Posts Tagged ‘JESUS CHRIST’
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In Business, History, RELIGION, Social commentary on December 17, 2025 at 12:16 am
There are several good reasons for skipping Christmas this year—and for years to come.
Reason #1: It’s based on a pagan Roman festival.
- There is no reference anywhere in the Bible to the month, day—or even the year—of Jesus’ birth.
- There are no sources outside the Bible that give a date for Jesus’ birth.
- Jesus never commanded his followers to celebrate his birth—but he did call on them to remember his death. It’s called Easter.
- Many of the “religious” traditions associated with Christmas stem from the pagan Roman festival, Saturnalia, which celebrated the “birthday” of the sun.
- This was celebrated December 17-25.
- Saturnalia traditions included feasting, gift-giving, lighting candles (to ward off evil spirits) and displaying wreaths (as a sign of the coming spring).
- Early Christians tried mightily to convince their members to stop celebrating the Saturnalia.
- When these efforts failed, the Roman Catholic Church, in 336 A.D. “Christianized” the festival by naming Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25, as Jesus’ birthday.
Reason #2: It’s based on a story that’s patently false.
The story of the Three Wise Men—or Kings—bringing gifts to the infant Jesus was added long after Jesus’ birth.
Realistically, there was no reason why anyone in Israel would have known—or cared—about the birth of yet another Jewish child.
If he had actually been born the son of a king, then his birth might have mattered to people generally.
In his 1973 bestselling Alexander the Great, Robin Lane Fox explains that “in antiquity…life’s perspective was reversed, and youth was mostly described through a series of anecdotes which falsely mirrored the feats of the adult future; proven kings or bishops were remembered as kings or bishops when young.”
Thus, Alexander the Great, the future conqueror of the Persian empire, has been depicted—as a boy—astonishing Persian ambassadors with precocious questions about the innermost workings of that empire.
For followers of the crucified Jesus, it was essential to establish his divinity from the outset of his birth. And what better way to do this than having not one but three Kings show up, uninvited, to declare his reign over them?
Reason #3: It’s actually blasphemous.
Assume, for a moment, that the story of the Three Wise Men—or Kings—is true.
The whole point of the story is to establish that Jesus’ birth was a truly special event—and a recognition of his fate to redeem humanity from sin.
No one else in that story is depicted as giving—or getting—gifts.
No matter how much a child might be loved today, almost no one expects him to be a future savior.
So giving him gifts is essentially a parody of the acknowledgement of Jesus’ divinity.
Reason #4: Christmas is overwhelmingly a commercial—not a religious—event.
- The Christmas shopping season can start as early as September. Some consumers begin shopping even earlier.
- According to Gallup, the average estimated holiday spending for Christmas in 2025 will be $1,007 per person—and thus similar to $1,014 per person in 2024.
- Illustrator Haddon Sundblom, popularized the warm, jolly, rosy-cheeked, red-suited Santa we know today in Coca-Cola ads in 1931.
- A survey by the American Institute of CAPs found that almost half (47%) of people planning to spend on gifts and travel during the 2025 Christmas season expect to take on debt to do so.
- For many stores, holiday shopping accounts for nearly a third of annual sales.
Reason #5: There is no Paradise waiting for the dead.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus will return, cleanse the Earth of sinners, and claim it as a paradise for God’s faithful worshipers—that is, themselves.
They quote Ecclesiastes 1:4: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.”
Except that it won’t.
The Sun will become a red giant in about five to six billion years, when it runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core. Its core will contract and heat up, while hydrogen fusion will begin in a shell around the core. This will cause the outer layers of the Sun to expand significantly.
The Sun will swell to hundreds of times its current size, becoming a red giant.
This will likely destroy Mercury and Venus. Earth could be swallowed entirely or, if it survives, it will be scorched by extreme heat and radiation, making it uninhabitable.
A Red Giant
Then, eons after the Earth disappears, so will the entire Universe.
Scientists debate how this will happen. Some believe it will occur in a Big Crunch (collapse back to a singularity) in about 33 billion years. Other theories favor a Big Freeze, Heat Death or Big Rip.
So don’t count on Jesus to return from a 2,000-year slumber to prevent this from happening.
There are people who insist that Christmas is a religious event that they are commanded to celebrate.
For those people, it’s a good time to remember the advice of 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 16, 2025 at 1:18 am
Once again, the Middle East is at war.
Since October 7, 2023, it’s been Israel vs. Gaza. But as of June 12, it’s now Israel vs. Iran.
And, once again, there’s an excellent chance the United States will be dragged into this latest blood feud.
But there can be peace—for the United States—in the Middle East.
That is, if Americans are willing to make radical changes in their approach to that part of the world.
