What Do You Do with a Chocolate Jesus?

God works in mysterious ways…Then again, he can be entirely obvious.

2011-06-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

With evangelical Christian Michele Bachmann now a leading GOP contender for president, it’s been pointed out that the two most “sane, mainstream” choices for the nomination are Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman—both Mormons. Well, let’s explore that religion for a moment and judge just how sane an adult believer in this faith could actually be.

Back in 1826, in upstate New York, an ambitious young man of twenty-one went on trial for “moneydigging.” He confessed to conning farmers into phony treasure hunts by claiming he had skills in folk magic and the use of “seer stones.” His name was Joseph Smith.

By 1830, he was on to a much more promising gig—publishing the Book of Mormon. He claimed an angel/prophet named Moroni visited him back in 1823, and the angel guided him to a burial mound near his home in the woods of western New York, where he found plates of gold bearing an alleged history of ancient

America

Along with nuggets of wisdom and borrowings from the Bible, these golden texts told the story of how the Americas were home to a vast civilization established around 600 BC, when one line of ancient Hebrew prophets—the family of Lehi—sailed to North America, then split into two factions and spent most of the next five centuries at war. (There is also a section that details an earlier migration by a group of families from the Towel of Babel around 2500 BC.)

The story, of course, is claptrap. There’s no archeological evidence for the ancient American civilization it describes. It claims Native Americans are descendants of ancient

Israel

(DNA tests debunk this), and that Jesus visited them after his resurrection. It’s also a tedious read, written in deliberately antiquated style to make it sound…well, biblical. A lot of “thee’s” and “thou’s” and “beholds” and “it came to pass” and such. Many of its more embarrassing teachings are now ignored by the church.

Joseph Smith was the product of an early 19^th century movement called the Second Great Awakening—one of those unfortunate periods of religious revivalism rather like, well…today. Loopy spiritual claims were all the rage and Smith lived in a region notorious for religious crazes and cults. A popular urban legend of his day said that burial mounds found in the woods were gravesites for the fabled Lost Tribes of Israel—which the Bible says disappeared after Assyria’s invasion of ancient Israel in 722 BC. In reality, they were the graves of a vanished Indian culture. Still, this is where Smith insisted he found the golden plates.

Only eleven of Smith’s closest friends (most of whom eventually turned against him) ever saw these gold pages. Smith insisted that anyone else who glanced at them would die. He claimed they were written by an ancient prophet in an unknown Egyptian dialect, so he used his seer stones to translate them into English, dictating their content to his wife, Emma, and to a friend who lived nearby. To make sure his stenographers didn’t get a peek at the taboo tablets, he did it from behind a curtain.

Unfortunately, the first 116 pages of his transcription were given to his friend, whose wife swiped them, then dared him to dictate them again. This put Smith in a pickle. If he dictated them again, and the new version didn’t match the original, he’d be pegged as a fraud. Conveniently, Smith had a “revelation” (he had a lot of these) and claimed that a second set of plates, which basically told the same story, were also in his possession and that he would translate these. Then, once he was finished with them, the plates were whisked off to heaven by Moroni, safely out of reach. This second dictation was the basis of the Book of Mormon, which was published in 1830.

With the twin gifts of charisma and chutzpah, and apparently with no swampland in New Jersey available to sell, Smith parlayed his little book into a cult following dubbed The Church of Jesus Christ (the words “Latter-day Saints” being added a few years later). Through the 1830s, as his movement picked up believers, Smith had an endless series of “revelations” which usually gave him the last word on all disputes within the church, control of all property, and easy access to the available women in the flock through “multiple marriage.” That one didn’t go down easy either inside or outside the church.

An internal church squabble got Smith tarred and feathered in 1832. They fled their temple HQ in Kirkland, Ohio in 1838 when Smith was charged with banking fraud. Then they were chased out of Missouri. They settled successfully in Nauvoo, Illinois for a time, and by 1842, Smith (the town’s mayor) revealed a plan to establish a millennial theocracy that would encompass the Americas and, eventually, the entire world. (You saw that one coming, right?)

He established a Council of Fifty to decide which U.S. laws they would to obey, and to look for a place beyond reach of the law where Smith could rule as king. A fight with a newspaper critical of all this escalated into a violent confrontation and, in 1844, just as Smith was revving up a run for president, he was arrested, turned himself in, and was shot in jail by vigilantes. His followers were forced to move on. In 1847 they started to arrive in the Utah territory under the leadership of Brigham Young.

After resisting for decades, the Mormons finally gave up polygamy as a condition for Utah being admitted to the Union in 1896. Still, they had plenty to be embarrassed about. For one, they were racists who had railed against the abolition of slavery before the Civil War and against blacks long after. Dark skin was considered a curse by God. African-Americans were not accepted as equal beings until another nicely-timed “revelation” in 1965—one year after the Civil Rights Act became law. But blacks couldn’t become priests until 1978.

One positive outcome of their beliefs stemmed from the idea that those who died before Joseph Smith’s “revelations” could be retroactively baptized by current members who pray for them. Consequently, the church has compiled the world’s greatest genealogical database. Some online ancestor services use this resource.

To be sure, the Mormons build cool, sleek tabernacles, they have a great choir, and they encourage a squeaky clean, drug-free existence. But among the more colorful teachings of the LDS church are:

The “Heavenly Father” they pray to is an exalted man who lives with his goddess wife, Heavenly Mother, on a planet near the star Kolob. (So far, NASA hasn’t located it.)
The Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri, and Jesus will return to the “Show Me” state upon his Second Coming.
They believe in multiple gods, each in his own universe—though we only need to worship one.
If we attain the highest level of heaven (there are three), we become gods ourselves and get to be the Heavenly Father of our own planet.
The church has a living prophet who still gets updates from God.
They wear sacred underwear (Temple garments) as symbols of protection from sin.
God and Jesus are separate, physical entities.
Lucifer is Jesus’ half-brother.
Women receive salvation only through their husbands and will give birth through all eternity. Woof!

Ya know, maybe we need to give Bachmann another look.

Time for the Churches to Render unto Caesar

2011-04-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

With the U.S. debt at $14 trillion and change, Republicans have chosen to balance the budget much like the medieval kings and their priestly partners financed their crusades—shaking down the peasants with threats of hellfire. Or death. In modern terms, this means shutting down government services, busting unions, and eliminating Medicare. What neither medieval monarchs nor medievalist Republicans dare do is tax the guys who make the most money without contributing to the kitty—the churches. It’s time for that to change.

In Matthew 22:21, Jesus was asked if Jews should pay taxes to the pagan government of Rome, and he famously answered, “Render therefore unto Caesar that which Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.” In other words: Yes! Pay up! Send your taxes to Rome, commit your soul to God, keep those priorities straight, and you’ll be in good stead with the Lord come the day when all shall hit the fan.

But churches, especially the ones that specialize in berating us with the mantra of “personal responsibility,” and never-you-mind looking for government assistance, have long been America’s top freeloaders. What else do you call benefitting from national defense, state highways, and local trash collection, and not paying a dime for any of it?

According to the report, "Giving USA", Americans donated roughly $93 billion to religious organizations in 2005. Some of the biggies, like the Catholic, Mormon and Baptist churches, could qualify as Fortune 500 entities. The Mormons, for example, haul in some 7 billion a year in tax-free donations. And this doesn’t count the volunteer labor they get—from investment and legal advice, to real estate consulting, to preschool instruction, barn-raisings, bake sales, and whatever all those altar boys do.

Yes, of course, much of their money is used for charitable causes, and that’s all very nice. But can’t they deduct their charitable contributions from their overall revenues like the rest of us? And while others non-profits have to open their books for audit and public scrutiny (they have to file a 990 statement), churches don’t have to. They go on the honor system. I wish the IRS would take my word on how much money I give away.

The point is not to bilk the churches, but simply to avoid giving them preferential treatment just because they claim a voice in the sky told them to be generous. (Advice they only occasionally follow.) In fact, the Constitution requires they get no special treatment at all: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” states the First Amendment. Yet, specifying religion as a tax-free entity is doing just that. Further, the IRS has to judge which entities are real religions (try starting one in your basement and then deducting all your living expenses) and which are not.

An IRS attorney cites an example of a “brothel church” where sisterly love is offered to male parishioners in exchange for donations. In Hardenburgh, New York several years ago, 235 of the 239 property owners in that town were granted religious tax exemption because the properties of the owners were made branches of the mail-order "Universal Life Church." In Wisconsin, tax-exempt church holdings include hotels, pay parking lots, farms, and communion wafer bakeries. Overall, at least $4.2 billion in tax-exempt religious property now exists in that state alone.

All of this forces the government to decide what constitutes a genuine religion vs. a woozy cult or a cabal of con artists—a constitutional no-no. Time for the people of faith to help with our looming debts, and for Uncle Sam to treat all God’s children the same.

G.O.P. is the party of G.O.D. Be Afraid

2011-03-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Republican Congressman Peter King is getting a lot of flack for his plan to lead a congressional investigation into the “radicalization of Islam in the United States.” He might get less static if he thought about investigating the radicalization of the Republican Party. Their fundamentalist supporters are forcing them so far to the right that they’re starting to go medieval on us. Call it the New Feudalism. It’s a bigger threat than Sharia law because Republican religious extremism actually has a shot at becoming law.

At a conservative confab in Iowa this week, five GOP presidential hopefuls fell over each other trying to violate Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution, which says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States.” Their speeches glutted with evangelical dog whistles about abortion funding and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Republican candidates (Gingrich, Pawlenty, Santorum, Roemer, Cain) are all determined to out-Christian each other.

Their logic is that morality should guide our values, and morality naturally comes from the Bible and nowhere else. The message is clear: It’s not about what they want or what the government wants. It’s about what God wants. Oh…and here’s what God wants. You see, they all know where God stands on the issues—including issues you wouldn’t think are in God’s job description. The national debt is a moral issue. So is union-busting. So is corporate deregulation, which is what they mean when they use the word “freedom,” which they use a lot. (And here you thought freedom was about personal stuff like women controlling their bodies or gay people choosing a spouse without Congress weighing in.)

Last fall, the Republicans were willing to derail every issue before the country—even a nuclear arms treaty with Russia—until they extended tax cuts for millionaires. Then they started to talk about “sharing the pain” of budget cuts. In Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Washington, a budget crisis that demands sacrifices from poor mothers and working people always seems to come after a corporate tax cut. That’s morality for you. “Render unto the Koch Brothers that which is the Koch Brothers’.”

Then there are the glowingly moral attitudes of the Tea Party: Obama is a Muslim (polls say half the GOP believes this). Mike Huckabee repeated the lie that Obama grew up in Kenya, and noted that the president wasn’t raised joining the Boy Scouts or playing baseball. (Of course, all that means is that he didn’t grow up white. You ever see him on a basketball court?) Michelle Bachmann calls his administration “gangsters” but doesn’t specify what laws they’re breaking. And Sarah Palin recently claimed…oh, who cares? Irrelevant is not just a big, gray animal anymore.

The fact that today’s national Republicans make Ronald Reagan look like a liberal, Nixon a radical, and Eisenhower a communist, says something about the party’s moral center these days. They want to be the party of God; the party of moral values. Yet when Democrats get caught with their wicks in the honey, they lose their jobs. (Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson come to mind.) But when John Ensign screwed a staffer, David Vitter patronized a D.C. madam, Larry Craig treated an airport bathroom like a singles bar, and Mark Sanford had a fling in Argentina, they all kept their jobs. John Edwards is in the wilderness of political slime bags for cheating on his wife while she had cancer. Yet Newt Gingrich cheated on his first wife while she had cancer, and cheated on his second wife while impeaching Bill Clinton over Monika Lewinsky, and he’s now running for president on a family values platform! Congress needs to investigate all this.

Newt Gingrich Fears Sharia Law, and Maybe Klingons, too

2010-09-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Who else could so easily top the slanderous rhetoric of the latest pants-wetting by Glenn Beck than the Republican candidate for Mr. überconservative, Newt Gingrich? At the so-called Values Voter Summit this weekend (and I’m not sure who values these voters), Newt went medieval on Islam by proposing legislation to ban sharia law (think Saudi Arabia) from being recognized by any U.S. court, warning that our terrorist enemies are out to subject America to theocratic rule. Obviously, for Newt, that’s a job for the Christian Right.

Gingrich is cravenly milking the Bush Administration myth that, before September 11, we Americans were just sittin’ around, bein’ free, minding our own business…when all of the sudden these barbarians attacked us because they were bugged to distraction over our happiness. (U.S tanks crawling over their holy lands for a decade apparently made no impression.)

   But Newt does Bush one better by claiming their ultimate plan is to subject all of America to strict Muslim rule—never mind that they live in caves on the other side of the world and had to hijack four of our own planes to do any serious damage. Exactly how do they intend to impose this Islamic Dark Age? They build a community center in New York and half the country gets revved up for Crusades 2.0. Meanwhile, the children of their elites can’t wait to go clubbing whenever they head West. Honestly, in a conflict of civilizations that pits the seductive power of their faith against our strippers, we win every time.

   What’s got Newt’s butt in a pucker is a case last year in which a New Jersey court denied a restraining order to a woman who said her Muslim husband forcibly had sex with her. The judge didn’t believe the husband had any “criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault" his wife because his behavior was "consistent with his practices." It was a bad ruling and it was reversed a year later. But apparently Newt is mistaking the judge’s misguided concession to cultural differences as an attempt to recognize sharia law.

