No Conclusions for the Validity Christianity

By a Free Man ~

My childhood was on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. My parents are absolutely nuts and when I was a kid I was beat for anything that was against God. If I got a toy in a cereal box my mother would curse it and throw it in the garbage saying it was delivered directly from hell. My dad was seriously messed up. He enjoyed beating his cows and driving into them damaging their bodies and running over and shooting gophers. He would often take my brother and me into a tent or his bed when my mother wasn't there and tell us to take off our clothes and sleep with his back against ours 'Like a real grown up soldier would do'. I'm not sure if we were raped or molested as I can't remember anything and neither can my brother. They would use me as a tool to send messages back and forth to each other about how the other was demon possessed and eventually they got a divorce and the church they attended split because each took a side of one of my parents.

From there everything got worse. My mother was being abducted by aliens and being visited by demons. She even claims that a demon raped her while she was pregnant with my sister and that's why my sister was born with a heart defect and that God told her that he demanded her death. Luckily she is still alive and healed (physically but not psychologically). All my teachers and adult models were Christians who agreed and supported either my mom or dad in their delusions as these adults suffered the SAME delusion.

Goddamn Christians fucked me up. They made me go to special classes at the church where I had to design my afterlife and I had to create a second voice in my head that was God and they had a series of tests to prove it was God and I was to obey whatever this voice said to me without question, just like they did. It wasn't that bad at first, as I thought I was a good kid and I was obedient and that's what God wanted me to be, until my mom got remarried and I got into a public junior high where I constantly getting my ass kicked because I was indoctrinated to HATE the world and everyone who was not a Christian with the utmost hatred I could. I had no friends and my teachers didn't give a shit about me. The school counselor was just as FUCKED as those goddamn Christians. She had spiritual powers and she could read auras and she thought my parents were incredibly holy by the aura they omitted. This is in a goddamn fucking public school. FUCK!! I'm asexually orientated but my parents couldn't accept that so they constantly called me a homosexual and kept doing it hoping I would snap and they would have a reason to boot me out instantly. I thought something was wrong with me so I forced myself to watch internet pornography to somehow not feel like something was wrong with my sexuality and this really confused me. Some of the first words my step-dad said to me was 'I'm kicking your butt out when your 16' and 'You better not be a fag'. Goddamn Christian hospitality. Every day was a struggle to everywhere I went. School sucked, I went home and got bullied/beat by my mother and step-dad in weird sadistic ways (for an example, my step-dad would force me to pick weeds in the yard then he would take his weed whacker and shoot rocks in my face and laugh hysterically while doing it), and church I got mind fucked by the fucking madmen there. They locked up our food and only let us eat when they thought God thought we were allowed to eat. There were fourteen doors in the house and all were locked with key so they could restrict any and all movements we had. Suicide always looked like a heavenly gift, except suicides go straight to hell. Fucking Christians trapping a person with every way out!!

When I was 14 I was told they weren't paying for anything of mine anymore and I was to start making my own living and get a job. Now my step-dad is a well-off guy and money wasn't an issue and I was receiving, just for me alone, ~$500/month for child support cause my dad worked for Revenue Canada, the RCMP, and CSIS as an investigator for financial fraud and an auditor, but they took my money and put it toward their ~$60,000 plan to have the best yard in the neighborhood. At this time they were convinced Lucifer, Satan himself, had possessed my little 9 year old sister with the heart defect and were performing exorcisms on her. When they were convinced that she was hopeless they lied and told psychiatrists that she was exhibiting signs of schizophrenia and locked her away in a mental institution where she was abused by a male nurse who got away with it by saying her allegations were delusion and my fucking Christian parents supported him!!! FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK!! That goddamn motherfucker. I have hundreds of stories but none matter as I hope the readers get the point. Somehow I made it through high school and I found myself with an opportunity to take psychedelic drugs.

[She eventually made her way out when an Australian psychiatrist interviewed my step-dad and he was convinced he was suffering from some form of social psychosis. My step-dad was convinced the psychiatrist was satanic and pulled my sister from the hospital. (Thank you Dr. Carol. You saved her life from your own hospital staff.) She ended up getting back into contact with my real dad when she thought he had changed, I personally think it was a delusion of hers, as after abusing her again he tried to have sex with her but she managed to escape.]

Hallucinogens saved my life. Soon as I did them my parents banished me from their house forever. The psychedelics allowed me to see outside of the reality structure I was trapped in and I went to test out, over four years, all the religions and philosophies that were reasonable and I have found no evidence, or reason that Christianity or any religion is authentic and real. Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Timothy Leary, Penn Jillette and Teller, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and various other atheists saved my life. Before I was getting better from the aide of philosophy, reason, and psychedelics, I was planning an incredibly detailed murder of my parents; I had literally gone absolutely mad. It was the only thing that I thought I could do. Hallucinogens saved me from being a fucked up murderer and saved me from that living hell that is Christianity, forever. My entire existential paradigm was a forgery, a mere mirage, all of the experiences I forced to perceive as God, miracles, divine wrath, or holiness was made up in my head. I didn't know until I understood what constitutes for a reality structure by dismantling my own with psychedelics. I now have a stable job and a new career coming and, of course, a stable mind. However, I have uncontrollable hatred toward religious people but I don't act on it. I am absolutely horrified that my society allows such horrible people to be free with their thoughts and ideas. If a person makes these decisions as an adult I will just think they are straight fucked, but when these things are forced on a child with a malleable, trusting, and plastic mind, this is as despicable as the holocaust. One may not see this comparison, but they are destroying lives. They are existentially killing these children and these children grow up to be damaging members of society. It is absolutely terrible that someone be forced to believe anything. Reality simply does not work this way.

As of now I heard my mother suffers from severe dementia at the age of 50 and she spends all day worshiping Jesus Christ as she thinks she is in heaven which I guess is an endless church service. The church my step-dad goes to has a special retreat were people can summon the Holy Spirit to allow them the special powers to speak in tongues to prove, without a doubt, that their delusion is real. My brother is a suicidal bulimic alcoholic who worships my mother for some delusional reason, and my little sister disappeared completely in the last while. I think she wanted a fresh start from all that she used to know and she deserves it. Her fucking religion and public society fucked her up. My real dad had a psychotic melt-down and disappeared completely after his dad, my grandfather, who was a well-respected Christian pastor in central Canada, died.

Now some might say that these are just screwed up people but I am absolutely on the ball when I testify that these people whom I labeled as Christians got all of their motivation, information, and conviction to act in the manner that they acted from the Bible. This is what they based their paradigms on; their interpretation of the Bible. They confessed it themselves. The Bible is absolutely useless for understanding reality and interacting with it. Fuck, why does this book even exist? All it does it allow damaged people and unreasonable people a justification to support their absolutely ridiculous self-created paradigms. It is so full of duality that basically any psychopath can claim the Bible as their infallible source of an imposed reality structure.

Needless to say I am not a Christian and for the reader who actually went through this, thank you for your time, sincerely from the bottom of my heart. My story is out about how I personally experienced the insanity that Christianity allows. An atheist will not have any grounds for these actions while a Christian will stand upon their Bible as their support. It seems that a person will abandon reason if they have a Bible, but it could be that the people who already abandoned reason are attracted to such a book. If religion is weeded out irrational people will have to face their consequences without a scapegoat. I would enjoy that day, although it doesn't seem likely in my time, when they have to admit their own responsibility for the crimes they have committed against other human beings.

My Extimony

By Joanne ~

I've been lurking on the Ex-C blog for some time now, and felt it was time to get my story out there and into the world. So, this is my Extimony.

I am presently 20 years old. I was raised in a Christian home with very devout parents and an sister two years older than me, who I would consider to be my best friend. We were raised going to church every Sunday. Mom read devotions to us every night for a while, before she got tired of doing it or something, and then it would stop for a while, and then we'd start doing it again. This was undoubtedly my least favorite part of my religious indoctrination: listening to my mother's droning voice go on for what felt like forever on a subject that I had no interest in and couldn't escape from. Our church did not allow women to speak, pastor, or teach, so that really messed up my beliefs on gender roles, because I knew I'd never fit them. I could never be the homemaker that "God" supposedly wanted me to be as a good little woman.

My father was surprisingly passive in our religious upbringing (and most parts of family life. My mom was about as passive as a steamroller about most things...) until I was old enough to think for myself and actually start asking real questions (about age 14 or 15, I would say). He's a loving leader if ever there was one, but unfortunately so blinded by his faith. No interest in science, it seems, but totally absorbed in politics and religion. My sister said to me recently in exasperation, "Dad is so smart. How can he believe this stuff?"

