The following are some, but definitely not all, of the columns I wrote in earlier years. Feel free to comment on any of them. If you’re new to my work, I hope you’ll enjoy the reading!
2008
So why do doom and gloom, and panic and perdition, have to dominate so many religions? It is 2008, not 2008 B.C. We done invented them there horseless carriages, and movin’ pitcher shows and even flyin’ machines! Incredible progress! So what do we think about religion? Well ....
Wicked, Rotten Sinners (Such as I)
How can a sweet newborn baby have anything morally wrong with it? And yet that is the premise of all religions. From the moment of birth, we set about "fixing" the things that are wrong with this infant. The concept of Original Sin is the epitome of that foolishness. Before the umbilical is even cut, a true Christian accepts wholeheartedly that the little bugger is already a sinner. Unbelievable? Not at all, if you accept the concept of salvation....
What’s Your Favorite Bible Verse?
Presidential candidates are currently elbowing each other out of the way to proclaim a close, personal relationship with God. I'm trying to think of a presidential candidate who hasn't used a photo op in or near a church. There. I'm done thinking. There isn't one. All the candidates use churches and Bibles as props and it has got out of hand....
2005
Communion: Are You Going to EAT That?!
Like so many religious rituals and sayings, Communion is accepted uncritically as “normal.” But it is anything but normal. Symbolically or otherwise, pretending to eat the flesh and drink the blood of a human body is not normal. It is grisly, barbaric, primitive and stupid. But it ain’t normal....
Undetectable by any human means. We now have technology that includes X-rays, CAT-scans, MRI, ultrasound, oscilloscopes, infrared photography, spectrometers, colorimeters, pyrheliometers—we have “meters” out the wazoo. All these and more augment our own human senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Still, the thing is imperceptible and thoroughly invisible....
Scaring the Hell out of Your Children
Why do parents do such things? Other than being afraid that if they wait too long they may not be able to brainwash their offspring, there is no excuse for frightening and warping children with ideas of hell. That is emotional extortion in the extreme....
So what does it mean? It’s all a matter of context. We can safely say that it means the absence of pain and suffering. But it must also include a measure of pleasurable feelings, and those can spring from any source. For example, a lottery winner would certainly be happy. But a racist burning a cross on a lawn could also be said to be happy....
Everyone can (vaguely) separate the Koran from “the” Bible; but I wonder how many people realize that there are a minimum of ten translations of “the” Bible plus The Book of Mormon plus Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures. These books are so dissimilar as to make them appear to represent completely different religions. And they do. There is no reconciling them....
Miracles have always been fodder for the religion-peddlers, and like all fads, they come and go, injecting themselves into the public consciousness with varying degrees of intensity. Today they are all the rage again, rivaling perhaps the 15th century, when Europe literally ran amok with them....
2004
The Moral Values of Yesteryear
If you carefully follow the polarization of this country you will find that "moral values" is no more than code jargon for intolerance and bigotry. It sounds real good and it means real bad. But it’s certainly safe to say….
I Was Born Right the First Time
Aside from being one of my favorite bumper stickers, the above title reflects how I actually feel about my life. Mom got it right the first time. But it is amazing how many Born-Again Christians urge me to experience a re-birth through Jesus. I may be one of the most prayed-for people on the planet….
In fact, all children are atheists until they reach an age where they can truly understand religious doctrine, which will mean well into their teens. Children can mimic their parents in prayer, for example, by closing their eyes and clasping their hands together....
When you hear the news sound bites from people protesting same-sex marriage, the fuzzy thinking leaves you staring into middle space with your mouth slightly ajar, as you try to figure out the reasoning. Referring to gays, irate protesters claim, "It’s not just marriage they are trying to destroy. They are determined to eliminate all family values and all morality in general." Well, that seems rather ambitious....
The Passion about "The Passion"
I am passionately incensed about the passions aroused over The Passion of the Christ. What a circus that was! You couldn’t turn on the TV or turn a page in a magazine or turn the corner at the newsstand without being confronted with the mawkish, sadistic images of that movie. As a general rule....
Where are all the writings of Jesus? He supposedly lived in an era and a place where writing was common and abundant. To take just one prominent example, let’s consider another famous figure with the initials J. C. Dying a mere forty-four years before the supposed birth of Christ, Julius Caesar lived and ruled and wrote of his activities. To this day we have his Commentaries on the Gallic War, a collection of seven books, each covering one year of the campaign in Gaul between 58 and 52 BC....
Every now and again you see a news story proclaiming that faithful people who attend religious services regularly live longer than those wicked atheists who sleep in on weekends and then watch re-runs of oh, say, Rocky and Bullwinkle. One such story by Reuters, using the Journal of Gerontology as a main source, spouted the usual statistics....