   Conservatives love to sound very feminist when condemning sharia law, objecting to the brutal way it can sometimes treat women, and forgetting how many black-eyed wives you can spot at a NASCAR rally. But Newt is terrified that this one case is the harbinger of 10^th century Islamic rule in America. I wonder how he reacts to a threat of rain.

While fretting over fictional perils, Newt needs to be reminded that we already have a law that protects us against religious rule—the First Amendment—which he tends to skip over on his way to the Second. No, Mr. Newt, it isn’t just Christian superstitions we want to keep out of our law books and textbooks. We want our democracy free of everybody’s spooky stuff, no matter which Almighty is involved. And for good reason. You think sharia law is scary? Have you checked out Mosaic law, lately? If you want to cherry-pick juicy morsels from a holy book, which the Right does routinely with the Quran, we can also recite some of the Old Testament’s greatest hits:

There are rules for the proper care and treatment of slaves (example: you can beat him as long as he survives a day or two) [Ex 21:21], witches must be killed [Ex 22:18], sacrifices to other gods warrant utter destruction [Ex 22:20], working on the Sabbath gets the death penalty [Ex 31:15], conquest is justified…“I will cast out the nations before you, and enlarge your borders…” [Ex 34:24], there is capital punishment for adultery [Lev 20:10], and there’s a ban against making offerings to God if you have crushed testicles [Lev 21:20]. (Was this a big enough problem to require a rule?).

There is a lot more, including the spattering bull’s blood on the altar of the tabernacle and whatnot. Altogether, it’s not a fair picture. But I wonder how many Muslims might be sitting around judging the bible, and us, based on these choice tidbits.

Lastly, there is Christian law—which is simply believing in Jesus. Of course, the reason it’s simple is because it’s so vague. It can mean anything you want, which is very convenient. You can invent your own religion; everybody does it. Sure, there are certain unavoidable ideas like believing in the Resurrection and not blaspheming the Holy Spirit lest you burn in hell with no hope of forgiveness. But there have also been more creative ideas, like why witches had to be burned, why Jews had to be banished, why Muslims had to be conquered, why science had to be stifled, and why God comes in three parts. (Some assembly required.) And as for Newt's fear of Islam's global agenda--heck, everyone has one of those. The final verses of the New Testament envision a one-world theocracy under God. Mohammad wasn't the first one with this idea.

Beyond all that, Christian jihadists like Newt insert their own agendas into holy writ. Thus, "God's will" goes far beyond stated objections to The Gay, and extends into stuff he never mentions like outlawing abortion, the ban on school prayer, teaching evolution, deficits, capital gains taxes, Pentagon budget cuts, contraception, sex education, sex, and anyone who dares ask what Sarah Palin reads. (Actually, Newt might be willing to take a crack at Palin.)

You see, in Newt World, laws based on religious morality are not just a good idea—they are necessary for America’s survival. But it’s got to be the right religion (his) and only the parts of it that he likes (never mind all that "brother's keeper" stuff). Given his list of what to ban, he has more in common with Islamic fundamentalists than he thinks.

“Sharia,” by the way, means “the path” or “the way” as in, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” [Matt 3:3] Just FYI, in case you wondered what alien concepts these Muslim guys have in mind.

A Brief History of Book Burning

2010-09-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

A book-burning in 2010? Well, it’s nice to know there are some religious traditions that are still alive and well.

   At a time when America seems to be losing ground, we’ve found a contest we can win: religious crazies. For years, we’ve assumed the world’s loopiest extremists came from the Middle East. But with Pastor Terry Jones’ threat to burn a pile of Qurans on September 11, America is back. Our religious crazies are every bit as loopy as their religious crazies! This guy is so ready to rumble, even a military fetishist like Sarah Palin couldn’t sign on with him…and this is a woman whose own pastor (Pastor Muthee) persecuted a “witch” back in his home country of Kenya for causing a rise in traffic accidents. That’s a whole lot of crazy. Even Newt Gingrich, who is so ripe for a war with Islam he’s ready to resurrect the Templar Knights, has denounced the stunt. (Too obvious, I guess.) But Pastor Jones and his single-digit congregation have topped them both.

   Of course, book-burning is hardly limited to religious wingnuts like the Florida pastor. Plenty of secular book-burners litter our history—Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti, Caligula, Robespierre, Stalin, and of course the Nazis. But book-burning has a particularly religious ring to it, and for no small reason. “The will of God” is one of history’s most frequent rationales for using literature as a fuel source. Sadly, burning Qurans fits right in with a couple thousand years of religious tradition. Check the chronology below.

   Rather than rise above all this, religions too often fan the flames and even ignite the spark. The media, the clergy, and other polite company act as if book-burning were always a perversion of “real” religion, which is always redefined to include the nice stuff and conveniently ignore the nasty stuff. What the history shows is that book-burning is the pastime of authoritarians, and since religions are authoritarian by nature (unelected wise men dictate the rules and run the show), whenever churches get up a head of steam, some of their more ardent cheerleaders jump the shark.

   There is also the fact that monotheistic religions are in the business of saying, “Here’s the Truth. If you’re not on board, you’re part of the problem.” It literally demonizes the opposition and regards compromise with non-believers as sinister. Alien beliefs are seen as an existential threat. All this tends to rev people up and, once the other guys are successfully labeled “Evil,” it’s easy to toss another holy book on the barbie.

   The big irony, of course, is that if the Quran burning happened, offensive and despicable as it would be, it would be a demonstration of America’s freedom of expression, as opposed to most church-inspired burnings, which were condemnations of free thought. Lucky us. In America, any loose screw can become a star. And while nowdays most people of faith despise the idea of burning books, we can't forget where we've been on this issue. To wit:

A Partial List of Religious Book Burnings:

168 BC: Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV, the Greek general ruling Jerusalem, had Jewish books of law torn into pieces and burned. [1 Maccabees 1:56]

ca. AD 50: Flavius Josephus, the great Roman historian, reports that a Roman soldier seized a Torah scroll and publically burned it. This incident almost caused a Jewish revolt, and Roman Procurator Cumanus appeased the populace by publically hanging the book-burner.

ca. AD 50: Pagans converted to Christianity allegedly burned their own books. “And a number of those who practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all;” [Acts 19:19]

AD 303-311: Emperor Diocletian, contrary to the tradition of pagan tolerance, ordered official persecutions of Christians and the burning of their books.

AD 325: The books of a priest named Arius were burned in the years following the Council of Nicaea because his ideas about the divinity of Jesus were determined to be heretical.

AD 364: Jovian, a Christian Emperor of Rome, had the Library of Antioch burned after it had been stocked by an aide to his non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian.

AD 383: Theologian Priscillian of Ávila was the first person to be executed by fellow Christians as a heretic. Many of his writings were condemned and burned.

ca. AD 400: The utterances of the pagan oracle Sibylline were burned by Flavius Stilicho, a Christian general.

400s: The Etruscan books of worship and divination, the Etrusca Disciplina, were collected and burned.

435: Archbishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, had views of the Virgin Mary considered heretical. An edict by Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II got Nestorius exiled, and his works were burned in many countries.

650: Uthmān ibn ‘Affān, the third Caliph of Islam after Muhammad, established an “official” version of the Quran and ordered the burning of all other versions.

1085: No sooner did the Christian Crusaders drive the Muslims out of Toledo, Spain in 1085, then they fought over which religious rite they should follow: the more traditional Mozarabic rite, or the foreign Roman rite. The issue was settled in a trial by fire—a book from each rite was tossed into flames. The Mozarabic book won.

1121: The provincial synod at Soissons, France, condemned the teachings of Peter Abelard, a famous forward-thinking theologian. He was made to burn his own book, Theologia, because of his controversial ideas.

1239: Pope Gregory IX persuaded French King Louis IX to burn some 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1243. He wouldn’t be the last.

1242: After being charged and being found “guilty,” 24 wagonloads of the Talmud were burned in Paris.

13th century: According legend, a dispute between St. Dominic and the heretical Albigensians (Cathars) climaxed when both sides threw their books into a fire and St. Dominic’s was miraculously preserved. (See the Berruguete painting above; the book is floating above the fire.)

1382: Oxford theologian John Wycliffe, and his colleagues, first translated the Bible from the Latin into English. Many in the Church didn’t like the idea Scripture being available in colloquial languages.

1410: Wycliffe's books were burned by the Archbishop of Prague, Zbyněk Zajic z Házmburka, in the court of his palace in Lesser Town of Prague. The archbishop was illiterate.

1415: John Hus, who preached against the Church’s selling of indulgences, was a fan John Wycliffe’s work. Hus was excommunicated and sentenced to burn at the stake. One version of the story says that his books were the kindling. Another says that on the way to his execution, he was led past a bonfire of his books.

1490s: The Spanish Inquisition, under grand inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, burned a number of Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books (along with a lot of heretics), and the Archbishop of Toledo, Ximénez de Cisneros, had some 5000 Arabic manuscripts set aflame in the public square at Granada.

1497/8: Girolamo Savonarola, one of Europe’s most pious pains in the ass during the Renaissance, launched the Bonfire of the Vanities, cheerleading the burning of everything that offended his religious sensibilities, which included fashion accessories, musical instruments, and classic artworks. He ended up on the business end of a stake-burning himself. Nobody seems to miss him.

1522: John Calvin, the great Protestant reformer, had as many copies of the Servetus Bible burned because he didn’t approve of it.

1526: William Tyndale translated the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into vernacular English. His Bibles were accused of containing many errors and propaganda, and they were ceremonially burned, as we he after being strangled to death. The Great Bible and The King James Bible is based on his work.

1553, 1568: More public burnings of the Talmud.

1562: Sacred books of the Maya were thrown into fires by Fray Diego de Landa, the acting bishop of the Yucatan, in Mexico. Missionaries to the New World destroyed just about all Mayan writings.

1624: The Pope ordered the burning of Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German, which were printed by Gutenberg himself.

1650: America’s first documented book-burning was a pamphlet by William Pynchon of colonial Massachusetts. It was nabbed by Puritan authorities who condemned it and had it burned in the Boston Common by the public executioner.

1873: The Comstock Law, which outlawed the delivery or transportation of "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material (including books on birth control and human anatomy) was the victory of Anthony Comstock—a US postal inspector, politician, and promoter of Victorian morality. Some 15 tons of books, printing plates, and photographs were destroyed during his career.

1940s: Joe Stalin had the Judaica collection in the library of Birobidzhan, capital of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast on the Chinese border, to be burned.

1948: Religious leaders, along with parents and teachers, supervised the burning of some 2000 comic books by children in Binghamton, New York and Spencer, West Virginia.

1953: Senator Joseph McCarthy pressured the State Department to remove material by any controversial persons, Communists, or fellow travelers from all their overseas libraries. Some of them were burned.

1981: Sinhalese police officers burned the public library of Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. It was the second largest library in Asia.

1981: The New Living Bible was burned in Gastonia, North Carolina on the claim that it was “a perverted commentary of the King James version" of the Bible.

1989: Copies of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses were burned by Muslims at Bolton and Bradford in the UK, and on other occasions.

1990s: Congregants of the Full Gospel Assembly in Grande Cache, Alberta, Canada, burned books seen as in opposition to God’s will.

2001: Islamic fundamentalists pressured Egypt’s Ministry of Culture to burn 6,000 books of homoerotic poetry by Abu Nuwas.

2000s: Because they include witchcraft and magic, Harry Potter books have seen staged burnings by churches in Alamogordo, New Mexico, Charleston, South Carolina, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings." --Heinrich Heine, 1821

God Claims Stephen Hawking Does Not Exist

2010-09-02T23:01:00.000-07:00

   God Almighty has weighed in on Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, in which the world-famous physicist claims there is no need for a god in order to explain the existence of the universe.

   “The truth is, there is no need for the existence of Stephen Hawking,” said Yahweh. “Creation doesn’t need explaining. I did it. I was there. It’s this Hawking guy I can’t believe is for real. I mean, what are the chances of evolution producing a mind that could figure all that out? Get real.”

   When asked for evidence of his claim of being the author of existence, Jehovah insisted that it’s easy to credit him with the creation of the universe—if you have faith. “All you have to do is believe me. Read Genesis and just roll with it. I don’t see how I can make it any simpler. You can buy it wholesale. You don’t even have to think. How great is that?”

   Confronted with Hawking’s claim that the Laws of Nature were sufficient to create the universe, without miracles, the Lord of Lords offered an alternative explanation. “Look. Divine intervention is exciting, but it’s exhausting. It requires my complete attention, and a lot of creativity. You think ideas like global floods or ten plagues just grow on trees? Then there are the unintended consequences; you never know how people will react to a miracle. It’s all very ad hoc. But the laws of nature are predictable; you know what’s going to happen. I only had to make them up once, let the universe go, and everything came from that. It was a cinch. It took me what…a week?”

   Asked if this reliance on natural law made a case against his own existence, the Ancient of Days appeared to breathe hot against the idea. “Listen, Hawking is trying to put me out of business so his science guys can run rampant through the universe explaining everything. What does that say to the kids? He’s falling back on logic, reason and evidence to make his case—what a wuss. Anybody can do that. Try making the plants grow before the sun, the moon and the stars existed, Mr. Smartypants. [Genesis 1:11] I’ll bet science can’t do that. You’ve got to have industrial-strength faith to live in a universe where that works. Why hassle with empirical proofs when a simple miracle will suffice?”

   Finally, when asked about those who relied upon faith to explain existence, but faith in a different religion, the Heavenly Father bristled. “You don’t want to go there. Seriously.” He then ended the interview.