Anyway...

I was definitely the good little Christian girl. I was picked on a lot, but obviously bulling is not a problem to be solved in Christian eyes, because we are to expect persecution. My mother was involved in every aspect of my life, and it really inhibited my social functioning because I had to walk on eggshells all the time so as not to do something that she would have a problem with. Having to hide behind a mask with one's own family doesn't exactly bode well with their ability to make friends. I volunteered at the Bible camps, the church, and even spent a year volunteering in a Christian drug and alcohol treatment facility. I was well-rounded in everything the church would have thought I should be.

During this time, I was also molested by my piano teacher's son, who is 6 years my senior. When part of what had happened came out, my mother (despite me being only 15 at the time it came to light and only 8 or so when it happened) seemed to think it was my fault. She asked me if I "thought it was cool that an older guy was interested" in me. I will never forget those words, and they have damaged me to my very core to this day. I never trusted her enough to tell her what really happened and how serious it was, and I doubt I ever will. I downplayed her when she confronted me about it because I felt like the truth would only make her angrier with me. I don't think she ever told my dad.

So, then high school came. I got a boyfriend, was an excellent student, and my life was looking like it was on track. It was an unspoken rule in our family that after high school, I would go to the Bible School in my city, the Plymouth Brethren-based Bible School. You can imagine the things I was exposed to there. My Church History teacher actually believed that Scientology and Christian Science were the same thing. I argued with him on it and actually had to prove him wrong. That's how clueless some Christians are about other religions, apparently. I spent a lot of time with these Christian girls who were all utterly convinced that God's plan for their lives was to have them marry a good Christian husband and pop out babies. That was never going to be me, and they and I all knew it. They made me promise to never have kids.

So I left Bible School utterly clueless about life, single, and feeling pretty unsteady. Then a few months later, I was raped by a guy who I can reasonably assume was high on cocaine. A rather freak incident of a date gone wrong, I guess. Realizing that the Bible has absolutely nothing comforting to say on the subject, I moved on in my faith. I saw a counselor at my parents' church a few times, but she really wasn't helpful and they obviously didn't care about anything other than my faith. They really didn't care about me. Since I left their church, I have yet to hear from anyone there that I knew. I have since developed an eating disorder, most likely as a result of all of these things combined.

But, the clouds have silver linings.

I have been with my wonderful boyfriend for more than a year now, and he has an adorable 3-year-old son. I am on the Board of Directors for the Wiccan temple in my city(the High Priestess told me it was my job to tell the other members when they're being "old farts", as she put it) and have regained my lost spirituality. Food, my weight, and body image remain a constant struggle, as is common with survivors of the type of abuse I have endured, but I'm working through it day by day. What I do know is that God deserves no place in my life.

The Difference Between a Dying Fetus and a Dying Woman

By Valerie Tarico ~

In early November, a young Indian man in Ireland went public about the death of his wife, Savita Halappanavar. A week later, her name, picture, and tragic story were known by millions. Now the husband, Praveen, has launched a fight to ensure that no woman ever again is refused a lifesaving abortion. Her parents have requested that the Indian government bring diplomatic pressure to bear. Their goal is to clarify and, if need be, to amend Irish abortion law: “We lost our only daughter due to this illogical law…. If that law is changed, we will think that our daughter was sacrificed for a good cause.” “Maybe Savita was born to change the laws here,” says Praveen. It is, perhaps, the only possible sense in her otherwise senseless death.

Savita was 31 when she died after being denied an abortion during a second trimester miscarriage. As a dentist, she not only felt the infection in her body, she understood it. According to her husband she asked repeatedly for the medical staff at her Irish hospital to end the failed pregnancy that was poisoning her blood and would ultimately cause her organs to fail. She was told, “This is a Catholic country.” She had wanted a baby. Then she merely wanted to have less pain and to live. Instead, thanks to what Catholic ethicists call their “culture of life” she is dead.

Praveen carried Savita’s body home to India then returned to Ireland where he works as an engineer for Boston Scientific, a manufacturer of medical devices. Is he haunted, I wonder, by the irony as well as the loss? An engineer is devoted rigorously to evidence, to questions of what works and what doesn’t, to understanding the real world effects of decisions. His ability to apply the scientific method carried him and Savita out of India to a place where ideology rather than science ultimately dictated medical practice. Had they been in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore when her fetus started dying, she probably would have lived. Instead, Indians woke up to headlines proclaiming, “Ireland Murders Pregnant Indian Dentist,” and the evening news in their home state of Karnataka ran a banner that said, “Faith over Life.”

For years now, the Catholic Bishops have been trying to draw a moral equivalence between embryos and persons, as if self-replicating human DNA were what made us precious. If ever there was a story that exposes the vast chasm of difference between a fetus and a person, it is this one. Savita and her fetus lay in the same hospital dying. The fetus simply slipped out of existence, as embryonic humans do; in fact, as most embryonic humans do. Savita died like a woman dies. She felt pain, and pleaded for it to be relieved. She knew she existed, was afraid, and expressed her fear. She argued against the authorities who refused to terminate her failing pregnancy: “I am neither Irish nor Catholic.” And when she died, she tore asunder a whole community of people into whose lives she had woven the fabric of her own. Her mother struggled to comprehend: “In an attempt to save a 4-month-old child they killed my 30-year-old daughter.” The Hindu community in Galway cancelled the Diwali festival she had been helping to organize, and where she had performed classical dance with Praveen in past years. And when Praveen when public with their story, thousands  of people took to the streets in a cry of anguish that rang across Ireland and India.

This is what is real: A woman feels pain. A woman feels fear. A woman knows she exists. A woman wants to live. She will fight and plead even when she is being poisoned to death by toxins in her blood or in our culture. A woman is a daughter, a friend, an organizer, a lover. Sometimes she is a dentist. Sometimes a man loves her enough to carry her broken body halfway around the globe.

Praveen returned from India alone and empty handed and went to the press, determined that his wife’s death have meaning. In the weeks after Savita died, Catholic Bishops in the U.S. doubled down on their commitment to the very same priorities that killed her. Although Catholic directives allow some room for abortion to save the mother’s life, the most orthodox believers balk at this exception. They are deadly serious. In 2009, a Phoenix nun approved an abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four. When the local bishop found out, the nun was excommunicated. Numerous conservative Catholics subsequently opined that the young mother should have been allowed to die.

If ever there was a story that exposes the vast chasm of difference between a fetus and a person, it is this one.The primary mechanism for the bishops imposing their will in the U.S. is through mergers between Catholic and secular health care systems. Any merger or partnership gives the bishops an opportunity to insert their “ethical” directives into the contract negotiations process. The result? More and more, American families have no way of knowing whether they are being offered state-of-the art medical best practices or only those approved by some church.

The time has come to question a system that funnels public money into medical institutions where the overriding principle is not science but religious ideology. Today, religious charities keep themselves afloat by administering public funds and providing services to the general public. In 2010 only three percent of the funds that flowed through Catholic Charities in the U.S. actually derived from the offering plate. And yet that small percent buys an enormous amount of influence. In a modern medical center it can give the bishops a decisive vote in our most private decisions. The bishops may get to decide whether an old woman exits this world with peace and grace or is forced to wait until God overrides every modern life support system. They may get to decide whether a young mother with a malformed fetus is saddled with a lifetime of heartache or has the opportunity to grieve and start again. They may get to decide whether another young mother lives or dies. That they have such power is wrong. A friend of the Halappanavars, orthopedic surgeon C. R. Prasad, visited Savita in the hospital while she was alive. Now he is speaking out: “This should never happen to another woman. Religion and medicine should never mix.” As one of the many women blessed by an abortion that let me start again, I could not agree more.

Savita Halappanavar’s father described his daughter as a “bold and intelligent woman with big dreams.” Bold, intelligent women with big dreams sometimes change the world. Savita’s chance to do that in her life is gone. Now that chance is held by those who loved her and by the many in Ireland and abroad who continue to wrestle with painful issues raised by her life and death. “Maybe Savita was born to change the laws here,” said Praveen. But maybe she was born to help change laws that kill and bind women everywhere.

An alternative morality universe

By Rachel ~

Oh Lordy, where to begin?

I have to admit I have nothing new under the sun to write about. While my experiences have been quite the roller coaster ride in my own life, in the greater scheme of human experience they're so predictable and common that they're almost boring.

