 years and atheism was one of the first things we talked about.

My parents church “brought it,” week in and week out. Fire and brimstone. Hell or heaven, son, your choice. I was run through an hour and a half of Sunday school first thing in the morning followed by an hour long church service. The service started with about 20 minutes of prayer, singing of hymns, fleecing of the flock (passing of the collection plate) and then 40 minutes of bible-thumping. Always starting with a different section of the NT, but always tying back to the theme, accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior or spend eternity screaming in agony in the eternal fire. This was capped with another hour-long service every Sunday evening. Then came Wednesday nights, where it was a couple hours of prayer service or in a Christian version of Boy Scouts. You think the real Scouts are God-pod people? You should have seen this group. Christian Service Brigade.

So I, not wanting to spend forever (how do you dare explain never-ending time to a child, let alone tell them if you don’t accept you’ll spend that time in excruciating pain?) I did it. Twice.

First, in Sunday school at about 10 years old. Overwhelmed with fear I told myself I better do this. I won’t have to worry about hell and, heck, this dweeby kid might just be more accepted within this social group that we now know more correctly to be a cult.

The second time was at a sleep-away camp when I was 13 or 14. Someplace where you spent the day enjoying all the usual outdoor activities, but after dinner came the service. All the campers in sanctuary, chapel, or whatever you want to call it, for a hard-sell on heaven vs. hell. They even employed the soft, give up your resistance, music that Billy Graham played to break the will of entire stadiums of people as they called, gently, for the un-saved to come to the front to give their life to God.

But the dreams never went away. The sliding boards. And they didn’t go away until I was in my 30’s. This recurring dream was a field of sliding boards, barely lit and no light in the background. I was on one of the slides. The trick was, I was presented with a fork in the slide every few seconds and had to instantly choose a direction. One slide would take me to hell, the other offered the opportunity to continue making choices.

This would go on until I woke up in a cold sweat. When still a child I would wake up crying and afraid. But having been through the process of accepting Jesus and asking forgiveness of my sins held no relief in those moments.

While I began to realize it was all a crock around the time I started to drive, it was a long time before I was no longer a broken person. I still have a filter on life that is not what those around me see and it is hard to explain to them.

The rest of my life will be dedicated to preaching atheism because of what I went through as a child and how it affected my life.

Peace

Breaking Children’s Spirits in God’s Name

Why on earth someone would need to treat a child like this is beyond me. I was raised by a fundamentalist father who used a folded leather belt across my ass until I was in my teens. Needless to say I was deep into my 20s before I could show him any real respect. I needed a lot of distance.

The Milquetoast Response

Note: Moved from a different blog site. Original Post Date 10/29/2010

A very good friend is in town for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. She works for an organization dedicated to the decriminalization of marijuana.

In the course of our conversation about Prop 19 and other efforts around the country to bring sanity to how we treat users of weed I got onto the subject of the religious moralism that is the basis for the objection to the effort to decriminalize pot.

To my surprise – I’ve known her for many years but never covered this territory of her thought though she’s known of my atheism all along – she said she doesn’t see the connection. And gave the Nonmagesterial overlap argument of “religion is important to me and is one of the reasons why I do what I do.

She related how, as a child, she told her Mom she had doubts about what she was being taught in church. Her Mom replied that doubt was a good sign. That you had to doubt to understand why you have to have faith.

I tried to explain that the very people who are fighting the initiatives of her organization – and myriad other personal choice/human rights issues – are using the same book to justify their abject rejection to the change she seeks.

No matter that she grants that the bible was written by men and is not the revealed word of god and that the bible condones many offensive activities (rape and genocide just for openers) and that it has many contradictory writings about the fundamental concepts (Jeebus’ lineage for starters).

I brought up the writings of what I always refer to as the Unholy Trinity – Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens – and she said she hates the attitude of Dawkins.

She asserted that it was rude (not remembering her exact choice of words here) that atheists insist believers listen to our thinking while rejecting religious thought out of hand.

My response that atheists have science and reason on their side and religion just has mysticism and superstition unsupported by anything. She says that religion has played an important part in her life and has been a moral guide that has helped her through many issues.

In the end I could only convince her to put Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape on her reading list.

Obama’s Speech at Indonesian Mosque

Note: Moved from a different blog site. Original Post Date 11/09/2010

Today’s Washington Post has a story about members of ADAMS (All Dulles Area Muslim Society) waiting to hear what President Obama will say in a scheduled speech at Indonesia’s largest mosque.

The ADAMS group, according to WaPo, is one of the largest mosques in the U.S., with more than 5,000 families worshiping in a 25,000 square foot facility in a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington.

Imam Mohamed Magid finds himself worrying about Muslim’s place in American society after a year in which things have not gone well. Most recently it was a congregant of ADAMS who was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb several Washington METRO subway stations.

