Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on January 25, 2010 at 9:14pm

Don't get me started lol

It's amazing how we're on the same page. I don't make any OT/NT distinction because it's all one book that's supposed to be the word of God. In the beginning was the word and Christ was the word, and the word was Good—something like that.

How about Revelation? That’s NT. That’s gotta one of the weirdest, freakiest, bad LSD trips, ever written. Ask her if she believes the Four Horsemen are coming to infest everybody with worms and frogs and turn all the rivers into blood.

A historian/writer friend of mine did some great research on the Inquisition. She estimates eight million tortured and murders over the centuries—three quarters were female and many under the age of 12. At the end of it all, Barbara G. Walker says it was all a giant extortion racket to keep high clergy members living voluptuous luxury. Once accused, that’s it. Property is confiscated immediately and perhaps one percent beat the rap.

One of the theses of Mirror Reversal is we’re still living in the Dark Ages. In Nigeria, I heard on the news of a “priest” who goes around exorcising devils out of kids. He killed 110 “recalcitrants” (my word, not the news) last year alone. It’s a pretty sick way to use population control in an overpopulated country with the church forbidding the use of condoms and birth control centers. Population is over sixty million in an area about the size of Texas.

Permalink Reply by Michael B. Paulk on January 26, 2010 at 9:42am

Yes, Richard - and Martin Luther despised the book of Revelation. Jesus predicted the end times "within a generation" -- so far he's off by about 2000 years. How could he be wrong?

I've got Barbara Walker's book too (Women's Ency, you mean?). Yes, the Catholic Church was run by selfish, evil men up until recent years (can't be too sure of recent years too). They were in on the Holocost, and Christians murdered 750,000 Croatians during WWII because they wouldn't convert to the Catholic Church.

I've heard about those priests in Nigeria too. As Bill Maher said at the end of "Religulous," the world has to GROW UP.

These are the reasons I write a lot of the atrocities of religion, not to mention the idiocy of the inherent superstitions, and contradictions within the "perfect" text. Most people just don't know of all the violence and evil it has brought.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on January 26, 2010 at 9:57am

Re: the whole Nigeria thing, when they're not exorcising kids, they're accusing them of being WITCHES (big stomachs, wide-open eyes ... yup, gotta be a witch). From there (if the parents have money [and they usually don't!]), the kids also get to be exorcised, which will involve slapping, biting, ALL MANNER of just swell therapy. If the folks don't have the bread, the kids mostly get abandoned.

Charming, no?

Permalink Reply by Michael B. Paulk on January 26, 2010 at 10:05am

Well, they are doing the right thing according to the bible (Ex 22:18). A shame yahweh didn't explain to his children exactly HOW to identify a witch. What the heck, nobody's perfect. Better luck next time, god. (I assume he's working on another book?)

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on January 26, 2010 at 10:11am

Oh, the Newer-Bluer-All-Improved-Testament?!? Likely ghost-written by James Dobson and Pat Robertson, at a guess.

Oh, point of information: in Job: A Comedy of Justice, Heinlein alleges that the word used in that bit about "not allowing a witch to live" is not "witch" but "poisoner." If true (and I wouldn't be surprised), just how many women and kids have suffered for THAT mistranslation???

Permalink Reply by Michael B. Paulk on January 26, 2010 at 12:13pm

Should have been Jerry Falwell ghost-writing it, but (by Falwell's own faulty logic and syllogism) Falwell must have done something evil and god punished him by killing him. I'm not saying Falwell did NOT do anything evil...

Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on January 26, 2010 at 1:27pm

I'll see Barbara at my next Sarasota Humanist meeting. She'll love the question, i.e. How can I identify a witch? I took her to a Christmas party last year and told a conversative writer's group Bush jokes.

Mike, that's really cool that you're into A Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends. How about the Fraticelli, a small monastery of about 125 Franciscan brothers, who told the pope that Christians must reject luxury and embrace poverty. Every one of them was burned at the stake.

She mentions one town in Germany that sacrificed 200 witches over a four year period—that’s one per week. For the townspeople it must have been like going to a Sunday footfall game.

I was really pissed off on finishing the section on the Inquisition. And to think it’s still going on. Barbara is about 80 and one of the early feminist writers.

The irony of all this is that the devil is merely our evolutionary reptilian baggage. It all springs out of territoriality which is part of the Prime Directive. The devil is just a misinterpretation of human nature.

Permalink Reply by Michael B. Paulk on January 26, 2010 at 1:57pm

So cool that you know Barbara! I haven't read her whole book yet but cite her regarding Pope Gregory "The Great" as well as using Homer Smith, Brian Levack, Hans Lietzmann, Charles Mackay, and others.

Regarding how to identify a witch, Kramer and Sprenger (with Papal approval, Innocent VIII) figured that one out, 1487! What brilliant thinkers.

Permalink Reply by Tonya Wynn on October 13, 2010 at 11:51am

This is gonna sound extremely harsh, but evolution is harsh. Maybe this is one type of survival of the fittest or evolution. Stupid people and stupid animals often abuse and/or neglect their own children, killing them, and thus destoying their own gene pool. Sad, but effective from an evolutionary point of view. I often wonder if my own need to be 'out' as an atheist isn't some form of genetic mutation.
In the South, Christians sometimes still kill there children accidentally during exorcism.

Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on October 13, 2010 at 4:09pm

Tonya, we could take a selfish gene interpretation of "outing" your atheism. Has to do with the hawk/dove gene. You probably avoid fights in other areas, a dove approach.

Most people are doves. I certainly am as my Viet Nam draft record shows. But consider the cat pushed up away the wall with no way to escape. At that point, it turns around and faces the pursuer. It hisses, spits and arches its back to strike. (Mammals have a natural fear of snakes.) Most dogs start whining and walk away, trying to save face. The hawk gene only goes so far.

What I'm getting at is: some day you might face your Christian friends and say, "do you really believe that Biblical bullshit?' Most of them won't answer, especially if they are not in a group.

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