I posted a long time ago on this site a letter I sent to my fundamentalist evangelical father, 'coming out' to him as a non believer. After a period of family peace and mutual respect the dust has been kicked up again.

Here is the background:

There are several preachers and missionaries in my family, but my Uncle has been a fire and brimstone southern baptist preacher for my entire life. It has been at least a decade but I can remember hearing him from time to time, pacing up and down the altar, pounding the bible, hollering about sin and salvation until he was red in the face and his suits would be soaked with sweat. Every Sunday was like a revival, every altar call had folks walking the aisle- the graphic description of hell's eternal torment and god's fury and my sinfulness were enough to make me walk the aisle one more time or pray to be saved again, just in case.

He also performed most of our weddings, and led an annual mission trip to Kenya that my parents participate in, for at least a decade. My family all consider him a spiritual giant, and have listened to his sermons on Cd or online for years. My uncle's family, while the majority have been called to some kind of ministry, suffer very publicly from all kinds of issues ranging from anorexia, mental instability, pornography addiction, abuse issues, and now most recently it has come to light, marital infidelity. They air their struggles to the family in uncomfortable detail, I assume so they can be prayed for, held accountable, and be transparent. It would almost be tempting to feel schadenfreude (see? Christians have no special advantage over non Christians in these areas!) if there weren't real family pain and suffering going on with my loved ones.

This uncle has been a preacher, maybe 30-40 years? He has been married to my sweet aunt for the same amount of time- and recently threw his only career, marriage, respect and admiration of his congregation and family down the toilet this last month for an affair with the church secretary. What is particularly disgusting to me since he has had to step down from his church, and probably will not return to ministry, is the financial burden he has willfully put on his family members. Due to his age and lack of any other skills, he has thrown himself and my aunt on the mercy of family and their children for financial support.

Shocking right? Not really. We've seen many famous and powerful church leaders and other public figures fall from grace in spectacular fashion during our lifetimes. Us non-believers have alternative explanations for this phenomenon, since all of us have or know someone that struggles with marital problems, mental health, bad judgment, etc. but due to an ingredient that is missing in the lives of the fundamentally faithful, humility, the hubris and hypocrisy is magnified exponentially.

Sadly, the realization is lost on Christians. When you think in black and white, when the saved are a privileged brotherhood, and the bible is inerrant, these failures are called spiritual warfare, a successful attack on the righteous by Satan himself. The fact that my uncle was so viciously attacked by the devil himself is evidence of his righteousness. That is why I guess my porn addict preacher cousin (his son) gets sent for romantic vacations with his wife to rekindle their connection when he gets caught indulging himself online. That is why their hapless spouses are obliged to reconcile and forgive.

My family is suffering right now from this deception and disappointment. The offender has been sent to Christian counseling. But rest assured no one has reexamined their faith, or doubted any of the words my uncle shouted from the pulpit all those years. Is it just me, or is it obvious that even the most staunch 'inerrantist' doesn't really believe what the bible says. If my uncle really believed in a real hell, really believed in the wrath of god, would a little sex even be tempting?

The concept of 'grace' is the best thing these people ever thought of. Very convenient little catch all, a get of jail free card. These people are so unaware that the moral relativity that they preach against and are threatened by from us secularists, they freely employ themselves. We see it in politics all the time. Mormonism is a cult, false prophets, evil! But Mitt Romney will lower my taxes, so I don't remember ever saying Mormons weren't 'real' Christians! Abortion is murder! But neither is it right to provide education, health care, food assistance to young single mothers and their babies. Geez, we already saved their souls by making them have the little parasite, for goodness sake!

Now it comes down to my own dilemma. I consider myself a good person. I have strong convictions, and more compassion for others in this world than is sometimes comfortable. I send money to Oxfam, and Red Cross when I can. I work hard and am raising a great daughter. I don't have any enemies that I know of, and great friends. I have no debt and have never been sued. My friends know they can count on me when they're in a jam. Even my ex husband and I are the best of friends, I never cheated on him or betrayed him. But am I a moral person? No, that is not possible. You see, I'm lost. Unregenerate. Unapologetic. The flames of gods wrath are licking at my heels. What is my sin? I'm pregnant. Not 17 and pregnant. 37 and pregnant. Oh, and engaged. And in love, with a wonderful man. Now, THIS is a disappointment that no one can bear. It might even put my grandparents into their grave.

I told my dad recently that I was sure I could be a moral person, in a true sense of the word, and be a non-Christian, and he said 'good luck with that.' I read somewhere the sarcastic comment that a covenant with god is little guarantee of health or happiness, of which we have daily proof. Another quote from Sam Harris is that the link between Christianity and morality is often proclaimed and rarely seen. John Loftus has a chapter discussing the illusion of moral superiority in his book, 'Why I became an Atheist'. He explains how Christians appeal to an objective standard of morality when proclaiming the goodness of god and his commands, and that standard could be called the real god and one that Christians do not have special access to- I think that is irrefutable. But it will be refuted, and continue to be explained away, with the same pathetic obliviousness and irrelevancy that Karl Rove recently displayed on Fox News on election night.

Like so many other tenets of Christianity, special claims to a higher morality die a thousand deaths by qualification and general evidence to the contrary. But they have hope, grace, and promise of redemption, and I guess I don't. You can have it- whatever helps you sleep at night.

Why Faith Requires Closed-mindedness (Or what I learned from the dictionary)

By Carl S ~

Close-minded: “Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others.” This is an accusation believers use against those who challenge or question their beliefs. However, let us note that non-believers have arrived predominantly at their positions from the direction of considering with an open mind, the beliefs they were taught as true in their and other faiths. We might ask if this accusation of them by believers is either due to ignorance about non-believers, fear of condemnation to damnation by their God, or a lion-mother reaction in defense of threatened cubs, i.e., the faith. We might also note that the stronger the faith is, the more close-minded the believers are.

Bias : “A preference or inclination that inhibits impartiality. Prejudice.” the experience of most non- believers, from what I know, is that believers waver between close-mindedness and bias in different degrees, picking and choosing from their dogmas and scriptures whatever they want to.

Hermetic: “Impervious to outside interference or influence.” (This explains a lot.) Faiths, and by this is meant every house of worship and cult, require by necessity close-mindedness, rejection of all opinions to the contrary. We will add the religious TV channels, those propaganda machines driven by the sellers who cater to gullible buyers hanging on their every word as the words of divine authority. The entire programming and audience, comfortable in a mutual, secure, hermetic cocoon of close-mindedness, brings in a huge source of ever-flowing, tax-free, revenue.

Now, we are aware that the faithful think it inappropriate of us, out of a general respect for religion, to question the comfortable bias/close-minded attitudes which they cling to. But we would be remiss to allow them to bully us into submission. No prejudices are harmless when they are acted on to the detriment of others. In order to protect the faith, free expression is denied to those who disagree, who are denigrated, their mere observations dismissed and condemned. These actions are not merely unfair, they are barriers to determining truth from falsehood and what is real and what is not. Now, individual believers of any faith , sect, or cult will say, “Not me.” I am still asking myself this question: are they part of the problem? Isn't even moderately close minded still close-minded, supporting the system? No answer yet on that.

We non-believers are the victims of discrimination, prejudice, denial of rights, whenever a candidate who is supposed to be for all the people isn't, because that person is elected predominantly by people of a faith who are being led by some “authority” who is close-minded. We are victims whenever the close-minded deny rights to gays, women seeking control over their own bodies, marriage equality, and health care, based on their personal or shared unreasonable, unquestioned, historical, biases. Human rights, even those guaranteed in the Constitution, are threatened and outright denied by people whose faith- opinions demand to be respected. (Unchallenged due to “tradition,” no less. Traditions change.)

Nobody wants to be called “close-minded,” but isn't that exactly what faith entails? (Given these dictionary definitions, at this point, it would be interesting to have responses by visiting believers to this site.)

I would like to tell all believers of all faith-systems that it would do them no harm to consider opinions other than the ones they are told to believe, that the world is wonderful and wide open in freedom of expression, to feel free to doubt. Have they been warned to, “Do not go there,” under threats of punishments severe? Do they not realize that this is the method of totalitarian systems, denying personal freedom? Experience has proven to me that they are willing to take that option. I come back to that delicious phrase so recently articulated; “hermetically sealed in.” It says so much in so few words.

