Glenn Beck at CPAC 2010. Photo: Gage Skidmore CC

Hard to believe, but mad Mormon Glenn Beck has publicly told Christians to give up their churches if they hear anything there about social justice, as reported in the New York Times:

Last week, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck called on Christians to leave their churches if they heard any preaching about social or economic justice because, he claimed, those were slogans affiliated with Nazism and Communism.

This week, the Rev. Jim Wallis, a liberal evangelical leader in Washington, D.C., called on Christians to leave Glenn Beck.

“What he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show,” Mr. Wallis, who heads the antipoverty group Sojourners, wrote on his “God’s Politics” blog. “His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern.”

Mr. Beck, in vilifying churches that promote “social justice,” managed to insult just about every mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, African-American, Hispanic and Asian congregation in the country — not to mention plenty of evangelical ones.

Even Mormon scholars in Mr. Beck’s own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in interviews that Mr. Beck seemed ignorant of just how central social justice teaching was to Mormonism.

The controversy began when Mr. Beck said on his radio show: “I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.

“Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I am going to Jeremiah Wright’s church,” he said, referring to the incendiary black pastor who led the church attended by the Obama family members when they lived in Chicago. “If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, ‘Excuse me, are you down with this whole social justice thing?’ ”…

[continues in the New York Times]

The American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum (Tilly), the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal.

However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior. According to Scripture, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal…”the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.”

Read More: Huffington Post

Just seconds ago, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors decided against the requests to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan, and also decided not to support a last minute request to change the mountain’s name to Mt. John Muir.

The Board doesn’t have the final say, however, so it could still happen…

Reporting from Mt. Diablo State Park – Arthur Mijares never saw it coming when he filed the federal paperwork to change the name of Contra Costa County’s most famous landmark from Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan.

It’s not that he’s such a big fan of the 40th president of the United States. It’s just that he believes, as a devout Christian, that naming a peak of such beauty and importance after the devil — even in Spanish — is “derogatory, pejorative, offensive, obscene, blasphemous and profane.”

“I just happen to be an ordinary man that worships God,” Mijares said by way of explanation. “He gave me this task in my prayer time. I said, ‘Lord, they’re going to think I’m a loon.’ ”

Mijares didn’t know the half of it.

In less than a month, more than 80,000 people have joined a Facebook group called “People AGAINST Re-naming Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan!!” The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, which will vote on the name change Tuesday, has been flooded with e-mail; the heated response runs nine to one against the idea, said Supervisor Susan Bonilla, whose district includes the beloved mountain.

Online comments — and there have been thousands — range from the sacred to the quite profane. It’s hard to figure out just who Mt. Diablo’s legions of supporters think is the real devil here: the gray-haired, retired rehabilitation counselor who would mess with history or the president he hopes to honor…

[continues in the Los Angeles Times]

LEX18.com via the AP

FRANKFORT (AP) — Kentucky may follow the lead of Texas and a handful of other states in allowing Bible classes to be taught in public schools.

The Senate Education Committee on Thursday unanimously approved legislation that would effectively return the Bible to classrooms across Kentucky.

“The purpose is to allow the Bible to be used for its literature content as well as its art and cultural and social studies content,” said state Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro, chief sponsor of the bill that is modeled after a Texas measure.

Under the Kentucky proposal, Bible courses would be offered as electives, meaning schools could choose whether to offer them to students as a social studies credit and that students could decide whether to take them.

Boswell said he believes the legislation is constitutional because the Bible won’t be taught from a religious perspective. What sets the legislation apart, he said, is that it proposes teaching, not preaching, the Bible.

Read More: LEX18.com via the AP

The following is the first chapter from Russ Kick’s classic bite-size Disinformation book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.

For more on Russ Kick, check out his website, The Memory Hole.

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First Amendment battles continue to rage across the US over the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places — courthouses, schools, parks, and pretty much anywhere else you can imagine.

Christians argue that they’re a part of our Western heritage that should be displayed as ubiquitously as traffic signs. Congressman Bob Barr hilariously suggested that the Columbine massacre wouldn’t have happened if the Ten Commandments (also called the Decalogue) had been posted in the high school, and some government officials have directly, purposely disobeyed court rulings against the display of these ten directives supposedly handed down from on high.

