Freedom From Religion in the Year 2006 of the Common Era
 

April 24 2006
Counterbias.com
MEL SEESHOLTZ
 

When I opened my mailbox the other day, along with the rest of the junk mail was a DVD. I figured it was from some company hawking its wares. It was…

(Click on image to see larger size)

Seeing the “The Story of Jesus for Children” sticker immediately brought to mind Richard Dawkins’ article and BBC series about how biblical edicts and Christian dogma are forms of child abuse.

The DVD mailing was sponsored and funded by

Local news reports said 50,000 copies of the DVD had been sent by local churches to residents of the area, without any regard for those residents’ religious or spiritual beliefs of course.

The DVD depicted the usual “miracles” and had the usual ending, although the latter lacked the exceedingly graphic, glorified sadomasochism – a pathology Freud ascribed to sexual repression – of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” a film the Christian Right loved and lauded despite their constant yammering about violence and sex in the media. (Traditional Values Coalition’s executive director Andrea Lafferty got her knickers in a twist about alleged sadomasochism in some Victoria’s Secret displays.)

Freud was right, in several ways.

“Sexual repression” does indeed define the Christian Right’s perspective and actions, especially when it comes to their advocacy of “ex-gay” therapies which the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Social Workers have all condemned as “unethical,” “ineffective,” “counterproductive,” and “dangerous.”

Acknowledging and accepting one’s homosexuality are major steps toward mental health and living an honest life of self-respect. Denying one’s sexual orientation leads to a disingenuous life of repression, witness the executive director of Love in Action, a faith-based organization offering “ex-gay” therapies: “Rev. John Smid… is married to a woman and claims to have left behind ‘the homosexual lifestyle,’ if not same-sex attractions” [italics added].

Love in Action claimed its “treatments” should be exempt from state licensing laws because they’re based on faith, the “religious freedom” argument: “‘It’s repugnant for a faith based institution, Christian ministry, to come under the regulation of the state,’ [said Love in Action’s] attorney Nathan Kellum.”

The umbrella organization for “ex-gay” therapies is NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. Their goal is to “teach” gay people to suppress their feelings and live a fraudulent life of repression. Managing editor of WashingtonBlade.com Kevin Neff said it well: “there is no such thing as ‘ex-gay.’ There is ‘repress-my-innate-immutable-characteristics-and-deny-their-existence,’ but no such condition as ‘ex-gay.’”

Psychological trauma and scenes of physical pain and suffering, gory torture and mutilation are primary in Christian iconography, as well as a “divine” masochistic “blessing” in the flesh. Stigmata: the “spontaneous manifestation of bloody wounds on a person’s hands, feet, forehead and back – similar to the wounds of the crucified Jesus. Those who describe stigmata categorize these experiences as divine or mystical. History tells us that many ecstatic bear on hands, feet, side, or brow the marks of the Passion of Christ with corresponding and intense sufferings. These are called visible stigmata. Others only have the sufferings, without any outward marks, and these phenomena are called invisible stigmata.”

Problem is, when Yeshua was crucified – as all other people the Romans executed that way – the spikes were not driven into the palms of his hands, but through a small block of wood placed about 2-3 inches below the wrists. Yet stigmatics bleed from the middle of their palms in accord with the false icons and imagery created by the same obsessed fanatics whose bloodlust, pathological dogma perverted “Christianity” and led to the Dark Ages and the Inquisition.

Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, accurately noted that “St Paul’s nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin” is, essentially, psychological and emotional child abuse: “Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods. . . . It’s time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation.” Many also pay a physical price as the Right Reverend John Shelby Spong noted in relation to circumcision:

Mutilating the baby instead of teaching each child the arts of good hygiene is bad practice, bad ethics, bad theology and a bad idea. I do not understand how any religious system could ever endorse that. Female circumcision – I prefer to call it “female genital mutilation” – is still practiced in parts of Christian Africa. It too is said to have health benefits. I think not. Both of these practices represent control tactics and guilt laden castration rites born out of the superstition and ignorance of the past. I regard circumcision in both sexes as a barbaric act with no redeeming features. I find it almost laughable that the same religious voices that oppose the use of condoms would now support circumcision as a health practice. [italics and links added]

