The Antichristian Phenomenon

It’s been a slow time over at the ACP. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much of an activity going on around here. Perhaps I should get my cat ‘o nine tails ready to provide some…incentive.

Fortunately, in this slow period, someone decided to send us an email to explain why we go wrong. This is a historical moment as we haven’t actually received any such thing until now. I think it deserves a post of its own.

Our contact is Jonathon who by now has sent two different emails. He seems to be open to communication so in the spirit of openess, I will post the discussion here so that they rest of you might join in. I will provide the email as it was sent with my replies (which I’ve already sent back) in between. Feel free to comment on any part you wish. (more…)

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Picture was taken from a Christian tourist shop in Toledo. I saw it and the title immediately came to my mind. You can’t get more emo than that.

UPDATE: Alternatives now available

If you can think of a better caption, let me know and I’ll create it

In the previous article I made references to this site: http://www.everystudent.com/, which brings forth new and modern “arguments” for the existence of god, and why is Jesus the only way for eternal happiness.

This second part is centered on two main aspects: the nature of the Christian faith and the incredible and grotesque lie in the context of Christianity- “free will”.

This article in particular caught my attention: http://www.everystudent.com/wires/twokinds.html

For me, this says it all about the TRUE nature of the Christians and their “faith”. So, it is not about being happy, altruistic, finding peace in your heart, adhering to a lifestyle that would give you joy. It is exactly the opposite. It is about forcing yourself to believe something and to adhere to some rules that don’t have any meaning to you, struggling daily with natural urges that you try to deny and blame on “the Devil”, a ville oppression against your own mind and spirit, and, most of all, a speculative and opportunistic  way of living.

You heard right: Christianity is the most egoistic, opportunistic and oppressive of beliefs. It has nothing to do with “compassion, love, altruism”. The true essence of Christianity is as follows: give up your own beliefs, your own free thought, your own mind and  bodily urges in order to adhere to a belief system, to some external rules and thinking ways, written in an ancient book. Why? Because it is SAFER ! Because you don’t want to risk going to hell or whatever after you die.

In my opinion, this is the worse case of weakness and of fear of taking responsibility for your actions. Ever since Pascal brought into discussion his (in)famous wager, it has since been used by Christians as a POWERFUL and INDESTRUCTIBLE argument for believing in their god.

Of course, the infantile nature of this argument is so evident that it is more like a source of humor and comedy, than an argument of any kind. The Christians have the incredible courage to say that (even if they were to accept the obvious- that there is no proof for the biblical claims) there is a 50% chance for their god to be existent and that it is a safer bet to accept him in order to avoid eternal punishment. What the Christians forget (or maybe don’t know, since many like to live in ignorance, as a requirement of their christ) are the other thousands of religions that have the same roots and similar myths, just like Christianity. And many also appeared way before the bible did. So why is this Jehowa more special than other gods? The real chance for the Christian god to exist (if we were to accept this wager) is actually somewhere around 0.001%.

Another outraging thing about this way of thinking is that Christians claim that “if there is no god, they have really lost nothing”. And here is where I ask: what about those countless and worthless hours of worship,  the fact that you denied what you loved the most, that you let go of your true convictions in order to become the slave of some nebulous beliefs and of a system demanded by an idol, non-existent god ? That sounds pretty much like ruining your spiritual integrity, and still you say that you have nothing to lose.

Anyway, back to my point: the Christian moral system and faith, although it may look shiny and polished on the outside (to some, at least) is no more than a rotten carrion on the inside. A terminal disease for your mind, not a cure. You are actually forcing yourself to engage in acts that have no meaning to you. The so-called good deeds are really nothing but shallow, heartless acts, done out of fear.

Such is the true nature of Christianity.