2003
The "Holy" Bible Revisited: Not Ready for Prime-Time Reading
This is what I call the Pearl-In-The-Dung Syndrome. And the Bible suffers from it. If I must plow through piles of dung to uncover a pearl here and there, I refuse to do it. There is too much real beauty in literature (Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Shakespeare, Percy Shelley) to bother trying to pry out the Bible's rare pearls. What isn't boring in that book is sadistically cruel, rabidly misogynic and just plain primitively stupid....
Nevertheless, an out-of-breath messenger came to David and instructed him to take food to his battle-weary, fellow Israelites. This made David sad. He did not want to leave his sheep, especially the one named Suzie. But he filled his wagon with lox, bagels, cream cheese and an assortment of pizzas, none with anchovies. They hadn't been invented yet either....
I don't know how I missed this one in all my reading, but apparently Sir Isaac Newton used to stay up late calculating the arrival of the Antichrist based on biblical prophecy....
Consider our closest living relatives among the Great Apes-chimpanzees and gorillas. Details may vary, but there is no denying that one of the most vital forces shaping their social structure is the Alpha Male. When he talks, everybody listens....
For sheer self-indulgent narcissistic excess you can't beat Natalie Cole's book, Angel on My Shoulder....
2002
Science and Religion: Natural Enemies
Science and religion need not engage in open warfare; but lowering the high standard of evidence that is the hallmark of the scientific method, in order to accommodate religion, is too high a price to pay for peace....
Imagine by John Lennon is arguably one of the best pieces of music he ever wrote. (For you young'uns, the complete lyrics are at the end of this article.) Whether you liked the Beatles or not....
I Pledge Allegiance to Your God
1924: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"....
But in the Roman Catholic Church such pedophiles are quietly sent off to different diocese to prey on other young children. Why have we allowed this for so long....
In December 1998 I wrote a very brief overview of the amount of killing and suffering caused by the world's religions. I mentioned the Crusades, the Inquisitions, Northern Ireland, the "ethnic" (read: religious) cleansing in Bosnia, the Holocaust, the Salem Witch Trials, the Thirty Years' War, and I made a brief reference to the Aztecs' human sacrifices. With what's happening today I think it's time to update and expand on that list....
2001
Pistols at Dawn? Agnosticism Revisited
Interestingly, and tellingly I think, not one person addressed my point that up until 1870 no philosopher felt the need for the word agnostic. How could they possibly have got along without it?....
There Is No Such Thing As an Agnostic
No one can provide any "compelling evidence" that leprechauns do not exist. So what? Does that mean then that we have a-leprechaunists and agnosti-leprechaunists, with the former claiming leprechauns don't exist and the latter withholding judgment until all the evidence is in?....
The candles twinkled, their wax dripping harmlessly onto the round bases, and the sweet carol brought tears to a few eyes. Even if there was no moonlight the streetlights back-lit the stain glass windows so that all those brilliant colors were exquisitely beautiful. We sang every single verse, no one wanting the enchantment to end....
2000
But there is one extremely puzzling aspect of Paul's conception of the earthly Jesus—he didn't have one. As far as Paul was concerned, the Christ did all his redemptive work in the spiritual realm. He was not of this earth....
We need a Witness Protection Program. A Jehovah's Witness Protection Program. I do not go door to door, ringing doorbells and intruding on people's privacy, in order to inform the doorbell owners that their religious beliefs are a bunch of crap....
The title of this piece is itself a redundancy. All Muslim women are captives, assuming they live their lives according to the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad. Islam does not recognize women as human beings....
The phrase "death with dignity," applauded by most humanists and excoriated by most religionists, invariably refers to people who know they are dying and (rightly) want to end their lives of pain before they are reduced to machine-controlled, incontinent, drooling, drugged-up zombies, who can't even recognize their own loved ones. But why....
1999
Many atheists say this loudly, often and angrily. To them I would say, let's worry about school prayer, making Christmas a national holiday, displaying the so-called Ten Commandments on public property, setting up public schoolroom crèches and so on. But please stop obsessing over my front door wreath....
Come, Ye Thankful People, Come!
I did not realize then, in those golden years of innocence, that over half the world's population just barely had enough to eat on a daily basis, and a horrific percentage didn't even have that. I do wonder why my parents, both kind people, didn't tell us more about that. My very first inquiries....
Pope John Paul II, on July 28, 1999, made an embarrassingly clumsy attempt to explain this diabolical, eternal torture chamber known as Hell. His attempt was an unmitigated failure....
Whence Bob the Raingod? He was born in an igloo on the Summer Solstice. His first sensations were of dripping water. His mother was a thundercloud and his father was a low pressure system off the coast of Alaska. His astrological sign is H2O....
If I hear the words "Ten Commandments" one more time I think I'll throw up. I don't know whether I'm more pissed off or depressed. I'd say it's too close to call....
Not for the faint of heart, the Bible is a very long read. Almost 1,300 pages of tiny print, it is a mixture of fierce, bloody battles, scores of twenty-generations-long, mind-numbing genealogies, and quite a bit of indecipherable, symbolic secret code of some sort....