Remembering 9/11: A Christian Family Book Burning

2010-08-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

   The Dove World Outreach Center, a Florida church, has launched a campaign promoting International Burn a Koran Day on September 11. The burning is to take place on their property.

   But there’s a problem. Gainesville fire ordinances don’t allow an open book-burning without a burn permit, and city officials have denied the permit to the church. Gainesville Fire Chief Gene Prince said the church will be fined if it stages the book-burning. Mayor Craig Lowe says, “I support and respect the decision.” No friend of the church, the mayor has called Dove World Outreach a “tiny fringe group and an embarrassment to our community.” In Florida, that’s saying something.

   The church’s response to all this? An email notice declaring, "City of Gainesville denies burn permit – BUT WE WILL STILL BURN KORANS." His will be done.

   Apparently, this isn’t the first time inflammatory rhetoric has spewed forth from the Dove World Outreach Center. In 2009, they made a splash in the press when they distributed “Islam is of the Devil” T-shirts. The arch-conservative church has a website with a video that opens with ominous music and their senior pastor carping about abortion, homosexuality, and the usual litany of right-wing bugaboos that Jesus never talked about. I don’t think scroll-burning was part of his agenda, either.

   Their senior pastor, crusty old Dr. Terry Jones, positions himself as an enlightened and tolerant man who agrees that, in America, people have the right to worship as they please. And he has no problem with Muslims. But he does have a problem with Islam, which he calls deceptive, violent, and oppressive. He says the Koran calls for the killing of non-believers (has this guy ever read about Moses and Joshua, or at least the Crusades?), and he caps his argument with the terrifying prospect that, if we tolerate Islam in America, we could end up like Europe.

   Sigh... Exactly when did Europe become such a bad place? They're our sister democracies; the people closer to our history and heritage than anyone else on earth. And by a lot of measures, they get higher grades than we do. When did they cease to be the exotic, sophisticated internationalists we admire in the movies? Today, they're cast as economic slaves of Orwellian regimes where “freedom” is an unknown concept, people stand in line for months after a heart attack, 95% of their income goes to the government, nobody owns a small business, and school children are trained to be eco-communists who wuss out of every war.

   As for the Koran burning... I have no more use for Islam than I do for any other religion. But really, the whole book-burning thing ought to make Christians of any stripe blush when the idea is brought up. It never occured to Dr. Jones that having Christians solve a problem by book-burning is really bad PR? No alarms go off? It doesn’t make your skin crawl…just a little??

   Anyway, let's see what happens on September 11. Maybe I'll send them a few of my own books, at least to fire up the barbecue.

"Ground Zero Mosque" Deserves Truth in Labeling

2010-08-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

   Let’s get the facts right. The “Ground Zero Mosque,” which market research has assigned the trendy name of Park51, will not be located at Ground Zero, but on a street two blocks away. You can’t see the place from Ground Zero and you can’t see Ground Zero from the place. It's just a building in a row of buildings. Nor will it even become a mosque, not that this should be a problem. There’s an actual mosque four blocks from G-Zero, the Masjid Manhattan Mosque, which has been in the neighborhood for many years and, by all accounts, hasn’t turned any New Yorkers into suicide bombers.

   The new place will be a Muslim community center; a kind of YMCA without the Village People. Plans call for a prayer room, classrooms, an auditorium, a gym and a pool, a restaurant, galleries, and even a memorial for the dead of 9/11.

   Plans do not call for a shooting range, demolition classes, prostitute stoning, or nuclear weapons development. According to The New Yorker magazine, the imam in charge graduated that well-known Madrassa, Columbia University, authored a book entitled “What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America,” (sounds like a Sean Hannity book), and he’s been a consultant for the FBI on sensitivity training for agents and police.

   So, where are all the Constitutional strict-constructionists rushing to defend the First Amendment’s separation of Church and State, our religious freedoms, and our diversity and tolerance? Well, the PR skunks who dreamt up Death Panels must have come up with the label “Ground Zero Mosque,” which evokes images of golden dome sitting atop the ruins of the Twin Towers, with Saladin waving his sword from the balcony.

   This is the image of “triumphalism” Newt Gingrich has cravenly promoted, likening the community center to building a shrine to the Japanese in Pearl Harbor, or a Nazi memorial near the Holocaust Museum. Stupid analogy. The Nazis and the Japanese were the nations that actually committed those atrocities. All of Islam did not attack us on September 11; a tiny minority of radicals did it. But Gingrich and his ilk want to have their cake and their bigotry, too. Newt doesn’t want to equate all Muslims with the terrorists of 9/11. He just wants to treat all Muslims like the terrorists of 9/11…hounding them from a site that anyone else might occupy. Apparently, the project winning the approval of New York’s Jewish mayor and America’s Christian president, not to mention Fox's Laura Ingram, aren't enough.

   Newt carps that he doesn’t want to allow the Muslim Center to be built until Saudi Arabia allows churches and synagogues. It’s nice to know where he gets his civil rights standards. The next obvious questions: Do we outlaw churches in Oklahoma City because Timothy McVeigh was a Christian, or ban them from towns where abortion clinics have been attacked? How about we forbid all women to wear headscarves until Iran allows nude bathing? And as for the claim the place is an insult to the families of 9/11 victims... a) many of them support the idea of the center, and b) in America, religious rights aren’t limited by popular approval.

   Sure, I was taken aback by the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero at first. But I got over it. My brain won out over my gut when I remembered that…oh, yeah, this is America. We have separation of Church and State, and the sensitivities of others aren’t supposed to limit our rights. This is what conservatives claim they hate—political correctness. Yes, accepting the idea of this center may be tough, but living up to high ideals always is. I’ll admit, I’m not sure what the Muslim center’s creators are trying to accomplish with this idea. If it’s intended to be a bridge-building effort of some kind, they might have done more field research. But if we ban this center, or scare people away from it, it won’t be long before others start banning mosques everywhere.

   In fact, it’s already been proposed by one Bryan Fischer, writing for the American Family Association: “Permits should not be granted to build one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero.” He insists that every mosque is a “potential jihadist training center” and that due to “Islam's subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim First Amendment rights.” Fischer is apparently the guy who gets to decide who gets First Amendment rights and who doesn’t. And isn’t saying that every mosque is a potential center for jihad like claiming every evangelical church is a potential center for inbreeding?

   Not everyone at the AFA shares Fischer’s prejudice, but there are plenty of conservative pastors who do, playing right into Osama bin Laden’s hands by morphing our fight against al Qaeda into a broader religious war between Middle East and West. Not coincidently, a lot of the same guys who despise Islamic triumphalism are big cheerleaders for Christian triumphalism. They want a clash of faiths to prove that our religious nuts are better than their religious nuts. Problem is, at the end of the day, everyone involved is nuts. Or, in the words of Matthew Arnold:

“And we are here as on a darkling plain,
swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
where ignorant armies clash by night.”

Welcome to the Dark Ages.

The Laws of Physics have a Liberal Agenda

2010-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

   First it was Evolution. Now it’s the Theory of Relativity. Conservapedia.com, the hilarious right-wing encyclopedia, has a problem with Einstein’s theory. Apparently, relativity in physics leads to moral relativism, the bane of religious fundamentalists, because it challenges the idea that there are absolutes governing the universe. And because some politicians have tried to liken scientific relativity to moral or legal relativism, suddenly Einstein is in conflict with God’s order. And that means he's wrong. Conservapedia says so.
   You see, if everything is relative, it means the changeless, eternal laws of the Bible can be questioned or dismissed. It's planting our moral flag in the shifting sands of human fashion. It means we have no standards, and that means slipping into all kinds of horrors—Nazism, communism, Healthcare Reform, unemployment insurance, whatever. What humanity needs is the unmoving polar star of God’s Truth, and you’re not gonna get that from some agnostic science guy who insisted that the speed of your watch was subject local conditions.

   Alas, this is kind of goofiness you get when you spend your life confusing metaphors with fact to convince yourself the Bible is literal history. When Jesus offers himself as “the bread of life,” these folks break out the cream cheese and jam. But beyond that, they have an aversion to the facts, claiming that Relativity Theory is not verified by observation, and that it's not used in NASA probes. Both claims are false. Einstein's ideas have been verified many times, and his theories are incorporated into spacecraft navigation and even in GPS technology. If Conservapedia has any doubts about the validity of Einstein’s formulas, they might try contacting the residents of Hiroshima.

   What's more, the absolutists who are offering God as our unmoving polar star forget that Yahweh doesn’t offer changeless, eternal absolutes any more than Albert Einstein does. You think we cling to eternal biblical values? Check out the Laws of Moses in Exodus and see how many of them you still observe. (They include the proper way to sell your daughter into slavery and a death penalty for being a drunk.) Contrast the bombastic, demanding, violent deity with a thing for spattering bull’s blood on an altar with the loving, forgiving, pacifist BFF of Jesus. Some of the biggest fights in early Christianity were over which ‘changeless, eternal’ rules of the Old Testament were no longer in force. Example: Jesus’ interpretation of the commandment against working on the Sabbath was a big part of what got him in trouble. His followers gathered food on their day off. Might he have been a Sabbath relativist?

   Traditional Christian values are not eternal or changeless. Five hundred years ago, churches preferred Christian monarchy to democracy. Separation of church and state was a bad idea, and being a “freethinker” could get you torched. Slavery was acceptable, women’s equality was not. Religious tolerance was called heresy and free speech had to be approved by the pope. Then there’s my fave: 1 Corinthians 14:34 “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak…” That’s St. Paul sounding like the Taliban. Fortunately, churches pay no more attention to this rule than they do to the rule Jesus gave his disciples about not taking money.

   For some time now, Biblical literalists have felt the universe of science closing in on them, and I guess they want to push back. First it was denying Evolution. Now it’s rejecting Relativity. What’s next? “Gravity—the evil force that keeps us bound to the corruption of the Earth. Isaac Newton was a Satanist, inspired by a clunk to the head by an apple! The forbidden fruit! The thing kids bob for on Halloween!” Shouldn’t Glenn Beck be wetting his pants about this right about now?

David Barton’s America: One Big Faith-Based Initiative

2010-07-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

   In the bizarre universe of the congressional far right, the favorite “historian” and unintentional standup comic these days is one David Barton, founder of WallBuilders—an outfit established “to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; and (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect biblical values…”

   Uh-huh. And which biblical values would those be? Democracy? It ain’t in there; it’s a pagan Greek idea. Free speech? Sorry, no. That usually got you swallowed up by the earth or hit with a plague. Religious tolerance? Eh…just what part of “Thou shall hold no other gods before me” don’t you understand?

   The reality is Barton is a wall-wrecker, taking a sledgehammer to the one that separates church and state. He wants laws to reflect God’s will. And who gets to define God’s will? News flash: It isn’t you.

   Barton sees America as one big Faith-Based Initiative. His website has endless quotes by various Founders (and non-Founders) citing their belief that their new country and its laws are guided by God and the Bible--and ignoring the many nasty things they also said about churches in general and Christianity in particular. Barton claims all the rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence were preached from the pulpit before 1763—and therefore “the Declaration is nothing more than a list of sermons." He also thinks dividing government into judicial, legislative, and executive branches is an idea taken from Isaiah 33:22, “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.”

   All this, of course, is wingnut thinking. Everything was preached by somebody, somewhere before 1763: We want democracy/we want a Christian king; slavery is good/slavery is bad; alcohol is fine/alcohol is evil; the Pope is okay/the Pope is the antichrist, etc. Sift through enough sermons and you can find anything—and if it agrees with the Declaration (or just seems to agree), suddenly Thomas Jefferson is a holy roller. And as for Scripture inspiring the concept of three branches of government--the whole idea, Professor Barton, is to divide power so that no one has a monopoly. In Isaiah, Yahweh occupies all three roles. That's called dictatorship.

   It’s no surprise Barton employs such bogus techniques to make his point; the Gospels do it all the time. Mark and Matthew constantly cite Old Testament lines as prophecies of Jesus, even when it’s clear no prophecy was intended. It’s like claiming the story Jonah inspired Moby Dick, Adam and Eve get credit for Vegan nudist colonies, and the possessed crazy man Jesus saved from a legion of demons foretold Glenn Beck. Maybe Jesus attacking the moneychangers is a prophecy of Wall Street reform.

   In Barton’s universe, government should an instrument of God, as if this hasn't been tried before. Apparently the Lord can’t pull off his eternal plan without Congress. This is the same god whose followers object to condoms because they thwart his will. Evidently a thin sheet of latex and can foil this Almighty. And now he needs government assistance? Kind of a lame deity. Hope he's not after stimulus funds.

   Sure, the Founders believed in God, and did so sincerely. But they were human and they did what everyone from the Romans to the Pope to Pat Robertson to the mullahs of Iran do—ascribe whatever they like to the god they believe in. Hell, every time someone rolls a lucky seven in Vegas, they thank God. The guy gets a lot of credit for stuff he didn’t do.

   Barton’s argument is phony because the Founders didn’t agree amongst themselves about religion, so they left it up to each of us. They were the first Christians to establish a Constitution that doesn’t require anyone to care what they thought about God. All that matters is what you think about God. That’s why they wrote Article VI, Section 3 saying “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Plus there’s that First Amendment thing. The Founders' personal theories about God don't count.

