Court Takes Daughter Away from Christian Bigot

Christianity has many wonderful teachings, but its intolerance meme is not one of them. The so-called "evangelical" version of Christianity teaches hate and bigotry.

Today, it's a mother who can't see her own child, because the other mother (they were lesbians, legally married in Vermont) converted to evangelical Christianity, rejected her former lifestyle, and refused to let her divorced partner see their child. The Court ordered visitation, the biological mother refused, and in exasperation, the Court had to take custody away from the biological mother completely. Sadly, the woman's Christian bigotry was so strong that rather than obey the Court and the law of the land, the biological mother stole the daughter away and disappeared.

I can understand someone who has a change of heart about their sexual orientation, or adopts a new religion, or both. But I suspect in this case there's something more sinister afoot: I'd lay odds that her fellow Christians encouraged her lawless behavior (which is probably a criminal act in itself). They believe that the lesbian lifestyle is so hateful that it's justified to break the law, and your own promises to your former partner.

Why must these conservative Christians be so hateful of other people's lifestyles? This is not true Christianity, and I hope real Christians across the nation condemn this act, and all acts of intolerance and bigotry.

Christians go Nuts: Bible Says God Did NOT Create Universe!

What happens when you insist that the Bible be taken literally ... and it turns out there is a big mistake in the translation? For example, what if the original doesn't say God created Heaven and Earth?

Oops.

It's a perfect example of what happens when you let irrational faith trump scholarship and rationality: every time a new fact comes along, your defense of your beliefs has to get even more contorted and far-fetched than before.

According to Professor Ellen van Wolde, the story of Genesis was mistranslated, and badly. God didn't create the universe, it was here already. He just sorted it all out and made sense of it. Sorting out the heavens and firmament, and the waters from the land, and so on, would be a mighty task, one worthy of any ordinary god. But it's a far cry from creating the universe itself ex nihlo.

If Professor van Wolde is right, it puts Yahweh in the same league as gods like Thor, Zeus and Baal: mighty gods, but of-this-universe rather than creator of the universe. Instead of being omniscient and omnipotent, Yahweh would just be more like an ultra-magical human. Quite a downfall.

While this academic debate over a single Hebrew word is interesting and amusing, it's the reaction of Christians and Jews that I find far more instructive, and sad. Professor Van Wolde's short thesis has spawned hundreds of replies on the newspaper's web site, and some of them fill pages with their arguments.

To a scholar, this sort of thing is fun and fascinating, and the debate is just part of an ongoing, somewhat esoteric, effort to expand knowledge. If this were any book other than the Bible, it would be left in the dry, dusty attics of just a few linguists and historians.

But because it affects one of the core beliefs of conservative Christians and Jews, it has to be refuted. Never mind that in a scholarly debate, everyone might eventually conclude that the professor is right (or not ... that's what scholarship is about). No matter what the facts are, these conservative Christians and Jews have to concoct dozens of reasons why the experts must be wrong.

The refutations fall into three main camps:

1. Professor van Wolde's translation is wrong (this from people who don't even speak Hebrew).
2. The word "separate" can be taken to mean "create."
3. The original Hebrew is irrelevant, because the Bible is God's inerrant word and the current translation is His divine will.

Yikes.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog that is relevant again:

There is no objective truth for religion, no foundation. When religious people argue, they're arguing about opinion, and they can argue forever. But when scientists argue, it's over facts, and sooner or later, the facts prevail. One theory will win out because it is true, and the others will be forgotten. And the scientists will then move on to the next question, to expand our knowledge even more.

That's the beauty of true scholarship, that ultimately, through hard work and clear thinking, and by ignoring our own wishes about what we'd like to be true, we find a core truth that everyone can verify for him/herself. And we move on to the next question.

Religion's reliance on faith, and belief in things that can't possibly be true, makes it impossible to move forward. People waste days, years, and even whole lifetimes, concocting silly explanations to justify two-thousand-year-old mythology, simply because some priests or rabbis declared it to be from Yahweh's own mouth. It's a terrible waste of human intelligence.

Foul Language

When you write a blog, it's there for all the world to see ... friends, enemies, strangers ... and family. And sometimes you discover your readers unexpectedly, like when over Christmas dinner your Mom gives you grief about using strong language!

She reminded me (and of course, she's right) that any time you want to use a word that some might find objectionable or course, there's almost alway a better, and even more powerful, way to express the same thing. So from now on, I'm going to endeavour to do so.

So Joe Lieberman, I'm sorry I called you a bad name. I should have been more clear: you're an arrogant, ignorant, insensitive jerk who should retire from politics.