Too bad they’re all talking about the wrong rules. Every Decalogue you see — from the 5,000-pound granite behemoth inside the Alabama State Judicial Building to the little wallet-cards sold at Christian bookstores — is bogus. Simply reading the Bible will prove this. Getting out your King James version, turn to Exodus 20:2-17. You’ll see the familiar list of rules about having no other gods, honoring your parents, not killing or coveting,
and so on. At this point, though, Moses is just repeating to the people what God told him on Mount Si’nai. These are not written down in any form.

Later, Moses goes back to the Mount, where God gives him two “tables of stone” with rules written on them (Exodus 31:18). But when Moses comes down the mountain lugging his load, he sees the people worshipping a statue of a calf, causing him to throw a tantrum and smash the tablets on the ground (Exodus 32:19).

In neither of these cases does the Bible refer to “commandments.” In the first instance, they are “words” which “God spake,” while the tablets contain “testimony.” It is only when Moses goes back for new tablets that we see the phrase “ten commandments” (Exodus 34:28). In an interesting turn of events, the commandments on these tablets are significantly different than the ten rules Moses recited for the people, meaning that either Moses’ memory is faulty or God changed his mind.

I. Thou shalt worship no other god.

II. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

III. The feast of unleavened bread thou shalt keep.

IV. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.

V. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest,
and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

VI. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God.

VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.

VIII. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

IX. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.

X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid [ie, a young goat] in his mother’s milk.

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Look for more 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know in the next 50 days under the tag “50 Things” on disinfo.com.

Above Image: Moses with the Ten Commandments by Rembrandt (1659).

The Christian “truth” about America’s founding has long been taught in Christian schools, but not beyond. Recently, however, some activists decided that the time was right to try to reshape the history that children in public schools study. Succeeding at this would help them toward their ultimate goal of reshaping American society.

As Cynthia Dunbar, a Christian activist on the Texas board, put it, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”

A Christian group in Michigan has filed a lawsuit alleging that a package of hate crimes laws named after murder victim Matthew Shepard is an affront to their religious freedom.

Far from the intended purpose of severely punishing criminals who commit unspeakable acts against a persecuted minority group, the religious activists claim the laws are a guarded effort to “eradicate” their beliefs.

Filed by the Thomas More Law Center — which bills itself as the religious answer to the American Civil Liberties Union — the complaint claims that protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people “is an effort to eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda from the marketplace of ideas by demonizing, vilifying, and criminalizing such beliefs as a matter of federal law and policy.”

The suit was placed on behalf of American Family Association of Michigan president Gary Glenn, along with pastors Rene Ouellette, Levon Yuille and James Combs.

Read More: RAW Story

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Members of a Baptist congregation…were charged Thursday with abduction and criminal association, according to prosecutors.

The Americans were arrested as they tried to take 33 Haitian children to what they had said was an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. A Web site for the orphanage said that children there would stay in a “loving Christian environment” and be eligible for adoption.

But several of the 33 children had at least one living parent, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and said the children would be able to return to Haiti to visit their families.

As international aid agencies rush food, water and medicine to Haiti’s earthquake victims, a US faith-based group is sending Bibles to Haitians in their hour of need.

Not just any Bible.

These are solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Called the “Proclaimer,” the audio Bible delivers “digital quality” and is designed for “poor and illiterate people”, the Faith Comes By Hearing group said. According to their website, the Proclaimer is “self-powered and can play the Bible in the jungle, desert or … even on the moon!”

The Albuquerque-based organisation said 600 of the devices were already on their way to Haiti. It said it was responding to the Haitian crisis by “providing faith, hope and love through God’s Word in audio”.

With tens of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents living outdoors because their homes have collapsed or they fear aftershocks from last week’s quake, the audio Bible can bring them “hope and comfort that comes from knowing God has not forgotten them through this tragedy”, the group said.