There’s something intrinsically, inherently wrong with a religion that views the human body as sinful and condones its mutilation. There’s something intrinsically, inherently wrong with a religion that turns the expression of human love through most forms of sexuality into sins. There’s something intrinsically, inherently wrong with a religion whose fundamental image is of torture, gore, and murder. The imagery of Christianity is as graphic and violent as anything Wes Craven or Clive Barker conjured. The visceral reaction and abject horror portrayed by Joe Morton in the 1984 film Brother From Another Planet made that clear when he saw for the first time the crucifix: a tortured, bloody, dead man hanging from an instrument of execution.

(“from Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ.’)

There’s something intrinsically, inherently wrong with a religion whose “God” demands the bloody, grisly, murder of “His Son.” But then again, that same “God” did command Abraham to sacrificially murder his own son, for “Him,” but settled for the foreskin of Isaac’s penis. A rather kinky S&M, homo-sexual trade-off, don’t you think?

But that’s not the point.

It’s bad enough being bombarded daily with fallacious arguments supposedly involving “religious freedom,” such as the pseudo-science advocated by fundamentalists and biblical literalists. Young Earth Creationism stands as testimonial to those “arguments” and that “thinking.” They claim the earth is 6000 years old and that human children played with dinosaurs in Eden, despite overwhelming hard evidence to the contrary, evidence that continues to be discovered:

A Meat Eater Bigger Than T. Rex Is Unearthed

 

A new dinosaur species, one of the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs, has emerged from the red sandstone of Patagonia, in Argentina, where reptilian giants seem to have thrived 100 million years ago.

 

Paleontologists reported yesterday that they had found the fossils of seven to nine individuals of a species they are naming Mapusaurus roseae.

It’s bad enough the media reports every bizarre, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-humanism statement made by Pope Benedict XVI as he pontificates on “values and morals” despite decades of illegal cover-ups and corruption and almost daily new reports of charges of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. In 2005, there were 783 new credible claims and the “holy” Church paid out $467 million in damages.

But as the New York Times reported on April 19, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the arrogance of one “Prince of the Church”:

After years of stonewalling, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has run out of excuses for blocking the prosecution of rogue priests accused in the church’s pedophilia scandal. While other bishops and cardinals cooperated with the authorities, Cardinal Mahony became a study in arrogance who only compounded the church’s embarrassment. His lawyers concocted elaborate hypotheses that church leaders and priests – under the confidentiality of “the sanctification process” – somehow enjoyed shelter from their basic duty to cooperate with criminal law enforcement. The Supreme Court put an end to the evasions on Monday [April 17, 2006] in refusing to hear the cardinal’s final appeal.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church continues to break other laws, again with impunity.

It’s bad enough being subjected to the fanatical, hate-filled ravings of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (who just lost another case, definitively), Lou Sheldon, James Dobson, the rest of the leaders of the Christian Right and their threatening, violent sycophants (pronounced “psycho-fans”?):

Montana Prof Threatened After Speaking Out Against Homophobia

 

(Butte, Montana) A professor at Montana Tech says his life has been threatened after speaking out against homophobia on the campus of the school, part of the University of Montana in Butte.

 

John Ray said the threat was made in an email that he has turned over to police.

 

The threat was made after Ray sent a campus wide email criticizing another professor who had emailed students and faculty denouncing a decision to show the movie “Brokeback Mountain” at the school.

 

Ray responded by sending several emails promoting tolerance toward gays.

 

“Shut the fuck up,” the threatening email to Ray said. “Please stop sending these stupid emails. Get a shrink if you need someone to communicate with. We don't care!!!!!!!!!! I swear to God I will find where you live and beat you if you keep sending these dumb emails out to everyone.”

 

Ray said that after receiving the threat he has been receiving email “pop ups” on his e-mail advertising gay and child pornography Web sites and believes someone got his campus email “user code” and registered his address to the Web sites.