The Post reports that ADAMS quickly issues press releases denouncing extremism whenever there is news of an arrest or a foiled terror plot. This includes after the Fort Hood slayings and the arrest of its own member.

It is reported that the imam worries about the effect on how they are viewed in light of such events, but sees this as a trial by fire through which Islam will come out the other side as an accepted part of society.

Oddly, Magid compares the plight of Muslims to the tribulations of African-Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Polish Americans. These groups of people all had their problems integrating into American society, but they brought with them only different languages and customs, not a religion bent on the destruction of all others. This is not to say that Christianity hasn’t left its violent mark on the world. There’s too much history for any denial of such.

But we don’t have to repeat our mistakes. We can be smart and learn from history. There’s no reason we need to stand idly by as practitioners of Islam sneak their Trojan horse through the door by being the nice neighbor and inevitably demand that we accept their crazy version of what’s appropriate behavior. See the troubles facing English and German governments as Muslims demand their unique, human rights-unfriendly, ideas be enforced.

Christopher Hitchens wonderfully wrote that islamophobia is an incorrect usage to describe the feelings of right-minded folk regarding Islam, as a phobia is an irrational fear of an object or class. There’s absolutely nothing irrational about fearing a surging population of people across the world whose religion preaches violence against all who deny its supremacy.

Discussion of “extremism” without thinking all the way through to its basis is fatal. In the case of Islam, extremists are nothing more than literalist in their reading of the Koran. The Muslim living next door and generally acting within American societal norms, is only acceptable because he or she chooses to ignore the basic tenets of their chosen religion. The same applies of course, to a degree, to your Christian neighbor.

So Obama is stupidly going to speak to a large congregation of Muslims. He’ll say that the U.S. is a tolerant nation where all religions can coexist. Except what he should be doing is not even dignifying their religion with a single comment. He’s our political and economic ambassador, not our religious ambassador.

How the left stole christmas? Whaaa?

Note: Moved from a different blog site - Original Post Date 12/15/2010

Lincoln Institute for Public Opinion Research chairman and CEO Lowman S. Henry was a guest columnist in the Pottstown Mercury on Monday. He took the opportunity to complain (whine, really) that nobody is treating Xians nicely in this season, which they own. Unsurprisingly, the Lincoln Institute is interested in only one aspect of the public’s opinion, that of the redundantly named Christian Right.

Here’s his column How the left stole Christmas

and here’s the letter I sent to him:

Hi,

I just had a chance to read your letter in the The Mercury and wanted to share my thoughts.

It is easy to understand why you are so perplexed. All around you people are saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. All around you people are rushing about getting gifts and not focusing on Christ’s birth. And surely you are on target regarding Islam, which is anything but a religion of peace. In fact, peaceful Muslims are simply those not following the teachings of the Koran.

But, as surely as silver bells ring and halls get decked the arrival of the Christmas season will herald the complaints from Christians that the totality of humankind does not pause its activities for a month so you can celebrate your holiday. Really and truly, nobody wants to steal your Christmas celebration. Go ahead, enjoy yourself. Your right to free expression is there in the constitution, same as everybody elses. Well, except the guy yelling fire in a crowded theater, but that’s another story. But let’s be clear here, the constitution does not guarantee you access to government property to demonstrate your “belief. “And it also absolutely guarantees everybody elses right to point out your logical fallacies. And, damn, can’t you see the irony of insisting that you have the right to place your icons on the courthouse lawn, but decry a tree of knowledge? What on earth could be on that tree that you would find offensive?

Sorry to break it to you, but you have fallen into the same unreasoned intellectual trap as have so many others, thinking your religion is the one and only. How incredibly parochial. As atheists say, everybody is an atheist, some folk just go one god further. Yours isn’t the only religion in the country and your whining about perceived slights just exposes you for who you really are, a person who knows, deep down inside, that all you have is faith. Which is to say, you’ve staked your lifestyle on the writings of a bunch of ancient men who thought the earth was flat and a claimed supernatural being for whom there is no scientific proof.

Remember what I said about Islam? If you read your bible you’d know that Christians are no different. Your so-called divinely inspired book is full of god-authorized rape, murder, genocide and infanticide. How can you not see this and be repulsed by it? Now, continue to enjoy your solstice celebration, but grow up and get used to the fact that not everybody thinks your fairy in the sky really exists. Finally, the link here has a little background on the history of the Christmas celebration. Who stole what celebration? HAH!  http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/228791/the-pagan-roots-of-christmas

I’d suggest you step out of the inertia of what you “believe” and ask hard, rational questions about the nature of man, but for you that’s a waste of time. Your entire life and lifestyle is wound up in the church. You have no chance of seeing the light.

(And for the record, noting the shocking correlation between Lincoln’s religious and right-wing politics, I need to point out that no, I’m not a liberal, just rational. The truth is almost always somewhere in the middle.)