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Read More: ABC News

LOUISVILLE, KY—At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He’s a member of his school’s swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Faber admitted to reporters Monday. “It’s like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I’m tempted to go behind my friends’ backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on.”

Added Faber, “I feel so confused.”

The openly gay teen, who came out to his parents at age 14 and has had a steady boyfriend for the past seven months, said he first began to suspect he might be different last year, when he started feeling an odd stirring within himself every time he passed a church. The more conservative the church, Faber claimed, the stronger his desire was to enter it.

Read More in the Onion

Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.

But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn’t so poor after all.

Anderson says Jesus couldn’t have been poor because he received lucrative gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh — at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says.

“Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey,” says Anderson. “Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation.”

Many Christians see Jesus as the poor, itinerant preacher who had “no place to lay his head.” But as Christians gather around the globe this year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, another group of Christians are insisting that Jesus’ beginnings weren’t so humble.

They say that Jesus was never poor — and neither should his followers be. Their claim is embedded in the doctrine known as the prosperity gospel, which holds that God rewards the faithful with financial prosperity and spiritual gifts.

A clash of gospels?

The prosperity gospel has attracted plenty of critics. But popular televangelists such as the late Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin and, today, Creflo Dollar have built megachurches and a global audience by equating piety with prosperity.

The prosperity gospel, however, clashes with the traditional depictions of Jesus as poor. That’s because the traditional image of Jesus as destitute is wrong, says the Rev. Tom Brown, senior pastor of the Word of Life Church in El Paso, Texas…

[continues at CNN]

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Russ Kick writes: H. G. Wells is best-remembered as a late-Victorian pioneer of science fiction, mainly due to his 1890s novels The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. He cranked out dozens of books in numerous genres of fiction and nonfiction, and 1945—the year before his death—saw the publication of his last two books to come out during his lifetime: The Happy Turning: A Dream of Life and Mind at the End of Its Tether.

The Happy Turning is a slim, strange work that gets even stranger as it continues. Wells sets it up by claiming that sometimes he dreams about taking his daily walk and coming across a pathway he’s never noticed in real life. Taking this turn (the “Happy Turning”) leads him to the utopian Dreamland (a/k/a the Beyond), where his body is perfectly fit, where society knows no war, poverty, or inequality, and where his “subliminal self” lets loose with a flood of “cryptic and oracular” symbols.

Wells then steps back in time to relate some dreams he had when he was young, including the one that “made me an atheist.” Having read about “a man being broken on the wheel over a slow fire,” the preteen Wells had a nightmare. “By a mental leap which cut out all intermediaries, the dream artist made it clear that if indeed there was an all powerful God, then it was he and he alone who stood there conducting this torture.” Upon awakening, he felt that he had two alternatives: go insane or stop believing in God. “God had gone out of my life. He was impossible.”

The following is Wells’ Dreamland chat with Jesus, which takes up two of the longest chapters. The excerpt below is
approximately the first thousand words of this encounter:

THE COMPANION I FIND most congenial in the Beyond is Jesus of Nazareth. Like everything in Dreamland he fluctuates, but beyond the Happy Turning his personality is at least as distinct as my own. His scorn and contempt for Christianity go beyond my extremest vocabulary. He was, I believe, the putative son of a certain carpenter, Joseph, but Josephus says his actual father was a Roman soldier named Pantherus. If so, Jesus did not know it.

He began his career as a good illiterate patriotic Jew in indignant revolt against the Roman rule and the Quisling priests who cringed to it. He took up his self-appointed mission under the influence of John the Baptist, who was making trouble for both the Tetrarch in Galilee and the Roman Procurator in Jerusalem. John was an uncompromising Puritan, and the first thing his disciples had to do, was to get soundly baptised in Jordan. Then he seemed to run out of ideas.

After their first encounter John and Jesus went their different ways. There was little discipleship in Jesus. He played an inconspicuous role in the Salome affair, and he assures me he never baptized anybody. But he was brooding on the Jewish situation, which he felt needed more than moral denunciation and water. He decided to get together a band of followers and march on Jerusalem. Where, as the Gospel witnesses tell very convincingly, with such contradictions as are natural to men writing about it all many years later, the sacred Jewish priests did their best to obliterate him. He learnt much as he went on. He seems to have said some good things and had others imputed to him. He became a sort of Essene Joe Miller. He learnt and changed as he went on.