First, the United States must embark on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
The Islamic world offers only one reason for American concern: oil.
Yet its consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to regimes that are fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Second, once the United States frees itself from its dependency on fossil fuels, it can safely end its relationship with such regimes.
That means putting an end to spending billions of dollars every year to prop up regimes like those in Iraq and Egypt. And it also means stopping the supply of big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to Islamic regimes.
When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, he was probably the best-armed Islamic leader in the Middle East. His army and air force bristled with sophisticated American weaponry he had bought with billions of dollars in oil revenues.
Shah of Iran
But he had thoroughly alienated his people. Liberals thought him a tyrant, and conservatives thought him a traitor to Islam. So when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini flew to Iran from his self-exile in Paris, no one in the Shah’s army and air force raised a hand in his defense.
Third, the United States should end its “Permanent Bodyguard” relationship with Israel.
Every nation—including Israel—has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression. But no nation—including Israel—has the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust—which ended 80 years ago. Yet America was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
And millions of Americans feel committed to Israel but care nothing for the fates of Israelis.
As Christian fundamentalists, they believe that before Jesus Christ can awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must re-conquer all the territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
There is absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever been resurrected, but this means nothing to them.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell.
For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Obviously, people holding such totally irrational views shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
Fourth, the United States and its European allies should erect a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because trying to do so would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
Thus, the United States should erect a “sand curtain” around the Middle East. This could be attained by withdrawing all of its forces but keeping a good portion stationed in Europe.
It would then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only those of you living in the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“So go ahead and destroy as many of your own citizens as you wish—either because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims hate Shiite Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate Sunni Muslims.
“Just don’t do anything that poses a threat to those living outside your barbaric lands. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
The United States cannot enforce peace between Islamics and Israelis. Nor between Christians and Islamics. Nor between Islamics and Islamics.
But it can impose an embargo to confine such barbarism to only the Middle East.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 17, 2025 at 12:22 am
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions. Especially the dark ones—Hate, Greed, Fear.
This is a lesson that liberal Democrats have refused to learn. And that is why Republicans won most Presidential elections of the 20th century.
There is no better example of the power of irrationality than a gathering of QAnon followers in Dallas, Texas, on November 2, 2021.
Hundreds of people from around the country gathered at the grassy knoll in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
The congregation wasn’t there to commemorate the death of the 35th President of the United States. They expected to see the return of his son, John F. Kennedy Jr.—who died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999.
QAnon logo
CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Word on the street is Junior—JFK Jr.—will show up and introduce his parents,” one believer told a local news station. “He’ll (JFK Jr.) probably be the vice president with Trump.”
Most of the gathered crowd went home. But others stayed, waiting for months in Dallas for JFK Jr. to return.
It’s essential to understand how such thoroughly irrational beliefs can dominate the lives of millions. An excellent starting point are those beliefs embraced by Christians—from their first-century origins to the present day.
Among those beliefs:
- God creates Adam from dust. (This absolutely contradicts everything we know about how men and women reproduce. Would-be parents don’t throw dust into the air and see it instantly turn into newborn babies.)
God creates Adam–as painted by Michelangelo
- Adam and Eve meet a talking snake. (Presumably it spoke Hebrew. When was the last time a zoologist had a serious discussion with a serpent?)
- Noah saves the world’s wildlife by stuffing them into an ark. (Sure—untrained wild animals are going to meekly walk, two-by-two, into a huge building. Then they’re going to let themselves be caged. And Noah and his family must store a huge variety of food for each type of animal for an indefinite period of time. And the sheer stench of all that animal urine and feces would have been horrific.)
- Moses parts the Red Sea. (Some scholars believe “Red” has been mistranslated from “Reed,” which is like upgrading “the White Quail” in Moby Dick to “the White Whale.”)
Moses (played by Charlton Heston) parts the Red Sea
- Lot’s wife becomes a pillar of salt. (A human being can be turned into ashes, but not salt.)
- Samson kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. (Even Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his physical strength couldn’t kill so many men—except with a machinegun.)
- Daniel is thrown into a pit of lions—but survives because an angel closes their jaws. (This sounds inspiring—until you remember that didn’t happen when Christians were thrown to the lions by the Romans.)
- The will of God violates physical laws. (Jesus turns water into wine and raises Lazarus from the dead; Jonah lives inside a fish for three days; Noah dies at 950 years.)
- Jesus rises from the dead. (There have been near-death experiences, but there has never been a documented case of someone being certified as dead who came alive again.)
- Jesus will return more than 2,000 years after he died to wipe all evil from the earth and usher in a paradise for his faithful followers. (There has never been a case in recorded history of anyone returning from the dead decades or hundreds of years later—let alone more than 2,000 years later.)