Evangelicals and fundamentalists consider it their “biblical duty” and an exercise of their “religious freedom” to shove their paranoia – “Homosexual Hobbits?” – and their violent, gory, intolerant, S&M religion down everyone’s throat and try to embed its pathologies and bigotries into civil law. But please, don’t share your delusions, paranoia, bloodlust, mythologies, or your “beliefs.” All of them are responsible for more human suffering, torture and death than any other single cause in history.

As for the “Jesus Video Project” DVD, it joined the rest of the junk mail in the gehenna garbage can:

The Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem (see “God’s Name on the City of Peace”: C-2, P-I) is referred to by the word, “gehenna.” In this valley, fires were kept burning perpetually to destroy refuse, waste materials, and dead animals. Smoke from the burning debris rose upward continually, day and night. It came to be known as an appropriate earthly illustration or counterpart of eternal hell and punishment.

The Christian Right and the Catholic Church are always arguing their right to be intolerant and citing the fact that the U.S. Constitution protects “religious freedom,” as indeed it does. But it also guarantees freedom from religion. Shouldn’t these people also respect the Constitutional right to be free from their “religion”?

But they don’t intend to do that: 

‘Freedom Rally’ to Dispel Separation Myth

By Allie Martin - April 17, 2006

 

(AgapePress) - Concerned Christians will gather in a Connecticut community on Tuesday [April 18, 2006] for a rally to address the political, cultural, and religious impact of the so-called “separation of church and state.” …

 

[Coach Dave Daubenmire, national director of Minutemen United and founder of Pass the Salt Ministries] points out that people “have to understand that government is below God; [that] God is above government, [and] that our rights come from God.” [italics added]

That sounds like a course in “Theocracy 101”: a belief that “God’s” law – as expounded in the Bible – supercedes all other laws, as long as that vengeful, marauding, murdering, bloodlust “God” is your “God” of course. One has to wonder when they’re going to push for a multitude of new death penalty laws as prescribed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

“Theocracy 101” may also soon be a core requirement at Christian colleges and universities, as Paul Johnson, Washington Bureau Chief at 365Gay.com, reported on April 18, 2006 in an article titled “Congress Moves To Except Religious Schools…”:

Private Christian colleges would be excepted from local and state non-discrimination laws under a proposed amendment to the Higher Education Act – a move that would allow the schools to legally reject LGBT students.

 

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), would prevent accrediting boards from making adherence to non-discrimination laws a requirement.

 

The measure passed the House last week and is currently before the Senate.

If religious dogma replaces civil law, should colleges and universities that choose to institutionalize discrimination receive any federal or state funding? Should their students be eligible for state and federal aid since it too comes from taxpayer money? In both cases, some of those taxpayers whose money funds higher education and student aid are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Should they be required to support discrimination against themselves?

Legalizing discrimination based on religious dogma is not the only way the zealots of the Christian Right are attempting to defeat freedom from religion. Boycott king Don Wildmon and his American Family Association are campaigning to have history and time permanently Christianized:

Should using the birth of Christ to date time (BC/AD) be replaced by a secular dating method (BCE/CE)?

 

The Kentucky Board of Education has voted to take the first step in redefining how America dates time. The board voted to include a new secular system of dating the calendar, BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era), and added it to the BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of our Lord”) method.

 

The new secular system of time dating will appear in the curriculum and other materials used by Kentucky educators. This new system is already being included in textbooks across the nation.

 

The new method will replace the birth of Christ as the dividing point in history. For example, the new system would change 2006 AD (Anno Domini) to 2006 CE (Common Era).

 

It also opens the door for the ACLU to find a liberal activist judge who will forcefully remove the use of BC and AD. The ACLU types will claim that the use of BC and AD are a violation of the First Amendment because it dates history based on the birth of Christ.

 

Results will be shared with members of Congress.

The “results” to be “shared with members of Congress” are those from a survey attached to AFA’s call-to-the-faithful. The question posed was “Should Congress pass a law making BC/AD the official method of dating time?”