Gods! how he hated priests, and how he hates them now! And Paul! “Fathering all this nonsense about being ‘The Christ’ on me of all people! Christian! He started that at Antioch. I never had the chance of a straight talk to him. I wish I could come upon him some time. But he never seems to be here…. There are a few things I could say to him,” said Jesus reflectively, and added, “Plain things….”

I regretted Paul’s absence.

“One must draw the line somewhere,” I said.

[“]In this happy place, Paul’s in the discard.”

“Yes,” reflected Jesus, dismissing Paul; “there were such a lot of things I didn’t know, and such a lot of snares for the feet of a man who feels more strongly than he understands. I see so plainly now how incompetently I set about it.”

He surveyed his shapely feet cooling in the refreshing greensward of Happyland. The stigmata were in evidence, but not obtrusively so. They were not eyesores. They have since been disgustingly irritated and made much of by the sedulous uncleanness of the saints.

“Never have disciples,” said Jesus of Nazareth. ‘’It was my greatest mistake. I imitated the tradition of having such divisional commanders to marshal the rabble I led to Jerusalem. It has been the common mistake of all world-menders, and I fell into it in my turn as a matter of course. I had no idea what a real revolution had to be; how it had to go on from and to and fro between man and man, each one making his contribution. I was just another young man in a hurry. I thought I could carry the whole load, and I picked my dozen almost haphazard.

“What a crew they were! I am told that even these Gospels you talk about, are unflattering in their account of them.

“There is nothing flattering to be told about them. What a crew to start upon saving the world! From the first they began badgering me about their relative importance….

“And their stupidity! They would misunderstand the simplest metaphors. I would say, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like so-and-so and so-andso’…. In the simplest terms….

“They always got it wrong.

“After a time I realised I could never open my mouth and think aloud without being misunderstood. I remember trying to make our breach with all orthodox and ceremonial limitations clear beyond any chance of relapse. I made up a parable about a Good Samaritan. Not half a bad story.”

“We have the story,” I said.

“I was sloughing off my patriotism at a great rate. I was realising the Kingdom of Heaven had to be a universal thing. Or nothing. Does your version go like that?”

“It goes like that.”

“But it never altered their belief that they had come into the business on the ground floor.”

“You told another good story about some Labourers in the Vineyard.”

“From the same point of view?”

“From the same point of view.”

“Did it alter their ideas in the least?”

“Nothing seemed to alter their ideas in the least.”

“It was a dismal time when our great March on Jerusalem petered out. You know when they got us in the Garden of Gethsemane I went to pieces completely…. The disciples, when they realised public opinion was against them, just dropped their weapons and dispersed. No guts in them. Simon Peter slashed off a man’s ear and then threw away his sword and pretended not to know me…

“I wanted to kick myself. I derided myself. I saw all the mistakes I had made in my haste. I spoke in the bitterest irony. Nothing for it now but to know one had had good intentions. ‘My peace,’ I said, ‘I give unto you.’

“The actual crucifixion was a small matter in comparison. I was worn out and glad to be dying [...] But being crucified upon the irreparable things that one has done, realising that one has failed, that you have let yourself down and your poor silly disciples down and mankind down, that the God in you has deserted you—that was the ultimate torment.”

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Read this article and many others in the Disinformation anthology Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick, available on Amazon and in all good bookstores.

About The Author: H. G. Wells (1866–1946) is best-remembered as a late-Victorian pioneer of science fiction, mainly due to his 1890s novels The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. These are just a sliver of the approximately 180 books he wrote, covering topics such as politics, science, history, and the future.