Now, about the second part, the free-will. References: http://www.everystudent.com/journeys/yesno.html

Well, this was really (initially) a desperate attempt to explain the fact that people engage in harming acts, even though they were supposedly created in a perfect world, by a perfect creator. Even worse, a noble and vital aspect in a person’s development- free will- that is being in control of your mind in order to follow your own path and build your own system in life, is systematically turned into a weapon that inflicts guilt. Because our evil free-will, we keep bringing plagues upon this world. It is because our free-will, because we do not let the Great Nonexistent govern us and because we want to follow our OWN belief-system in life, that natural disaster, wasting diseases, famine, deaths etc happen. If someone is dying painfully from a terrible disease, remember that WE are responsible for it, because we use our free will to refuse to subscribe to jesus.

That’s how Christianity works, and that’s what free-will is in Christian teachings- the greatest source of evil.

Of course, these theologians still want us to think that god is reasonable, he is a democratic ruler, not some tyrant who rules with an iron fist, but a permissive god who lets us choose if we want to follow him or not, to believe in him, or not. Yet, immediately afterward, they offer another example, of what will happen to those who do not follow god- that is they will burn…in HELL !!!! This makes Stalin, for example,  look like a very sympathetic figure indeed. He didn’t force anyone to adhere to the misery creating fantasy of a system that he brought. You could have easily chosen to be a dizident those days. Of course, you might have also very well ended up in the Gulag, along with your whole family as a result of this. The Christian god is no different than this. How can anyone have the nerve to talk about you being allowed free will, as long as there is a gun pointed towards your head ?

In conclusion, free will and Christianity are two aspects that can never be put in the same room. For us irreligious people,  free will is the boosting engine for our own mental progress. In Christianity, free will is the root of all evil.

Anyway, that’s all for today. I don’t know if there will be any third part to this. I’ll keep on writing more articles independent from this “under siege thing”.

PS: Myth on the same step with the law of gravitation ? HAHAHAHAHA

This past weekend, Cleric and I decided to relax and watch a couple movies… something fun, maybe kind of bad, with lots of explosions.  We’re both Sci-fi buffs, as was his friend D., who was over, so we decided to whip out the Starship Troopers Trilogy.  The first one was great; the second was a botched attempt at making the series into horror, and the third… a catastrophe—acting, lips, and special effects aside.

When religion and cinema mix, it must be a tasteful blend, or one risks alienating part of the intended audience.  It is clear that there was a distinct purpose for mixing religion into SSTIII, but it was done so distastefully that I felt the need to get up several times to get more popsicles.  Not that I was particularly hungry, or too warm, I just couldn’t stand what I was seeing… and I sat through Expelled.  What went wrong?  Lets start from the top. **Severe Spoilers ahead.  Not like you’d actually want to watch anyway, but if you do for some bizarre reason, watch before reading.** (more…)

When we talk about religion, we always see it as something cultural, even as a cultural phonomenon perhaps. Religion is however quite far from it, especially when we actually talk about religion and not so much about its practices (although we will get there too). Religion is first of all a political tool. Religion is used as a banner to divide or unite people, and it has been excused as a justification in warfare many times. Religion is also secondly a socio-political identity.

However, to understand what this means, we must first understand that religion in a political context is not always as much as believing or having faith in god(s), but merely faith in something, whether it be a divine being or not. The definition of religion is:

1. A belief or faith in something
2. Rituals
3. Rules

Suddenly the word religion gains a very broad meaning, and can span more than the world religions which be invoked in our thinking when the word religion is mentioned. As such, many of our current cultural phenomena can be seen as a religion. One of those can be the animal right activist groups. To be an animal rights activist, you should first of all share a belief that animals are equal to or better than humans, rituals might involve to not eat meat or consume any product taken from dead/living animals and lastly, rules that forbid you to say, eat meat. This is all put into an overarching system and also gives the animal right activist an identity with other animal right activists by following this agenda. Thus, to truly be an animal right activist means that you actually follow a religion of sorts, in a purely political context. The only reason why you or anyone else would declare yourself an animal right activist is only to politically prove you share the idea of these typical ethics and morals mentioned (animals are of equal or above equal worth compared to humans, you follow a vegetarian diet, you do not consider any form of research conducted on animals ethically correct etc), thus, declaring yourself an animal rights activist outside a political context is useless. Obviously, the idea also unites other animal rights activists under certain organizations such as WWF but also creates a we vs them mentality, let’s say, the evil factories that pollute the rivers and seas so fish will die.

