Imposing Prayer Creates Problems

The folks in Missouri have decided to confront nonreligious residents head on.  They voted this month to approve an amendment to the state constitution that would allow public prayer.  Of course, that ignores the reality that public prayer is perfectly legal nationwide provided that no one is forced to participate.

River baptism

Just look at the number of people openly being baptized in rivers and shores every Sunday. There are also open-air churches and related public events.  Let’s not forget prayers before civic meetings and NASCAR races, among other activities.  Then there’s the Pledge of Allegiance’s “under God” and the line “in God we trust” on our money.

We’re really saturated with prayer.

The real concern behind such attempts to change the law has to do with the effort to impose fundamental Christian views on everyone else.  They want the “right” kind of prayers.  All they will do is continuing to drive a wedge between different faiths, which has already led to the shooting in a Sikh temple, the attempts to block a Muslim mosque from opening and the continual hatred spewed by religious bigots of all faiths.

Six people died in the Sikh Temple shooting.

Supporters may want to consider the flip side to their efforts:  Christians aren’t the majority in every country.  In fact, only about 2 in every 7 people in the world believe in Jesus.  As a minority, fundamentalists might also want to note a recent State Department report showing that smaller religions continue “to suffer loss of their rights across the globe with a rise in blasphemy laws and restrictions on faith practices.”

The 2011 International Religious Freedom Report found that almost half of the world's governments "either abuse religious minorities or did not intervene in cases of societal abuse."

The most discriminated people include Christians in Egypt, Tibetan Buddhists in China and Baha'is in Iran. In Indonesia, for example, a Christian was sentenced to prison for five years for distributing books.

It’s all legal.  Laws passed in those counties open the door to discrimination.  The Missouri vote does the same thing.  You can bet fundamentalist Christians will use the law to inflict their religious views on everyone within earshot and attempt to drown out anyone with a different religious preference up to and including quiet meditation.

Fortunately, there are courts outside the “Show Me” state who will likely show residents there why such a law violates the U.S. Constitution, which clearly states that government can pass no law regarding religion – prayer included.

There’s another point fundamentalists might want to think about.  The State Department report won praise from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, but chair Katrina Lantos Swett said the department still must convince policymakers that religious freedom should be a “moral imperative" in this country and abroad.

Good luck with that idea, especially among fundamentalists convinced they alone have the “true” faith.

Young Christian missionaries at the Olympics

Fundamentalists might also consider the multiple missionaries at the recent Olympics in London.  There, Christians, Muslims, vegans and their counterparts cheerfully mingle with the thousands of visitors and distribute flyers and brochures supporting their views. 

That’s what happens in a free society.

The State Department report didn’t overlook at obvious point: “… countries whose constitution, laws, policies, and practices protect religious freedom and human rights (are) the most vibrant and stable.”

That’s true in every state of the Union, too.

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

Ryan Should Preach to Atheists

Ryan

Atheism, a favorite whipping boy of religious conservatives, has been injected into the presidential campaign.  Rep. Paul Ryan, the putative Republican candidate for vice president, told reporters that author Ayn Rand was his inspiration, unaware (he said) that she was an atheist.  What he liked were her views about capitalism. 

In her novels, she promoted the free enterprise system, but one without regulations or restrictions of any kind.  Unfettered capitalism, of course, led to the 1930s Depression and the recent recession, but the concept still intrigues wealthier members of society and fills their heads with sugarplum dreams of untold riches.

Ryan’s Rand-inspired concepts include the end of Medicare and the disbandment of government regulatory agencies, but definitely not atheism.  Actually, he’d be far better off supporting a belief in no god than a government with no rules. 

Just for starters, atheism and the anti-regulators have a lot in common.  Atheism has no requirements of any kind: no rituals, no holidays, no sacred books or clergy.  It’s harder to reduce restrictions any further than that.

Rand

In addition, atheism places no onerous requirements on its followers: no fasts, no circumcision, no long pilgrimages, no distinctive clothing.  In fact, atheism would eliminate much of what Ryan objects to and allow society to achieve the ultimate level, as Denis Diderot, the editor of the first encyclopedia, noted:  “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Ryan definitely would not favor disemboweling priests, at least not any of his Roman Catholic faith, but he definitely wouldn’t mind eliminating the regulators and letting each person be “king” of his own investments, including Social Security.