In this 25-page article, this archetypal gray-haired granny simply reads the New Testament — particularly the Gospels — and reports what she finds about Jesus: his insults and angry words, his deceptions, his impatience, his contradictions, his hellfire and damnation preaching, his braggadocio, his purposely confusing parables, his refusal to heal a little Gentile girl, his failure to condemn slavery, his horrible treatment of his own family, etc., etc. The results will be shocking to most Christians, and even non-Christians will be stunned to learn that everything they knew about Jesus is wrong. Here are some tasty bits from this epic article:

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Jesus bases his ministry upon the assumption that the end of the world is imminent and that he will return shortly and establish the king­dom he preaches. In the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus refers to this con­cept at least six times. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). These words of warning are an exact repetition of those of John the Baptist, whom many mistake for the Messiah (Matthew 3:2).

Sending his Disciples out onto the circuit, Jesus reminds them: “For ver­ily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come” (Matthew 10:23). Again Jesus asserts: “There shall be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). He makes it clear, after describing his early triumphant return: “This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34).

In Galilee Jesus repeats: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). “The hour is come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the Voice of the Son of God” (John 5:25). Finally: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” (John 21:22). Here Jesus speaks of the Disci­ple John to Peter. Paul and the other evangelist Apostles take up Jesus’ clar­ion prediction, still echoed today.

As a natural accompaniment to the wording of impending doom, verbal pictures of the End are majestically painted by Jesus on several occasions. His second coming will bring about the redemption of the Jews from the Gentiles, and the establishment of the Jewish kingdom of God.

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Despite belief to the contrary prevalent today, Jesus was not a booster for family life. In the scriptures he treats his mother and siblings with something less than affection and respect. He does not marry or father children. After laying down rules about adultery and divorce, he proceeds to predict some rather astonishing effects that belief in him will have upon the family as an institution: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:35, 36). From the time he is twelve years old and doesn’t bother to tell his moth­er that he is remaining in the temple, he seems to have no close ties to his family and discourages his converts from having any with theirs.

He demands that they drop everything immediately to become his fol­lowers: “And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead… And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but first let me go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-62). Two of his disciples actually leave their father mending the fishing nets (Matthew 4:21, 22).

It is a real puzzle where Christians today get their exalted view of the Christian family. And few Bible readers will understand the worshipful position accorded to Mary, for Jesus was rude to his mother at the marriage feast: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (John 2:1–4). And he was even more uncivil when she and his brothers waited at the edge of a crowd to speak to him, posing a question to his Disciples: “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?” and indicating that the Disciples were now his family (Matthew 12:46–49). Then he added that all who do the will of God, “the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

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Before he departed this vale of tears, as God’s habitat for humanity this side of the grave has been described, the Savior of the entire world might have been expected to leave very lucid instructions as to how salvation might be achieved. And from his lips on various occasions do fall words that supposedly pinpoint “the way.” Such words should leave not the smallest doubt, for they deal with everlasting happiness or inevitable everlasting torment. Let these words be examined!

When a lawyer questions Jesus about the requirements for eternal life (in heaven, one assumes), Jesus asks the lawyer what “the law” says, no doubt referring to the Mosaic law. The lawyer answers: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus replies: “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live” (Luke 10:25–28).

No mention of belief in himself as the Son of God or the Redeemer of the world from sin! In other words, one does not have to be a Christian to be saved. Love for God and fellow beings suffices.

Consider, then, Jesus’ words at another time: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). To Nicodemus, Jesus also expounded: “He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:17, 18).

No mention of love of God and neighbor! Unquestioning belief is all that is necessary for salvation. There are no other stipulations.

Jesus’ above statements are categorical, but in at least one sense the two requirements are at odds, for Deism and Christianity are not one and the same in every case, not by far. For, although Christianity may imply love of God and one’s neighbor, such love does not necessarily imply Christianity. Thus, Jesus himself is presented in the scriptures as denying the need of anyone for a Savior.

But that is not yet the end of the puzzle. Jesus continues to put up con­flicting guideposts: “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrec­tion of damnation” (John 5:28, 29). No mention of belief in Jesus Christ or of love of God and neighbor! Now only good deeds assure one of “life.” No need here, or in above rules, to be reborn!

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Read the entire article in the Disinformation anthology Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick, available on Amazon and in all good bookstores.

