Last Monday there was an interesting coincidence on Belgian TV station Canvas. First an episode of Australian satire show The Chaser's War on Everything, which was then followed by a British documentary from Louis Theroux. Both shows touched on the subject of the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, the Phelpses, America's most hated family, who blame all of the world's mishaps on homosexuality, and who disrupt the funerals of young Americans who have fallen for their country. The only family whose sheer rightwingedness is too much even for Fox News. That lot.
The Chaser gave a few links to their websites, and one of them intrigued me: godhatessweden.com. It's a piece of pure filth, and I don't recommend that anybody read it, but it got me wondering: does godhatethenetherlands.com, or indeed godhatesholland.com exist? The answer: no. At least not this past week, and not this morning. God hates Canada exists, as does God hates America, God hates Ireland, and God hates Mexico, but not God hates the Netherlands. I mean, we were the first country to give homosexuals full marriage rights, and we are one of very few countries where homosexual couples can adopt children. Doesn't Mr. Phelps know about it.
Still, I took upon myself the nauseating task of analyzing the hate sites, and came to this conclusion: the site God hates the Netherlands doesn't exist, because The Phelpses can't prove it. If he created the site now, he could not possibly prove that God hates us, and it would just make them look like idiots. On all the other sites, they call on natural disasters, and other instances from recent years when many people of a country have died, and in the case of Ireland there were the Catholic priests who did evil things to young boys, but what huge natural disaster, or even religious scandal, really hurt us, the past fifty years?
We've had our floods, but with hardly any loss of life. We have soldiers in Afghanistan, and we've been in Iraq, and even though lives were lost, the total death toll is pretty low. In the case of God hates Sweden they bring up the fact that 2000 Swedes lost their lives in the Asian tsunami. Dutch people too were affected by that, but the death toll was less than 10% of that of Sweden's.
Anyways, don't read their sites. It's just filth, pure and simple.
"- Both Caesar and Jesus start their rising careers in neighboring states in the north: Gallia and Galilee.
- Both have to cross a fateful river: the Rubicon and the Jordan. Once across the rivers, they both come across a patron/rival: Pompeius and John the Baptist, and their first followers: Antonius and Curio on the one hand and Peter and Andrew on the other.
- Both are continually on the move, finally arriving at the capital, Rome and Jerusalem, where they at first triumph, yet subsequently undergo their passion.
- Both have good relationships with women and have a special relationship with one particular woman, Caesar with Cleopatra and Jesus with Magdalene.
- Both have encounters at night, Caesar with Nicomedes of Bithynia, Jesus with Nicodemus of Bethany.
- Both have an affinity to ordinary people-and both run afoul of the highest authorities: Caesar with the Senate, Jesus with the Sanhedrin.
- Both are contentious characters, but show praiseworthy clemency as well: the clementia Caesaris and Jesus' Love-thy-enemy.
- Both have a traitor: Brutus and Judas. And an assassin who at first gets away: the other Brutus and Barabbas. And one who washes his hands of it: Lepidus and Pilate.
- Both are accused of making themselves kings: King of the Romans and King of the Jews. Both are dressed in red royal robes and wear a crown on their heads: a laurel wreath and a crown of thorns.
- Both get killed: Caesar is stabbed with daggers, Jesus is crucified, but with a stab wound in his side.
- Jesus as well as Caesar hang on a cross. For a reconstruction of the crucifixion of Caesar, see:
- Both die on the same respective dates of the year: Caesar on the Ides (15 th) of March, Jesus on the 15 th of Nisan.
- Both are deified posthumously: as Divus Iulius and as Jesus Christ.
- Caesar and Jesus also use the same words, e.g.: Caesar's famous Latin 'Veni, vidi, vici'-I came, I saw, I conquered-is in the Gospel transmitted into: 'I came, washed and saw', whereby Greek enipsa, 'I washed', replaces enikisa, 'I conquered'."
The book from which this is taken is "Jesus was Caesar" by Francesco Carotta. I'm trying to hunt down a copy right now.