Fear, paranoia, irrationality overall, are tremendous impediments to accepting different opinions. And I suspect that the imprisoned, like the former citizens of the Soviet Union, are so used to their environment that it's secure and normal for them. (Surely, if I was raised in a mental institution, abnormal would be “normal” to me.) And this applies to every religious entity.

Is there the possibility, given the nature of humans, their curiosity, their giving way to temptation, experimentation, tempting fate, challenging authority, to become ever more open-minded? (Consider Roman Catholics practicing birth control. And the fact that, when Americans are told they must do something, they rebel.) The faiths here in our country have to compete and adapt to survive. Still, the respect for close-mindedness is perpetuated, to everyone's detriment.

Which is why we should appeal to and, as H.L. Mencken put it, “Hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.” And don't we all fight for those things we love?

Don't Thank Me; Thank ... ?

By Susan G. Bonella ~

Beliefs that lead to positive actions are commendable. “Don’t thank me; thank God” is a common phrase among kindhearted friends. It’s a reflection of their love for their god and the beliefs that keep them going. That the sentence is in the form of a command is a little hard for me to digest and even harder for me to form a response. Perhaps I could respond with “And I thank you for your free-will decision”. Given the general consensus that God doesn’t interfere with free will, making the choice to be thoughtful solely at the believer’s discretion, my response ought not be offensive. Whether or not the giver is trying to prompt me to acknowledge “God”, I recognize that the generosity really comes from the individual, and so I refrain from any discussion of opposing beliefs.

I can’t imagine speaking the command, “Don’t thank me; thank humanity” when giving a generous gift. Not only does it sound pompous, but it would most likely make a religious person form a rebuttal instead of simply receiving the gift with the intended joy. Likewise, if the “Don’t thank me; thank God” command is actually a sort of innocent solicitation for mutual acknowledgement of belief, what are some of your agnostic, naturalist, or other examples of cordial responses? How do you react in these give and take situations with friends and loved ones?

Website: http://sgbonella.wordpress.com

Losing Faith

By Jodi ~

I was born and raised in a conservative christian family. I went to a christian school, was not allowed to listen to rock and roll, and was taught that the rest of the world is doomed to hell and only the "good christians" were going to make it to heaven. And as a young child I believed it. For me losing my faith has been a very long slow process. There was never that "aha" moment that so many others have. I had so many spiritual questions that no one could answer, and I would hear "just have faith", but I couldn't. Questions of science, cruelty and suffering in the world, human sexuality, contradictions in the bible, history of the bible, differing believes in the many christian churches (what made mine right?), and the list goes on.

As the years passed I slowly started to see there is no proof of christianity and/or any other religion. I began to realize that the "evil" world maybe is not so evil, and the "good" christian world maybe isn't so good.

A part of me still considers myself "christian" simply because that is all I have ever known. But if I am honest with myself I have to acknowledge I am Agnostic-and be at peace with that.

When God Was Pro-Choice and Why He Changed His Mind

By Valerie Tarico ~

In the autumn of 1978 the Washington Association of Churches and the Washington State Catholic Conference jointly published a six page pamphlet they called, “Abortion: An Ecumenical Study Document.” Their work offers a fascinating snapshot of Christian thinking at the time and raises some equally fascinating questions about what, exactly, has happened in the last thirty-five years.

The pamphlet does not contain a position statement. Quite the opposite, in fact. From the beginning, the authors explain that such an agreement is impossible:

Clearly there is no Christian position on abortion, for here real values conflict with each other, and Christian persons who seek honestly to be open to God’s call still find themselves disagreeing profoundly.

At the time, five years had passed since the Roe v. Wade decision, and the Church, broadly, was wrestling with ethical and spiritual complexities the decision brought to the surface. The WAC, which existed “to express and strengthen the unity Christians have in Jesus Christ” had asked member denominations to create a study group because strong feelings on the question of abortion were threatening that mission. In the absence of an agreement, the study group articulated a set of shared values and then assembled statements on abortion from member denominations.

Some of the contents would come as little surprise to anyone aware of today’s struggles over abortion ethics and rights. For example, the Catholic Church pronounced that even when pregnancy threatens a mother’s life, abortion “increases the overall tragedy.” Catholicism has wavered over the centuries about when a fetus becomes a person with a soul, but the hierarchy has been consistent in its opposition to abortion after ensoulment, which is now proclaimed to happen at conception. Furthermore, the Catholic hierarchy has long sought to enforce its ethical judgments via civic and criminal codes, and 1978 was no exception: “A legal context in which abortion is presented as a legitimate way of resolving tragic situations creates an atmosphere that reduces respect for the value of life. Ultimately, such an atmosphere dehumanizes the lives of all who live in it.”

What might be surprising is how little the other denominations represented in the 1978 study group agreed with them. Consider the following statements:

• Because Christ calls us to affirm the freedom of persons and the sanctity of life, we recognize that abortion should be a matter of personal decision.
  
  —American Baptist Churches
 
• The ALC recognizes the freedom and responsibility of individuals to make their own choices in light of the best information available to them and their understanding of God’s will for their lives, whether those choices be in regard to family planning or any other life situations.
  
  —American Lutheran Church
 
• The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) believes that the mother has an overwhelming stake in her own pregnancy, and to be forced to give birth to a child against her will is a peculiarly personal violation of her freedom . . . . The fetus is seen as a potential person, but not fully a person in the same developed sense in which the mother is a person with an ability to think, to feel, to make decisions, and choices concerning her own life. . . . That prior right however, carries with it a tremendous responsibility, for human life, even potential human life is valued.
  
  —Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
 
• Abortion should be accepted as an option only where all other possible alternatives will lead to greater destruction of human life and spirit. . . . We support persons who, after prayer and counseling, believe abortion is the least destructive alternative available to them, that they may make their decision openly, honestly, without the suffering imposed by an uncompromising community.
  
  —Church of the Brethren
 
• Christians have a responsibility to limit the size of their families and to practice responsible birth control. . . . .where there is substantial reason to believe that the child would be deformed in mind or body, or where the pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest . . . termination of pregnancy is permissible.
  
  —Episcopal Church
 
• The status of the fetus is the key issue. That status is affected by consideration of the fact that it is the organic beginning of human life. Further, its status is defined by its stage of development, its state of well-being, and its prospects for a meaningful life after its birth.
  
  —Lutheran Church in America
 
• Human life develops on a continuum from conception to birth. At some point it may be regarded as more “personal” and higher in “quality.” At some undesignated time, the value of this life may actually outweigh competing factors; e.g., the vocational and social objectives of the family, etc.
  
  —United Church of Christ
 
• Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable pregnancy. In continuity with past Christian teaching, we recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion.
  
  —United Methodist Church
 
• The artificial or induced termination of pregnancy is a matter of the careful ethical decision of the patient, her physician, and her pastor or other counselor and therefore should not be restricted by law . . .
  
  —United Presbyterian Church
 

Today when we think of Christianity and abortion what comes to mind may be clinic picket lines; or “personhood” zealots who insist that microscopic fertilized eggs merit the same hard-won civil rights as walking, talking, thinking, breathing men and women and children; or even the fanatics who have now murdered eight doctors in the name of life.

The picture of Christianity revealed in the 1978 study document is very different. Mind you, across the board we do see an ancient religious tradition that treats life as sacred and human life as the pinnacle of creation. Outside of Christianity, these are not points of universal agreement. A secularist might treat the loss of early embryonic life with pragmatic acceptance—more than half of fertilized eggs self-abort; human reproduction is a funnel designed so that lots of false starts produce a few healthy adult offspring . Secular ethics and law concern themselves with the wellbeing of persons who can think and feel, who can actually desire life, liberty and happiness. A secularist might work to reduce abortions primarily because they are emotionally, financially or otherwise costly to conscious persons. By contrast, the Protestant voices represented here give pregnancy some of the same sacred weight it is given by their Catholic brethren, and so they find the termination of pregnancy, even in early stages, to be morally complex. Even so, they balance the value of embryonic life against other values they hold sacred:

• Humility: “Philosophical uncertainties lasting over the centuries now appear in the form of disagreements among Christians who yet revere God’s call to life. . . . Our vision and understanding are limited, and Christ calls us to see our differences as a call to larger vision.”
• Freedom: “Very near the center of the Christian life is Christ’s call to freedom, both in the inward form of our lives and our outward social structures.”
• Justice: “Medical intervention should be made available to all who desire and qualify for it, not just to those who can afford preferential treatment.”
• Balance: “Instead of a single guide, we have recognized several guides, each of which speaks with the others and balances the others where they become one-sided. These are scripture, church tradition, reason, [and] personal experience.”
• Compassion: “The tragedies of rape, incest, child abuse, the “unwanted” child, as well as the special difficulties of the poor in dealing with abortion all stand as signs that we have not realized Christ’s call for community. “
• Responsibility: “We confess that we are part of a society that contributes to abortion by denying parents the support and assistance they need.” “The Gospel call to reverence for life challenges us to do all we can to change those situations that make abortion necessary for some people.”