   You think Barton really wants America run according to what Jesus taught? “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Oh yeah? Everyone ready to love Osama bin Laden and pray for the Taliban? “No one can serve two masters…God and mammon (money).” So much for Christian capitalists. “Do not resist one who is evil…” and “Judge not that you shall not be judged.” So we let the criminals run free and shut down the courts and the jails?

   Barton, who has a B.A. in something or other from Oral Roberts University, believes the Constitution is a product of Christian thought. If that’s so, how come Jesus didn’t come up with it? Why’d it take 1800 years? Why can it be amended? Why did the Founders reject Christian monarchy in favor of the pagan ritual of voting? Why do government buildings look like the temples of ancient Greece? Why are the key values of our government—democracy, liberty and justice—all symbolized by pagan goddesses and not Christian saints? Barton needs to go back to college, or, perhaps, attend one for the first time.

Was Jesus Actually Crucified?

2010-06-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

A scholar isn’t so sure...

   Of the four Gospels, only one has Jesus dragging a cross to his crucifixion: John 19:17. The others have some poor schlep named Simon of Cyrene doing it. Now, this iconic image is being further questioned by theologian Gunnar Samuelsson of the University of Gothenburg, who wonders if a cross was involved at all.

   In the original Greek, the New Testament says Jesus carried a “stauros” to the site of his crucifixion. The word is usually translated as “cross,” and the verb derived from it—anastauroun—is thought to imply crucifixion. But in his 400-page study on crucifixion in the ancient world, Samuelsson found that these words had more than one meaning. He says that the word “stauros” was used to describe anything from a spiked pole to a tree trunk, and that crucifixion was far less common in ancient Rome than usually thought. Skewing victims on pikes may have been the more likely method of execution. Ew.

   I for one hope this isn’t true. First of all, how do you explain all those stigmata victims? That’s a lot of horror movies and nuns suffering from possession that got it wrong. It means all those bloody wrists missed the target and that these victims should have been bleeding from their—eh, well, okay…maybe that’s why they opted for the cross over the spike. Furthermore, nobody is going to wear a gold Jesus-kabob around their neck—it’s too gristly. And since Protestants use only the cross and not the Jesus as an icon, their central symbol of worship would be a simple pointed stick. That’s not gonna move product.

   The cross was not the symbol of Christianity until centuries after the time of Jesus. It’s a Church add-on. The fish was the original emblem of the early Christians but, somehow, if you marched into battle with a fish on your battle standard, the enemy just wasn’t going to take you seriously. You needed a logo with a certain crusading oomph! The cross is much effective for that, and I imagine most believers will stick with that image. Also, pay no attention to the claims that the Romans used Crazy Glue.

For more on the study:
http://www.hum.gu.se/english/current/news/Nyhet_detalj/what-do-we-really-know-about-the-crucifixion-of-jesus-.cid938216

“Touchdown Jesus” Struck by Lightning

2010-06-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

Possible Evidence that God has Good Taste

   They say God works in mysterious ways. On the other hand, sometimes he’s entirely obvious. In a bolt from the blue, an iconic monument of pious tackiness has been struck down by a higher power. A six-story-high statue of Jesus at the Solid Rock Church of Monroe, Ohio, was hit by lightning and burned to the ground on June 14. The 62-foot-tall Messiah, its upturned arms inspiring the nickname “Touchdown Jesus,” was made of fiberglass and Styrofoam and was located some 15 miles north of Cincinnati. Built in 2004, it was also used as a cell phone tower, making it about the only useful giant Jesus statue among the many found the world over.

   The irony of a Jesus sculpture being snuffed by lightning evokes questions about what it all means. If you’re a free market Christian of the Sarah Palin ilk, the Jesus-as-referee image suggests a regulator—enforcing rules and dishing out punishments. He had to go. Or maybe Jesus was telling a fish story (he was majorly into fish) and was exaggerating a bit too much. Or perhaps he was doing aerobics, which would suggest he was out of shape--a theological no-no! Then again, maybe he was just saying, "I wuv you dis much!" and something got lost in the translation.

   Strangely, this isn’t the first time theologians have had to grapple with such a spiritual conundrum. Back in colonial America, Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod to keep buildings safe from lightning strikes. But a number of churches refused to use it, their pastors claiming it was a human attempt to thwart the will of God. Of course, those were the churches most likely to burn down. Traditionalists preferred waving off lightning strikes by ringing the bell in the church steeple—which sometimes got the bell-ringer electrocuted. Like they say…mysterious ways.

BP Finds Hell

2010-06-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

   Robert Frost once noted that, “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.” One scenario he didn’t consider was goop. With all the apocalyptic movies and docs dramatizing End-of-the-World threats ranging from giant asteroids to nuclear war to killer bees, nobody anticipated black slime. “The Blob,” starring Steve McQueen, came the closest. But that particular Blob was pink and it didn’t threaten much beyond greasy spoon diners and horny teens at the drive-in.

    BP however, may have finally tapped Hell’s gas tank. After all, they need something to keep the fires burning down there and apparently Satan hasn’t gone nuclear. In fact, this whole event is fertile ground for Doomsday fanatics who pass their days sifting through the book of Revelation, when they’re not using it to paper the walls of their bomb shelter. Check this out…

    And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace… [Rev 9:1-2]

    What’s more, Rev 13 says the Antichrist is “a beast rising out of the sea” and that “its number is 666.” We know that, with a little creative numerology, the names of everyone from Nero to Hitler can be calculated to produce "the number of the beast." What about BP?

    Well, B is the second letter of the alphabet, and P is the sixteenth. That gives us 2 + 16 = 18, which is 6 + 6 + 6!

   It’s almost too easy. You may now freak out.

Go Ahead…Maketh My Day

2010-05-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Talk about “Praise God and Pass the Ammunition”… On May 12, the Louisiana state House voted 74 to 18 to allow churches, synagogues, and mosques to permit guns into their services, for self-protection. The good news is that, if anyone is shot, they’re in the ideal spot for a faith healing. The bad news is, it comes off as a vote of no-confidence for the Almighty akin to the pope’s bulletproof Popemobile. If these folks genuinely believed the Creator of the Universe had their back, would they really feel the need for a .38?

"I want to see in the Bible where it says you can't bring a gun to church," said Republican state representative Ernest Wooten. Okay, but I want to see where it says you can't own a slave, have an abortion, teach evolution, or feel up Betty Lou in the back of an SUV. And think how differently the Christian faith would have turned out if, when the authorities came to arrest Jesus, he was packing heat. Great movie action. Lousy religious philosophy.

Obviously, Jesus couldn’t have commented on owning firearms. But he did say stuff like, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword,” [Matt 26:52] and “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” [Matt 5:44] and “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you...” [Luke 6:27-28] It’s hard to find a mandate for the NRA in all that.

Not that violence in churches is exactly new. As far back as AD 415, the brilliant and lovely mathematician, Hypatia, found herself on the business end of a Christian hoard that didn’t roll with her fame or her preference for science over mysticism. On the orders of a bishop, who later became a saint, she was stripped naked in the street and dragged off to a church, where she was flailed to death. Then she was burned. If she had been in Louisiana, they could have been more merciful and just shot her. I’m sure somebody considers this progress.

Honk if You Hit Jesus

2010-05-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

Lord Jesus Christ Hit By Car!

I'm not kidding about this. Check out the TV news clip: tp://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO141954/

Army Disinvites Preacher for Being too, um…Militant

2010-05-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

So who do you side with in this food fight? Preacher Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist and personal friend of God, Billy Graham, has been disinvited from a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the Pentagon on May 6th because of offensive comments he’s made about Islam, and won’t take back. Apparently, the Pentagon won’t risk its warm relationship with the Muslim world by being associated with such nasty talk. It makes all those house-to-house searches really awkward and unpleasant.

The fact that the Army even has a prayer event is a worrying point. But the Army did the right thing. Franklin Graham, who prayed at George Bush’s inauguration (though evidently not hard enough), kind of sealed the deal in an interview on CNN last December. He claimed, with a straight face, that, “True Islam cannot be practiced in this country…You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.” Well, really. Where do people get such hideous ideas??

‘This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death… [Deuteronomy 21:20-21]

Oh…that’s where.

I forget if this law comes before or after the rules about the proper way to sell your daughter into slavery. And just for the record, other biblical death penalty offenses include, but are not limited to: prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, kidnapping, witchcraft, worshipping other gods, working on the Sabbath, not being a virgin on your wedding night (yikes!), being in the way as Moses crossed the Sinai, complaining about the walk, and peeking at the Ten Commandments (which makes you wonder why they were written down). And if you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, you’ll burn in hell with no hope of forgiveness. Woof.

Don’t you love the way Graham calls wife beating “True Islam,” like he’s the expert? Of course, that kind of brutality is harrowingly real. But he makes it sound like a sacrament. It’s also ironic that a Southern evangelical treats it like some foreign phenomenon. Ever count the black eyes at a NASCAR event?

Graham went on: "I don't like the way they treat women, the way they treat minorities. I just find it horrific.” I guess this is understandable given the conservative Christian track record on racial segregation, Women’s Suffrage, the Civil Rights Act, Women’s Liberation, abortion rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Who knew it was actually Muslims making all the fuss? They need to put down that Koran book and brush up on wholesome Christian material like this little gem from Paul:

“…the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says… For it is shameful for a woman speak in church.” [1 Corinthians 14:34-35]

Then, of course, there are the classics--like that Eve-with-the-fruit-tree thing, which was Scriptural fuel for countless witchcraft trials and kept women out of the clergy for two millennia.

“But I love the people of Islam,” Graham diplomatically continued, and he noted that some of his work helping war refugees is done in Muslim countries. True enough. Of course, part of that work is reminding them that their religion is bullshit, they’re all gonna burn in hell, and that he knows God best. But c’mon, the guy’s making an effort. How many Muslims have you bothered to straighten out about God lately?

Time to Appoint a Non-Religious Judge to the Supreme Court

2010-04-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Depending on which poll you choose (BBC, Gallup or ARIS), the percentage of Americans that consider themselves “non-religious” hovers anywhere from about 9 to 13%. That’s anywhere from 28 to 42 million Americans—almost as many as watch American Idol, and as many or more than are Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Jewish or gay. And yet each of these constituencies (except the Idol watchers) has representatives in Congress. But non-believers? Despite their huge numbers, they have nobody in Congress or in the White House. So it's only fair that they have 11% of Supreme Court.

Of course, you can hear them now…the far Right…bellowing (their sole form of communication these days) about Obama the socialist trying to put a godless judge on the Court, when everybody knows you gotta be a believer to run a democracy and preserve our rights, right?

Actually, no.

Consider where churches and firebreathing preachers have stood on basic rights and freedoms over the past 500 years. Electing leaders, abolishing slavery, racial equality, gender equality, free speech and press, tolerance of alien religions—the Christian world opposed all these ideas for 90% of its history. Where was God’s moral order all that time? It's not as if Scripture or churches were teaching these things and the rest of the world just ignored them. These rights are not in the Bible. They weren't formally recognized until a bunch of long-haired, Eastern elitist, deist, half-believers hammered out a secular government to do what a thousand years of Christian governments failed to do.

Non-religious government is a red-white-and-blue American tradition. Separating church from state—in writing—was a first. It’s one of the great gifts the United States brought to the modern world. It’s what distinguished America’s democracy (a pagan form of government) from the Christian monarchies that ran Europe for a millennium before. If Europeans themselves are less religious today, it’s because they’ve had a belly full of Bible-based governments over the past 2000 years; they know the record and it isn’t pretty.

The writers of the Constitution may have been believers in God to one degree or another, but that didn’t matter. The government they created doesn’t care about personal theories of why we exist. It’s supposed to be rational and godless and exclusively concerned with protecting earthly freedoms, not enforcing God’s will. The Declaration of Independence was not written by a theologian—it was written by a scientist. One who didn’t even believe that Jesus was divine. That’s why they’re trying to write him out of their school textbooks in Texas.

The Constitution is not a product of Christian thought; it’s a rejection of it. It's about the common defence, domestic tranquility and the general welfare--not salvation, faith, or the ninth circle of hell. According to Christian tradition, God chose the head of state—a Christian king—by rewarding him with victory in battle and politics. The divine right of kings, they called it. As long he obeyed the commandments and ruled in accordance with “divine will,” whatever that meant, God would keep him in charge.

Well, American’s founders didn’t like God’s choice of who to lead them, so they threw God out of the leader-choosing business and put man in his place. Now, the people would choose their leader, not God. The leader’s authority would flow from the voters below, not heaven above. Every voter, and every candidate, could be a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist and you wouldn’t have to change a word of the Constitution. Religion isn’t the basis of our democracy. Look at The Ten Commandments; seven of them are unconstitutional. (Only the bans on killing, stealing and lying are constitutional.) Since you can't make the case that our government suffers from a shortage of people who represent holy rolling yahoos, there ought to be at least one Jeffersonian skeptic in a high-profile job.

Of course, conservatives will argue that if government doesn’t recognize God, what’s to stop all of us from indulging in crimes like murder, rape, incest, theft, or texting behind the wheel? Real simple: Laws—passed and enforced by humans who mutually decide to ban all that stuff. Personal theories about why these things are bad don’t matter. All that matters is that people prefer murder and theft to be illegal. It's natural. It reduces stress. Even the Soviet Union and Mao’s China didn’t allow just anyone to kill or steal.