About the Article’s Author: Ruth Hurmence Green (1915–1981). The Iowa native received a journalism degree from Texas Tech in 1935, married, had three children, and settled in Missouri. Ruth, a “halfhearted Methodist,” first plodded through the bible when convalescing from cancer in her early sixties, calling the shock she suffered from reading the book worse than the trauma caused by her illness. “There wasn’t a page of the bible that didn’t offend me in some way. There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap,” Ruth discovered, prompting her to write the enduring modern freethought classic, The Born Again Skeptic’s Guide to the Bible (1979). When terminal cancer developed in 1981, Ruth, who always insisted, “There are atheists in foxholes,” took her own life, swallowing painkillers. In her last letter to Anne Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation on July 4, 1981, Ruth wrote: “Freedom depends upon freethinkers.”

Faith-based diets take the principles of Christianity and apply them to our overwhelming craving for chocolate, chips and cheese.

The trend began in America in the Eighties, but it’s finally taking hold [in Europe], with Christian weight-loss groups springing up, and dramatically increased sales of ’spiritual dieting’ books such as Hallelujah Diet and The God Diet.

What Would Jesus Eat? author Dr. Don Colbert explains: ‘Jesus ate…lots of vegetables, especially beans and lentils. He would have eaten wheat bread, fruit, drunk a lot of water and also red wine. And he would only eat meat on special occasions.’

This year was the first year that an American president has omitted a direct reference to God in the Thanksgiving proclamation:

The beneficence shown by God to America is a theme that traditionally defines the Thanksgiving holiday, and this theme is strongly emphasized in the original Thanksgiving Day proclamations and consistently acknowledged even by modern presidents.

Obama’s unprecedented proclamation, however, only makes indirect mention of God by quoting George Washington, stating: “Today, we recall President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed ‘by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.’”

The proclamation goes on to call Thanksgiving Day “a unique national tradition we all share” that unites people as “thankful for our common blessings.”

“This is a time for us to renew our bonds with one another, and we can fulfill that commitment by serving our communities and our Nation throughout the year,” it continues.

All other presidential Thanksgiving proclamations directly refer to “God,” “Providence,” or another appellation for the divine being.

But Obama’s historic decision to avoid directly mentioning God in the Thanksgiving proclamation doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Earlier this year Obama similarly made history on Inaguration Day by explicitly referencing “non-believers” in his speech, which, according to USA Today, was the first time in history that a President had done so. Obama has also said on more than one occasion that the United States is “not a Christian nation.”

The Washington quote makes this claim a bit inaccurate — that is a direct reference to God, even though it is in a quote — but there is a difference between the reference being in a quote than in Obama’s own words. Regardless, Obama seems to be making some progress including us “non-believers” in our own country for once.

The website explains that “AFA reviewed up to four areas to determine if a company was Christmas-friendly.” A boycott of the P.C., Christmas-censoring Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic stores is being called for; why, why does Old Navy hate Jesus so much?

This is Colby, the Christian robot. Fast forward to 3:40 when his robot army tries to transform the bullying kid into another Christian robot, singing, “We are all robots, you must be a robot too.” [ via Everything Is Terrible]

Side Note: Apparently I need to point out that this is an edited version of the show, thought you could tell that from the cuts but now it’s all out in the open, it’s edited. But they still want to turn that kid into a robot.

Christian theology keeps tying up scholars in knots. There are a lot unexplained elements in it, which almost look mysterious.

What does the phrase “Son of Man” mean? We can understand what “Son of God” means, but what does “Son of Man” mean? Why are the two phrases “Son of Man” and “Son of God” used interchangeably in the scriptures? The explanation generally given is that Jesus wanted to show himself as both human and divine, so both these phrases were used by him. However, the term “Son of Man” is clearly used in Bible in divine context, to refer to Jesus as divine. Several phrases like “Son of Man will send out his angels,” “Son of Man seated at the right hand of God,” “Do you believe in Son of Man?” – these phrases tell us that the phrase Son of Man is being used to refer to Jesus as divine rather than as human. Some scholars tried to explain it by saying that “Son of Man” means “Sun of Man;” As per them, it is related to Sun worship, and all these crucified gods around the world are actually Sun Gods. Admitting this, I would say that even the phrase “Sun of Man” or “Sun of God” does not look convincing enough. Why would anyone call a Sun God as Sun of Man or Sun of God? This phrase is even more odd; I would rather vote for the earlier explanation that “Son of Man” was used to refer to the human element in Jesus.