“The Transfiguration of Jesus” as painted by Carl Bloch
So why do millions of people unquestioningly accept so many stories that totally contradict the most basic truths of common sense?
Like Muzak, these stories—and other Biblical tales—have been absorbed over time through several mediums:
- Countless parents have told them to their children.
- So have countless pastors and priests.
- From the 1940s to the 1960s, audiences reveled in such spectaculars as “Samson and Delilah,” “The Ten Commandments” and “King of Kings.” When people watch Biblical movies, they believe they’re seeing The Truth as it’s laid out in the Bible.
- The gospel music scene has produced mega-hits like: “Shall We Gather at the River?” “Take Me to the King,” “Down By the Riverside.”
It is not necessary to actually be religious to run for and win public office in the United States. But it is essential to claim to be. Donald Trump—totally lacking in humility and spirituality—became the darling of evangelicals in 2016 and 2024.
The reason: They expect Trump to sponsor legislation that will—by force of law—make their brand of Christianity supreme above all other religions. And this will give them the status of the Official Religion of the United States.
As Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to the many.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 12, 2025 at 12:09 am
Bernardo Gui was the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).
Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis: “Conduct of the Inquisition Into Heretical Wickedness.”
Here’s how such an interrogation might go:
When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smiling and courteous, “Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.”
Interrogator: You are accused as a heretic, and that you believe and teach otherwise than Holy Church believes.
Accused Heretic: (Raising his eyes to heaven, with an air of the greatest faith) Lord, thou knowest that I am innocent of this, and that I never held any faith other than that of true Christianity.
Interrogator: You call your faith Christian, for you consider ours as false and heretical. But I ask whether you have ever believed as true another faith than that which the Roman Church holds to be true?
Accused Heretic: I believe the true faith which the Roman Church believes, and which you openly preach to us.
Interrogator: Perhaps you have some of your sect at Rome whom you call the Roman Church. I, when I preach, say many things, some of which are common to us both, as that God liveth, and you believe some of what I preach. Nevertheless you may be a heretic in not believing other matters which are to be believed.
Accused Heretic: I believe all things that a Christian should believe.
Interrogator: I know your tricks….But we waste time in this fencing. Say simply, Do you believe in one God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost?
Accused Heretic: I believe.
Interrogator: Do you believe in Christ born of the Virgin, suffered, risen, and ascended to heaven?
Accused Heretic: (Briskly) I believe.
Interrogator: Do you believe the bread and wine in the mass performed by the priests to be changed into the body and blood of Christ by divine virtue?
Accused Heretic: Ought I not to believe this?
Interrogator: I don’t ask if you ought to believe, but if you do believe.
Accused Heretic: I believe whatever you and other good doctors order me to believe.
Inquisitor: Those good doctors are the masters of your sect; if I accord with them you believe with me; if not, not.
Accused Heretic: I willingly believe with you if you teach what is good to me.
Inquisitor: You consider it good to you if I teach what your other masters teach. Say, then, do you believe the body of our Lord, Jesus Christ to be in the altar?
Accused Heretic: (Promptly) I believe that a body is there, and that all bodies are of our Lord.
Interrogator: I ask whether the body there is of the Lord who was born of the Virgin, hung on the cross, arose from the dead, ascended, etc.
Accused Heretic: And you, sir, do you not believe it?
Interrogator: I believe it wholly.
Accused Heretic: I believe likewise.
Men like Bernard Gui—and Franklin Graham—do not seek a golden future. They crave to return to a “golden” past—which includes the power Christians once held to forcibly impose their religious beliefs on others.
Among those slated for forced conversions by the Religious Right:
- Atheists
- Jews
- Women
- Homosexuals
- Lesbians
- Non-Christians
- Liberals
To gain absolute secular power over the lives of their fellow Americans, the Religious Right will support any candidate, no matter how morally despicable.
During the 2016 and 2020 Presidential races, evangelicals—and their leaders such as Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr.—fervently supported Donald Trump, despite:
- His being twice divorced;
- His multiple affairs (including one with porn star Stormy Daniels);
- His documented ties to Russian oligarchs and Mafia chieftains;
- His viciousness, greed, lying and egomania.
Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell, Jr., at Liberty University
And they continue to fervently support him.
They expect Trump to sponsor legislation that will—-by force of law—make their brand of Christianity supreme above all other religions.
Legislation such as The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
This was signed into law on March 26, 2015, by Mike Pence, then Governor of Indiana.
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to violate their religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Thus, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons now has the legal right to refuse to do so.
And a hospital can legally turn away a gay patient if it wants to.