Anyone who has ever found his or her own deeply held values in conflict will recognize the tone of these quotes—the introspection, the reluctance, the struggle with difficult decisions that force us to choose between different kinds of good or different kinds of bad or some messy and uncertain mix of both. It stands in stark contrast to the righteous certitude of today’s culture warriors.

The Protestant denominations involved in the ecumenical study group were mainline traditions that today are considered theologically liberal. Most continue to affirm quietly that abortion decisions are best trusted to a woman and her understanding of God, with spiritual council and community support. It may be more surprising to many people that at the time many biblical literalists similarly saw abortion as a matter of individual decision. Jonathan Dudley, CNN commentator and author of Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics, lays it out:

In 1968, Christianity Today published a special issue on contraception and abortion, encapsulating the consensus among evangelical thinkers at the time. In the leading article, professor Bruce Waltke, of the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth:

“God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: 'If a man kills any human life he will be put to death' (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22–24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense… Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.”

The magazine Christian Life agreed, insisting, “The Bible definitely pinpoints a difference in the value of a fetus and an adult.” And the Southern Baptist Convention passed a 1971 resolution affirming abortion should be legal not only to protect the life of the mother, but to protect her emotional health as well.

The WAC members sought to discern God’s will through a combination of scripture, tradition, reason and experience, but evangelical Christians claim to speak from the authority of the Bible alone, a Reformation principle known as “sola scriptura.” Consequently, one striking feature of their shift on abortion is that biblical authority now must be invoked to support an anti-abortion stance. Rick Warren, whose book, The Purpose Driven Life, cherry-picks from over ten Bible translations to best underscore his points, said in 2008, “The reason I believe life begins at conception is ‘cause the Bible says it.”

Ironically, as theology blogger Fred Clark has pointed out, sometime between 1968 and 2008, biblical literalists became so sure God opposed abortion that they actually changed the language of the Bible to fit their new position on God’s unchanging will. The passage cited by Bruce Waltke was the sticking point because it is the only passage in the Bible that explicitly addresses the legal status of a fetus. In 1977, the New American Standard translation of Exodus 21:22-25 read as follows:

And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is not further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

By 1995, an updated version of the translation had changed the meaning.

If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

The original treats the death of a fetus differently than the death of a person. By changing “so that she has a miscarriage” to “so that she gives birth prematurely” this little barrier to anti-abortion unity was removed. The change, however, is at odds with centuries of church tradition, Jewish interpretations of the same passage, and the clear intent of earlier near Eastern legal codes in which the passage appears to have had its roots.

What has happened? Why are those who so clearly asserted 30 or 40 years ago that the biblical God was pro-choice now even more confident that he wants us to protect fertilized eggs from the time of conception?

As the pattern of history reveals, God changes his mind when we change ours. In this case, God changed his mind for the reasons he typically does: he responded to shifts in human power structures and culture that in their turn were triggered by changes in technology. Much has been written recently about the systematic way in which Republican strategists courted once-diverse Evangelicals, how Falwell and his colleagues worked to bring Evangelical views on conception and abortion into line with those of Catholics in order to form a voting block (here, here, here, here). In short, they effected a theological and cultural shift for political reasons. But those same strategists could not have done what they did without help from the current of history. They were swimming downstream thanks to two waves of technology change and the way those new technologies triggered hard-wired aspects of human psychology.

The first wave was the advent of modern contraception. For the first time since our species emerged, women had relatively reliable control over their fertility. Futurist Sara Robinson describes the cataclysmic effect of the Pill on old cultural agreements:

Far from being a mere 500-year event, we may have to go back to the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire to find something that’s so completely disruptive to the way humans have lived for the entire duration of our remembered history.

Until the condom, the diaphragm, the Pill, the IUD, and all the subsequent variants of hormonal fertility control came along, anatomy really was destiny — and all of the world’s societies were organized around that central fact. . . . Our biology reduced us to a kind of chattel, subject to strictures that owed more to property law than the more rights-based laws that applied to men. . . . . Men, in return, thrived. The ego candy they feasted on by virtue of automatically outranking half the world’s population was only the start of it. They got full economic and social control over our bodies, our labor, our affections, and our futures. They got to make the rules, name the gods we would worship, and dictate the terms we would live under. In most cultures, they had the right to sex on demand within the marriage, and also to break their marriage vows with impunity — a luxury that would get women banished or killed. As long as pregnancy remained the defining fact of our lives, they got to run the whole show. The world was their party, and they had a fabulous time.

Even when the world isn’t their party, humans tend to have a love-hate relationship with change. Family systems therapists talk about patients receiving indirect “change back” messages from husbands or wives or parents who genuinely want them to get well but who also have habituated to the status quo. In the case of modern contraceptives, women had a lot to gain. Men had a lot to lose. The sexual property ethic that Robinson mentions has ugly implications that I laid out in a recent article, “The Bible Says Yes to Legitimate Rape and Rabe Babies.” But dependency also has its privileges, and some retrogressive religious institutions have been able to tap both male and female yearnings for a mythical past in which all was right with the world because women knew their place under men who knew their place under God. The Tea Party, which was largely a rekindling of the old Moral Majority, tapped the same yearnings for a fantasy past, the same anxiety about an uncertain future, and the same anger about privilege lost. Outrage over abortion, now narrated as outrage over the murder of helpless little unborn babies, was a natural fit.

God changes his mind when we change ours.Aid for the “unborn baby” framing came from another technology sector that has become a silent game-changer in the reproductive rights conversation: fetal imaging. Eager prospective parents now watch video screens as ultrasound technicians check the development of internal organs and closure of the neural tube. Little arms and legs appear on the screen, maybe a penis. Maybe even a face. At baby showers the same parents are given colorful books of exquisite photography that trace fetal development and the passage through the birth canal. In 1978, pregnancy was largely a black box. It is no longer.

One hallmark of human information processing is that vision is our dominant sense. When it comes to the status of a fetus, a visual array that looks in the slightest like an infant may have the power to trigger an instinctive person-reaction. In particular, we appear to have a specialized module in our brains that reacts to anything remotely like a human face. The instinct is so hard-wired that human infants preferentially attend to two black dots with a slash underneath. For a rabbit, whether something smells like a baby might be key to activating maternal instincts. A mole might be uninterested unless something feels like a baby mole. But for us, curving white lines comingled with static on a dark screen are sufficient.

When an image or object activates the brain systems that are designed to store and analyze information about other people, we ourselves fill in the gaps. Children lend their voices to spun polyester bears and molded plastic dolls. Facebookers send around captioned pictures of big-eyed cats. None of this requires that the bear or doll or cat actually have any of the attributes of philosophical personhood that would generate the words: consciousness, sentience, the ability to feel pleasure and pain, preferences or intentions, the ability to form attachments, or to value existence. But in the presence of certain kinds of visual input we react as-if they did. We almost can’t help ourselves. Better said, it takes a conscious effort to over-ride impulse and instinct and ask ourselves to differentiate what we see from what we know. The kind of deep, thoughtful wrestling that went into that old 1978 study document requires another level of exertion altogether.

Culture warriors who think they speak for God—the new God, the one who hates abortion in any form at any point in gestation for any reason—are hoping that young American Christians won’t go to the trouble. That is why , even as they keep the focus visual, they carefully avoid images of early abortions, in which the actual tissue removed may look downright boring. They avoid indicating size, since at six weeks, the gestational sac is about the size of a dime. They also avoid images of fetal anomalies, which could remind viewers that occasionally a fetus has no viable path to becoming a person and might even raise questions about whether God guides pregnancy more than any other natural process.

To date this strategy has worked, but technology may be changing the conversation once again. As the evangelical consensus against abortion has grown, the procedure itself has become a shrinking target. With both pregnancy and fetal anomalies diagnosed earlier, more than 60 percent of abortions now are done before the ninth week and 90 percent before the twelfth. A contraceptive revolution is causing a steep drop in abortion rates through better prevention. It is also ramping up the economic justice aspect of the abortion fight, because women who can afford the up-front cost of long acting contraceptives rarely need abortions. As these factors converge, it may become hard to sustain the current level of horror about an “abortion holocaust.” On top of this, women who have terminated pregnancies are using social media to tell their stories and connect with each other, undermining the community advantage once held by churches. The culture warriors may soon find that a new technology nexus has once again changed the cultural dynamic.