These ideas are no-brainers for every civilization, and God just happens to agree. They were around long before the Hebrew religion. You don’t need the Bible to clue you in on these issues, which is why murder and theft are banned even in societies that wouldn't know Yahweh from a potato knish. What’s more, if you believe the Old Testament, Yahweh himself had no trouble ordering murder, theft, conquest and genocide when he found them useful. Even incest turned out to be a necessity—ask Adam or Noah. Nor were medieval Christians shy about routinely using prison, torture, execution, or war in the Lord’s name. God’s eternal rules aren’t so eternal.

As it stands now, churches influence a lot of government issues that are, frankly, none of their business because nobody elected them. You know the list: gay marriage, abortion rights, medical research, science and history textbooks, healthcare, Middle East policy, contraception, broadcast standards, tax exemptions, and on and on. A lot of this stuff is about individual freedom, which no religion has a right to restrict. It doesn’t matter what they claim God wants; everybody says they know what God wants. More importantly, the Constitution wasn’t written to serve God. It was written to serve us, and that means defending liberties that some churches may not like. It also means siding with science, which the Constitution recognizes, as opposed to religious belief, which the Constitution does not.

If democracy depended upon religious belief, we’d all have to start worshipping Zeus, Apollo and the rest of the wine-and-toga crowd on Olympus, because those are the gods worshipped by democracy’s inventors in ancient Athens. For most of the past 2,500 years, Christian churches have opposed democracy. Only recently has Yahweh come around to supporting it, mostly because there’s nothing he can do about it. Western secular governments have declawed religion so that now it’s all voluntary. Religions can no longer declare war, pass laws, or punish you for not sitting up straight in church. You can take your business elsewhere.

This is why we need a non-religions judge on the Supreme Court—to preserve the American tradition of not having to give a damn about the religious kooks down the block. And to remind us that our key American values--democracy, liberty, tolerence, free speech, equality for all--are not based on religious belief. Believers can worship, pray, and live whatever screwy, theology-saturated lives they want. And hopefully they’ll be grateful for a government that lets them do that. But when they start passing laws that affect me based on the claim that they know God best, well, maybe it’s time for a Tea Party against oppressive, dictatorial theocrats.

Most Americans are religious, and they have plenty of outspoken cheerleaders in Washington. How about one guy for the rest of us? It’s a call for representative government—one that reflects all the philosophies that Americans follow, not just the ones that get tax exemptions.

Pope Should End No-Nookie Policy

2010-04-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

You know you’re losing the public relations game when you’re facing a moral crisis similar to one confronted by Jimmy Swaggart—and his reaction demonstrated more integrity than your own. Such is the dilemma confronting Pope Benedict XVI in the face of the child molestation scandal. When Swaggart was outted back in 1988 for doing things with a prostitute that would embarrass Ron Jeremy, the televangelist huckster walked out to the center stage of his ministry of 7,000 in Baton Rouge, admitted “moral failure,” resigned his post before the world, and blubbered to the Lord for forgiveness. Then he asked for donations. It was a pathetic spectacle, without a shred of dignity. But Swaggart understood that it wasn’t about dignity; it was about making a virtue of his vice and saving his church. The only way he had a chance of emerging from this mess looking like a Christian was to act like one--to come clean and admit that he blew it, so to speak.

The pope needs to get this, whatever his priests may or may not have blown. Anyone who has given new meaning to “no child left behind” the way the Vatican has needs a game-changing strategy.
After all, the reason for the Catholic Church’s existence is the claim that it’s God’s exclusive mouthpiece on earth. The best way to prove that, and to deflect accusations of the Church as perv central (if that’s still possible) is for Pope Benedict to do the Christian thing: confess whatever there is to confess, repent sincerely, and atone for any sins committed. He needs to walk the walk and show us how it’s done. We need to see a healthy dose of the same self-sacrifice he keeps demanding from the rest of us; the kind demonstrated by the guy he wears as a trinket around his neck. How can he expect all of us to behave morally if his own holy hierarchy doesn’t measure up?

Doing this on Easter, by the way, would not be “inappropriate.” It would be the perfect time to show how a real Christian behaves. Christians are supposed to embrace the truth, and never mind the earthly consequences. After all, they’re angling for eternal life. And the Church is fishing for new recruits. The pope isn’t going to achieve either by coming off like the officious CEO of God, Inc. Circling the wagons, blaming his accusers, and stonewalling won’t cut it. He needs to do something selfless and dramatic--because this is for all the marbles. Western civilization has put up with the witch-hunts, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the book-burnings, and the suppression of science, along with the cheap wine and gag-inducing wafers, for centuries now. But the current scandal is so pervasive and so…icky, as well as criminal, that it crosses a new line. The pontiff has to hit the reset button with something earnest and impressive which no other institution would dare try. Unfortunately, you get a sense from the Vatican's pronouncements that prostrating himself before the world is not on the pope's “to-do” list. Big mistake.

Nor is eliminating the problem that is the cause of this whole mess—the celibate priesthood. The pope has got to end the use of his church as a refuge for confused or twisted men with sexual issues. A profession that allows men to deny their sexuality makes it a sanctuary for those who would rather bury their issues than confront them. Yeah, sure, we like the “purity” idea for our holy men, but plenty of religious leaders have sex lives (just ask Jimmy Swaggart) and they manage to provide spiritual leadership.

The No-Nookie policy isn’t doing anyone any good. It wasn’t a requirement of early Christianity. In fact, the celibate priesthood wasn’t official until about thousand years after the crucifixion, and was established mostly so that a dead priest would leave his property to the Church instead of to a family. It was about the money.

Admittedly, as a protestant fundamentalist, Swaggart didn’t face the No-Nookie policy and yet he didn't stick to the straight and narrow, either. But at least his activities weren’t criminal; they were just a little nauseating. That's a lot easier to forgive.

Santa Grateful for Job Security

2009-12-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Wandering through a Christian bookstore last week, I discovered amid the stacks of Bibles and discounted Sarah Palin books this foot-high ceramic centerpiece. A truly weird clash of universes—the blissful religiosity of Jesus in a manger, and Santa Claus, the patron saint of the department store, kneeling reverently at his side. Clearly, Santa is thankful at the prospect of steady work for the next 2,000 years, though the idea of him sliding down ancient Roman chimneys or piloting his reindeer over the sleepy suburbs of Bethlehem is kind of a mind-warp. (Watch out for that big miracle star thingy.)

What’s more, Santa is already a sage old elf in full regalia, which makes you wonder what he was doing during all those previous Decembers. It also raises the question of what the Three Wise Men bearing gifts thought of him being there. Kinda stealing their thunder, isn’t he? Especially since Santa tends to bring cool gifts like Nintendo Wii instead of frankincense and myrrh—which are forms of dry tree sap used in perfumes. Not really at the top of most wish lists.

I’m sure somebody finds this little statuette charming. I find it vaguely creepy, like a painting of the Easter Bunny seated at The Last Supper.

To be sure, Christmas is a time to demonstrate our lack of good taste in everything from garish snowman broaches to tacky sweaters bearing giant snowflakes or reindeer. But, wow, this really pushes the envelope. It’s the kind of fractured idea dreamed up by fundamentalists who bend everything into a cultish worship of their savior—even if it doesn’t jibe with their own religious mythology.

The last time I heard of this kind of Santa abuse was from a friend who came back from a Japan a few years back. He had been there over the holidays. Being 95% Buddhist, the Japanese are not much into Christmas, yet in major cities they still gussy up the shopping malls with festive trimmings to lure in the western tourists. But someone got their Christian legends mixed up because, among the decorations at this one mall was a life-sized figure of Santa Claus…nailed to a cross. Yeesh. Imagine the expression on the faces of visiting six-year-olds.

Just for the record, the original Saint Nicholas was a 4th century bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church. His reputation as a traveling gift-giver made him popular throughout the Middle Ages. December 6th was deemed St. Nicholas Day, when the good children would be given presents while the naughty ones came up empty handed. Santa became training wheels for their relationship with God—an unseen, supernatural dispenser of rewards for those who obeyed the rules.

The Dutch called the legendary saint “Sinter Klaus” and, once they brought him to America, the name morphed into “Santa Claus.” In 1822, Clement Clark Moore, an Episcopal minister, embellished the Santa legend with his classic, A Visit from Saint Nicholas, better known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Moore is the guy who named the eight reindeer and had Santa slipping into the house through the chimney. (You know, between Santa, the Easter Bunny, and visits from various angels, there’s a lot of breaking-and-entering in Christian lore.)

There was no consensus on what Santa looked like, but Moore made him a jolly, jelly-bellied elf. Years later, political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who became famous for drawing caricatures of Boss Tweed and other New York robber barons, decided to draw the generous Santa Claus in the same tubby profile as the city fat-cats. The image stuck. The red-and-white uniform was one of several Santa used to wear, until a Coca-Cola ad in the 1930s popularized the one that bore the company colors.

Maybe next year, Nativity scenes could include Rudolf hanging with the sheep, and Joseph and Mary sharing a coke and a smile. And instead of lame gifts from the Wise Men, Santa could pop in with a diaper genie for Mary and a subscription to Playboy for Joseph. (After all, he's going to spend the rest of his life married to a virgin.)

Inconsistencies in the New Testament

2009-12-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

The inerrant word of God, you say? Huh... That claim lacks a certain Christian humility, don't you think? Especially since there is no greater evidence of the Bible's human origins than its frequent disagreements with itself. A perfect god wouldn't allow this sort of thing. What would be the point? If he's willing to show off by parting oceans and stuff, he'd certainly want to impress us with a boo-boo free biography. Alas, it ain't so. Here is just a partial list of scriptural inconsistencies in the New Testament. Many of them are genuinely unimportant...all the more reason why there shouldn't be any inconsistencies. But here they are.

Matt 1:6-7 The genealogy of Jesus runs through David's son, Solomon.
Luke 3:23-31 The genealogy of Jesus runs through David's son, Nathan.

Matt 1:16 Joseph's father is Jacob.
Luke 3:23 Joseph's father is Heli.

Matt 1:17 There are 28 generations from David to Jesus.
Luke 3:23-38 There are 43 generations from David to Jesus.

Matt 1:18-21 The Annunciation takes place after Mary conceives Jesus.
Luke 1:26-31 The Annunciation takes place before Mary conceives Jesus.

Mark 6:4-6 Jesus says that a prophet is without honor in his own house—odd given the Annunciation, the Star of Bethlehem, the Wise Men, and the miracles surrounding his Baptism.

Matt 1:23 He will be called Emmanuel (or Immanuel).
Matt 1:25 He was called Jesus.

Matt 2:13-16 Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt with Jesus, until Herod dies, in order to avoid the slaughter of all the firstborn by Herod.
Luke 2:22-40 Joseph and Mary remain in Jerusalem and vicinity for about 40 days, and then return to Nazareth without ever going to Egypt. There is no slaughter by Herod.

Matt 3:11-14, John 1:31-34 John knows that Jesus is the Messiah by the time of his baptism.
Matt 11:2-3 John sends his disciples to ask if Jesus is the Messiah after he’s baptized.

Matt 3:16, Mark 1:10 Jesus sees the Spirit descending.
John 1:32 John sees the Spirit descending.

Matt 4:5-8 The devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, then to the mountaintop.
Luke 4:5-9 The devil takes to the mountaintop, then to the pinnacle of the temple.

Matt 4:18-20, Mark 1:16-18 These stories of selecting Peter as a disciple is different from Luke 5:2-11, and from John 1:35-42.

Matt 5:1-7:29 Jesus delivers his most important sermon standing on a mount.
Luke 6:17-49 Jesus delivers the same sermon standing on a plain. Mark and John don’t mention it at all.

Matt 5:16 Good works should be seen.
Matt 6:1-4 Good works should be kept secret.

Leviticus 10:8 - 11:47, Deuteronomy 14:3-21 The law distinguishes between clean and unclean foods.
Mark 7:14-15, Mark 7:18-19 Jesus says that there is no such distinction.
Timmothy 4:1-4 Paul says all foods are clean.

Matt 5:17-19, Luke 16:17 Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law.
Ephesians 2:13-15, Hebrews 7:18-19 Jesus came to abolish the law.

Matt 5:22 Anyone who calls another a fool is liable to Hell.
Matt 7:26 Jesus says that anyone who hears his words and does not do them is a fool.

Matt 23:17-19 Jesus calls the Pharisees blind fools, twice.
Matt 25:2, 3, 8 Jesus likens the maidens who took no oil to fools.
1Corinth 1:23, 3:18, 4:10 Paul uses fool with regard to Christians becoming fools for Christ.

Matt 5:22 Anger by itself is a sin.
Ephesians 4:26 Anger is not necessarily a sin.

Matt 5:22 Anger by itself is a sin.
Mark 3:5 Jesus looks around "angrily."

Matt 5:32 Divorce is forbidden except on the grounds of unchastity.
Mark 10:11-12 Divorce is forbidden for any reason.

Matt 5:39, Matt 5:44 Jesus says, “Do not resist evil. Love your enemies.”
Matt 6:15, 12:34, 16:3, 22:18, 23:13-15, 17, 19, 27, 29, 33, Mark 7:6, Luke 11:40, 44, 12:56 Jesus says nasty things to those who oppose him.

Matt 5:39, Matt 5:44 Do not resist evil. Love your enemies.
Luke 19:27 God is likened to one who destroys his enemies.

Matt 5:43-44, Matt 22:39 Love your enemies. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matt 10:5 Go nowhere among the Gentiles nor enter a Samaritan town.

Matt 6:13 Jesus’ prayer suggest God might occasionally lead us into temptation.
James 1:13 God tempts no one.