Islamic countries are notorious for their persecution of non-Muslims. Now the Religious Right wants to impose its own version of sharia law on American citizens.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 11, 2025 at 12:14 am
American Right-wing elements relentlessly claimed that President Barack Obama was waging “a war on religion.”
GOP candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney intended to make this a major theme of their respective campaigns for President in 2012.
Obama supported a woman’s right
- to obtain abortion—including in cases of rape and incest;
- to obtain birth control; and
- to obtain amniocentesis (pre-natal testing).
By promoting women’s rights, Obama was “waging a war against religion”—according to American fundamentalists.
Since access to such medical procedures as birth control and pre-natal testing has long been entirely legal, what’s all the fuss about?
It’s simple: The Right is not waging a “war for religious liberty.”
It’s waging a bitter struggle to establish a government that uses force or the threat of it to impose reactionary religious beliefs on those who do not share such religious beliefs.
And on atheists or agnostics, who share none at all.
These Rightists and their theocratic allies have less in common with Jesus Christ than with Tomas de Torquemada (1420 – 1498), the infamous Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.
Christ never ordered the torture or death of anyone. Torquemada—claiming to act in “defense” of the Roman Catholic Church—presided over the deaths of at least 2,000 “heretics.”
Tomas de Torquemada
Nor did these unfortunate victims of religious fanaticism meet their death quickly or painlessly. They died by perhaps the cruelest means possible—by being burned alive at the stake.
Torquemada didn’t hesitate to pronounce someone a heretic. He “knew” who such people were: Jews, Muslims, atheists. They were “lapsed Catholics” who, in his view, failed to show fervent devotion to the religious authorities—like himself—who tyrannically ruled their lives.
For such people, Torquemada believed, the only road to salvation lay in being “cleansed” of their sins. And nothing burns away impurities like fire.
But before the fire-stakes came the fire-mindset: The arrogance of “knowing” who qualified as “saved” and who would be forever “damned.”
Unless, of course, his or her soul had been “purified” by fire.
“Heretic” burned at the stake
Fundamentalist Christians can no longer sentence “heretics” to the stake.
But the mindset that ruled the Spanish Inquisition has not disappeared. It has been vividly displayed by no less a religious authority than Franklin Graham, son of America’s most famous preacher, Billy Graham.
Franklin Graham
Appearing on the MSNBC program, “Morning Joe,” on February 21, 2012, Graham was asked if he thought that Barack Obama, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney qualified as Christians.
On Obama: “Islam sees him as a son of Islam… I can’t say categorically that [Obama is not Muslim] because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”
On Santorum: “I think so. His values are so clear on moral issues. No question about it… I think he’s a man of faith.”
On Gingrich: “I think Newt Gingrich is a Christian, at least he told me he is.”
On Romney: “Most Christians would not recognize Mormons as part of the Christian faith. They believe in Jesus Christ. They have a lot of other things they believe in too, that we don’t accept, theologically.”
Thus, Graham pronounced as “saved” a notorious multiple-adulterer like Gingrich. He also gave a pass to Santorum, who married a woman who had lived “in sin” with an abortionist for six years.
But he unhesitatingly damned a longtime churchgoer like Obama or a devout Mormon like Romney (whose faith, most evangelicals like Graham believe, is actually a non-Christian cult).
Six years later, in 2018, Graham defended President Donald Trump, a notorious womanizer and multiple-adulterer, against charges that, in 2006, he had slept with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“I believe at 70 years of age the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. He is not President Perfect.”
This differs greatly from his position on President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky: “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”
It’s easy to imagine Graham transported to the French city of Toulouse in the 14th century. And to imagine him wearing the robes of Bernardo Gui, the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).
Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis. or “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Wickedness.”
In this, he offered a vivid example of how such an interrogation might go. The following is taken from that manual:
When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smiling and courteous, “Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.”
This is not a dialogue between equals. The Inquisitor literally holds the power of life or agonizing death over the man or woman he is interrogating.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 10, 2025 at 12:02 am
Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.
Hamza Kashgar
In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.
“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.
“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.
“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”
The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.
Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”
Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.
Saudi King King Abdullah
Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.
After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.
Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.
Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.
Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.
One of these was the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.
Rick Santorum
In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:
“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.
“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”
In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.
Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.
Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:
“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’
“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.
“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”
“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.
Like the Saudi religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.
American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:
- Women should have fewer rights than men.
- Abortion should be illegal.
- There should be no separation between church and state.
- Religion should be taught in school.
- Religious doctrine trumps science.
- Government should be based on religious doctrine.
- Homosexuality should be outlawed.
The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:
The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The same holds true—in a democracy—for candidates who seek dictatorial power over their fellow citizens. Don’t give them your consent.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on November 28, 2024 at 12:18 am
Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled for the sake of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.