What God will think at that point, only heaven knows.

Assertions Are Not Facts

By Rev. Ex-Evangelist ~

We just got through an intense presidential campaign. It's nice that it's over. I will tell you upfront that I supported President Obama's re-election. I know others on this site may have supported Gov. Romney or other candidates. All well and good. I'm not trying to get into any political debates or controversies here. Nevertheless, we all know that The Religious Right has become a powerful and influential force within the modern Republican Party (although I know Republicans who don't like this and wish they would leave).

So, anyway, I said all that to say this: I have a Facebook page and friends who go back to my elementary school days (I'm now 58!). I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee (USA), which is the Buckle of the Bible Belt, as evidenced by the hundreds of fundamentalist churches and five conservative, Christian colleges in the area.

Chattanooga has never been a haven for liberal forms of the christian faith. No sir! People in Chattanooga like their gospel preaching hot, heavy (handed?) and hard. Heaven is for the righteous and a burning, eternal hell awaits the unbelievers! Even the "liberal" churches in Chattanooga are conservative. Heck, even the Unitarians try to get you saved! (Just kidding(;>]), but you get the idea).

My Facebook friends reflect the stages of my own Christian fundamentalist/humanist journey. I became a solid skeptic when I graduated from seminary at age 36. My christian friends on Facebook show by their postings on my Wall that they are fundamentalist in religion and hard-core (paranoid?), right-wing in their politics. (Just as I use to be). And they view their political beliefs as an extension of their rigid, fundamentalist faith. Politics and faith are not compartmentalized; they are all part of the same cloth.

My pre-humanist Facebook friends often post ridiculous things. For instance, they will post that President Obama is a secret Muslim who is going to stealthy replace our American Constitution with Islamic Shariah Law. And then they will turn around and post something which claims he is a "communist," "atheist" and the very Anti-Christ from The Book of Revelation! The fact that one cannot be a fundamentalist Muslim and at the same time be a communist/atheist seems to escape their notice.

So, anyway, I got into a little Facebook debate with one of these fundamentalist, religious-right, political friend's over the budget and the coming "fiscal cliff" concerns we are facing. You know, just typical radical, un-regulated free-market capitalism vs. Keynesian economic theory (government intervention in the market place is a good and desirable thing) debate. We were not into any religious and hot-button social issues: we were strictly debating economics and how best to fix our budget issues. He'd make his arguments and I would counter with my views.

The economic debate came to a screeching halt when he lobbed this grenade of a reply at me:

"Larry, I see no point in continuing a political discussion with you. You believe the lie. You have been blinded. One has to believe in absolute truth. You believe you know the truth, but you instead believe the lie. I believe you got out of the military and went to a state university on the G.I. Bill and were brainwashed by ultra liberal professors. Now you think you are smart and know the truth. It is unfortunate that only 1% of college professors claim to be conservative. Larry, I get my truth from the Bible and the truth from the Bible tells me that people like Obama are dangerous and anti-Christs. . . I pray everyday that his campaign will fail miserably and that blinded people like you will ultimately see the truth about this dangerous man. Larry, time will tell which of us is right. If Obama is re-elected, then we all will get to see the real Obama. I've already seen him and want no part of him or his Marxist plans for our nation. . . It's been nice talking with you. . . my last words: WAKE UP!"

I replied to him with this:

"Thanks for your comments. I leave you with this: assertions are not facts. Write down what you fear will happen in a 2nd Obama term and then at the end of four years see if any of them come true. Fair enough? I bet you will find your concerns are 'much ado about nothing.' Peace."

Ok, I had to laugh at his statement. I know the bible does not endorse any particular modern, economic position; although care for the poor and needy is emphasized. The bible does present the daily realities of agrarian, bronze-age economics of the "biblical" world in which women, slaves, etc. were ok things to barter and trade. And executing people for very minor things, or at least poking out their eyes, was a normal thing to do. The idea that we can deduce from the bible the principles for our modern, global, world economies is a bizarre assumption; but religious fundamentalists claim that it does.

My spiritual blindness had carried over into me now being economically and politically blind as well! And supporting President Obama's re-election proved my utter blindness!In the end, I think what happened was once my friend ran out of proofs for his economic position he dodged the evidence I had presented and made it about how spiritually deceived I had become. In other words: my spiritual blindness had carried over into me now being economically and politically blind as well! And supporting President Obama's re-election proved my utter blindness!

His response was mind-boggling. I use to be exactly like him. Back in my days as an evangelist and christian apologist, I had said similar things to people when I ran out of solid debate ammunition. Back then, I too told people that they couldn't see my truths because they had become blinded by Satan. I would then knock the proverbial dust off my saddles and leave. You know, no need to cast my "pearls" of spiritual or political wisdom before the swine whose hearts are full of darkness!

And back in those days, as I walked away from someone who could not see my divine truths, I would feel extra-holy and smug for the rest of the day knowing that I had been thoroughly "biblical" in how I handled the "deceived" individual. Of course, I would humbly ask "God" to open their spiritual eyes.

I now realize that by focusing on how "deceived" they were, I wasn't allowing myself to consider whether any of their views had merit. No, no, no. I was walking in THE TRUTH and they were walking in ERROR. No need to think anymore about the matter! Even considering that the other person had a point could open me up to "demons of deception" and I knew what that could lead to.

I'm so glad I can think, weigh, evaluate and re-evaluate anything I believe and no longer have to be continually asking myself, "What is the mind of The Lord about this matter?"; "What does the bible say?"

I no longer have to defend some dogma that has no defense or real evidence. Truth is evolving. Now, I simply go where the hard, scientific-based facts led me. I finally learned that all my emotionally-charged, dogmatic, religious assertions that had adsorbed from loud, dramatic preachers did not make something a fact.

I now know that something is not true just because some schizophrenic, goat-herder, two to three-thousand years ago in ancient Palestine thought something was true and wrote it down. I don't have to make his pre-scientific understandings of the world the basis of my modern ethics, politics or decision-making.

What a crazy, alternative universe my friend lives in. What a crazy, out-of-touch with reality world I use to live in. IT'S GREAT BEING FREE!!!

Christianity: A New Type of Myth - Part 5 (Finale)

By Michael Sherlock ~

1. Function of Myth

Gerard Seghers, Christ and the Penitents, 17th century

According to Professor Vandiver’s definition, a myth will often serve one or more of the following functions. In the professor’s words:

“Myths do many things. Among the most obvious functions that they fulfil is; myths often explain, justify, instruct, or warn.” ⁽¹⁾

So, the various functions of myths are categorized as follows:

1. Explanatory Myths
2. Warning Myths
3. Instructive Myths
4. Justification Myths ⁽²⁾

Professor Vandiver sums up these functions, saying:

“Explanatory myths are often called etiological myths. The word etiological comes from the Greek word ‘etion,’ which means ‘cause.’ Explanatory myths may explain why things are as they are, how certain events or entities came into being, why conditions in the world are the way they are….Another function that myths fulfil is to offer a justification for certain rites and social institutions…Myths that provide justification for social rites and institutions are very frequently called, charter myths. Myths may also instruct their audience in how their audience ought, or more frequently, ought not to behave. Myths very frequently instruct through presenting horrible warnings of what is likely to happen to people who transgress the boundaries of proper human behaviour.” ⁽³⁾

Christian Myth as Explanatory

The Christian myth, notwithstanding the first few verses of the Gospel of “John” (see “John” 1:1-5) is not an etiological myth in its own right, yet it was built, both exoterically and later esoterically, upon a portion of the Hebrew etiological myth found in the book of Genesis (see Genesis 2 & 3).

In the book of Genesis, we are told that the human condition, specifically relating to the existence of evil, sin, suffering and death, stems from Adam’s (man’s) “original sin.” The Old Testament does not expressly support the doctrine of original sin, that is, a sin which is universal and inherent, yet a few passages throughout the Old Testament, aside from those in Genesis 3, may be seen as implying it (see Jeremiah. 5:23; 17:9-10; Ezekiel. 36:26 and Isaiah. 29:13). Naturally, the doctrine of original sin implied from the story of the fall of man is an important etiological myth for Christians, as their entire foundation rests upon it.

