Friday, February 29, 2008

thought of the day.65

Which is more wicked, Lot offering his virgin daughters to a mob of men to gang rape, or Jesus’ hand picked disciple, Peter, calling Lot “good” and “godly”? Or is teaching our daughters that such a demeaning book is the Word of God even worse?

Gn 19:8, 2P 2:7-9

Thursday, February 28, 2008

thought of the day.64

Peace comes in those moments we stop wanting—wanting to be richer, to be younger, to be somewhere else, or whatever— and just be.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

thought of the day.63

There’s no Master Plan, no Divine Providence, no Destiny, no Fate. Choices and chance determines our lives.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

thought of the day.62

When we’re disappointed by ourselves or others it’s good to remember that we’re merely fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal-hybrids in human’s clothing.

Monday, February 25, 2008

thought of the day.61

Even in its most seemingly benign and productive employment - the inspiring of charity for instance - the belief in God is harmful because it shackles freethought and points the believer down a path of superstition leading to unwarranted guilt and fear.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

thought of the day.60

Long before Hitler, a seed of hatred was planted in the mind of humanity. Planted by the writers of Christian scriptures, it declared that Jews were responsible for the murder of God. In those writings Jesus demonizes unbelieving Jews, calling them “evil,” “serpents,” and children of the “devil.”

Following in Jesus’ footsteps, Paul demonized Elymas, calling him a “child of the devil,” and then blinded him (Acts 13:6-12). During the council of Nicaea—when Christianity was made the official religion of Rome—Jews were referred to as “mad”... “utterly depraved”...“murderers of our Lord.” Early fathers of the Christian church continued the demonizing of Jews inspiring nearly 2,000 years of persecution. Like Jesus, Saint Jerome denounced them as Judaic “serpents.” Saint John Chrysotom said “It is incumbent upon all Christians to hate the Jews.” Saint Fulgentius echos the violent words of Jesus by saying Jews who die outside the Catholic Church, will “go into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Pope Pius IX saw Jews as "dogs who bark in the street." In a precursor of Nazi Germany, Pope Innocent III summoned The Fourth Council of the Lateran which stripped Jews of their civil rights and compelled them to wear a special mark to identify themselves in public. And leader of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, called Jews “desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish” and said “We ought to take revenge … and kill them.”

The long history of demonizing Jews begun by Jesus led to Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Hitler said “the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” and exterminated some six million people while believing he was “acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator” and was “fighting for the work of the Lord.” Hitler is rightly condemned for the Nazi holocaust, yet Jesus promises an eternal holocaust which will torture countless more men, women and children forever and always and is praised.

Calling Jesus, “The Prince of Peace” is like calling Hitler, “The Lord of Love”.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

thought of the day.59

Considering all of humanity as One and each of our 6 billion plus individuals as unique personalities of the One offers a powerful unifying perspective that makes war suicide.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Thursday, February 21, 2008

thought of the day.57

Test of Faith. Deuteronomy

God says a man may take a girl to be his wife
A. if he wins her heart with love and affection
B. after killing her family and friends and taking her prisoner

A virgin who is raped
A. is to be prayed for and the rapist to be imprisoned
B. must marry her rapist and never get divorced

A husband encouraged to worship a different deity by his wife is to
A. share the Good News with her
B. Kill her!

Dt 21:10-14, 22:28-29, 13:6-10

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

thought of the day.56

The Jesus character has many faces. There’s Kind-Jesus. Confusing-Jesus. Destroyer-of-life Jesus. Damn-you-to-hell- Jesus. Shepherd-of-sheep-Jesus. Miracle-worker-Jesus, and so on. Let’s look at Jerk-Jesus.

Matthew 15:21-28 (NIV)

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

This is not a God of Love but simply a product of the male dominated, bigoted culture in which this Jesus character was fashioned. To ignore a mother distraught over the suffering of her little girl is beyond arrogant, it’s incredibly cruel. To dehumanize a mother and child by likening them to dogs is wicked.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

thought of the day.55

One of the many ethically disturbing stories in the New Testament concerns a hungry Jesus going in search of figs to eat.

Matthew’s account has Jesus cursing a tree which the disciples see whither immediately while Mark’s account has the disciples learning of the tree’s death the following day. These contradicting stories alone would cause the witness’ testimony to be thrown out in a court of law, but my focus here is on the unethical and absurd aspects of the story. To simplify, we’ll just look at the story found in Matthew. (Mt 21:18-22)

“Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.

When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked.

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

Problem 1: “Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves.”
Even common people knew that it was not fig season. Jesus shows his ignorance by bothering to go up to it and examine it. If he was an all-knowing God he would have already known the tree was figless.

