By Carl S ~
Every book of scriptures should have on its cover the words "DISCLAIMER: None of the events described within have been authenticated to be true." If the publishers are honest, we expect this. Since they are not, they prefix the books with the words, "sacred or "holy," as if no explanation is necessary. Any other publishers will categorize their publications: novels, fiction, history, psychology, fantasy, science, et al. (The Catholic books would require the words "nihil obstat," meaning, "free from doctrinal error,” up front. But what does that tell you, except that what's contained in them conforms with its propaganda?) Only religious scriptures tell you that to believe what you read in them requires no evidence. The fact that a book begins with the words, "In the beginning, God," is an obvious tip-off that whatever follows is also fabricated.
From this point on, I shall be uncomfortably honest with you, in contrast to the comfortable dishonesty of faiths. If you're not ready for this, stop reading now.
When I read a book that tells me I should believe everything in it because it says whatever’s in it is true, I have one response. As a judge said, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining." You may tell this to an unsuspecting child who still lives in a fantasy world alongside the real one he or she is discovering, and is comfortable with mixing them together. Not me. "Holy" and "supernatural" are proven words used to lure unsuspecting victims into traps. And, as any predator knows, the younger the prey, the more it is likely to take the bait - and, the younger IS the tastiest. And don't the baiters go after the youngest!
Let's get rid of the words "holy" and "sacred" in our public discourse. We've already started using "awesome, unreal, and surreal" as substitutes. But "holy" and sacred have too much baggage attached to them. In a democracy with free speech, why are we the people supposed to respectfully shut up, listen, and not question what a speaker or institution blurts out, just because it's in the context of "holy?" Ridiculous. Let's dump respectful titles for clergy. Do the titles "reverend, most reverend, holy father, his excellency, etc., have any place in a democracy? We no longer use the terms, "your majesty" or "my lord," nor "sire" any more. What exempts clerics, especially when we know just how corrupt and immoral they can be?
Popularly, "holy" pursuits can be such things as civil rights issues, when in fact, they are humanistic. (No scriptures recognize civil human rights.) There are still holy wars, holy beheadings, holy honor killings, holy bombings of abortion clinics, and religious/political crusades to deny women’s access to essential health services by eliminating funding for them.
Like a sacred Humpty Dumpty, all the theologies of the world fell off the wall a long time ago. All religious apologists are stumbling over differences of interpretations of bible-babble, trying to put all the pieces together again. Like the hero of the movie, "El Cid," the dead god has been tied, by those who profit from him, to his horse in order to lead his people to victory. The followers haven't noticed he's dead.
What is "sacred" about democracy's tax-exempt privileged houses of worship, since free speech is forbidden in them? Why, mentioning the true age of the earth, or any evidence contradicting a scripture - in fact, any free thought at all - elicits a response as if you threw a bomb into the church! The "sacred" is "scared." I think even too scared to talk about hell, which is telling, since it's been religion's meat for centuries. And why should anyone respect clerics, who refuse to shake hands with inconvenient truths, while they will bear-hug all lies which support their prejudices?
"Holy" men, with their "sacred" truths, are shoving their enlarged adult penises into the small body openings of innocent children. I remember how those children were taught to sing, "Holy God, we praise thy name; we bow before thee." Who were they bowing before as they were raped? Not only have the perpetrators' superiors covered and lied for them, they have even been proven to reward them. The "holy father," publically all smiles, looks away.
Fighting over possession of the "Holy Land" has caused untold suffering and thousands of deaths, for millennia. The Middle East is still in turmoil over "holy places." (Every December, thousands sing of "peace on earth," and guess where on earth there is never peace at the time?) Political and judicial battles are being fought over the right to, or not to, use Native American "sacred" grounds, when, if you consider it, all America was taken from them, so ALL the land is thereby "sacred."
What do the Holy Land, sacred lands, "God's country,” have to do with our common sharing of this globe? Let's be honest: those lands have been seized, bitten off, taken from others. (According to their scriptures, out of the entire world available to the Israelites, the "promised land" was taken by slaughtering their neighbors!) Religious exemption labels keep us at odds with one another. Let's be honest. We are apes and, in common with all observable species (including our pets), are territorial. We have our own spaces, which we choose to share in varying degrees, with others. Our territories may be nations, our houses, interiors of churches, bedrooms, dens, even abandoned buses, cardboard boxes in back alleys or under bridges. All of them their occupiers may consider to be "sacrosanct." Territories are natural to us.
Religions are divided. Faithful fundamentalists are sticking to what they believe in, evidence be damned. The liberal religious are opening to humanism, imitating humanism. They'll tell you that," It's always been about caring about each other. This is what the New Testament is really all about." Bullshit. Then what were killings of all those heretics about, the serfdoms, and the burning of women as witches? Humanism doesn't require you to believe and act against your conscience, and has never frightened people with hellfire threats. Holy reps with their holy texts are still causing misery and denials of human rights everywhere they can. Liberal believers are, by association, part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Now, though popular parlance still uses "holy, sacred, supernatural," language as explanations for claims of out of the ordinary experiences which have today material explanations, those words are likewise used to claim endowed access to morality. To those who claim such "access", who say, "You can't be good without God," I say, along with millions like me, "Oh yeah? Watch me." I have no illusions about the damages words can cause; I am aware continually, as an adult who knows from experience how bait is laid out to entrap in religions webs. Those "holy, supernatural, sacred," adjectives describe the ornate clothing covering the naked emperor.