Atheism is also about individuals.  There’s no church or centralized authority. Every atheist acts alone without any concern for someone else’s beliefs.  For example, even humanist organizations contain agnostics and theists.  In parallel, Ryan’s economic world is based on the rugged individual enduring despite regulatory chains.

He once spoke on that subject to a group of Rand supports and told them, “The fight we are in here is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” If she were alive, he said, Rand would do “a great job in showing us just how wrong what government is doing is.”

Atheists are also extremely moral.  They have no guidebook to model such behavior, no fear of eternal punishment.  However, they recognize that, without some form of morality, society cannot function. And, who would be the first people blamed if society collapses?  That’s great incentive to be very moral.

Aquinas

Ryan, too, stresses morality, even though he ties it to religion.  After being criticized for his link to Rand, Ryan promptly told the conservative National Review that he actually was guided by Church Father Thomas Aquinas and the “Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that issues should be handled at the most local level possible.”  That contrasts with Rand, who said Christian values injected into government polices create “the best kindergarten of communism possible” and are inherently corrupt.

Besides, since our country adamantly separates church and state, Christian values have no place in government decisions any more than Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist or other faiths’ values do.  That’s an atheist theme, too.

On top of that, Ryan’s views on the military coincide nicely with those of atheists.  In the spring, as chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan suggested that the Pentagon was “deliberately misleading Congress” and that only Congress could be trusted to determine proper military spending.  Atheists have no truck with military leaders either.

Ryan never spent a moment in military service, which fits perfectly into atheist ideals.  No atheist has ever started a war.  The same cannot be said for true believers.  Atheists definitely picked up weapons when their country called, unlike Ryan or Mitt Romney, but didn’t initiate a single battle.

As a final reason, Ryan will need votes.  He won’t get them by endorsing Ayn Rand, who would have rejected him anyway for his anti-abortion views and insistence in trying to dictate morality.  Rand, a Russian refugee, knew too well the dangers of that approach and insisted that “individuals must be free from government interference in their personal lives.”

Instead, Ryan should embrace nonbelievers, the so-called “Nones,” who now represent 19 percent of Americans.  Based on a steady growth pattern, the Nones should eclipse the conservative Christian wing in short order.

No doubt about it: Ryan and atheists could create the perfect civil union.

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

August and Jesus Go Together

August is my favorite month.  I love the warmth of summer as the season drifts toward fall.  The flowers are in full bloom; birds are extremely happy, oblivious to the coming chill.  We may get occasional hurricanes in Florida then, but the rain and wind has never been too bad in our area.  If anything, the storms have demolished a few unwanted motels, identify weak roof shingles that needed replacing and generally swept away the dead palm branches.  The electrical outages that sometimes accompany the storms only heighten our appreciation for Florida’s many charms.

August, too, carries the astrological sign Leo.  How can anyone not like a month graced by the King of the Beasts?  What’s the alternative: a fish?  A blind lady holding a scale?  A crab?   I’ll take the magnificent cat every time.

Augustus Caesar

Another reason I like August is its role in history.  It’s named for Octavian (left), the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar.  The great Roman didn’t have a son and so adopted Octavian, then just 19, and bequeathed him a share of the country’s power.  Renamed Augustus, which means “revered,” Octavian eventually became the first emperor of Rome and ruled 44 years.

July was named after his uncle and elongated by borrowing a day from February.  Not to be outdone, the emperor renamed the eighth month, then known as Quintilis or “fifth,” and also absconded with a day from February.  Maybe he thought that would make winter shorter.

Another famous person, Jesus, also may have a tie to August.  Early Christians had no idea when their savior was born – the Bible doesn’t say – but modern historians have taken a hint from the book ascribed to Luke, where shepherds described as being in the field with their flocks came to the manger to worship the baby.  Since shepherds in ancient Israel were in the field during the late summer, August seemed like the right month.  Besides, the odds were good that Jesus was born in August.  Historically, more people are born in August than any other month.  Just think back nine months when it’s cold, encouraging a lot of huddling together under blankets.