It is also very evident that religion is also more strongly envoked upon when a political identity is needed. I saw a short three-part documentary called We Are All Neighbours today, conducted by anthropologist Tone Bringa in a small village in Bosnia. 1/3 of the population was Catholic, the remaining 2/3 Muslim. It is recorded during the early 90s, (1993) and the conflict between Croatians and Muslims over Bosnia has just begun. At first, the conflict can be heard because of gunshots and shelling, but it is only in a distance and remains so for quite a while. While the villagers are worried the war will break out and soldiers will invade their village, they still don’t understand much of the basic idea of the conflict, that different ethnical groups (Croats, Serbs, Muslims) struggle to gain politcal control over a country (Bosnia). Croats, Serbs and Muslims have lived peacefully in this village for quite some time, and they don’t understand why the fuss. Sure, some of them have different faiths (Catholics vs Muslims) but they still believe in the same god. They also openly declares they don’t understand how you can attack your own neighbour for belonging to a different ethnical group. However, as the violence draws closer it eventually escalates in a bloodbath, where neighbour stands against neighbour, and eventually the Catholics kill their Muslim neighbours when the Croatian soldiers arrive (Croatia is more strongly associated with Catholicism). We can clearly see as the violence draws closer the villagers also keep more and more to themselves; Muslims to Muslims and Catholics to Catholics, despite many of them being good friends before the war begun. They often excused their own newly gained animosity with that “they might consider me a spy” or equally farfetched reasonings. In a world of paranoia however, it doesn’t seem as impossible as it would have before the war.

Here, we can clearly see how one’s religious identity becomes more important to strengthen one’s national identity (Catholics associate themselves with Croatia and support the Croatian army, Muslims the Bosnians and Serbs). Thus, religion is merely a political construct, and when you openly declare you are this or that, you also openly declare a political stance. It might not sound very rational to claim, especially if we look at something such as Atheism.

However, Atheism maybe more than anything is a political construct and many ideas in Atheism support this. First of all, there is a “belief” in science, that at least science is more superior to any other way to view the world. Science is associated with a secular society, and in turn associated with freedom of thought. Here, we can slowly see how Atheism is taking upon more and more political leanings, since freedom of thought often reconciles with freedom of speech. Atheism also often stands for many other common ideas in secular societies, such as a more social welfare model as well as Liberalism (which has partly been mentioned with freedom of speech). Religion on the other hand, is often associated with Conservatism (in a political sense but also culturally) and then that religion’s internal structure (ie rules and rituals) will decide how a Conservative society will look like.

Of course, I am not going so far as saying it is always this way, this is merely shown to point out an example how many Atheists might actually consider themselves, and that at least in a political context, their lack of belief in a god will actually create such as strong socio-political identity that it can be considered a religion, and how the word religion in turn is merely there to express one’s raher ethical, moral and political views than actually your ideas of faith.

Since Db0 was so kind to remind me of this in his post, it was hard for me not to reply to that, especially after learning about the Seed Theory originally created by Carol Delaney and her colleague whose name escapes me right now. There is actually a reason why females are considered inferior in the Abrahamic religions. To understand this, we must first of all understand what was before Christianity and Judaism. That’s right, many pagan religions where some were cheerishing the fertility of women, since good fertility means a good harvest. Fertility of course, is the very central theme in many agricultures, and why shouldn’t they, when it’s the very thing they rely upon to survive? Looking at this further, we can also see a notion where every god of fertility in pagan religions is depicted as woman. Coincidence? I think not. Thus, fertility as a whole is more strongly connected to the female gender rather than the male one, and in addition connected to the earth since the earth can be fertile. Women then, stand for the earthly. Is there any question too why it is the female who gives birth to the world in most mythology sagas? As a quick example, we don’t need to go further than Gaia, which is probably the most well-known of all world birthgivers.