Most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions. And nothing conjures up emotions more than appeals to religion.
There is no better example of the power of irrationality than a gathering of QAnon followers in Dallas, Texas, on November 2, 2021.
Hundreds of people from around the country gathered at the grassy knoll in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
The congregation wasn’t there to commemorate the death of the 35th President of the United States. They expected to see the return of the Kennedys.
QAnon logo
CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Word on the street is Junior—JFK Jr.—will show up and introduce his parents,” one believer told a local news station. “He’ll (JFK Jr.) probably be the vice president with Trump.”
Those who believed in rationality weren’t surprised when the elder former President and his son failed to magically appear.
Most of the gathered crowd went home. But others stayed, waiting for months in Dallas for the Kennedys to return.
According to followers of QAnon, the Kennedys, who once dominated the Democratic Party, had somehow become allies of Donald Trump. In this scenario, the Kennedys and Trump were direct descendants of Jesus Christ—and locked in a conflict between good and evil.
It’s essential to understand how such thoroughly irrational beliefs can dominate the lives of millions. An excellent starting point are those beliefs embraced by Christians—from their first-century origins to the present day.
Among those beliefs:
- God creates Adam from dust. (This absolutely contradicts everything we know about how men and women reproduce. Would-be parents don’t throw dust into the air and see it instantly turn into newborn babies.)
God creates Adam–as painted by Michelangelo
- Adam and Eve meet a talking snake. (Presumably it spoke Hebrew. When was the last time a zoologist had a serious discussion with a serpent?)
- Noah saves the world’s wildlife by stuffing them into an ark. (Sure—untrained wild animals are going to meekly walk, two-by-two, into a huge building. Then they’re going to let themselves be caged. And Noah and his family must store a huge variety of food for each type of animal for an indefinite period of time. And the sheer stench of all that animal urine and feces would have been horrific.)
- Moses parts the Red Sea. (Some scholars believe “Red” has been mistranslated from “Reed,” which is like upgrading “the White Quail” in Moby Dick to “the White Whale.”)
Moses (played by Charlton Heston) parts the Red Sea
- Lot’s wife becomes a pillar of salt. (A human being can be turned into ashes, but not salt.)
- Samson kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. (Even Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his physical strength couldn’t kill so many men—except with a machinegun.)
- Daniel is thrown into a pit of lions—but survives because an angel closes their jaws. (This sounds inspiring—until you remember that didn’t happen when Christians were thrown to the lions by the Romans.)
- The will of God violates physical laws. (Jesus turns water into wine and raises Lazarus from the dead; Jonah lives inside a fish for three days; Noah dies at 950 years.)
- Jesus rises from the dead. (There have been near-death experiences, but there has never been a documented case of someone being certified as dead who came alive again.)
- Jesus will return more than 2,000 years after he died to wipe all evil from the earth and usher in a paradise for his faithful followers. (There has never been a case in recorded history of anyone returning from the dead decades or hundreds of years later—let alone more than 2,000 years later.)
“The Transfiguration of Jesus” as painted by Carl Bloch
So why do millions of people unquestioningly accept so many stories that totally contradict the most basic truths of common sense?
Like Muzak, these stories—and other Biblical tales—have been absorbed over time through several mediums:
- Countless parents have told them to their children.
- So have countless pastors and priests.
- From the 1940s to the 1960s, audiences reveled in such spectaculars as “Samson and Delilah,” “The Ten Commandments” and “King of Kings.” When people watch Biblical movies, they believe they’re seeing The Truth as it’s laid out in the Bible.
- The gospel music scene has produced mega-hits like: “Shall We Gather at the River?” “Take Me to the King,” “Down By the Riverside.”
It is not necessary to actually be religious to run for and win public office in the United States. But it is essential to claim to be. Donald Trump—totally lacking in humility and spirituality—became the darling of evangelicals in 2016.
As Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to the many.”
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In Entertainment, History, RELIGION, Social commentary on May 31, 2024 at 12:10 am
Miley Cyrus has been called the “Teen Queen” of the 2000s. She is also one of the few child stars with a successful musical career as an adult.
The daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, she became a teen idol at 13 as Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel television series (2006-2011) of that name. As Hannah Montana, she achieved success on the Billboard charts with two number-one soundtracks.
But on March 1, 2012, she outraged the Christian Right by committing the ultimate sin: She believed in science.
She posted a tweet featuring a photo of the physicist Lawrence Krauss: “Beautiful.”
But it wasn’t what then-19-year-old Cyrus wrote that enraged the “kill-for-Christ” types. It was the words—from Krauss—emblazoned against the photo.
