By Karen Garst ~ A few years ago at a secular conference, I met the author Richard Carrier who wrote On the Historicity of Jesus . He introduced himse lf as one of seven people who did not believe Jesus was a real person. I was curious and I ended up reading his very lengthy and thorough analysis of the question. Some of those seven include David Fitzgerald ( Nailed: Then Christian Myths that Show Jesus Never Existed at All ) and Robert Price ( The Case Against the Case for Christ ). First, i t is important to remember that any story that gets embedded in a culture started out as an oral one. L iteracy was very limited in the distant past. These oral stories got handed down over and over again. It’s a bit like the game where you say a phrase to the first person in line and then they repeat it to the next person . If you have ever played this game, you know how distorted the initial saying can become. The first stories about Jesus did not get written down until at least ...

By Karen Garst ~ K aren Armstrong is a well-known and respected historical author regarding the Bible and early Christian traditions. I find her work easy to read and quite fascinating. I am going to bui ld this essay on one of the more striking points in her analysis – the doctrine of original sin and St. Augustine ’s role in it contained in her book The Bible . One could say that there would be no Christianity without the prophet Jesus, whether he was a real person (most would say probably) or mostly myth ( his character shows a lot of similarity to other mythical persons ) . Assuming Jesus was a real person, e arly Christianity could still have died out as man y other mystery religions did. However, t here were key people that made a significant contribution to the continuation of Christianity and the form we see it in today. Obviously , the role of Constantine in decriminalizing Christian ity in the Roman Empire in 313 (The Edit of Milan) was crucial. However, Constanti...

By Ann Wilcox (Submitted by Karen Garst) ~ O ne evening I was at dinner with my philosophy discussion group. The talk turned to politics and current events, and the man next to me began to complain that his wife was a “one-issue voter”. “She just votes for the candidate that’s pro-choice, without thinking about their position on anything else,” he said. I could feel my ire rising, but I couldn’t figure out why his words bothered me so much. I care about the economy. I care about education. I care about global warming, and a host of other issues. But I side with that man’s wife. Why? I can argue all day long about how women’s (and men’s) lives are changed by having children, especially unwillingly: changes for their families, their careers, their health, their futures, their finances etc., and all of those things matter, deeply. But when it comes down to it, no issue is bigger to me than my right to chose my own beliefs and act on my conscience. No one else has the right to ...

By Karen Garst, PhD ~ C lay figurines from 50,000 years ago may be our earliest example of the human understanding of the importance of childbearing. If the clan or tribe didn’t reproduce itself, it would not survive. Most of these clay figurines are of women. The ones with large bellies or breasts might have been made to resemble pregnant or breastfeeding women. How they were used in the life of the tribe will never be fully known, but it is not far-fetched to say they in some way show the awe and mystery about human life. Fast forward to 10,000 years ago to the development of agriculture. Fertility of the earth becomes as important of the fertility of the tribe. If the crops don’t grow, people die. Similar female figurines continue to be found in the earliest settlements where agriculture was practiced. Eventually, a pantheon of gods becomes the norm and it is usual the female deity that assume the role of fertility. The Greek goddess Demeter is known as the grain goddess f...

By Karen Garst, PhD ~ H ad I been a more adventurous young woman or born at a later time, I am sure that I would have pursued biology as my field of study. I remember learning about evolution in my ninth grade science class in the 60s. I was hooked. I wrote a paper about early man – Australopithecus erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, etc. that I held on to into late adulthood. As I was still a practicing Lutheran at the time, I rationalized that god probably breathed the substance of life into Neanderthal or maybe Cro Magnon. To this day, my husband and I watch many documentaries about the rise of mankind and I enjoy them thoroughly. Abby Hafer followed up on her passion for biology and became a university professor. She is also an atheist and writes an intriguing (and quite humorous) essay for my new anthology – Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith – and for Freedom . I don’t want to reveal too much about what she wrote but the first section completely dispels the belief t...

Submitted to ExC by Karen Garst ~ W hen I was growing up in a religious cult, I never thought for one moment to question whether god was a man. After all, in our house, my father reigned supreme as his god had intended all males to do. My mom, however, was a rather stubborn woman according to him. It was often necessary for him to subdue her. She didn’t always comply to his wishes and that caused a great deal of religious tension in the household in addition to all the other angst and terror that a holy god brings to a family controlled by an iron fist. Once, my mom became so angry that she bit my dad’s nose. They were having one of their rows over scripture and how much in submission a woman needed to be in order to please her husband, I mean god. My dad was a bit of a philanderer, but he blamed that on my mom, too. After all, if she’d only been a better wife, more compliant and supportive to him as head of house, he might not have been driven to seek solace and companionship e...