Matt 7:7-8, Luke 11:9-10 Ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find.
Luke 13:24 Many will try to enter the Kingdom but will be unable.

Matt 7:21 Not everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13 Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Matt 7:21, Luke 10:36-37, Romans 2:6, 13, James 2:24 We are justified by works, not by faith.
John 3:16, Romans 3:20-26, Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 2:16 We are justified by faith, not by works.

Matt 8:5-12 A centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant.
Luke 7:2-10 The centurion sends elders to ask Jesus for the favor.

Mark 5:2-16, Luke 8:26-36 One demoniac is healed at the event with the swine in Gardarene.
Matt 8:28-33 Two demoniacs are healed.

Matt 9:18 The woman Jesus raises up is dead.
Luke 8:42 The woman Jesus raises is dying, but still kicking.

Matt 10:1-8 Jesus gives his disciples the power to do miracle healings and exorcisms.
Matt 17:14-16 The disciples are unable to whip up these powers.

Matt 10:2, Mark 3:16-19 The twelve apostles are: Simon Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Bartholemew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon, and Judas Iscariot.
Luke 6:13-16 The twelve apostles are: Simon Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Bartholemew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot. (No Thaddaeus, and a second Judas.)

Matt 10:2, 5-6 Peter is to witness to the Jews and stay away from the Gentiles.
Acts 15:7 Peter is to witness to the Gentiles.

Mark 6:8-9 Jesus sends out his disciples and specifically tells them to take their sandals and a staff.
Matt 10:10 Jesus instructs them NOT to take sandals or a staff.

Matt 10:34, Luke 12:49-53 Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father…”
John 16:33 Jesus: “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace.”

Matt 10:22, 24:13, Mark 13:13 Jesus: “He that endures to the end will be saved.”
John 3:5 Jesus: “…unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
Acts 16:31 “Believe in Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
Acts 2:21 “And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:9 …if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
1 John 4:7 He who loves is born of God and knows God.

Matt 11:7-15, 17:12-13 Jesus claims John the Baptist is a prophet, and more than a prophet.
John 1:21 And they asked him (John), “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

Matt 11:29 Jesus: “…for I am gentle and lowly in heart…”
John 2:15 Jesus makes a whip of cords, overturns the tables of the money changers, pours out their coins. and drives them Temple (even though they were performing the approved the service of exchanging blasphemous Roman coins for acceptable currency.)

Matt 12:5 Jesus: “…have you not read in the (Old Testament) law how, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless? (No such law exists in the Old Testament.)

Matt 12:30 Jesus: “He who is not with me is against me…” (The undecided are regarded as against him.)
Mark 9:40 Jesus: “For he that is not against us is for us.” (The undecided are regarded for him.)

Mark 8:12 Jesus: “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.” (See also Matt 12:39 and Luke 11:29)
Acts 2:22 “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst…” (See also John 3:2 and John 20:30)

John 7:2-10 Jesus is untruthful to his brothers about not going to the feast of Tabernacles. Verse 8: “Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast…” Verse 10: But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.

Matt 16:16 Peter first declares that Jesus is the Son of God after traveling with him for months, and Jesus says “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.”
John 1:41 Only moments after he and Jesus meet, Peter tells his brother “We have found the Messiah.”

Matt 16:18-19 Jesus: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven…”
Matt 16:23 When Peter objects to Jesus predicting his death in Jerusalem, Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”

Matt 16:18-19 Jesus: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…”
Acts 15:1-21 James was appointed as the first bishop of the head church, in Jerusalem, and, after hearing arguments from Paul, Barnabas and Peter, and he announces what may be the single most important decree in the history of the religion—to allow Gentiles into the faith. (The idea that Peter went to Rome and became the first bishop of Rome—the pope—is not in the Bible. That’s a claim added centuries later.)

Matt 17:1-2 The Transfiguration takes place six days after Jesus foretells his suffering.
Luke 9:28-29 The Transfiguration occurs about eight days after.

Matt 20:20-21 The mother of James and John asks Jesus a favor for her sons.
Mark 10:35-37 The two disciples ask Jesus for the favor themselves.

Matt 20:23, Mark 10:40 Jesus responds that the favor is not his to give.
Matt 28:18, John 3:35 Jesus: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Matt 20:29-34 Jesus heals two blind men en route to Jericho.
Mark 10:46-52 Jesus heals one blind man.

Matt 21:1-17 Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem, cleanses the Temple of the moneychangers, then goes to Bethany.
Mark 11:1-19 He triumphantly enters, visits the Temple, then goes to Bethany, then cleanses the Temple the next day.
Luke 19:28-48 He triumphantly enters, cleanses the Temple, then teaches in the Temple.
John 12:1-18 Years earlier he goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple, then returns to Jerusalem in the last week of this life and enters triumphantly, but does not cleans the Temple.

Matt 21:2-6, Mark 11:2-7, Luke 19:30-35 The disciples obtain the animal(s) needed for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.
John 12:14 Jesus finds the animal himself.

Matt 21:7 Jesus rides two animals into Jerusalem (suggesting he’s a stunt rider).
Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35, John 12:14 Jesus uses only one animal.

Matt 21:19-20 Jesus curses a fig tree and it withers. The disciples notice immediately.
Mark 11:13-14, 20-21 The disciples don’t notice the withered tree until the next day.

Matt 23:35 Jesus says that Old Testament prophet Zechariah was the son of Barachiah.
2 Chronicles 24:20 Zacharias was actually the son of Jehoiada, the priest. The name Barachiah is found nowhere in the Old Testament.

Matt 24:29-33, Mark 13:24-29 The coming of the kingdom will be accompanied by signs and miracles.
Luke 17:20-21 It will not be accompanied by signs and miracles; it is already in their midst.

Matt 25:34 “…inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…”
John 14:2-3 Jesus: “And when I go [ascend to heaven], I will prepare a place for you…”

Matt 26:6-13, Mark 14:3 Jesus is anointed in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper.
Luke 7:36-38 Jesus is anointed at the house of a Pharisee in Galilee.

Matt 26:7, Mark 14:3 The anointing oil is poured on Jesus' head.
Luke 7:38, John 12:3 The oil is poured on his feet.

Matt 26:7, Mark 14:3, Luke 7:37 A nameless woman anoints Jesus.
John 12:3 Mary anoints Jesus.

Matt 26:14-25, Mark 14:10-11, Luke 22:3-23 Judas makes a deal with the chief priests before the Last Supper.
John 13:21-30 Judas leaves to make the deal after the Last Supper.

Matt 26:20-29, Mark 14:17-28, John 13:21-30 Jesus forecasts his betrayal prior to the communion ritual.
Luke 22:14-23 He forecasts his betrayal after the communion.

Matt 26:40-45, Mark 14:37-41 The disciples fall asleep three times.
Luke 22:45 They fall asleep once.

Matt 26:49-50, Mark 14:44-46 Jesus is betrayed with a kiss by Judas and is then arrested.
Luke 22:47-48 Jesus anticipates Judas' kiss, but no actual kiss is mentioned.
John 18:2-9 Jesus steps forward to identify himself, making the kiss unnecessary. It’s never mentioned.

Matt 26:51, Mark 14:47, John 18:10 A slave’s ear is cut off and is left that way.
Luke 22:50-51 Jesus miraculously heals the ear.

Matt 26:52 Jesus: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Luke 22:36-38 Jesus: “And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one.”
....................................

Matt 26:57, Mark 14:53, Luke 22:54 After his arrest Jesus is first taken to Caiphas, the high priest.

John 18:13-24 First to Annas, the son-in-law of Caiphas, then to Caiphas.

Matt 26:18-20, 57-68, 27:1-2, Mark 14:16-18, 53-72, 15:1 Jesus' initial hearing was at night on Passover. In the morning he was taken to Pilate.

Luke 22:13-15, 54-66 The initial hearing took place in the morning on Passover.

John 18:28, 19:14 It took place the day before Passover, on the Day of Preparation.

Matt 26:59-66, Mark 14:55-64 Jesus was tried by the entire Sanhedrin (the chief priests and the whole council).

Luke 22:66-71 There was no trial but merely an inquiry held by the Sanhedrin.

John 18:13-24 There was no appearance before the Sanhedrin, only the private hearings before Annas and then Caiphas.

Matt 26:63, Luke 22:70 The high priest asks Jesus if he is the Son of God.

Mark 14:61 He asks Jesus if he is the Son of the Blessed.

Matt 26:64, Luke 22:70 Jesus answers: "You have said so," or words to this effect.

Mark 14:62 He answers directly: "I am."

Matt 26:69-70 Peter makes his first denial to a maid and "them all."

Mark 14:66-68, Luke 22:56-57, John 18:17 It was to one maid only.

Matt 26:71-72 Peter's second denial is to still another maid.

Mark 14:69-70 (Apparently) to the same maid.

Luke 22:58 To a man, not a maid.

John 18:25 To more than one, "they."

Matt 26:73-74, Mark 14:70-71 Peter's third denial is to bystanders (two or more).

Luke 22:59-60 To "another" (one).

John 18:26-27 To one of the servants.

Matt 26:74 The cock crowed once.

Mark 14:72 The cock crowed twice.

Matt 27:3-7 The chief priests bought the field.

AC 1:16-19 Judas bought the field.

Matt 27:5 Judas threw down the pieces of silver, then departed.

AC 1:18 He used the coins to buy the field.

Matt 27:5 Judas hanged himself.

AC 1:18 He fell headlong, burst open, and his bowels gushed out.

Matt 27:11, Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3 When asked if he is King of the Jews, Jesus answers: "You have said so," (or "Thou sayest").

John 18:33-34 He answers: "Do you say this of your own accord?"

Matt 27:11-14 Jesus answers not a single charge at his hearing before Pilate.

John 18:33-37 Jesus answers all charges at his hearing before Pilate.

Matt 27:20 The chief priests and elders are responsible for persuading the people to ask for the release of Barabbas.

Mark 15:11 Only the chief priests are responsible.

Luke 23:18-23 The people ask, apparently having decided for themselves.

Matt 27:28 Jesus is given a scarlet robe (a sign of infamy).

Mark 15:17, John 19:2 A purple robe (a sign of royalty).

Matt 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26 Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus' cross.

John 19:17 Jesus carries his own cross with no help from anyone.

Matt 27:37 The inscription on the cross read: "This is Jesus the King of the Jews."

Mark 15:26 "The King of the Jews."

Luke 23:38 "This is the King of the Jews."

John 19:19 "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Matt 27:44 Both of those who are crucified with Jesus taunt him.

Luke 23:39-42 Only one taunts Jesus, and he is rebuked by the other for doing so.

Matt 27:46 Jesus asks God, the Father, why he has been forsaken.

John 10:30 Jesus says that he and the Father are one.

Matt 27:46-50, Mark 15:34-37 Jesus' last recorded words are: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Luke 23:46 "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."

John 19:30 "It is finished." (Note: Even though both Matt and Mark represent direct quotes and are translated similarly, the actual Greek words used for God are different. Matt uses "Eli" and Mark uses "Eloi.")

Matt 27:48, Luke 23:36, John 19:29 Jesus was offered vinegar to drink.

Mark 15:23 It was wine and myrrh, and he did not drink it.

John 19:29-30 Whatever it was, he did drink it.

Matt 27:54 The centurion says: "Truly this was the son of God."

Mark 15:39 He says: "Truly this man was the son of God!"

Luke 23:47 He says: "Truly this man was innocent" (or "righteous").

Matt 27:55, Mark 15:40, Luke 23:49 The women looked on from afar.

John 19:25-26 They were near enough that Jesus could speak to his mother.

Matt 27:62-66 A guard was placed at the tomb (the day following the burial).

Mark 15:42- 16:8, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38-42 (No guard is mentioned. This is important since rumor had it that Jesus' body was stolen and the Resurrection feigned.)

Mark 16:1-3, Luke 24:1 (There could not have been a guard, as far as the women were concerned, since they were planning to enter the tomb with spices. Though the women were aware of the stone, they were obviously unaware of a guard.)

Matt 28:5-8 An angel at Jesus' tomb tells Mary Magdalene and another Mary that Jesus is not there. The women run from the tomb "with fear and great joy."
Luke 24:4 Two men tell the women they should not seek Jesus there.
John 20:1-2 Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb alone, finds it empty, sees no men or angels, then tells Peter and another disciple that the body had been stolen (not something she’d say with “great joy.”)

Matt 24:9 Even some of the disciples of Jesus will be killed.

John 8:51 If anyone keeps Jesus' words, he will never see death.

HE 9:27 [All] men die once, then judgement follows.

Matt 28:1 The first visitors to the tomb were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (two).

Mark 16:1 Both of the above plus Salome (three).

Luke 23:55 - 24:1, 24:10 Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and "other women" (at least five).

John 20:1 Mary Magdalene only (one).

Matt 28:1 It was toward dawn when they arrived.

Mark 16:2 It was after sunrise.

Luke 24:1 It was at early dawn.

John 20:1 It was still dark.

Matt 28:1-2 The stone was still in place when they arrived. It was rolled away later.

Mark 16:4, Luke 24:2, John 20:1 The stone had already been rolled (or taken) away.

Matt 28:2 An angel arrived during an earthquake, rolled back the stone, then sat on it (outside the tomb).

Mark 16:5 No earthquake, only one young man sitting inside the tomb.

Luke 24:2-4 No earthquake. Two men suddenly appear standing inside the tomb.

John 20:12 No earthquake. Two angels are sitting inside the tomb.

Matt 28:8 The visitors ran to tell the disciples.