Jesus, we are told, was born the sinless son of Yahweh, the great savior and redeemer, sent by Yahweh to save and redeem his creation, in the face of a sinful existence, stemming from the initial fall of man, or so we are told! Thus, without the original Hebrew etiological myth found in Genesis, the Christ myth would make no sense. Why would we need a redeemer if we had not fallen? Thus, we are begged to believe that Jesus is the yin to Adam’s yang, and his virgin mother, Mary, the most blessed female (“Luke” 1:28) is the exemplary female, in place of Eve, the first woman to be cursed by Yahweh (Genesis 3:16). In the words of the second century church father, Irenaeus:

“As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve.

Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel.

The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the letter to the Galatians: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made.

He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary.

That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.”⁽⁴⁾

Theologians and church fathers like Irenaeus, have even gone so far as to attempt to tie Jesus directly into a part of the Hebrew’s Genesis myth, claiming that he was mentioned, albeit esoterically, by the author, “Moses,” a matter which carries insurmountable evidentiary problems.

This alleged reference to Christ has been dubbed, ‘The Proto-Evangelium’ and is asserted to apply to the following passage in the book of Genesis:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15

The verse above relates to the talking snake in the magical Garden of Eden that tempted Eve, who in turn, tempted Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, thereby condemning our species to a life of misery and suffering, which Christians believe, Jesus came to redeem us from. So, we have the charter myth of the ‘Fall of Man,’ which serves to explain the presence of suffering, hardship and ultimately human mortality and we have the Christian myth, later tied into that myth as a kind of promise, or ‘get out of jail (mortality) free card,’ attempting to offer hope in the face of this fallen state of affairs. This is one of the ways Christianity has attempted to further entrench itself within the etiological myth of the ancient Hebrews and at the same time, sell its belief-system to a frightened and credulous species.

Myths that Warn

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened….Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Matthew 24:15-22/29

This is just one passage from a multitude within the canonical (official) texts, not to mention the various passages found in the apocryphal (non-official) literature, which forewarn its audience of the terror that awaits our species. I could run through all of the various canonical and non-canonical passages that demonstrate this function of the Christian myth, but I think most people are familiar with the Christian myth of the future Apocalypse and Armageddon. I think it would be more useful to investigate why these myths warn audiences.

What function do such warnings really serve?

Following the Apocalypse, many Christians believe that the final judgement will take place and those who believe in Christ, will be taken up into the clouds, to enjoy an eternal bliss in heaven. How anything eternal could remain blissful forever is beyond me, however, that is not the point to be addressed here. Non-believers, as opposed to believers, won’t be so lucky come the catastrophes that await us. They, according to both scripture and tradition, will be cast into the fiery pits of hell to suffer an eternal torment. Ah! So, if I want to come out of this impending doom in good shape, I should believe in Christ and submit to the Church, his body here on earth. If do not, I will be tortured by the all-loving god Yahweh, for an eternity without parole. I see!

These warnings are a form of mind control, manipulating the audience via two common fears; the fear of the unknown and the fear of death. By employing these fears in conjunction with one another, the creators and administrators of these myths have had a high level of success in not only maintaining their flocks, but gaining new converts, who do not wish to gamble against such certain claims. It comes down to a simple carrot and stick incentive scheme. Join and follow us, believe as we believe and you will live forever in bliss. Refuse to submit to both us and our god, and you will die horribly and suffer an eternity of torment. Thus, the function of the warning in Christianity is to gain and maintain converts, it is that simple. The only problem is that Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and various other religions carry the very same Apocalyptic warning, leaving the open-minded and uncertain thinker, scratching their head and wondering whether or not they should just join them all and cover their bases, or simply pay their manipulation no mind!

Charter Myths: Myths that Justify

The Christian myth contains quite a few charter myths. These charter myths justify ecclesiastic (church) rites and ceremonies, as well as many social institutions as well. The Eucharist is one such ecclesiastic rite, which derives its legitimacy from traditional interpretations of the Christian myth, found in the Gospels.

The Eucharist is a kind of symbolic cannibalism and vampirism, which symbolizes the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Jesus Christ. It acquires its legitimacy from both the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, but in truth it pre-dates even these sources and the Christian religion itself.

One of the most popular religions of the Roman Empire, which preceded Christianity, was a religion known as Mithraism. This religion worshiped a demiurge (divine intercessor/god-man) called Mithras. Mithras was a sun-god ⁽⁵⁾, whose ancient headquarters are buried directly beneath the very location where the Vatican sits today. ⁽⁶⁾ Long before the myth of the Lord’s Supper was invented by the mythographers of the Christian scriptures, this “pagan” religion was already practicing the same exact Eucharistic rite. Participants of this ancient religion believed in the transubstantiation (actual changing of the bread into flesh and wine into real blood) of the bread and wine. Initiates into this religion would eat the body of their earthly incarnated god-man, in the form of bread and drink his blood, symbolised by the sacred wine.⁽⁷⁾

In the Gospel of “John” Jesus is alleged to have said:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
“John” 6:53-55

The Eucharist, or “Lord’s Supper” is also echoed in the earlier Gospels of “Mark,” “Matthew” and “Luke.” (see “Mark” 14:22-25, “Luke” 22:14-22 & “Matthew” 26:26-28). And further supported by Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (see Corinthians 11:23-26).

From these various passages within these ancient texts can be found the justification for the Eucharist as a ceremony, demonstrating how charter myths form the constitution of certain rites and practices within a religion.

The next charter myth contained within the Christian texts worthy of mention is the story of Christ declaring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman (see “Matthew” 19:3-12, “Mark” 10:2-12, for example). This declaration has permeated not only the religion of Christianity, but the laws of western society as well. Such laws we are told and assured by other laws, underscore a legal and political system which is separate from the superstitious reach of the Church. So, how is it that the Church’s laws, which stem from its various charter myths, have become the law, even for those who do not believe in or follow the Christian belief-system?

When I first moved to the ‘bible bashing’ state of Tasmania (a state of Australia) in the 1990’s, homosexuality was still a crime. It was illegal for a man, or a woman, to have sexual relations with another person of the same sex, the punishment for which was imprisonment. It is absurd when we consider that this law was built upon myth. As ridiculous as this situation is, the foundation of most societies’ laws and customs, are built upon myth, to some degree at least. There are still many states in the U.S that do not recognize gay marriage, and other western and Christianised countries still have not been able to surpass the tremendous pressure of this myth-based tradition, to allow consenting adults to formalize their love.

The final charter myth of the Judeo-Christian religion I wish to discuss pertains to the laws prohibiting murder. Thou shalt not kill! Now, this particular law is one of my favourites and helps balance our argument a little, that is to say; some laws and customs derived from ancient myths are useful, but even this one is quite nuanced, not only today, but when it was allegedly first written.

We are told that as soon as Moses returned from the top of Mt. Sinai, he relayed The Ten Commandments to the Israelites, one of which was, do not kill (see Exodus 20:13). This charter myth has been incorporated into the west via Christianity, but is certainly not unique to Judeo-Christian countries. This law’s somewhat flexible and pragmatic application reflects the tenuous nature of its application in the original charter myth of the Hebrews. We find in both the original story and its modern application, many exclusion clauses. Shortly after Moses exhorted “God’s” rule not to kill, he commanded:

Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. Exodus 32:27-28

Just as the case is today, with capital punishment, the laws of self-defence and provocation, military laws, the laws governing police conduct, etc.; the rule against killing is not so much an immutable principle established to preserve the sanctity of life in all circumstances, but rather, a pragmatic one, intended to protect the ruler’s power and his religion, or his ideology (means of control), as the case may be.

Myths that Instruct

Even though many of the instructive aspects of the Christian myth are geared toward persuading people to suspend their rational faculties, switch off their minds and believe without evidence, I thought I might balance this article with a positive instructive myth from the Gospels.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

The author of the Gospel of “Luke,” or their source, constructed a dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, relating to the idea of loving one’s neighbour. According to the somewhat xenophobic Jews at the time, the concept of the ‘neighbour’ was a concept only extended to one’s immediate family, tribe and or nation. “Jesus,” by way of a platonic styled parable, extends the definition of this word ‘neighbour,’ to compassionately include anyone in need. When pressed by a certain Jewish leader, to explain his take on loving one’s neighbour, “Jesus” is said to have replied with the following parable:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend." Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
“Luke” 10:30-37

This is a beautiful instructive parable, teaching the audience, whose ears are more often in attention, at times when promises are made for their own salvation, to help the poor and the needy, to show mercy to those in need and to assist strangers. Of course, there are other beautiful parables and messages in the Gospels, yet unfortunately, they have often been ignored, rationalized, re-interpreted and perverted by power-mongers, to the detriment of their true instructive beauty. Also, we must recognize here that such sentiments and teachings found within the Christian Scriptures are not original to Christianity and in fact, date many centuries before. Nevertheless, this instructive myth is one of my favourites within the corpus of the Christian Canon.