 

I think Jesus and Augustus have a lot more in common than a month.  In my book, The Gospel Truth, I researched where the Gospel writers might have gotten their information from.  They agree on little, so they must have had separate sources.  Without a doubt, they got at least some of their information from the life of Augustus.

To his constituency, the emperor was a god.  Titles attributed to him included “Divine Son of God, God from God, Lord and Redeemer, and Liberator and Savior of the world.” 

Sound familiar?

In Augustus’ day, predictions were rife that a great man would rise from the East, both in Jewish circles and as a result of forged oracles attributed to the Sybil.  According to the seer, the future emperor was born in humble circumstances and that a lightning bolt had blasted the city wall of Velitre, his hometown, just prior to his birth.  Supposedly, the Roman Senate, fearing a prediction that a future ruler of the world was due, then ordered the death of all male children.  Only the timely intervention of his mother saved baby Octavian, the story recounts.  His mother’s pregnancy was ascribed to a god, Apollo, and the young Octavian was described as being surrounded by golden solar flames.  Eventually, he was called the son of God.  His worship became part of everyday life.

Gee, that could be someone else, too.

As one inscription to Augustus noted: “This day has given the world an entirely new aspect.  … From no other day does the individual or the community receive such benefits as from this natal day, full of blessing to all.  The Providence which rules over all has blessed this man with such gifts for the salvation of the world as will designate him a savior for us and for coming generations; of wars he will make an end, and establish all things worthily.  By his appearance are the hopes of our forefathers fulfilled; not only has he surpassed the good deeds of earlier times, but it is impossible that one greater than him with ever appear.  The birthday of God has brought to the world glad tidings that are bound up in him.  From his birthday a new era begins.”

That would not be out of place in any Christian religious service.

Dionysus

There were other gods, like Mithra and Dionysus, that the Gospel authors had to overcome, as well as other heretical sects, such as Gnostics.  There were also pagan faiths, other messianic figures like John the Baptist and Jewish concepts that had to be countered.  However, without much debate, Gospel authors found what the model they needed in the man for whom this month was named.

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

Religious Fighting Overshadows Belief

EMTs wheel away a Sikh Temple shooting victim.

It’s been hard to stomach the news this week:

·       

             Six murdered at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.

·            Gunmen in Gaza kill more than a dozen people.

·             Mosque burned down in Missouri.

To heighten the nausea, the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church – whose members regularly picket the funerals of American soldiers killed in the Middle East – tweeted that God had caused the murders at the Sikh Temple.  

Fred Phelps, who leads the congregation, called the murders “punishment” for the treatment his church had received in its Wisconsin home.

Such irrational claims, and the wanton shootings themselves, are symptoms of a serious misunderstanding that has plagued mankind for millennia: the confusion between religion and belief.  They have nothing in common.

Belief is the willingness to accept something as truth without a single fact.  Virtually all beliefs are similar, dealing with ways for people to function in this world for the betterment of themselves and humanity.   

Religions are something else.

Religion is an organized system, often with various props such as “sacred” books and clothing.  It often includes teachers, identified by various titles, and a usually mythological history along with pretentious claims about afterlife and morality.  It needs money to survive and yearns for power.

A belief may be connected to a religion, but doesn’t have to be.  After all, a true believer can insist a particular soccer player is the best in the world, regardless of facts mustered by someone who disagrees.  Beliefs are eternal.  Earliest humans, for example, seemed to have beliefs about an afterlife, just as we do today.

Osiris

A religion on the other hand may have no beliefs.  Unitarians, for example, have none.  Religion is merely an artificial framework that beliefs can be hung on for a relatively brief time period.

Religions come and go.  No one worships Osiris anymore, or Baal, Marduk or a myriad other once-esteemed, imaginary deities.  In the distant future, the same will be true for the cherished gods of today.  Religions have a lifespan, just like everything else, including the universe.

Beliefs don’t need defending, since they require no facts.  You can believe anything you want.  As Thomas Jefferson asked, “Why should I care what my neighbor believes?”