However, when the Abrahamic religions came into the picture and turned the world upside down with its monotheism, there was suddenly no room for a fertility godess. As a matter of fact, god is so divine that it is the very opposite of what is earthly. Men, who never were considered fertile in the sense as women then, were seen as closer to god. Why is that women cannot even sometimes leave their own house during their periods, or if they pray their prayers will not be reached? Periods if anything, is the very physical evidence of female’s fertility. Men, who do not have periods, and thus are not connected to the earthly are more pure, and also stands closer to the divine.

It is also noted that men not only are more divine, they are the actors, while women are merely spectators. Why is that the most romantic sex would be where the woman is passive, lying down on her back? This is a very old notion in Western society of how sex should be performed. Men once again, are the actors. This in turn refers back to god, where god created the world, not the woman. We call god the creator and god plants the seed. Men too, plant the seed in women, not only because you plant a seed into the ground but also literary, in English and many other European languages is the semen of men sometimes known as seed.

Why then is the earthly considered so bad that women’s sexuality should even become prosecuted? I cannot honestly answer, more than it seems to be an attempt to demonize pagan religions.

This is an analysis I based on Fall From Grace in Genesis:

My own tack on Fall From Grace? It’s a way to make a claim between the earthly and the divine. You see, in the Abrahamic religions and also in many pagan ones, women in particular are often considered being more “earthly”, because of their difference in fertility. This is primarily based on the fact that women can have children and have periods. This sets women further away from god, since god is divine and not earthly. Don’t you for example think it’s funny it’s Eve who ate the fruit first, not Adam? A serpent is often symbolized with cycles, notice how this seem to fit nicely with periods? Furthermore, this is probably a way for the Abrahamic religions to taint the pagan religions in where female fertility was seen as a positive thing. In paganism too, a cyclist thinking is not that uncommon. So in such a sense, the woman represents nature and paganism, which in Christianity is so far apart as you can get from god. Notice also how it is Eve who later suggested Adam to eat the fruit. Thus all the blame was to be put on Eve. Adam did nothing wrong, after all he is the man, and is closer to god. Even if he did wrong he did less wrong because he doesn’t have periods.

In addition, it is also the child who inherits the sin from its mother, not its father, further explaining that women are tainted but men are not. So frankly, I have actually no idea how some Christians could reproduce with this idea in mind. Going further to not have sex before marriage could be a part where a man who has sex with an unmarried woman will become tainted. Among gypsies, the skirt closest to the body is tainted as well, and among some Muslims women’s underwear cannot be mixed with men’s underwear during washing, or the men’s clothing will be tainted.

I would one day like to see where men’s semen is considered as tainted too, although that will probably not happen. Most often periods are also a sign with lack of body control, and to keep oneself clean and pure. This can be traced even further back from Ancient Greece where there some there were ideals a human should adhere to show dignity. One of those was to keep oneself pure. Of course, this notion too, was constructed by men for men, women were not often considered and even if they were, there were other ideals for them to follow.

Hm, I realize I am too tired to really think more clearly about the matter right now, so I will just continue when more ideas arise. I guess I call this part 1, so if there are anything else to discuss, it will be in part 2. Maybe a more elaborate analysis of From From Grace perhaps?

Image via Wikipedia

If you see the Christian religion, you will notice that in the fundamentals, there is a distinct call for repressing one’s pleasure. This is found from the very first calls for modesty, to the banning of masturbation and sinification (is that a word?) of sex. All of this of course if double as strong when related to women.

I’ve always wondered how can this Joylessness meme which exists in most Abrahamic religions keep replicating in most of their mutations, and occasionally getting so strong so as to deny all forms of pleasure. Especially compared to the pagan religions which not only lacked this meme but on the contrary celebrated all pleasures in life and even had gods specifically assigned to them.

Indeed, the Abrahamic religions went into great lengths to demonify all aspects of Paganism (especially those related to the pleasure gods) so as to convince people that such actions were to be avoided. This was certainly so that their own converts would not be sways by the very powerful pleasure meme. Of course, since the pagans themselves could not be convinced to give this up, other methods of…persuasion were implemented.

Shutting down human urges, especially the sexual ones seems like a recipe for disaster. It builds up aggression, breeds depression and generally is the source of a lot of bad things. Nevertheless, it survives.