Seven babies. Imagine. Seven. All at once. Well, perhaps "underdone fetuses" would be more accurate. Every so often you read about such unusual births. Those tiny 2-pound entities are somewhere between zygote and viable human being, but just where along that spectrum is hard to pinpoint....
Around three years later a boy child, Jason, is
born. Ned says seriously that if
the boy becomes a poet he will be delighted. Amy says that if he becomes an NFL star she will be delighted. They are both lying.
But
they are not lying about their love for this tiny new child. Jason’s big sister, Melinda, has an equally sincere love for the baby,
but decides to call him Roger Dodger. No
one ever figured out why….
1998 But Eric, though he
initially accepted the new God, soon decided he wanted no part of this stern,
demanding Jehovah. He became a 9-year-old backslider.... "Pope
Shoots Self in Foot; Southern Baptists Do It to Their Wives" Using a .22 Ruger,
Pope John Paul scored a bull's-eye with a through-and-through wound at the base
of the middle toe of his left foot. In a stunningly medieval, unenlightened
Apostolic Letter.... By
"evidence" David meant "evidence presented by various theories as
proof of their validity. In the case of God such evidence is by definition
indirect, which is why atheists say it's not evidence; but that is subject to
interpretation and highly debatable." (Now there's a mouthful.).... And just one year
ago, on May 29, 1997, there was quite a stir about a red heifer that was born in
the Holy Land. The AP photo showed Rabbi Shmaria Shore deep in thought as he
stroked the animal's nose. This red heifer, "Melody," was believed to
be the first red heifer born in the Holy Land in two thousand years.... The rest of this book is
the usual Jesus-died-for-our-sins sermonizing, but with an emphasis on barnyard
animals. It's just a variation on the Noble Savage theme, with some chicken feed
and fertilizer thrown in. Lots of fertilizer.... Morphew also pointed out
that Teresa "never pretended to be a doctor who could wipe out or even
soften the pain of death." This I challenge fervently. So too would the
Columbia University Press Encyclopedia.... "Pope Announces That
Gravity Exists!".... 1997 Faithful
Flock Favors Friday Flounder They believe that
Jesus died for their sins, and in response they have sardine sandwiches for
lunch on Friday. Makes perfect sense to me.... All
Those Christian Presidents George Washington
chopped down a cherry tree and would not tell a lie about it. Abraham Lincoln
freed all the slaves. John Kennedy ushered into the White House all the
glory of King Arthur's Camelot. And I know how to turn iron into gold.... Where
Were You Before You Were You? Why is it that almost every
human culture yet discovered has found it necessary to believe in an afterlife
of some sort, but not a "before-life?" Why are there so many versions
of Heaven, Paradise and The Great Beyond, but almost none about The Great
Before.... When I wished for something
to happen, I decided that, instead of praying to an invisible, unknowable God, I
would rub the tummy of a stuffed animal, in this case a penguin. This was no
ordinary stuffed animal, mind you. This was given to me by a very special.... An image of the
Virgin Mary appeared on the face of a waffle, to the astonishment of diners at
the International House of Pancakes just off of Highway 99 in Fresno,
California. On Tuesday morning at 8:30 A.M., a miracle was served up with the
maple syrup.... I really miss the
music. Church music was mother's milk to me. Since my father was the (excellent)
pipe organist in the Lutheran church of my youth, I was doubly lucky. I also got
to hear that glorious music at home while Dad practiced....
Yet Christians, as well as most of the rest of us, fail to recognize the serious difficulty in the Jesus-as-sacrifice scenario. That is, if Jesus was actually sacrificed, why isn't he still dead?....
The God
of my youth was a Lutheran God,
A Triune; a proper three-seater;
And unlike the Catholics (mere Pagans in drag)
We knew not to worship St. Peter!....(More)
This same friend, sadly, is a victim of burnout. He's had it. He still believes passionately in freethought, and his atheism has not wavered, but he has had it. He is one of those hi-energy, get-things-done people, and his devotion to freethought has intruded mightily in his life. But his reward so far has been to be allowed to shoulder most of the burden of his local group without so much as a thank-you, let alone, "May I help you?" Burnout....
1996
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
When it happened, the story goes, the shepherds "were sore afraid." Well, I think I would have been too. But the account is more than evocative. It is bizarre....
This Thanksgiving, all across the country, families will be sitting down to give thanks to God for the many blessings they have received during the year. Lengthy, obsequious prayers will be offered before everyone plunges into the fabulous feast laid before them. Adults as well as children....
199
4The Cross, that most powerful and pervasive symbol of Christianity, has been painted in oils, carved into woodwork and furniture, perched prominently on the tops of thousands of buildings, cried upon, prayed to, kissed fervently, worn as a necklace, embroidered into clothing and carved into mountainsides. Poems have been....