Problem 2: “Then he said to it, ‘May you never bear fruit again!’ Immediately the tree withered.”
Is it reasonable to kill something because it fails to meet one’s expectations? This is the behavior one might expect from a spoiled child not a reasonable man and certainly not from a supposed God. By killing the tree he destroyed an entire ecosystem that lived within its roots, branches and leaves. What of the small animals and birds that relied on it for shelter and food? What of the humans that did the same? Why curse and destroy rather than bless and make fruitful? Any reasonable person with such powers would have used them to nourish and enhance life not destroy it.

Problem 3: “When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. ‘How did the fig tree wither so quickly?’ they asked.”
This makes no sense. According to the bible his disciples had heard Jesus tell a man he would find tax money in the mouth of the first fish he caught. They had watched him feed 4,000 people with only a few fish and loaves of bread. They had seen him make the lame walk and the blind see. Instead of being “amazed” at the death of a tree cursed by their Miracle Worker they should have expected it.

Problem 4: “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. ”
No tree-hugger was Jesus who tells believers that they they too can destroy fig trees just like him! Jesus then makes the absurd claim that his followers can command mountains to throw themselves in the sea. Believers might argue that this must be understood as figurative speech. But why? If the destroying of the fig tree was a literal event and Jesus said believers could literally do the same why switch to speaking figuratively in mid sentence? More nonsense.

Problem 5: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Every honest person will readily admit that this simply isn’t true. Not only will believers not get “whatever” they ask for, they seldom get anything, and what may appear to be answered prayers can always be explained as coincidence.

In conclusion, the cursing of the fig tree shows Jesus to be more a dolt than deity, more an irrational child than man of reason, and more a spewer of hot air and absurd promises than sage.

Monday, February 18, 2008

thought of the day.54

Prior to Genesis Babylonians had their own account of creation called “Enuma Elish,” which tells of the god Marduk forming man out of clay.

Before hymns were written to the biblical god they were written to the Egyptian god Ra: “Thou art the one god who came into being at the beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth. Thou didst fashion man, thou didst make the watery abyss of the sky, thou didst form the Nile, thou didst create the great deep, and thou dost give life to all that therein.”

The story of Noah and the Flood was borrowed from The “Epic of Gilgamesh.”

The story of the birth and rise to power of Moses was borrowed from The legend of “Sargon of Agade.”

Before the biblical god gave his laws to Moses, Shamash, the god of Babylonia gave his laws to Hammurabi and before either Moses or Hammurabi received their laws, the Sumerian King Ur-Nammu was given laws from the sky god An and the wind/storm god Enlil.

Much of the wisdom teachings or proverbs found in the Bible were drawn from an Egyptian collection by Amen-em-ope and the infamous admonishments to use a “rod” to strike children were taken from the Wisdom of Ahikar, a 7th century B.C.E. Assyrian folk tale.

Being born of a virgin was a common theme in pre-Christian religions as were the ideas of divine births in a stable or cave. Jesus was not the first to have his birth heralded by a star, attended by shepherds or be visited by gift-bearing magi. December 25th (an approximation of the Winter Solstice) was celebrated as the birthdate of other gods before the Church essentially stole the holiday from the pagans, making it Jesus’ birthday. Easter (an approximation of the Vernal Equinox) is also of pagan origin and was the time of year that the death and resurrection of pre-Christian Gods were celebrated.

Other saviors had 12 disciples (for the 12 zodiac signs) before Jesus did.

Before Jesus turned water into wine, Dionysus did it. Others were said to teach spiritual truths, walk on water, control the wind and rain, foretell the future, cast out demons, heal the blind and lame and raise the dead before Jesus supposedly worked these same miracles.

The Good Shepherd, the Word, the Light of the World, Son of Man, Son of God, God made flesh, the True Vine, and the Savior of the World described other deities before being attributed to Jesus.

The Dove, Fish and Lamb were symbols for pagan gods before becoming symbols for Jesus.

The taking away of sins, Holy Spirit, Trinity, descent into hell and return to life after three days, baptism and being born again were all pre-Christian concepts.

Speaking in tongues and eating the body and drinking the blood of a god (eucharist or holy communion) preceded Christianity.

Before Jesus' lifeless body was wrapped in linen and anointed with myrrh and aloe, Osiris’ was.

Myths that promised the return of a god in the last days and his subsequent reign of a thousand years circulated for centuries before such a story was written for Jesus.

The story of Jesus driving demons from a man into a herd of 2,000 pigs who rush over a cliff and drown seems to have been drawn from accounts of initiates in Eleusis, (numbering about 2,000) who would bathe in the sea with a pig to which their sins would be transferred upon which the pigs were chased over a chasm and killed.