I think there must be some kind of sister-meme which not only uses this pent-up pressure to feed and promote the religion but also gives a significant advantage in order to overcome the disadvantage such a behaviour creates to the spreading of the meme. Indeed, the easiest to figure out is one of the ways in which this is expressed in the extremely repressed religion of Islam, where the rules and bans are so much more severe, especially related to sexuality.

Aggression

There is a very strong activism part in Islam (especially the fundamentalist one) which is very difficult for Christians or Atheists to match. Indeed, the ease with which Muslims gather and go on the offensive at the smallest excuse is quite surprising for westerners. The answer of course lies in their own repression. A fundamentalist Muslim not only is controlled by a wealth of inane rules which make their life difficult but is also forbidden from using most of the things that would allow them to relax. Not only that, but because of the allowance for polygamy, it means that there are less women for each male (Most of them of course being taken by the richest and most powerful members of the society). Thus you have a large male populace which has a lot of pent-up aggression and no way to take it out.

Is it surprising that they jump to activism and violence at the drop of a hat? Not only that, but this is quite a powerful competitive meme because it keeps the religion pushing on everyone else and constantly being on the forefront or action.

But another question remains. How do the Christians get rid of the this aggression? It is obvious that the Joylessness meme still exists as exemplified by their constant attempts to stop anything of joy. In the western societies there is no biggest opponent to Sex, drugs and rock&roll than the fundamentalist Christians. Of course these are not the only things that they have in their target. Violent video games (which, incidentally are great for letting out steam), Alcohol (even when you don’t drink it), porn (masturbation facilitator) etc.

Until now, I didn’t have a clear answer to this. I know that fundamentalist Christians are of course much more easy to leap to activism but they are nowhere near the levels the Muslims achieve on a regular basis. Of course, the christian religion is much less repressed than Islam but still, all this pressure has to go out somewhere. They don’t drink, they don’t fuck, they don’t dance…or do they?

And another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Whereas normal people would go to a club and dance or headbang, these Christians, who I’m certain are frowning quite a lot at such excursions, think nothing of standing up in their church and doing the “Crazy Monkey”. I’m certain that when they return home, they must find that this was an exhilarating experience and they will choose to interpret their tiredness and strange feeling of peace as the touch of God, never realising that their own bodies need this kind of experience once in a while and those feelings is their own reward.

This practice in turn, not only allows the Christians to nullify the joylessness meme (to a degree) but it also uses that builtup emotion to feed their own god delusions.

The Aristotelian causa efficiens for this article were two recent news articles about two epidemics. A mumps outbreak in Chilliwack, Canada was traced back to a single case in a religious group that was opposed to vaccination. This outbreak has lead to mengingitis, deafness and concerns about sterility in a number of people.^[I]). The same infectious disease broke out in the Netherlands this year, which was the first in twenty years. Even though vaccination coverage for this and other diseases is 90-95% in the Netherlands overall, this outbreak took place in a geographic region with a high percentage of residents who are Christian reformed conservatives.^[II]).

Most reformed conservatives in the Netherlands live in a geographic location aptly called the Bible belt. It has a grim history concerning infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. In events since the 1957 Dutch vaccination program took off there have been multiple cases of outbreaks in the bible belt, owing to the refusal to vaccinate of these Christian reformed conservatives. Especially in the last 15 years this group of Christians has been drawing attention and deserved criticism to itself. In 1992-1993 there was an outbreak of Polio in this region. In 1999-2000 there was a measles epidemic, which caused the death of three children. In the 2300 cases (of which 20% lead to serious medical complications)^[III]) almost all (97%) affected were not vaccinated because of their religious convictions - or in the case of children, because of their parents’ religious convictions. In 2004-2005, there was an outbreak of rubella. None of the affected were vaccinated, of which 90% because of religious reasons.