Miley Cyrus
EVERY ATOM IN YOUR BODY CAME FROM A STAR THAT EXPLODED. AND, THE ATOMS IN YOUR LEFT HAND PROBABLY CAME FROM A DIFFERENT STAR THAN THE ATOMS IN YOUR RIGHT HAND.
IT REALLY IS THE MOST POETIC THING I KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE.
YOU ARE ALL STARDUST.
YOU COULDN’T BE HERE IF STARS HADN’T EXPLODED, BECAUSE THE ELEMENTS (THE CARBON, NITROGEN, OXYGEN AND ALL THE THINGS THAT MATTER FOR EVOLUTION) WEREN’T CREATED AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME, THEY WERE CREATED IN STARS.
SO FORGET JESUS. STARS DIED SO YOU COULD LIVE.
And it was those three words—“SO FORGET JESUS”—that roused right-wing Christians to deluge Cyrus’ twitter account with insults and death threats. Among these:
“So are you no longer a Christian? Forget Jesus??? Seriously? What has happened to you out there in the famous world? What????”
“You seriously believe that crap? It’s so ridiculously stupid. Go to hell.”
Cyrus quickly made it clear she didn’t intend to meekly accept such aggression. She tweeted: “U have nothing better 2 do than hate? That saddens me. Im surrounded by love Im sorry 4 whatever happened 2 make u so bitter.
“How can people take the love out of science and bring hate into religion so easily?” she asked and then quoted Albert Einstein:
“It makes me sad to think the world is this way. Like Einstein says ‘Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.’”
She demanded that Twitter (now known as “X”) police itself against the cyber-bullies who often use its service.
Twitter said that its users should just block their harassers.
That ignored the question: If you start getting scores—or hundreds—of insulting and threatening tweets, are you supposed to take the time to block each one?
Twitter said that it would investigate violent threats, but then slopped the problem back onto the victim.
According to the Twitter Help Center:
“Contact local Law Enforcement or Trusted Individuals: We will investigate reports of violent threats but please remember we are not the police and we cannot actively work with the police to report incidents that you report to us.
“If something has gone beyond the point of a personal conflict and has turned into actual violent threats that you feel are credible, call the police.”
In short, you’re on your own.
All of which raised the question: Why do so many people who claim to be filled with Christian love instantly resort to insults, threats or violence simply because someone has dared to express a different religious opinion?
Could it be that then-Senator Barack Obama was more insightful than many fundamentalist Christians wanted to admit?
It was at an April 6, 2008 San Francisco fundraising event that the Presidential candidate said:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them….
“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Of course, if Obama had said this about conditions in the Arab world, millions of these same fundamentalist Christians would have wildly applauded.
Obama took a lot of heat from Christian fundamentalists for his comment. But it remains true that the anger so many of these people aimed at Cyrus is out of all proportion to the “damage” inflicted by her single word: “Beautiful.”
She was not:
- Preventing anyone from worshipping as s/he pleased;
- Urging the Federal Government to ban religious worship;
- Promoting some other faith—such as Islam—over that of Christianity.
She was merely agreeing with an observation—and an opinion—of an internationally-renowned physicist.
You can agree with her. Or disagree with her. Or ignore her completely.
But Cyrus has every right to believe as she wishes.
As do fundamentalists—who believe that a man who died 2,000 years ago is going to magically return from the grave to make everything wonderful.
Clearly, many religious people—of all faiths—desperately need to remember the words of the French philosopher Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
And he warned: “Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Military, RELIGION, Social commentary on January 1, 2024 at 12:49 am
New Year’s Eve, 2023, will soon lie behind us.
And for many people, saying “Goodbye” to 2023 can’t happen soon enough.
New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time for people to reflect on the major events of the previous 12 months. Some of these are highly personal. Others have been shared by the entire country.
Some of these remembrances inevitably bring pleasure. Others bring pain.
And 2023 has been a year of pain for millions.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to violently assault Ukraine. Despite a series of military setbacks, he continued to hurl missiles at Russia’s “brother nation.” Many Ukrainians spent a second Christmas without electricity or running water.
- On October 7, the Hamas terrorist group launched an attack on Israel, slaughtering 1,400 men, women and children and kidnapping at least 250 others. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and ground assault on Gaza, killing upwards of 20,000.
Emblem of Hamas
- In the United States, Donald Trump continued to lie that he had been cheated of victory in the 2020 Presidential election. His lie resonated with millions of Fascistic Americans, including members of Congress.
- And he prepared to run again for President—even as he faced 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. Determined to make himself “President-for-Life,” he posed the single greatest threat to American democracy in its history.
But 2023 also brought reason for hope:
- Republicans remained lethal but divided, ousting Kevin McCarthy, their own Speaker of the House and threatening to cannibalize others in their quest for dictatorial power.
