The Devil Is Good for Business

Based on recent surveys, God may be slowly disappearing from American life, but the Devil is making a comeback.  Several centuries after being discredited in Salem, Satan has again wormed his way into public consciousness.

As a result, the demand for exorcists has climbed, too.  After all, someone has to step in to combat Mr. Scratch.  For example, the number of exorcists in Poland has jumped from 4 to more than 120 in just a few years.  In fact, the Poles now have a monthly magazine devoted to exorcism. 

Americans don’t have a magazine, but do have more exorcists now than ever, according to a published report.

Fr. Posacki and his magazine

Leading politicians have chimed in, too.  Rick Santorum, a former Republican presidential candidate, told one audience, “Satan [has been] attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that [have] so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

Lucifer, Santorum insisted, apparently without being aware of the irony of his own role, was planning to attack politics. 

The former U.S. senator is not the only person to recognize Old Nick’s presence.  An estimated 60 percent of Americans, according to a 2009 study, believe in Belial.  That’s an increase from 1990 when only 55 percent of Americans professed that belief.  At the rate, the Evil One is garnering attention, he might soon surpass God in the number of believers.

A leading Polish priest had an answer for the phenomenal popularity of Beelzebub: economics.  The fall of the communistic rule of Poland opened the doors for entrepreneurs, explained Father Aleksander Posacki, who was identified as a "leading demonologist and exorcist."  He added, "Capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of occultism.”

A KISS band member

That makes sense.  The same people who invented a need for various unnecessary products, such as antiperspirants, are now creating a need for a Prince of Darkness.

The band KISS understands that logic.  Supposedly, the initials stand for Knights in Satan’s Service.  The letters actually don’t represent anything.  However, band leader Gene Simmons never corrected the misconception because, he  said, “it was good press.”

Chopra

Even disbelief in El Diablo can create a market.  Dr. Deepak Chopra knows that angle.  He’s written several books on spirituality while rejecting Old Harry’s presence.  "My position is that we have a huge problem with what people call evil in the world, and they need a good rational explanation and not an irrational mythical explanation," he said.

In a 2009 televised debate about the existence of Lucifer, Chopra added that "healthy people do not have any need for Satan. Healthy people need to confront their own issues, understand themselves and move towards the direction of compassion, creativity, understanding, context, insight, inspiration, revelation and understanding that we are part of an ineffable mystery. …So I would say be done with Satan and confront your own issues."

Former fundamentalist minister turned atheist Carlton Pearson agreed.  "I'm from four generations of Demon caster-outers,” he said.  “I had tremendous faith in the Devil and his power and his omnipresence … I have reassessed all of that, and I think that the best way to get people free is to get them to stop believing so much in this hairy, horny, freaky, scary, omnipresent entity, and it will not manifest the way we have believed it to. And that will bring an element of peace."

In addition, Chopra probably came closest to the reality that the Polish priest recognized: the Prince of Darkness exists to provide an economic boost.

Geico's gecko

"Unfortunately, there are religious institutions that have actually idealized guilt and shame and made it into a virtue," Chopra said. "They have created institutions around guilt and sin and shame and disgust with our own self. And when we obsess over these things and we collectively create this obsession then we project it out there as this mythical figure that we call Satan."

Think of Satan as the ancient counterpart of the AFLAC duck or the Geico gecko.  It’s a marketing tool.  Without an imaginary Wicked One to kick around, Christianity would be out of business.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Defending Islam No Excuse for Bombs

Tsarnaev

Supposedly, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead Boston Marathon bomber, helped murder three people and wounded more than 280 others with his pressure-cooker bombs because he wanted to “defend” Islam.  At least, that’s the explanation given now for the otherwise inexplicable attack.

Defend Islam?

From what?  From whom?

There’s no evidence that Islam is under attack anywhere in the world, especially not by the United States.  The war in Afghanistan is not a religious war.  Allies supporting our efforts there have provided soldiers and/or supplies from Muslim countries like Bahrain, Egypt , Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.  Even Iran, not exactly a friend of the U.S., got involved on our side to battle an uprising in the city of Herat.

They obviously don’t think the war has any religious overtones.

Admittedly, Americans are not happy about terrorist attacks and the fighting against militants in Iraq and Afghanistan.  At the same time, however, we wouldn’t be happy with Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists or anyone else under similar circumstances.

Besides, Americans accept all religions.  Several states were founded as refuges for members of various faiths, including Pennsylvania (Quakers); Maryland (Catholics) and Massachusetts (Calvinists.)  Two states were founded for religious freedom: Rhode Island and Connecticut.  Some of our earliest laws enforce the concept of religious freedom.

That’s what makes us different.  Since our founding in 1776, we have not approved any laws limiting civil rights to members of any faith.  At one time in Spain, in contrast, only Catholics could own property or marry.  Today, non-Catholics have little chance of succeeding in Central or South America, which are dominated by Catholicism.  That’s true for non-Muslims, too, throughout much of the Middle East.

Henry VIII

We have not persecuted members of an alternative sect, as Protestants and Catholics did in England from the reign of Henry VIII in the 1520s through the mid-1660s.  We have never gone to war for religious reasons as Europeans did after the Protestant Reformation.

We have never set out to kill people just because they had a different belief, as Europeans Christians did from the Crusades through the Holocaust or Islamic Barbary Coast pirates did to western sailors in the 1800s. 

Unlike Islamic countries, which tightly control leadership roles the guise of faith, the United States has evolved into an open society.  Our Congress today reflects that diversity.  Religious affiliation of the 111^th Congress included:

Protestant          54.7 percent    

Catholic            30.1 percent    

Jewish               8.4 percent      

Mormon            2.6 percent

Orthodox          1.3 percent

Muslim             .04 percent

Buddhist           .04 percent

There were also three Unitarians and an atheist.  Try admitting to atheism and getting elected anywhere else in the world.