Mark 16:8 They said nothing to anyone.

Luke 24:9 They told the eleven and all the rest.

John 20:10-11 The disciples returned home. Mary remained outside, weeping.

Matt 28:8-9 Jesus' first Resurrection appearance was fairly near the tomb.

Luke 24:13-15 It was in the vicinity of Emmaus (seven miles from Jerusalem).

John 20:13-14 It was right at the tomb.

Matt 28:9 On his first appearance to them, Jesus lets Mary Magdalene and the other Mary hold him by his feet.

John 20:17 On his first appearance to Mary, Jesus forbids her to touch him since he has not yet ascended to the Father.

John 20:27 A week later, although he has not yet ascended to the Father, Jesus tells Thomas to touch him.

Matt 28:7-10, Matt 28:16 Although some doubted, the initial reaction of those that heard the story was one of belief since they followed the revealed instructions.

Mark 16:11, Luke 24:11 The initial reaction was one of disbelief. All doubted.

Matt 28:1-18 The order of Resurrection appearances was: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, then the eleven.

Mark 16:9-14 It was Mary Magdalene, then two others, then the eleven.

Luke 24:15-36 It was two, then Simon (Peter?), then the eleven.

John 20:14 - 21:1 It was Mary Magdalene, then the disciples without Thomas, then the disciples with Thomas, then the eleven disciples again.

1CO 15:5-8 It was Cephas (Peter?), then the "twelve" (which twelve, Judas was dead?), then 500+ brethren (although AC 1:15 says there were only about 120), then James, then all the Apostles, then Paul.

Matt 28:19 Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize.

1CO 1:17 Although he considers himself a disciple of Jesus, Paul says that he has not been sent to baptize.

Mark 1:2 Jesus quotes a statement that he says appears in Isaiah. (No such statement appears in Isaiah.)

Mark 1:14 Jesus began his ministry after the arrest of John the Baptist.

John 3:22-24 Before the arrest of John the Baptist.

Mark 1:23-24 A demon cries out that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

John 4:1-2 Everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. (Note: This would mean that the demon is of God.)

Mark 3:29 Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin.

AC 13:39, CN 2:13, 1John 1:9 All sins are forgivable.

Mark 4:11-12, 11:25 Jesus says that he uses parables so that the meaning of some of his teachings will remain secret to at least some persons. He explains the meanings of the parables only to his disciples. He thanks God for hiding some things from the wise while revealing them to "babes."

John 18:20 Jesus says that he always taught openly, never secretly.

Mark 6:16 Herod was the source of the belief that John had been raised from the dead.

Luke 9:7 Others were the source. Herod was perplexed by the belief.

Mark 6:52 The people were so unimpressed with "the Feeding of the Multitude" that they did not even understand the event.

John 6:14-15 They were so impressed that they tried to force Jesus to be their king.

Mark 6:53 After the feeding of the 5000, Jesus and the disciples went to Gennesaret.

John 6:17-25 They went to Capernaum.

Mark 10:19 Jesus lists "defraud not" as one of the commandments.

EX 20:3-17 There is no such commandment in the Ten Commandments or elsewhere in the OT)

Mark 15:25 It was the third hour when Jesus was crucified.

John 19:14-15 It was after the sixth hour since Jesus was still before Pilate and had not yet been sentenced at that time.

Mark 16:1-2 The women came to the tomb to anoint the body.

John 19:39-40 The body had already been anointed and wrapped in linen cloth.

Mark 16:5, Luke 24:3 The women actually entered the tomb.

John 20:1-2, 11 They did not.

Mark 16:14-19 The Ascension took place (presumably from a room) while the disciples were together seated at a table, probably in or near Jerusalem.

Luke 24:50-51 It took place outdoors, after supper, at Bethany (near Jerusalem).

AC 1:9-12 It took place outdoors, after 40+ days, at Mt. Olivet.

Matt 28:16-20 No mention is made of an ascension, but if it took place at all, it must have been from a mountain in Galilee since Matt ends there.)

Luke 1:15 John the Baptist had the Holy Spirit from before his birth or the birth of Jesus.

Luke 1:41 Elizabeth had it long before Jesus went away.

Luke 1:67 So did Zechariah.

Luke 2:25 So did Simeon.

Luke 11:13 It is obtained by prayer (presumably at any time).

John 7:39, John 16:7, AC 1:3-5 The Holy Spirit cannot come into the world until after Jesus has departed.

Luke 8:12 The Devil causes unbelief.

Mark 4:11-12 Jesus is responsible for unbelief in at least some cases.

2TH 2:11-12 God is ultimately responsible for unbelief in at least some cases.

Luke 14:26 No one can be a disciple of Jesus unless he hates his parents, wife, children, brothers and sisters.

John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

John 4:20 If anyone claims to love God but hates his brother, he is a liar.

Luke 18:9-14 Do not boast of your virtue.

RO 11:20, 1PE 5:5 Do not be proud.

RO 15:17, 2CO 1:12, HE 3:6, 2CO 2:14, 5:12, 11:17 Paul boasts of his faith and says that one should be proud of it.

Luke 22:3-23 Satan entered Judas before the supper.

John 13:27 It was during the supper.

Luke 23:43 Jesus promises one of those crucified with him that they will be together, that very day, in Paradise.

John 20:17, AC 1:3 Jesus was not raised until the third day and did not ascend until at least forty days later.

Luke 23:55-56 The women followed Joseph to the tomb, saw how the body had been laid, then went to prepare spices with which to annoint the body.

John 19:39-40 Joseph brought spices with him (75 or a 100 lbs.) and annointed the body (as the women should have noticed).

John 1:1, 10:30 Jesus and God are one.

John 14:28 God is greater than Jesus.

John 1:1 Jesus was God incarnate.

AC 2:22 Jesus was a man approved by God.

John 3:17, 8:15, 12:47 Jesus does not judge.

John 5:22, 5:27-30, 9:39, AC 10:42, 2CO 5:10 Jesus does judge.

John 5:22 God does not judge.

RO 2:2-5, 3:19, 2TH 1:5, 1PE 1:17 God does judge.

John 5:24 Believers do not come into judgement.

Matt 12:36, 2CO 5:10, HE 9:27, 1PE 1:17, JU 1:14-15, RE 20:12-13 All persons (including believers) come into judgement.

John 5:31 Jesus says that if he bears witness to himself, his testimony is not true.

John 8:14 Jesus says that even if he bears witness to himself, his testimony is true.

John 5:38-47 Men have a choice as to whether or not to receive Jesus.

John 6:44 No one can come to Jesus unless he is drawn by the Father.

John 7:38 Jesus quotes a statement that he says appears in scripture (i.e., the OT).

(No such statement is found in the OT.)

John 10:27-29 None of Jesus' followers will be lost.

TI 4:1 Some of them will be lost.

John 10:30 Jesus and the Father are one, (i.e., equal).

John 14:28 The Father is greater than Jesus.

John 12:31 The Devil is the ruler (or "prince") of this world.

1CO 10:26, RE 1:5 Jesus is the ruler of kings--the earth is his.

John 12:32 Jesus implies that all persons will be saved.

TI 2:3-4, 2PE 3:9 God wants all to be saved.

John 12:40, AC 2:21, 2:39, RO 9:27, 10:13 Some will not be saved.

RE 14:1-4 Heaven will be inhabited by 144,000 virgin men (only?).

John 13:36 Peter asks Jesus where he is going.

John 14:5 Thomas does the same.

John 16:5 Jesus says that none of them have asked him where he is going.

John 17:12 Jesus has lost none of his disciples other than Judas.

John 18:9 Jesus has lost none, period.

John 17:12 Mentions a "son of perdition" as appearing in scripture (meaning the OT).

(Note: There is no "son of perdition" mentioned in the OT.)

John 18:37 Jesus came into the world to bear witness to the truth.

RO 1:18-20 The truth has always been evident.

John 20:9 Jesus quotes a statement that he says appears in scripture (meaning the OT). (No such statement is found in the OT.)

John 20:22 In his first resurrection appearance before the assembled disciples, Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit.

AC 1:3-5, AC 2:1-4 The Holy Spirit was received much later (on Pentecost.)

John 21:25 The world probably could not contain the books if all that Jesus did were to be recorded.

AC 1:1 The author of Acts has already written about all that Jesus began to do.

AC 5:19, 12:6-11 The disciples take part in a jailbreak made possible by an angel.

AC 5:40-42 The disciples disobey the Council and continue to teach and preach Jesus.

RO 13:1-4, 1PE 2:13-15 Obey the laws of men (i.e., government). It is the will of God.

AC 5:29 Obey God, not men.

RO 13:1-4, 1PE 2:13-15 Obey the laws of men (i.e., government). It is the will of God.

AC 9:7 Those present at Paul's conversion heard the voice but saw no one.

AC 22:9 They saw a light but did not hear a voice.

AC 9:7 Those present at Paul's conversion stood.

AC 26:14 They fell to the ground.

AC 9:19-28 Shortly after his conversion, Paul went to Damascus, then Jerusalem where he was introduced to the Apostles by Barnabas, and there spent some time with them (going in and out among them).

GA 1:15-20 He made the trip three years later, then saw only Peter and James.

AC 9:23 The governor attempted to seize Paul.

2CO 11:32 It was the Jews who tried to seize Paul.

AC 10:34, RO 2:11 God shows no partiality. He treats all alike.

RO 9:11-13 God hated Esau and loved Jacob even before their birth.

AC 10:34, RO 2:11 God shows no partiality. He treats all alike.

RO 9:18 God has mercy on whoever he chooses, etc.

AC 16:6 The Holy Spirit forbids preaching in Asia.

AC 19:8-10 Paul preaches in Asia anyway.

AC 20:35 Quotes Jesus as having said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." (No such statement of Jesus is found elsewhere in the Bible.)

RO 2:12 All who have sinned without the law will perish without the law.

RO 4:15 Where there is no law there is no transgression (sin).

RO 2:13 Doers of the law will be justified.

RO 3:20, GA 3:11 They will not be justified.

RO 2:15 The law is written on the heart. Conscience teaches right from wrong.

1John 2:27 Anointing by Jesus teaches right from wrong.

RO 4:9 Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.

JA 2:21 Abraham was justified by works (which made his faith perfect).

RO 10:11 (An alleged OT quote; no such statement in the OT.)

RO 14:21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything that might cause your brother to stumble or be offended.

CN 2:16 Let no one pass judgement on you in matters of food and drink.

1CO 7:8-9 Widows should not marry (although it is better to marry than burn).

TI 5:14 Young widows should marry, bear children, rule the household, etc..

1CO 8:4 There is only one God.

2CO 4:4 Satan is God of this world (therefore there are at least two gods).

1CO 10:33 Paul says that he tries to please men (so they might be saved).

GA 1:10 Paul says he would not be a servant of Christ if he tried to please men.

2CO 12:16 Paul says that he does use trickery.

1TH 2:3 Paul says that he does not use trickery.

GA 6:2 Bear one anothers burdens.

GA 6:5 Bear your own burden.

1TH 2:2 God gave Paul the courage to continue his work.

1TH 2:17-18 Satan hindered Paul.

(Note: Who is stronger, Satan or God?)

TI 1:15 Paul says that he is the foremost of sinners.

John 3:8-10 He who commits sin is of the Devil. Children of God do not sin.

TI 6:20, 2TI 2:14-16, 3:1-7 Do not argue with an unbeliever.

2John 1:10-11 Anyone who even greets an unbeliever shares his wicked work.

1PE 3:15 Always be ready to answer any man concerning your faith.

JA 4:5 (Quotes an alleged scripture (OT) verse; not found in the OT.)

RE 8:7 All of the grass on earth is burned up, and then ...

REV 9:4 An army of locusts, which is about to be turned loose on the earth, is instructed not to harm the grass.

God’s Most Embarrassing Moments—Psalm 109:8

2009-11-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

A backhanded prayer for Obama? Apparently so. The God-is-on-my-side crowd of Tea-Bagging, Glenn-Becking bloggers are currently circulating a verse from the Psalms as "A prayer for Obama."

May his days be few; may another seize his goods (or take his office). [Psalm 109:8]

Now that the biblical verse John 3:16* has become standard fare at every public event from the Super Bowl to world league dwarf-tossing, somebody had to haul up a new verse for the scripturally-inclined to beat the rest of us over the head with. But this time it’s a nasty little tidbit from the Old Testament and, frankly, something of an embarrassment. That’s because the next verse reads:

May his children be fatherless,

And his wife a widow! [Psalm 109:9]

    Makes you feel all Christian inside, doesn’t it?
The excuse-makers claim that it’s nothing more than a wish that Obama be a one-term president. But it sure sounds like a not-so-coded prayer for an assassination. Or a least a heart attack.

    The verse is the sort of thing most churches would rather we ignore because it makes the rest of us squirm to think of it as holy writ. It’s what they call an “imprecatory prayer.” It’s the kind of material you’re not supposed to find in the Bible—a profound plea for God to tear someone a new one. Good Christians are not supposed to want this. God’s final Judgment, and maybe a few semiautomatic weapons, should do it. It’s bad form to beg the Almighty to open up a cosmic can of whoop-ass on the guys who pick on you.

    Offered up as a prayer for President Obama by right-wing Twitterer, or Tweeter, or Twick-or-Tweeter Cheri Douglas, Psalms 109:8 is now popping up on bumper stickers, T-shirts, and the usual media for such profound thought. Douglas claims she didn’t mean it in a hostile way, and says she was unaware of the verse following 109:8 when she shared it online—which tells you something about the intellectual firepower behind this sort of thing. How do you copy a verse like that and not see the next line? Or not care about what it means in context instead of floating freely on a baseball cap nestled on a largely empty head?