- The COVID-19 pandemic had been largely contained, although the virus posed a lethal threat to those refusing to get vaccinated.
- Conscious of the dangers of climate change, Americans made wind, solar and hydropower more than 20 percent of the power supply.
Every New Year’s Eve celebration brings the fantasy that you get to start fresh in a matter of hours. And with that fantasy comes hope—that, this time, you can put your sorrows and failures behind you.
And each new year comes with lessons to be learned—and applied.
Each year gives us the chance to learn from history—our own and that of others. Try to learn from your mistakes—and especially those of others. With luck, you won’t repeat your past ones—or those of others. But don’t expect to lead a mistake-free life.
There is a time to be bold—and a time to be cautious. As Niccolo Machiavelli put it: “A prince….must imitate the fox and the lion: For the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.” Learn to tell when is the appropriate time to be which—and to play that role to the hilt.
Niccolo Machiavelli
There is image—and there is reality. J.P. Morgan once said: “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: A good reason and the real reason.” This is never truer than when a corporation or politician is asking for your money / vote.
When trying to decide whether to commit yourself to either, ask yourself: Who benefits? For example: When studying a proposed law that claims to aid the environment, find out who supports it. That will usually tell you what you need to know.
Learn how to evaluate others. Once again, Niccolo Machiavelli supplies the answer: “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him. When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Don’t confuse wealth with virtue. Too many Americans believe that God bestows wealth on the worthy. If this were true, every Mafia boss would be a candidate for sainthood.
Each year is a journey unto itself—filled with countless joys and sorrows. Many of these joys can’t be predicted. And many of these tragedies can’t be prevented.
Learn to tell real dangers from imaginary ones. Computers are real—and sometimes they crash. Men who died 2,000 years ago do not leap out of graveyards, no matter what their disciples predict.
Don’t expect any particular year to usher in the Apocalypse. In any given year there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, riots, floods and a host of other disasters. These have always been with us—and always will be. As Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”
Don’t expect some Great Leader to lead you to success. As Gaius Cassius says in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”: “Men at some time are masters of their fate. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”
Don’t expect any particular year or event to usher in your happiness. To again quote Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
If your life seems to make no sense to you, consider this: The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once noted: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on December 25, 2023 at 10:26 am
You can’t understand how irrational people can be until you examine their religious beliefs.
Consider many of those beliefs embraced by Christians—from their first-century origins to the present day.
Among those beliefs:
- God creates Adam from dust. This is biologically impossible. Would-be parents don’t throw dust into the air and see it instantly turn into newborn babies.
- God creates Eve from Adam’s rib. This is also biologically impossible. In 1885, German biologist Hans Driesch showed that blastomeres of two-cell sea urchin embryos could be physically separated and two entire embryos formed from each blastomere. But you don’t get a female cell from a male one. If this had happened, God would have created the first transgender woman.
- Humankind originated with Adam and Eve. A naked man and woman live in a forest, eat only fruit, and believe they are in Paradise. Then a talking snake deceives the woman into eating from “the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” They suddenly realize they are naked—and are then banished by God from Eden. Taken to its logical conclusion, this story warns: You will be punished if you become educated.
God creates Adam–as painted by Michelangelo
- Noah saves the world’s wildlife by stuffing them into an ark. Sure—untrained wild animals are going to meekly walk, two-by-two, into a huge building. Then they’re going to let themselves be caged. And Noah and his family must store a huge variety of food for each type of animal for an indefinite period of time. Transporting large numbers of animals poses a Herculean challenge for circuses even today. And the sheer stench of all that animal urine and feces in a closed Ark would have been horrific.
- Moses parts the Red Sea. Some scholars believe “Red” has been mistranslated from “Reed,” which is like upgrading “the White Quail” to “the White Whale” in Moby Dick.
Moses (played by Charlton Heston) parts the Red Sea
- Lot’s wife becomes a pillar of salt. A human being can be turned into ashes, but not salt.
- Samson kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his physical strength couldn’t kill so many men—except with a machinegun.
- Daniel is thrown into a pit of lions—but survives because an angel closes their jaws. This sounds inspiring—until you remember that didn’t happen when Christians were thrown to the lions by the Romans.
- The will of God violates physical laws. Jesus turns water into wine and raises Lazarus from the dead; Jonah lives inside a fish for three days; Noah dies at 950 years.
- Jesus redeems mankind from sin. Adam and Eve brought “sin” into the world—not by murder, rape or incest, but by gaining knowledge in the Garden of Eden. To redeem billions of future men, women and children from a “crime” they didn’t commit, God impregnates a teenager without her consent to sire a son so he can be tortured and murdered.