2. Myths and the Supernatural

On this final element in professor Vandiver’s definition of myth, she says:

“Myths, very frequently involve gods and the supernatural. They do not have to involve gods and the supernatural, but they very frequently do.”⁽⁸⁾

Unfortunately, Professor Vandiver hasn’t given us a definition of the term, ‘supernatural,’ possibly because it is a word commonly understood by most people. However, for the sake of prudence, we should begin by defining what exactly the word ‘supernatural’ means, and how such a definition might impact upon our understanding of what a myth is and ultimately, whether or not the Gospels fit the category of myth in this regard.

One online dictionary defines the word supernatural in the following manner:

1. of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
2. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.
3. of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed.
4. of, pertaining to, or attributed to ghosts, goblins, or other unearthly beings; eerie; occult (hidden).(9)

And the Collins World English Dictionary defines it as:

1. Of or relating to things that cannot be explained according to natural laws

2. Characteristic of or caused by or as if by a god; miraculous

3. Of, involving, or ascribed to occult beings

4. Exceeding the ordinary; abnormal⁽¹⁰⁾

I think given most peoples’ familiarity with what we might all agree, constitutes a supernatural event, state, or being, I should draw upon the bolded aspects of the definitions above to give us a working definition for the purpose of this investigation.

The word ‘supernatural’ relates to something above and beyond nature; generally, but not exclusively, related to a ‘god,’ which cannot be explained by natural laws, exceeding the ordinary and is also, miraculous.

If we define the word supernatural this way, we find many supernatural tales in the Gospels.

I think no one, at least no one in their right mind, will see as natural, the impregnation of a virgin by a ghost. Angels visiting people in their sleep, or a star which breaks its regular orbit to travel east to Jerusalem, stopping there for a while, then going on to Bethlehem, to signify the birth of a child who is a god and human hybrid. They might also be hard-pressed to find a natural explanation for this god-son walking on water, or stoping a storm with his words, let alone, instantly turning water into wine, a trick which we might assume, many liquor companies would have seized upon, if natural. The bringing to life a dead person, and many dead people, the death and resurrection of this god-man himself and his ascension into the clouds, etc.. I think it is pretty safe to say that, the stories in the Gospels contain many supernatural tales and even safer to say that, most people reading this article would be familiar with this fact.

What many people may not be familiar with is the fact that many of the supernatural tales from the Gospels are simply re-scripted myths, taken from earlier “pagan” religions. The divine announcement of the savior’s birth was a common motif, attached to the story of Alexander the Great’s birth, Pythagoras and a few others. The virgin-born earthly incarnated god-man, was also fairly common in much earlier Hellenistic myths, along with the death and resurrection of the god-man, first recorded amongst the ancient Egyptian texts regarding Osiris. The bringing of the dead back to life, utilized by the creators of the Hercules myth, a thousand plus years earlier, the healing of the sick, commonly associated with the healing god Asclepius, the turning of water into wine, written into the Osiris-Dionysius myth many centuries before “Jesus Christ,” and on and on it goes, until we are left with virtually nothing original in the supernatural accounts of Christ. In the second volume in the three volume series I have authored, entitled, ‘I Am Christ,’ I list these similarities with primary and ancient sources, along with the leading scholarship in the field of mythology and comparative mythology, to demonstrate the probability that the stories of Christ written in the Gospels are not merely myth, but second-hand myth.

So what do we, or should we make of these plagiarized, miraculous events, which defy the laws of nature and were hidden in obscurity and remoteness, from the majority of people of that day and everyone living today?

I think Thomas Paine put it best, when he said:

All the tales of miracles with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.(11) Thomas Paine

Conclusion

In this series of articles I have attempted to apply one of the best working definitions of myth to the narratives which underscore the Christian religion. In so doing, I have demonstrated that the stories of Jesus Christ are just that, stories, which were set in the remote past and in a remote location and that these remote accounts changed over time. They were and still are, believed by Christians to represent true historical facts, to varying degrees and the tales serve the four primary functions of myth, set out by Professor Vandiver. Finally, they were built upon a supernatural theme and contain many accounts of miraculous and unnatural phenomena. The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from such evidence is that; the Christian religion was built upon myth, propagated by lies and believed by fools.

I would like to leave the reader with a few brief quotes from some of my favorite free-thinkers, pertaining to the mythical nature of Christianity, in order that the reader might draw inspiration from the words of the holiest and most righteous kind of human; the free one!


Robert G. Ingersoll

• If, then, there are mistakes, misconceptions, false theories, ignorant myths and blunders in the Bible, it must have been written by finite beings; that is to say, by ignorant and mistaken men.

• Voltaire approached the mythology of the Jews precisely as he did the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or the mythology of the Chinese or the Iroquois Indians. There is nothing in this world too sacred to be investigated, to be understood. The philosopher does not hide. Secrecy is not the friend of truth. No man should be reverent at the expense of his reason. Nothing should be worshiped until the reason has been convinced that it is worthy of worship. Against all miracles, against all holy superstition, against sacred mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridicule.

John E. Remsburg

• “The Jesus of the New Testament is a supernatural being. He is, like the Christ, a myth. He is the Christ myth.”

• “It was not "according to the Divine purpose" that Jesus was slain at the Passover, but it was according to a human invention that he is declared to have been slain at this time. These attempts to connect the crucifixion with the Passover afford the strongest proof that it is a myth.”

Joseph Wheless

• “It may surprise and maybe grieve many good and zealous Christians to know that all their pious observances, prayers, hymns, baptism, communion at the altar, redemption, salvation, the celebration of Christmas as the birth of their God in mid-winter, and of Easter, his resurrection as spring breaks, all, all, are pagan practices and myths, thousands of years antedating what they fondly think is their wonderful Jesus-religion.”

• The Gentiles believed already in virgin-born gods and in resurrections from the dead: the Myths of Attis, Adonis, Isis, and Tammuz were accepted articles of their Pagan Faiths. Fertile ground for a new Faith with little or nothing new or strange about its beliefs and dogmas. So to the Pagan Gentiles the Propagandists turned, and fortified their propaganda with marvellous tales of venerable "Prophecies" wonderfully fulfilled.

M.M Mangasarian

• The immediate companions of Jesus appear to be, on the other hand, as mythical as he is himself. Who was Matthew? Who was Mark? Who were John, Peter, Judas, and Mary? There is absolutely no evidence that they ever existed. They are not mentioned except in the New Testament books, which, as we shall see, are "supposed" copies of "supposed" originals. If Peter ever went to Rome with a new doctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note of him? If Paul visited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that there is no mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian chronicles? For all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but it is only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty about the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty about Jesus himself.

Gerald Massey

• The Egyptians, who were the authors of the mysteries and mythical representation., did not pervert the meaning by an ignorant literalization of mystical matters, and had no fall of man to encounter in the fallacious Christian sense. Consequently they had no need of a redeemer from the effects of that which had never occurred. They did not rejoice over the death of their suffering saviour because his agony and shame and bloody sweat were falsely supposed to rescue them from the consequences of broken laws; on the contrary, they taught that everyone created his own karma here, and that the past deeds made the future fate.

References

1. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver. Classical Mythology. Lecture 2: What is Myth? The Teaching Company. (2002).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Irenaeus. Against the Heresies. Book 2.
5. Roger Beck. The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun. Oxford University Press. (2006). p. 5.
6. http://www.world-archaeology.com/travel/vatican-cults-christianity-and-the-vatican/ ; http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/roma/romes-underground-treasures-show ; http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Jesus_and_Mithra
7. J.M. Robertson. Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology. Watts and Co. (1911). p. 318; Paul J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary. Harper Collins (1996). p. 723; Guy de la Bedoyere. The Romans for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (2006). p. 159.
8. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver. Classical Mythology. Lecture 2: What is Myth? The Teaching Company. (2002).
9. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supernatural
10. Ibid.
11. Joan Konner. The Atheist’s Bible. Harper Collins. (2009). p. 138.