How to Enslave a Modern Woman

My brother-in-law posted a beautiful, inspirational video called The Invisible Woman by Nicole Johnson. It really is a very moving story ... and I despise it. It illustrates perfectly how religion is used to subjugate women.



Karl Marx got many things wrong, but he famously wrote, "Religion is the opiate of the people." The message is simple:

You work your ass off, and nobody cares. But God cares, and He sees you even if you are everyone else's invisible servant. So be a good girl, accept your fate, and get back to work.

But no woman should take this crap from anyone, much less her own husband and children. It is wrong to be treated like dirt, yet this "God cares" message is nothing more than an opiate, designed to get women to shut up and get back to their tasks.

What horrifies me about these messages is how insideous and alluring they are. A woman works sixteen hours a day, her children, husband and friends are disrespectful and uninterested, and she begins to feel worthless. But wait! There's a man, not just any man, but a kindly, loving, fatherly man, who loves her with all his heart. This man is everything her husband and children are not – appreciative, admiring, concerned, thankful, and probably handsome too. Who wouldn't want to believe this, true or not? So she goes back to her chores, happy that at least one person cares about her.

But step back for a moment, and think what might happen if women around the world rejected this opiate. Instead of feeling that inner contentment, knowing that God cares, some would surely become more depressed than ever. But maybe some would actually do something about their mistreatment.

Maybe instead of being invisible, they'd demand the respect that they deserve. And maybe they'd actually get it. Wouldn't that be novel?

Moving day...

A brief note to all my faithful subscribers: I'm moving, so I haven't been posting as frequently as usual. Stay with me, I'll be back!

Lieberman is an Ass

Joe Lieberman is an ass. I can't believe I once contemplated voting for that man. He is now acting the little bully, holding the entire Democratic Party hostage for his one vote on the health-care reform bill, because if he doesn't get his way, he's going to go running to his Republican buddies and join their filibuster, which would bring the Senate to a halt and derail the entire bill.

Last week, the House and Senate worked out a compromise in a way that exemplifies good politics and government. The two sides, who had very strong opinions about the issues, took some hard choices and worked out a deal that was satisfactory. It included a semi-public option that was not the liberals' first choice, and it extended Medicare to the 55-65 crowd.

That was democracy and good politics in action, an illustration of how the country should be run.

Now Lieberman, who already abandoned the Democratic Party that put him in power in the first place, has single-handedly decided that he, not the voters who elected all the Members of Congress, should get his way. He is bullying the entire country, simply because he can. Instead of participating in the debate, and respecting the compromise worked out the men and women who were elected by the majority of voters, Lieberman is forcing his opinion on the entire country.

Lieberman has single-handedly forced the removal of the two key elements of the compromise, gutting health reform. As far as I'm concerned, without at least some public option, the whole exercise is worthless. Why bother.

I have never once seen a filibuster that was good for the country. Why hasn't the Senate ended this despicable process that lets a minority of Senators hold the whole country hostage to their demands?

Will Immortality piss off God?

So, birthday. Fifty six – is my life half over? What are the chances I'll live to be 112 years old? Oy.

I had this weird thought. We, you and I, are all in a peculiar spot: we don't know if we'll ever die at all. It is conceivable that, before I die, scientists will discover the secrets to biological immortality. In fact, it's almost impossible that science won't someday achieve immortality for humans. Maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly within 100 to 500 years.

So what happens to Heaven and Hell when people stop dying? Seriously, this will be a real problem for the the Big Three, the Abrahamic religions. Christians, Jews and Muslims all rely on that life-after-death concept to keep believers in line, and as a sort of antidote for all of the trouble that we find here on Earth.

Life sucks? Don't worry, you'll get your reward. Saddam Hussein killed a couple hundred thousand of the Iraqi people? No problem, he's going to suffer forever in Hell.

The Heaven and Hell memes bring a balance into people's lives. They're very comforting, and assure people that, in spite of the apparent unfairness of life caused by government, society and "acts of God," everything will be smoothed over in the end.

But what happens when nobody dies? This is going to be a huge theological problem for Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

I'll make a wager, any amount of money you like, that when the day arrives that science defeats old age, religious leaders will declare that it's a sin, that it violates God's design for us. I'll even bet that it will be taken as yet another sign of the approaching Armageddon.

Of course, I can only pay up if I live that long...

If I knew I'd live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
– Mickey Mantle (American baseball player)

For those of you interested in reading more about immortality, I'm not the only one who thinks we may live forever. Raymond Kurzweil even wrote a book about this immortality, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. He claims that if we can manage to live long enough (like, to 120), science will have cured most or all diseases and even conquered old age itself. And it's actually not an unreasonable claim. I fully expect to live to 100 just by taking care of myself.