- Jesus rises from the dead. There have been near-death experiences, but there has never been a documented case of someone being certified as dead who came alive again—especially more than 2,000 years later.
- Jesus will return more than 2,000 years after he died to wipe all evil from the earth and usher in a paradise for his faithful followers. This is the ultimate “Get-Out-of-Death-Free” card. Everyone fears death. Science says it’s final—but Christianity promises you can live forever if you just follow the teachings of Jesus—as interpreted by any number of would-be clergy.
“The Transfiguration of Jesus” as painted by Carl Bloch
- “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever” (Ecclesiastes 1:4). Wrong. According to astronomers, in about 7.5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant, expand beyond the Earth’s current orbit, and vaporize the planet. Which raises the question: If God is all-wise, why did he create a self-destructing universe?
So why do millions of people unquestioningly accept so many stories that totally contradict the most basic truths of common sense?
- Countless parents have told them to their children.
- So have countless pastors and priests.
- From the 1940s to the 1960s, audiences reveled in such spectaculars as “Samson and Delilah,” “The Ten Commandments” and “King of Kings.” When people watch Biblical movies, they believe they’re seeing The Truth as it’s laid out in the Bible.
- Gospel music has produced mega-hits like: “Shall We Gather at the River?” “Take Me to the King,” “Down By the Riverside.”
- Fear of death—and the hope to live forever—as Jesus allegedly cheated death through his resurrection.
- To bring a sense of purpose to their lives by “enlisting” in a Heavenly (if imaginary) community.
It is not necessary to actually be religious to run for and win public office in the United States. But it is essential to claim to be.
Donald Trump—a lifelong criminal totally lacking in humility and spirituality—became the darling of evangelicals in 2016 by claiming to love Jesus.
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SKIP CHRISTMAS: JESUS ISN’T RETURNING TO SAVE YOU
In Business, History, RELIGION, Social commentary on December 17, 2025 at 12:16 amThere are several good reasons for skipping Christmas this year—and for years to come.
Reason #1: It’s based on a pagan Roman festival.
Reason #2: It’s based on a story that’s patently false.
The story of the Three Wise Men—or Kings—bringing gifts to the infant Jesus was added long after Jesus’ birth.
Realistically, there was no reason why anyone in Israel would have known—or cared—about the birth of yet another Jewish child.
If he had actually been born the son of a king, then his birth might have mattered to people generally.
In his 1973 bestselling Alexander the Great, Robin Lane Fox explains that “in antiquity…life’s perspective was reversed, and youth was mostly described through a series of anecdotes which falsely mirrored the feats of the adult future; proven kings or bishops were remembered as kings or bishops when young.”
Thus, Alexander the Great, the future conqueror of the Persian empire, has been depicted—as a boy—astonishing Persian ambassadors with precocious questions about the innermost workings of that empire.
For followers of the crucified Jesus, it was essential to establish his divinity from the outset of his birth. And what better way to do this than having not one but three Kings show up, uninvited, to declare his reign over them?
Reason #3: It’s actually blasphemous.
Assume, for a moment, that the story of the Three Wise Men—or Kings—is true.
The whole point of the story is to establish that Jesus’ birth was a truly special event—and a recognition of his fate to redeem humanity from sin.
No one else in that story is depicted as giving—or getting—gifts.
No matter how much a child might be loved today, almost no one expects him to be a future savior.
So giving him gifts is essentially a parody of the acknowledgement of Jesus’ divinity.
Reason #4: Christmas is overwhelmingly a commercial—not a religious—event.
Reason #5: There is no Paradise waiting for the dead.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus will return, cleanse the Earth of sinners, and claim it as a paradise for God’s faithful worshipers—that is, themselves.
They quote Ecclesiastes 1:4: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.”
Except that it won’t.
The Sun will become a red giant in about five to six billion years, when it runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core. Its core will contract and heat up, while hydrogen fusion will begin in a shell around the core. This will cause the outer layers of the Sun to expand significantly.
The Sun will swell to hundreds of times its current size, becoming a red giant.
This will likely destroy Mercury and Venus. Earth could be swallowed entirely or, if it survives, it will be scorched by extreme heat and radiation, making it uninhabitable.
A Red Giant
Then, eons after the Earth disappears, so will the entire Universe.
Scientists debate how this will happen. Some believe it will occur in a Big Crunch (collapse back to a singularity) in about 33 billion years. Other theories favor a Big Freeze, Heat Death or Big Rip.
So don’t count on Jesus to return from a 2,000-year slumber to prevent this from happening.
There are people who insist that Christmas is a religious event that they are commanded to celebrate.
For those people, it’s a good time to remember the advice of 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
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