Wildmon and his group are not the only ones suggesting legislative action to Christianize history and the reckoning of time, as Agape Press reported on April 18, 2006,

The Kentucky Board of Education is under fire for approving a new, more contemporary system of describing historical dates in its public school curriculum. One critic feels modernizing the system is an effort to conceal from students their culture’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

Apparently “the critic” believes all students are either Jewish or Christian: how typically megalomaniacally incorrect. The Agape story clarified the “issue” by noting that the State Board of Education in Kentucky voted

to continue using the acronyms B.C. for “Before Christ” and A.D. for “Anno Domini” – which is Latin for “in the Year of the Lord.” However, the board members decided to supplement the traditional dating method with C.E. or “common era” and B.C.E., which stands for “before the common era."

 

The Board’s vote means the new dating system will appear throughout Kentucky’s curriculum and other materials used by educators across the state. This method of describing historical eras is already being included in textbooks across the United States, in what some opponents see as an effort to replace the birth of Christ as the dividing point in history.

 

The Board’s move is being criticized by the Family Foundation of Kentucky, a pro-family organization, whose senior policy analyst, Martin Cothran, says the new dating system comes out of a secularist mindset. [italics added]

History is “secular,” and the birth of Yeshua is “the dividing point in history” only for Christians. Other religions have their own dating systems. April 20, 2006 is, in the Jewish calendar, Nisan 22, 5766. Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism all have their own dating systems. Since the secular world has agreed on a common dating system, it’s clearly more fitting to use “Common Era” as the designation. It’s common sense.

In making his case against freedom from religion, Mr. Cothran, the senior policy analyst for the Family Foundation of Kentucky, used a familiar tactic of the Christian Right and their minions, such as Tom DeLay. He played victim and invoked the PR ploy called the “war on Christianity”:

“We put this on the same level with the whole war on Christmas and the idea that we can't call it Christmas anymore [but] have to call it the winter holiday or the winter solstice holiday,” Cothran explains. This kind of substitution of terms associated with or derived from Christianity is simply a means of “hiding our cultural heritage from ourselves,” he contends.

“Hiding cultural heritage”? Let’s see. That Anno Domini Christian heritage includes rampant anti-Semitism, three hundred years of torture and murder called “The Holy Inquisition,” the wholesale slaughter of New World native peoples, the Salem Witch Hunt, the validation of slavery and, of course, the man who used Christianity to support and justify his murderous campaigns of bigotry and hate against some of the same groups the Christian Right currently attacks: “A jury has chosen a design for a memorial in Berlin to homosexuals persecuted and killed under the Nazis, a monument that will complement the nearby memorial to the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.”

One would think distancing Anno Domini “Christianity” from the horrors carried out in its name would be welcomed. But not so. Cothran is mounting a campaign to mandate that B.C. and A.D. be the only legal designations:

That’s why the time is now to encourage state lawmakers to reinstate the traditional B.C./A.D. terminology.

 

“If a change is not made next month,” he said, “then we want to make sure that state legislators have heard about it and are ready to do something about it when they come back next January.”

This our-way-or-no-way “thinking” should come as no surprise since the following quote headlines the Family Foundation of Kentucky’s “about us”:

“Before every legislator votes, Before every governor proposes a plan, Before every judge rules He should ask, ‘How is this going to affect the family?’”

– Kent Ostrander, Executive Director,

The Family Foundation of Kentucky

And the Christian Right has the nerve to rant about “activist judges” when they openly urge jurists to rule not according to the law, but according to their so-called “pro-family” agenda which, of course, excludes the gay and lesbian families they’re hell-bent on demeaning, denigrating, disenfranchising and destroying in any way they can:

In 2004, Karl Rove declared that President Bush would win re-election if Republicans turned out millions of religious and other conservative voters who had stayed home in 2000. And they did just that, with the help of voter outreach campaigns, a network of church appeals and state initiatives that would ban gay marriage.

 

In 2006, with both the House and Senate in the balance, the Republican Party faces much the same challenge in this election. …

 

The question for Republicans, then, is how to draw this crucial group to the polls and keep them voting for the party's candidates. The short answer is that some of what may have worked last time – like anti-gay-marriage initiatives – is on the runway, ready to go. …

What ever happened to freedom from religion, common sense, and civil equality?

Could it be that the “Light” in “Enlightenment” went out and America is on a theocratic march back to the Dark Ages (circa 475-1500 Anno Domini) when perverted, corrupt, bloodlust Christianity reigned supreme?

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