From this point on, I shall be uncomfortably honest with you, in contrast to the comfortable dishonesty of faiths. If you're not ready for this, stop reading now.
When I read a book that tells me I should believe everything in it because it says whatever’s in it is true, I have one response. As a judge said, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining." You may tell this to an unsuspecting child who still lives in a fantasy world alongside the real one he or she is discovering, and is comfortable with mixing them together. Not me. "Holy" and "supernatural" are proven words used to lure unsuspecting victims into traps. And, as any predator knows, the younger the prey, the more it is likely to take the bait - and, the younger IS the tastiest. And don't the baiters go after the youngest!
Let's get rid of the words "holy" and "sacred" in our public discourse. We've already started using "awesome, unreal, and surreal" as substitutes. But "holy" and sacred have too much baggage attached to them. In a democracy with free speech, why are we the people supposed to respectfully shut up, listen, and not question what a speaker or institution blurts out, just because it's in the context of "holy?" Ridiculous. Let's dump respectful titles for clergy. Do the titles "reverend, most reverend, holy father, his excellency, etc., have any place in a democracy? We no longer use the terms, "your majesty" or "my lord," nor "sire" any more. What exempts clerics, especially when we know just how corrupt and immoral they can be?
Popularly, "holy" pursuits can be such things as civil rights issues, when in fact, they are humanistic. (No scriptures recognize civil human rights.) There are still holy wars, holy beheadings, holy honor killings, holy bombings of abortion clinics, and religious/political crusades to deny women’s access to essential health services by eliminating funding for them.
Like a sacred Humpty Dumpty, all the theologies of the world fell off the wall a long time ago. All religious apologists are stumbling over differences of interpretations of bible-babble, trying to put all the pieces together again. Like the hero of the movie, "El Cid," the dead god has been tied, by those who profit from him, to his horse in order to lead his people to victory. The followers haven't noticed he's dead.
What is "sacred" about democracy's tax-exempt privileged houses of worship, since free speech is forbidden in them? Why, mentioning the true age of the earth, or any evidence contradicting a scripture - in fact, any free thought at all - elicits a response as if you threw a bomb into the church! The "sacred" is "scared." I think even too scared to talk about hell, which is telling, since it's been religion's meat for centuries. And why should anyone respect clerics, who refuse to shake hands with inconvenient truths, while they will bear-hug all lies which support their prejudices?
"Holy" men, with their "sacred" truths, are shoving their enlarged adult penises into the small body openings of innocent children. I remember how those children were taught to sing, "Holy God, we praise thy name; we bow before thee." Who were they bowing before as they were raped? Not only have the perpetrators' superiors covered and lied for them, they have even been proven to reward them. The "holy father," publically all smiles, looks away.
Fighting over possession of the "Holy Land" has caused untold suffering and thousands of deaths, for millennia. The Middle East is still in turmoil over "holy places." (Every December, thousands sing of "peace on earth," and guess where on earth there is never peace at the time?) Political and judicial battles are being fought over the right to, or not to, use Native American "sacred" grounds, when, if you consider it, all America was taken from them, so ALL the land is thereby "sacred."
What do the Holy Land, sacred lands, "God's country,” have to do with our common sharing of this globe? Let's be honest: those lands have been seized, bitten off, taken from others. (According to their scriptures, out of the entire world available to the Israelites, the "promised land" was taken by slaughtering their neighbors!) Religious exemption labels keep us at odds with one another. Let's be honest. We are apes and, in common with all observable species (including our pets), are territorial. We have our own spaces, which we choose to share in varying degrees, with others. Our territories may be nations, our houses, interiors of churches, bedrooms, dens, even abandoned buses, cardboard boxes in back alleys or under bridges. All of them their occupiers may consider to be "sacrosanct." Territories are natural to us.
Religions are divided. Faithful fundamentalists are sticking to what they believe in, evidence be damned. The liberal religious are opening to humanism, imitating humanism. They'll tell you that," It's always been about caring about each other. This is what the New Testament is really all about." Bullshit. Then what were killings of all those heretics about, the serfdoms, and the burning of women as witches? Humanism doesn't require you to believe and act against your conscience, and has never frightened people with hellfire threats. Holy reps with their holy texts are still causing misery and denials of human rights everywhere they can. Liberal believers are, by association, part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Now, though popular parlance still uses "holy, sacred, supernatural," language as explanations for claims of out of the ordinary experiences which have today material explanations, those words are likewise used to claim endowed access to morality. To those who claim such "access", who say, "You can't be good without God," I say, along with millions like me, "Oh yeah? Watch me." I have no illusions about the damages words can cause; I am aware continually, as an adult who knows from experience how bait is laid out to entrap in religions webs. Those "holy, supernatural, sacred," adjectives describe the ornate clothing covering the naked emperor.
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