Even as we try to come out of this puzzle, we have another puzzle staring at us on why God is divided into a Father, a Son, and Holy Spirit. God having a spirit that is distinct from him is not easily and readily intuitive; and the concept of anything being one and three at the same time is quite difficult to comprehend. Other scholars have gone and researched the crucified savior legends all over the world and have come up with the conclusion that this division of three originated from the supposedly pagan cults, like that of the Horus,Orisis,Isis of Egypt. This only throws up another question on why Egyptians or others found it necessary to divide their God into three from the theological perspective.

The questions have been quite daunting. It has been recognized by a large number of scholars by now that the concepts of Christianity did not originate with Jesus but have existed much before Jesus’ time, as attested by the large number of crucified savior legends and figures that existed across the world since ancient times. Kersey Graves, in his 1875 book, The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors, has identified sixteen crucified saviors around the world. Since then, researchers have been coming up with more and more crucified saviors from the nook and corners of our globe. There must be one central root figure in all of these, from where the Christ concepts actually originated from. If we can get at this root figure and the root theology, we can probably better answer the above puzzles related to the Christ concept.

The key to the whole question lies in the observation that the terms Man and God are being used interchangeably. When the terms “Son of Man” and “Son of God” are being used interchangeably, it means that Man is being considered same as God and is being used interchangeably with God. And there lies our answer. The only place where Man is considered as God since ages and continues to be so is India.

The supreme God of Indian religion is called Purusha, meaning Man. Their holiest scriptures are Vedas. And the most important hymn in their Vedas is the Purusha Sukta, termed as the essence of all Vedas by Vyasa, the central and revered figure of most Hindu traditions. It is a hymn addressed to Purusha, the Cosmic Man. It is related to Indian theology, which views God as a Universal Cosmic Man, who pervades and fills this universe. This Cosmic Man theology is common to many IndoEuropean cultures. While other IndoEuropean cultures have given it up long ago, it still goes pretty strong in the IndoEuropean culture of India.

So the original Christ concept probably originated from the Cosmic Man theology of India, which is why the phrases Son of Man and Son of God are used interchangeably. We have solved one piece of the puzzle. We have answered why Man is being used interchangeably with God. We next come to the second missing piece of the puzzle on why God has to be divided into three. Since we have nailed down the connection to the Cosmic Man theology, we need to ask ourselves on whether there is any other theology in India that is related to the theology of Cosmic Man. And the answer we would get is yes – there is an old and almost forgotten Vaishnavite concept in India called Nara-Narayan. You want to know the meaning of the word Narayan? As per Monier-Williams English-Sanskrit Dictionary, Narayan means Son of Man! And you want to know the meaning of the word Nara? It means the eternal holy spirit!

Even though researchers have been going all around the world in search of the original crucified savior figure or trinity, I do not think they would find another trinity that so closely matches the Christian trinity, right to the very meanings of the words. For example, does Horus mean “Son of Man?” Do Egyptian dictionaries tell you that the meaning of the word Osiris is Man or God, or that Isis means holy spirit? The Christian trinity originated from the Purusha-Narayan-Nara trinity of the Vaishnavite religion of India – an old and almost forgotten concept in India. The minute anyone tries to research into trinity in India, he or she immediately latches on to the popular Indian trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and compares the Christian trinity with it. And since the two theologies do not match up, the argument always remains unconvincing. As a result, this Nara-Narayan concept is completely overlooked, leaving a big gap in Christological studies.

The Nara-Narayan theology was quite popular amongst the masses of India at the time Mahabharat war, a famous and legendary war in Indian history. Krishna, the Godly figure of Indians, played a prominent role in this war. The reason for the popularity of this theology at that time was that Krishna was believed to be the Narayan, and Arjun, Krishna’s friend and devotee, was considered to be the Nar. The theology took hold of the imagination of the people because of the influence of Krishna. Wikipedia says:

“According to Bhandarkar, the gods Nara-Narayana must be very famous at the time of the composition of the Mahabharata, since in the opening stanzas of different books obeisance is made to these two gods. In Vanaparvan, Krishna says to Arjuna,”O invincible one, you are Nara and I am Hari Narayana, and we, the sages Nara-Narayana, have come to this world at proper time..”