The religious reasons are rooted in the idea of “God’s providence” - The idea that every event is intended by God. In this line of reasoning, God will prevent you from getting infectious diseases if it fits his plan. If you do get affected, it must somehow be a necessary evil in God’s grand orchestration of ultimate benevolence. And so you have to ask yourself: Should parents have the freedom to put their child at risk when this is completely unnecessary? To me, this religious practice is no different than medical neglect. In the Netherlands, parents are free to choose not to vaccinate their children on the grounds of religious freedom. I always wonder what happened to the medical rights of the children. Should children’s rights make place for parents’ choices? I think not. It is not a matter of religious freedom because it’s possible harmful consequences are being imposed on others, on the weak and vulnerable - on exactly those who the government should protect.

And there is more to it. There are cases of medical neglect on much higher scales and in much higher political and religious spheres. I think the best known case is the Pope’s rejection of the use of condoms for Africa to stop the spread of HIV and Aids.^[IV]). Think about it: the most influential spiritual leader is opposed to an easy, comparatively cheap and proven method to prevent the human immunodeficiency virus spread in favour of methods that are unrealistic and plainly ineffective (i.e. “abstinence and fidelity”). This is no less than a condemnation to a horrific disease through authoritarian, religious blackmail.

Leaving the global scale, there are other cases of medical neglect. One of which is not so much because of religious opposition, but because of religious substitution. Instead of going to see a doctor, people are being subjected to a cross-carrying quack to undergo “faith healing” (I will only go into the religious forms of this, and not those of homeopathy and its likes). The worst and most despicable forms occur with televangelists. (e.g. Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff). Not only do these people claim to be able to heal the sick, they often earn ridiculous amounts of money through their work as charlatans. Another bad case of medical neglect through religious substitution presents itself as institutionalised to “Christian Science“. Christian Science adherents (”Christian Scientists”, not to be confused with “Christian scientists”!) will rely on the healing power of prayer as a first remedy in the case of illness. Like the case with creationism, they reduce the issue of medical care to a choice in a false dichotomy of modern healthcare versus their spiritual “treatment”. In the Christian Science frequently asked questions section, they justify the endangerment of their children because parents should have the right to choose for the spiritual treatment they themselves have found to be effective.^[V].

In the conclusion of this article I’d like to emphasize on the importance of this problem. Children are medically neglected (thus practically abused) by their religious parents because the law has allowed them to. do so under the moniker of religious freedom. We should not allow this to happen. Therefore,  as a first step, I am in favour of mandatory (government-funded) vaccination programs for children, regardless of parents’ religious beliefs. I encourage people to comment with ways to counteract the religious substitution of healthcare for children.

Footnotes

1. The Province, “Mumps outbreak traced to anti-vaccination religious group”, August 27, 2008 (link [↩]
2. Dutch vaccination institution, “Increased mumps incidence in the Netherlands”, July 3, 2008 (link [↩]
3. National Health Services, MMR The Facts - The Netherlands, (link [↩]
4. BBC News, “Pope rejects condoms for Africa”, June 10, 2005 (link [↩]
5. Propaganda video from Christian Science (link) [↩]

This is an anecdote about some protesters in front of Planned Parenthood today.  Hilarity and ignorance ensues. (more…)

In case you haven’t noticed, the voting for the Golden Crocoduck award is now running.

I can’t say much that the video does not say by itself. Basically you can cast your vote for the person who you believe is the biggest Liar for Jesus, where you can define “biggest” as the most ballsy, ridiculous, funny or whatever.

Potholer has created a handy list of nominees as well.

Unfortunately the format of the poll is kinda unwieldy as you’re supposed to leave your vote as a comment in the video (the one embedded) and the votes will be tallied. There’s much better ways to conduct a poll than this.

I’ve made a little poll for this as it might be a little more useful than the comments of a youtube vid and plus you can have a bit more organization. Unfortunately I can’t tell all the nominees from the vids (some don’t have names, some are not clear) and I can’t be bollocksed to link to every individual vid now (almost 4 am here). Perhaps tomorrow. Feel free to suggest any names I forgot and I will add them.

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Oh, and since we’re on the subject of votes, I thought I’d mention that the Blogger’s choice awards are ending in a few weeks and Non-Christians are nowhere near the top of the Best Religion Blog. So hurry up and cast your vote.