Belief affects no one but the individual who believes it. It has no meaning outside of believers.  If you don’t believe that your late uncle can be reborn as a cow, then a cow is merely another animal.  Heaven doesn’t exist to a non-believer and is ardently real to a believer.

On the other hand, religion seeks power and control, to dictates thinking and behavior.  It needs weapons and followers to use those weapons on its behalf.  Religion will happily kill anyone who professes alternative ideas in order to maintain its status in society.

Arsonists torched this mosque in Missouri.

That’s why vicious members of any religion are apt to pick up a gun and shoot members of other religions.  No religion is exempt.  Even normally peaceful Buddhists have gotten in battles with Hindus.  We all know about the fights between Sunnis and Shi’ites, Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims etc.

As long as people continue to confuse religion and belief, that carnage will not cease until either everyone is dead or completely sickened by it enough to stop.

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

No Future in the Bible

Psalm 22 "decoded"

Back in 1997, an enterprising journalist named Michael Drosnin published a book claiming that the Bible contained a complex code, describing events that took place long after the texts were actually written.  Called The Bible Code, the book was a best seller that captured the imagination of millions.

For the deeply religious, the book “proved” that the Bible was truly God’s word.

You haven’t heard much about it lately, have you?

That’s because the Bible Code was used to make predictions.  Not one of them has come true.  Moreover, scholars examining the text found basic flaws in the logic behind the code, which looks plausible, but really isn’t.

The code involved arranging all 304,805 Hebrew letters of the Bible into a matrix without spaces or punctuation – in short, the way the original text was written.  Then, a computer looked for matches that created words.  The work was done in original Hebrew, but it’s easy to understand.  Take any quote from the Bible, look for letters in a row that form words.  

One published example drew on Genesis 31:28 And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Thou hast now done foolishly in so doing.

 daughtersthouhastnowdonefoolishlyinsodoing.

See?  You end up with Roswell, the site of the supposed UFO landing in 1947.  

Some of the words are uncovered by going in a straight line, but others can come from other lines above, below or next to each other.

Unfortunately, you can do the same thing with any book or even this essay.  With enough letters, you can spell anything.  In reality, the code is nonsense.  

So is the idea that the Bible predicts anything.  In reality, that idea stems from a mistaken use of the word “prophet.”  In modern parlance, that’s someone who predicts the future, like Cassandra of ancient Troy who could see the future but was doomed to be ignored.

Nostradamus

History is replete with such prophets, including Jeanne Dixon in this country and France’s Nostradamus. Their success records were extraordinarily tiny.  You could achieve better results by flipping a coin.

Biblical prophets were no better.  More importantly, those folks were not looking into the misty future, but relaying (at least in their mind) the word of God.  They were mouthpieces for the deity and threatened listeners.  Their point was that if God was not observed, bad things would happen.  That’s not much of a prediction: bad things happened all the time to impoverished people tiptoeing on the knife’s edge between foreign armies, starvation and disease.

The idea linking these prophets with prophecy owes its existence to Christian exegesis.  After the formation of Christianity, apologists scoured the only holy texts they knew, the ones now in the Bible, and plucked predictions of Jesus from the musty pages.  Any mention of a messiah was culled as were predictions meant for a distant time period.  

For example, Isaiah said: Isaiah 7:14."Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."(7:14) Isaiah was talking about his time period and not the Christmas story.  To early Christians, the prediction was too appealing to pass up.

The connection is tenuous at best: Mary was supposedly a virgin, and Jesus’ name was not Immanuel.

Regardless, once the Jewish Bible was seen to predict Jesus, all seemingly prophetic comments were turned to forecasts.

Lindsey

Predictions have rolled along ever since.  They are inevitably wrong.  For example, conservative Christian icon Hal Lindsey is still living off his 1970 book predicting the Russia would soon invade Israel and precipitate World War III.  Today, he says he got the date wrong.

Prophets in the past had the good sense to couch their predictions with conditional words like “could” and “may.”  Invariably, if they made a prediction after the event took place, they were always right.  A predication made before an event was invariably wrong, just like the Bible Code.

Using the Bible as anything more than to initiate conversations about morals and ethics is equally mistaken.