After Krishna’s time, this theology took hold of the masses, and dominated the Indian theological landscape. The idols of the Vaishnavite God (God, Man), along with those of Narayan (Son of God, Son of Man) and Nara (eternal spirit) are all placed together and worshipped side by side in a trinity form. This practice of worshipping the trinity of idols exists even today in India at a handful of places like Badrinath. The concept of Nara-Narayan has almost been forgotten in India today; but during its heydays, just after Krishna’s time, this mode of worshipping all the three idols in the trinity form must have been the most common mode of worship in India. There is evidence available to show that, at that time, this trinity was more popular than the usual trinity of Hindus that is found today. This trinity is a big black hole in Indian historical studies, something that no historian ever bothered to research about. And it is this trinity that traveled out of India.

The important thing to notice is that this trinity is a human conceptual understanding of the divine reality. It did not originate from any historical person or from any fancy unconnected legends or pagan cults. The theology did not start with Krishna, it existed even before him. Just like the Cosmic Man theology, the Purusha-Narayan-Nara theology is a conceptualization in Indian religion, in relation to the concept of incarnations of God for the benefit and the ultimate deliverance of human soul. It is about why the Supreme God Purusha incarnates on earth as both Narayan and Nara for the betterment of humanity.

So when did this Nara-Narayan theology travel out of India?

The Mahabharat war is normally placed at around 800-1000 BC by academic historians, while Indians claim a date of 5000 years ago. Given the research of Christ scholars that Christ concepts existed for thousands of years before Jesus’ time of 2000 years ago, this gives sufficient scope to think that the Indian claims are true. Mahabharat war of India did take place 5000 years ago, and Krishna lived around this time.

Later, there was a mighty three century drought aound 4200 years ago, which severely affected civilizations across India, West Asia, and North Africa. This intense drought is now universally recognized by geologists and is named as 4.2 Kiloyear BP Aridification Event. This drought debilitated the Indian civilization, leading to a mass exodus of Indians to foreign lands. When these people migrated, they took their religion with them. Krishna is also considered as a crucified savior by all Christ researchers. The mainstream Indian scriptures downplayed the crucifixation aspect, because it did not fit into their general paradigm of God who fought and vanquished evil. However, they did mention that his body was pierced by an arrow into a tree; other apocryphal literature and practices survived, which amplified on this crucifixation to the tree. The crucified legends of Krishna, and the trinity concept, went along with the Indian migrators to distant corners of the globe, in different forms, shapes, and variations, leading to a large number of crucifed savior figures and trinities all over the world, ultimately finding their way into Christian theology. As the theology traveled across the world, it was assimilated into the native religions. Often, the native religions were deliberately modified to fit into the trinity concept without even properly understanding the theological implications; which is why we have so many crucified savior figures.

The very word Christ (pronounced Krist) originated from Krishna. The word Christ originated from Greek Khristos, meaning ‘anointed’ (as Savior). And where did Khristos originate from? Linguists are normally silent on this, despite an overwhelming similarity between words Khristos and Krishna, the latter referring to the Savior of Indians. Given that both Christ and Krishna are considered as crucified saviors by Christ specialists, given that both the words Krishna and Khristos carry meaning of being Savior, and considering that both are almost similar words, I am surprised that the etymological derivation has not been made until now. In India, in south, people named after Krishna are very commonly named as Krishtiah, where T replaces consonant N. And people named as Krishna are very often addressed as Krishtiah, Kittiah, Krishta, Kishta, or even Kitta by their friends. Even though a person is named as Krishna, his friends or relatives are often seen addressing him as Krishta. And if Krishta and Kristiah are derived from Krishna, why Khristos and Krist are not derived from Krishna is a simple question that I hope linguists would care to answer.