The story of Jesus (Jn 21:11) performing a miracle enabling Simon Peter to catch exactly 153 fish seems to have come from Pythagoras who considered 153 a sacred number. The ratio of 153 to 265 was referred to by the Pagan Archimedes as "the measure of the fish." That ratio is used to generate a fish-like shape using two circles. The sign of the fish was used by the early Christians as their main symbol.

In Euripides’ play, The Bacchae, Dionysus is described as bringing a new religion to the people, being plotted against by the leaders, being arrested and appearing before the political ruler. Long before Jesus is made to utter nearly identical words, Dionysus said to his captors “You know not what you are doing...”

In fact, the story of Jesus consists of material borrowed from other myths to such an extent that J.M. Robertson writes, "There is not a conception associated with Christ that is not common to some or all of the Savior cults of antiquity.”

Not a single historian alive at the time that Jesus is said to have lived records his existence. In his work, On The True Doctrine, c 178 AD, Celsus writes,“Clearly the Christians have used ... myths ... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth'...It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction."

Jesus, as conveyed in the bible, is simply a myth built upon myths.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

thought of the day.53

Fearing so much and knowing so little, early mankind sought explanations for the behavior of nature. They imagined a world of supernatural beings that regulated the courses of the stars, controlled the wind and lightning, earthquakes, volcanos, and floods. By befriending these beings and seeking their favor through sacrificial ritual, mankind gained the delusion of control over his surroundings. But with the new sense of control came a new set of fears—the fear of the gods themselves.

Opportunistic people gained power by claiming to speak for the gods giving rise to the priesthood and the idea of divine revelation which gave rise to religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. No longer demanding blood sacrifices these belief systems now demand the sacrifice of free thought, divide us into the saved and damned, induce unwarranted guilt and instill yet more fear by promising grotesque tortures for the unbeliever.

Understanding why we invented the gods empowers us to let go of the toxic Abrahamic idea of God and evolve a spirituality free of fear, guilt and divisiveness.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

thought of the day.52

Christians speak reverently of Jesus’ great “sacrifice.” But to go from wandering dusty roads while being hounded by illiterate, diseased and demon possessed people who had yet to invent indoor plumbing to sitting comfortably on a throne at the right hand of God while being attended to by angels in a heavenly city boasting streets of gold and buildings of jewels was not a sacrifice but the career move of all time.

Friday, February 15, 2008

thought of the day.51

Christians say “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” but real understanding—real wisdom—begins in the absence of fear, the absence of emotion that clouds critical thinking.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

thought of the day.50

The efficacy of prayer is succinctly captured in former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ comment, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

thought of the day.49

Though our animal might may give us the “right” to rule over the less mighty, that which makes us human—our intellect, our sense of compassion—dictates that we don’t. Unfortunately, we’re still early in the process of becoming fully human—fully humane—and hence all the needless suffering.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

thought of the day.48

Jesus says to “fear God” who can throw you “into hell.”

But Real Love casts out fear. Real Love is the antithesis of fear.

Lk 12:4-5

Monday, February 11, 2008

thought of the day.47

Perhaps the greatest chance to reduce suffering would be to transition from the inherently divisive religions of today to ones based on scientific fact fused with poetry and compassion.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

thought of the day.46

That Jesus promises atrocities that make Auschwitz seem like a picnic in the park and is praised is an example of how Christianity poisons our sense of justice, our sense of goodness.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

thought of the day.45

It’s a bit disconcerting that our most cherished things—things such as justice, mercy, love, freedom, beauty, truth, peace, and I would add God, are mere ideas or feelings that don’t exist outside our minds.

Friday, February 8, 2008

thought of the day.44

God isn’t spirit nor being nor ground of all being. God is an idea.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

thought of the day.43

The desire for power over others is the root of all evil.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

thought of the day.42

Dostoevsky’s sentiment that “If God does not exist, everything is permitted” suggests believers refrain from wickedness only out of fear of divine wrath but true morality is doing right regardless of a God.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

thought of the day.41

The God who acts as a placeholder for what we don’t yet comprehend will always get smaller and smaller.

But reality-understood through science-grows ever more awesome.

Monday, February 4, 2008

thought of the day.40

War is evil. Sometimes necessary but always evil.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

thought of the day.39

The words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance excludes unbelievers making the phrase “justice for all” ring hollow.

These word violate the First Amendment, are divisive, unjust, and un-American.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

thought of the day.38

Where there is substance, ornament is unnecessary.
Hence the Pope’s hat.

Friday, February 1, 2008

thought of the day.37

True love—like happiness—is a choice. It wants the very best for another, whether family, friend, or stranger.