Have we been perfect?  No, of course not.  Americans in the 1800s, then mostly Protestant, openly discriminated against Irish Catholics – and Catholics in general.  We didn’t elect the first Catholic President

Kennedy

until John F. Kennedy (left) took office in 1961.  Today, the majority of Supreme Court justices are Catholic.  No one has protested that anomaly.

There were objections over the plan to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center after 9/11.  The proposal went through normal legal channels and was eventually approved.  It’s just a mosque.  The New York Post has reported that no large community events have been held there, although opponents insisted it would be a meeting ground for radicals.  Mosque leaders now say that it may be converted into condos or an office building along with space for prayer.

Animosity against the individuals who attacked the towers on 9/11 did not extend to their religion or toward others of the same faith, except for a few morons who support “guilt by association.”  There are always those who ignore the reality that such stereotyping would force us to condemn all Jews for the actions of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, all Scientologists because convicted murderer Charles Manson claims to be a member or Catholicism because executed mass murderer John Wayne Gacy was Catholic.

Romney

True, presidential candidates invariably are expected to demonstrate their religious zeal.  That led to dueling ministers in the 2008 election.  However, a larger part of the population clearly does not care what a part leader believes.  Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith did not stop him from becoming a viable candidate who seriously challenged the incumbent president in 2012.

Terrorist bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan can at least claim they are trying to rid the country of invaders or attack opponents.  The Boston Marathon bombers can’t do that.    Their attack was nothing less than pure hate disguised as religious zealotry.

Is that what their god believes?  Hate and kill everyone who doesn’t share a particular faith?

Why would anyone want to defend that kind of deity?

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Belief Can Lead to Mayhem

Aldrin on the Moon

You may believe the Earth is flat.  Some people still do.  You may believe that man never landed on the Moon.  Some people believe that, too.  You may believe your religion is the only true one.

That’s the nice part about belief.  You can believe almost anything: the world is ending tomorrow, a dead uncle was reborn as a cow; ancient ancestors needed to be placated; a god likes to be eaten.  Some people do.

However, that does not make it correct.

Take the flat Earth idea for an example.  The Earth is not flat.  That was clear to ancient people when there was an eclipse.  The round shadow of the Earth was visible. It’s obvious today from photos taken by satellites and astronauts from space.  It’s clear from photos taken of other planets, all of which are round.

Kruger

Paul Kruger, former prime minister of South Africa, discovered the impact of that fact first hand.  In the late 1800s, he was a member of the Flat Earth Society, which insisted the world was not round.  The organization based its arguments on the Bible, which, in their mind, could not be wrong.

As an important official, Kruger often made long-distance official visits by boat.  On one trip, he chatted with the captain and asked him about navigation.  The captain explained how he was able to steer the ship using a system based on the curvature of the Earth.

Sure the Earth was flat, Kruger asked for a detailed explanation and quickly learned the facts about the Earth’s dimensions.  He also realized that the captain was right.   He then went to his cabin, got his Bible and heaved it overboard, saying that if the Earth wasn’t flat, then the book was wrong. 

Others preferred to ignore that inconvenient fact.  The Flat Earth Society still exists.

Humans also landed on the Moon.  That’s clear, even if you prefer to ignore the Moon rocks with their very different chemical and physical composition.  You simply have to look at the little American flag still on the Moon and visible with a telescope.  It didn’t grow there. 

After the Boston Marathon bombings

Facts can be hard to accept.  They can be very uncomfortable.  We all have pet theories and ideas, and facts can shatter them.  They can be like hard punches to the solar plexus.  They can cause bruised egos and massive hemorrhaging of confidence.

Perhaps most significantly, facts can really create gaping wounds in any religious body.  They can cause some people to kill, such as the marathon attack in Boston or suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They are the reason that a growing number of people worldwide no longer belong to any organized religion and have backed away from faith.  They are why age-old religions are fighting so nastily by manufacturing their own “facts” and trying forcing their own beliefs on everyone else through politics or violence. 

Darwin

The realities of life lead to terrorism, as believers unable to convince anyone with their words try to fend off incursions into their faith with murder and mayhem.  They would kill everyone that does not believe before they turn on each other. 

Others are more peaceful.  They simply deny facts.  For example, they refuse to accept the fact of evolution.  To do so, they must ignore all the advances of scientific research that dates back to the ancient Greeks.  Charles Darwin gets credit for the theory, but it existed long before him.  Darwin just brilliantly deduced how evolution works – through natural section.

Today, no evidence has ever been found to contradict evolution.  Moreover, continued research has supported and expanded on Darwin’s seminal work.  We now know that heredity and environment work together to activate and suppress genes, changing life slowly and, on occasion, surprisingly rapidly.

Evolution is fact.  So is Climate Change, an increasingly dangerous threat to mankind’s existence.  Most recently, scientists said that summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years,   “Data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago,” the news report said.

"It's definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica," lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.

Communion

The flood of fresh water into the world’s oceans doesn’t bode well for islands and shorelines, not to mention more violent storms and disruptions in farming and food supplies.

That’s the flip side of belief: ignoring facts doesn’t make them go away.  Facts help us plot a future.  Pretending they don’t exist simply exposes all of us to unnecessary perils.    For example, the advent of AIDS meant that the practice of sharing Catholic communion cups had to cease.  Orthodox Jews who staunch blood orally after a ritualistic bris now know they may be spreading hepatitis to the hapless child.

On a larger scale, pretending Climate Change is not happening simply guarantees nothing is done until the danger evolves into a disaster.

Believe whatever you want.  Just keep that belief separate from the facts.  The two can make a very volatile mixture.

The Earth is round.  Belief won’t flatten it.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1