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

New Religions Targets for Politicians

As political conventions near, politicians seem more inclined to bleat about their religious beliefs and try to convince the public of their devout natures.  They are preaching to a shrinking choir. 

Just for starters, a recent poll found that 19 percent of Americans don’t belong to any religion.  The “Nones,” as they were labeled, include atheists as well as deists who have rejected organized religion.  That’s an awful lot of people to ignore.  In fact, they outnumber the folks who have joined the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.

Nor are the Nones operating in a vacuum.  These days, more people than ever are turning away from traditional faiths like Christianity and Judaism.  Instead, less-known beliefs far from the spotlight have been quietly gaining members.  As a public service, I thought it would be nice to redirect political attention to possibly more lucrative arenas.  

Nuwabian Imperial Grand Potentate Dwight York

Founder Malachi York

Consider for example, Nuwaubianism.  It was founded by Malachi York (left) now in prison for money laundering and child molestation charges, but that’s not surprising.  Founders of religions, including Moses, Jesus and Mohammad, usually face persecution by unjust authorities.  This faith does have some unusual tenets that will require some hard swallowing: such as everyone has seven clones living around the world and that women “created” men through genetic manipulation.

Vorihon

Then there’s the Church of Euthanasia, which has taken on the issue of overpopulation.  It recommends that to save the planet, members should kill themselves.  The four basic tenets of faith are: suicide, abortion, cannibalism and sodomy.  Overpopulation would cease to be a problem if we all converted.

Another group that is gaining interest is Raëlism, a self-described atheistic UFO faith.  According to its founder, former race car driver Claude Vorihon (left), Yahweh is an alien who spoke to him in 1973, revealing that all people were created through DNA techniques by another alien named Elohim.  That’s the same name used in the Bible for God, but it’s not unusual for one religion to borrow a god from some other religion’s pantheon.  That’s where the names Allah and Yahweh came from, for example.

Kemet is the rebirth of ancient Egyptian ideas.  Adherents believe that there’s one god, but he manifests himself in multiple minor deities.    That has ties to the Cuban mystical faith called Santeria, which believes in an unreachable god who has a legion of spirits so God doesn’t have to bother with lowly humans.  

Yoruba, the largest native African faith, also shares many traits with other religions.  Believers claim that fate is linked to thoughts and actions.  Death is not an end. Rather, like Hinduism, it simply is part of a cycle as a person moves to unity with the supreme deity, named Olodumare.

Mandaeism is an ancient faith that was once declared a Christian heresy, but has endured.  It rejects Jesus and focuses instead on John the Baptist.  Followers also spurn all other religious leaders, like Moses and Mohammad, considering them false prophets, too.

Crowley

Let’s not forget a small cult that worships Peanut’s cartoon character Charlie Brown, or Thelema, founded by English mystic and drug addict Aleister Crowley (right), who borrowed from ancient Egypt and added some magic and homespun philosophy.

None of these religions – and there are many more – have wide followings now, but neither did any of the major religions of the world at one time.   Abraham, according to the Bible, began Judaism with only his wife and two sons (one of whom he tried to sacrifice.)  How many followers did Buddha have when he died?  A dozen?  Mohammad convinced his son in law Ali to convert, but struggled to find believers after that and eventually had to flee his hometown.  

Christians love to point out that Jesus only had a few followers who knew he existed as if it’s something special.  Actually, no major faith started with more.  Most had less.

Yet, somehow, they all grew.  So has the Mormon faith, begun by Joseph Smith in upstate New York.  He only had a few followers for many years.  That’s also true for Scientology, which was started by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and now claims Hollywood stars among its members.

There’s no telling where the next “true” faith will come from.  The only reality is that religions have life cycles:  old faiths die; new faiths replace them.  As one ancient Egyptian once moaned – quoted in the book Man and His Gods – “If Osiris never lived, then mankind has lived under an illusion for 2,000 years.”

Osiris (left) never lived.  

Religion is the illusion.  Since surveys increasingly indicate that people are rejecting the old, tired faiths and looking for new ones, politicians should stop praying for votes and get on this bandwagon before they find themselves not just talking to empty minds, but to empty buildings as well.

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