    Spookily, firebrands are promoting it with the kind of dark righteousness the Klan often does when it cites the Bible to stoke their cause, like this one I found on a KKK website:

    For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out… [1 Thessalonians 14-15]

    Brrrr… Just goes to show you that pretty much anything you’re selling, no matter how noble or vile, has a line or two in the Bible that’ll back you up. This is why it’s lasted so long. There’s something in there for anyone, and I mean anyone. You can call this spin. But that's a hard thing to control, isn't it?

    Actually, conservatives shouldn’t get too cocky using Psalm 109 in their prayers for the president. If you read the rest of the Psalm and apply it to the head of our affairs…

    May his children wander about and beg;
    May they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit! [Psalm 109:10]

    Are these the homeless children and the ruins of the housing market left by George W. Bush? You want more of that? (See what I told you about spin?)

    May the creditor seize all that he has;
    May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil! [Psalm 109:11]

    This sounds like a prayer for the Chinese to drop by with repossession orders. The Klan-ish part of this wish list kicks in around verse 14:

    May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
    And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out! [Psalm 109:14]

    Apply this to Obama and…whoa, sounds like somebody may have a little problem with that Kenyan dad, or his white mama’s decision to marry him? Tell me with a straight face that nobody out there in cyberland reads this verse that way. Hello?

    Actually, verse 109:8 is taken from A Psalm of David, one of many found in Psalms, and allegedly—very allegedly—written by ancient Israel’s King David (ca. 1000 B.C.). David is at one of the downturns in his career. He laments his bad fortune, wishing for a heap of bad mojo to befall those who hate him just because he tried to conquer and rule them. It’s David who is asking God for help, not know-nothing Tea-Baggers for whom tax cuts are the cure for everything from illegal immigration to erectile dysfunction. And it's use, while written off as a joke by most rational Americans, is a red flag given the secessionist talk coming out of some governors’ mouths and the slavering anti-government hatred that’s welled up ever since a Democrat took office.

    These are folks who saw no threat to the Constitution in unwarranted wiretaps, arrest without charge, imprisonment without trial, torture, paying off reporters to spin the news, arresting other reporters who won't rat on their sources, searching personal records, launching two wars with no declaration by Congress, and trying to do most of this in secret. It's making sure you don't go broke when you get sick that has the Founders turning in their graves.

    Criticizing is one thing, guys. Demonizing is another. I can only recall a sign written in a similar spirit posted in Dallas, Texas on a November 22nd some years ago:

Do we really need to learn this lesson all over again?

*For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not die but have eternal life. [John 3:16]

Cursed Candy Haunts Halloween

2009-10-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

Apparently the folks at Hershey and Mars candy companies have changed their hiring practices because, according to wingnut minister Kimberly Daniels, during the Halloween season, "most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches… Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.”

   Stupid demons. The lesson is simple. Buy a Snickers, burn in hell. See how easy it is?

   Daniels goes on... “The gods of harvest that the witches worship during their fall festivals are the Corn King and the Harvest Lord. The devil is too stupid to understand that Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest 365 days a year.”

   Actually,  Daniels seems to be suggesting a stupid Jesus because there is no harvest 365 days a year. Of course, he was a carpenter, not a farmer.

   In Daniel’s universe, demons are assigned to people who participate in the pagan rites of Halloween and you’re guilty of Satan worship even if you don’t know that you’re worshipping Satan. Just go through the motions or use occult knickknacks at a party and you've joined the legions of the Damned. By this logic, buying a Christmas tree (a pagan symbol of life surviving the winter) or telling yout kids about the Easter Bunny (a pagan symbol of fertility) will send you unwittingly to hell. Apparently, this holiday stuff is a bit of a minefield. Maybe we should stick with Flag Day or National Gorilla Suit Day.

   Of course, as anyone who’s watched the History Channel (or can read) ought to know, Halloween has nothing to do with Satan. Halloween emerged from the harvest rituals pagan cultures of central Europe during the late Middle Ages, wherein the locals would dress up in scary costumes to frighten away the demons of winter. Daniels and her ilk conveniently forget that Satan is a biblical character—and pagans didn’t read the Bible. Actually, most of them didn’t read at all. But for the medieval Church, any ritual not approved by the pope was, by default, a festival for the devil.

   Neither are witches brides of Satan, as the torches and pitchforks crowd insists. (Amazing how they know what non-believers believe better than the non-believers do.) Witches entered the picture because local shaman healers, often older women who knew every herb and folk cure imaginable, would treat the sick not only with elixirs to heal the body, but with incantations to heal the soul. Once again, any spiritual rite that didn’t include Jesus was ipso facto a love letter to Lucifer.

   The Church didn’t indulge in such practices, of course. They restricted themselves rituals like the Eucharist—worshipping a dead man by occasionally snacking on him. Ah, but don’t accuse them of unwittingly participating in cannibalism. You see, Christians are free to mangle the meaning of everyone else’s rituals but nobody can mangle the meaning of theirs. I know that's not fair, but neither is us taking the rap for Eve eating that apple 6,000 years ago. God never said achieving salvation was fair.

   Daniels goes on to link all things occult with Halloween—“occult” meaning “secret.” She notes that the real dangers of Halloween are not the public displays of paganism so much as the “secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes.” She then lists them:

1. Sex with demons. (Apparently this is a big problem in her neighborhood. On the bright side, because good Christians oppose contraception, the demons probably use condoms.)

2. Orgies between animals and humans. (She really needs to get new friends. Exactly where are these soirées taking place?)

3. Animal and human sacrifices. (A lot of these on the police blotters, are there?)

4. Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood. (Whose babies? Can she name one?)

5. Rape and molestations of adults, children and babies. (Last time I checked, it wasn’t necessary to live near Satanists to have this problem. Living by a cathedral has been known to work just as well.)

6. Revel nights. (Kind of vague. Do these include the Prom?)

7. Conjuring of demons and casting of spells. (Really? Has there been an uptick in ER admissions due to spell-casting? Maybe a lot of the guys Daniels know are toads.)

8. Release of “time-release” curses against the innocent and the ignorant. (I believe the Pfizer people may soon have a pill for this.)

   Daniels’ finally expresses concern about séances and necromancy—communication with the dead. I’m sure she communicated this to Jesus right away.

Let There Be Lights—Camera—Action!

2009-10-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

Strangely, for all the criticism Hollywood gets for its lack of religious piety, the biblical god works a lot like a movie director. He has a grand plan, but to everyone else it looks like he’s making it up as he goes along. He loves his actors, but he’ll can them the second they stray from the script. The men in his story are either macho heroes or sages, and the female roles are the usual stereotypes: virgins, mothers, harlots, or some combination thereof. God also depends on special effects to make an impression and he needs constant reminders of how brilliant he is. All he needs is a DGA card, a megaphone and a baseball cap. He’s already got the beard.

    Of course, if you’re a Christian, there’s the added wrinkle of God bringing his son into the business and starting him off at the top. Above all, God is hell-bent on realizing his “vision,” even if it keeps changing regardless of the cost. “I see a nude couple in a garden. No, lose that. How about we do this huge flood, with lots of animals? No, wait, I know—we nuke Sodom and Gomorrah! Then we devastate all of Egypt! I see frogs falling from the sky, and a bloody river, and then, like, a million people get lost in the desert, and then we do even more battles! Let there be light, let there be cameras, let there be action!” Hooray for Holy-wood.
    God’s story traffics in the tried-and-true elements of a major studio release. Epic battles, torrid love affairs, vanquished cities, valiant superheroes, crusty but benign wise men and jaw-dropping spectacles—not to mention special touches like mass circumcisions, murder, rape, incest, plus a guy who’s missing a rib and a woman who isn’t afraid of snakes even when she’s outside and naked.

    There are grand spectacles and intimate dramas. Soaring heroism and gutter depravity—often by the same guy. It’s a sprawling saga that pits the fumblings of man against the mood swings of God and stretches from the dawn of Creation to the rise of the Roman Empire. We’re talking big picture and high concept. You can even anticipate the movie trailer pitched by a gritty voice-over:

    “God had it all. Infinite power. Perfect knowledge. A no-nonsense deity with a plague up his sleeve and a code of his own. But when he’s betrayed by Lucifer—all hell breaks loose, and it’s a winner-take-all Smackdown down for the universe. There will be the pulling of hair, the gnashing of teeth, and the kicking of butt. God’s goin’ medieval on Evil. And when Armageddon comes, it’s Yahweh or the highway. Coming this Christmas:

JUDGMENT DAY
In Hell, no one can hear you pray.

Or…

DAMNATION
This time it’s personal.

Or…

THE RAPTURE
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the titty bar.

    God even likes sequels. He sets up the Garden of Eden, only to vacate the place and continue the saga with Adam and Eve’s descendants. But they end up drowned in the Great Flood. So, Noah’s family starts Episode III but, again, it concludes with destruction (Sodom and Gomorrah) and a cliffhanger—Lot and his daughters survive. Then there are the prophets, from Isaiah to Daniel, who forecast the same devastating Day of the Lord, followed by a pious utopia, century after century. The players change but the plotline remains the same.

    Like any Hollywood blockbuster, God’s saga ends with the victory of the good guys, the utter defeat of the bad guys, and the survivors living happily ever after. It’s a formula with mass appeal—unlike the faith of, say, the Vikings. Their religion envisioned an afterlife of warfare with ice giants and trolls in which they would ultimately lose—which explains why that religion went the way of film noir. Such minor faiths are like indie flicks. They’re full of risky ideas and fresh perspectives, but they lack distribution and heavy promotion. As a result, their rituals are usually observed at a home altar by a handful of believers—the equivalent of an art film with a cult following ending up being seen on a bed sheet in someone’s basement.

    Yahweh’s story sells a lot more popcorn. Yet, as with Hollywood itself, the press is forever accusing him of being out of touch with the values of modern audiences, despite his success at getting butts in seats. With mega-churches competing with multiplexes, it’s hard to say which dream factory hauls in the most customers. But believers are sure that “His will be done,” even if it takes a three-picture deal.

The Evolution of Intelligent Design

2009-10-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

Only in America, the land that gave the world Crop Circle “experts” is there any “debate” about evolution, or any serious effort to gussy up such Flat Earth ideas as science. Even the Vatican accepts evolution as a scientific fact—and they didn’t exonerate Galileo until 1992. (I think the jury is still out on whether or not masturbation causes blindness.)

   Intelligent Design is not a theory, nor a credible hypothesis, and it certainly isn’t science. Beyond the fact that it was concocted by the same folks who tried to sell us “Creation Science” in the 1980’s, it’s an idea that is easily disposed of with a little logic.

   The premise of I.D. is simply this: If something is sufficiently complex or unlikely to arise spontaneously (through natural means), it therefore requires an intelligent designer. It’s a claim completely disproven by my income tax forms, but never mind that. The universe is fabulously awesome and incredibly complex, ergo, it was unlikely to arise spontaneously, ergo, it requires an intelligent designer.

   Problem: Anything capable of designing an entire universe would be less likely to spontaneously arise than the universe itself. So, the designer would require a designer. And that designer, being more awesome than the original designer, would require a designer—and so on, infinitely upwards, with designers designing designers. The issue is never resolved.

   Now, if you try to rescue this idea by claiming that the designer (God, Gucci, or whatever) is that which requires no designer, then you’ve just broken your own rule about unlikely things requiring designers and you need to go home. Intelligent Design shoots itself in the foot.

   I.D. is a silly, desperate rebranding of biblical Creationism. It first emerged around 1987, the year the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Edwards v. Aguillard that Creationism wasn’t any more scientific than talking serpents and, hence, couldn’t be taught in public schools. In response, born-again activists like Phillip E. Johnson and his Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (sounds real academic, doesn’t it?) have tried to throw a lab coat over the frock of Creationism and repackage it as a scientific theory. His “Wedge Strategy” is a movement to shoehorn theism into science classes and to force schools to “teach the controversy,” as if there were one. But he gives himself away by falling back on the Gospel of John to make his argument, and by rejecting “the materialistic basis of science,” apparently forgetting that the Bible is printed on paper.

   The term Intelligent Design first appeared a 1989 book, Of Panda’s and People, which challenges evolution and suggests that there is an actual controversy in science about its validity. There isn’t. Sure, there’s plenty of haggling about the details—but not the basic principle. If experts disagree on how many cylinders are under the hood of your Honda, it doesn’t mean the guys who claim it runs on hamster wheels have a serious point. No credible scientific journal has ever cited Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to evolution.

   Further, in the 2005 court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, philosophy professor Barbara Forrest proved that the Panda book uses the term “intelligent design” in places where earlier drafts of the book used words like “creationism.” It was a fundamentalist scam. While the book’s logic does sound as if 100 monkeys randomly typed it up (they can’t always come up with Hamlet, you know), a lot of folks still buy into it. Sadly, few of them have a science degree of any kind. (Phil Johnson himself is a lawyer.) Of course, if the universe is so complex that it requires an intelligent designer, it’s even more logical to think that it requires a whole bunch of designers. It’s a pretty big place. Maybe Phil Johnson is a polytheist, rooting for the Titans of Greek mythology, or Hindu gods, which are so numerous they seem to outnumber Hindus. In any case, Intelligent Design a pious fraud.