The Dutch Bible Belt has made headlines again. Quest, a popular science magazine has done an article on voodoo, and they included a small black voodoo doll with the magazine's logo. Stores throughout the fundamentalist part of the country, but most notably in the town of Urk refuse to include the doll when selling the magazine, and both the store owners and the customers feel offended by this interference with their religious beliefs. It isn't even just the stores in the so-called Bible Belt. I saw an interview with the owner of a store that sells items relating to religion and superstition in Amsterdam, and he warned about it, because of the pain you can inflict on others.
Pardon me, but that's no reason not to include the doll when selling the magazines to people who do want to have it. Not like it's hurting the sales of the magazine elsewhere in the country. I'm sure they will have record sales figures for this month. I'm sure it's just a fake doll that doesn't even work for those who really believe in it, but if something happens to the POTUS in the next few days, it might just be me with a voodoo doll and a couple of needles.
More and more I see these evangelicals on TV telling us how the Bible is the unalterable truth, and the word of God, and such, and claim that science can't provide the same kind of truths. However, is the Bible that correct? A little googling immediately provided me with two examples of errors in the Bible, and even more if I were to look into it further. For instance, if you believe the Bible should be taken literally in the following account, you have to believe that the sun evolves around the earth, while all of us know by now that it's the other way around.
Joshua 10:12-13
Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
In the following account, the value of pi is given as 3, while we all learn in school, that it's 3.14 followed by a large number of other digits. I think fundamentalist Christian architects and constructors should be forced to build on the pretext that pi equals 3.
1 Kings 7:23 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
Also, I often hear them complain that the theory of evolution is very unscientific and that God created us. The fact of the matter is that evolution is merely a theory with a lot of support, but still a theory, negotiable, questionable, etc. Scientific. But don't you dare question creationism. Scientists ask questions, if they didn't how would they get ahead in their job? Creationism however, must be seen as the absolute truth with no room for anything scientific. If they were to challenge creationism scientifically, it would never hold up. The Bible is neither a science book nor a history book, and it would be nice if evangelicals would take it seriously instead of literally.
Geert Wilders strikes again. This country's most prominent enemy of Islam has come up with a new idea. Let's outlaw the Qur'an. He argues that so many people have been killed by people seeking their justification in this holy book of Muslims, and that it's so full of bloodshed. Hey, I myself could live with it, under one condition... Let's outlaw the Bible as well. Actually, I'm against banning either, but if you ban one, you must ban the other.
I mean, when Moses received the Ten Commandments, one of those commandments was "Thou shalt not kill." However, when Joshua and the twelve tribes set out to conquer the promised land, they immediately shedded this fourth commandment and slaughtered anyone who didn't flee. If God condoned that, who is to say that Israel isn't allowed to butcher the Palestineans?
Also, think of all those witches who have been persecuted and burnt, because people felt the Bible ordered them to do so. The Christians hiding under sheets, burning crosses and lynching African Americans. The sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. The bombings of abortion clinics in the US. The persecution of Jews throughout history. The call for people to be stoned or put to death otherwise for committing certain crimes. If you love your child, don't spare it the rod. Many parts of the Bible put men above women. Need I say more? Outlaw the Qur'an, outlaw the Bible.
Or... respect the faith of others, however critical you are, as long as they leave you at peace, and only fight the individuals abusing these books, instead of the books themselves.
In one of my spam accounts, I get an evangelical newsletter, and these evangelicals are convinced that we're living in the Biblical enddays. They have come up with another convincing piece of evidence: the European Union. Apparently we're this big union of nations that will be fighting against God on the final day, and apparently God will be represented by the United States.
This just makes me laugh. The part about Europe, I mean. These people really have no sense of history, and I think they still believe the Pilgrim Fathers were the first European settlers of the United States, too. I mean, eversince the Roman empire, there may have been 300 years when Europe was in fact not united. Yes there have been battles and wars, but overall Europe was one Empire in those days. Why didn't God decide it was time to pass judgement then?
Also, most of us will know, that much of the Book of Revelations must be read against the background of Nero's rule, and even then God did not end the world.
Another laughing matter concerning the enddays, is the red calf that has to be offered to God in the Temple of Solomon. If that happens, according to a lot of evangelicals, and orthodox Jews, the messiah will come, and the day of our judgement is very near indeed. A few weeks ago, a Dutch news crew found one in Israel, but fortunately it had a few white hairs. Otherwise there might have been evangelicals and orthodox Jews, who would have tried to get all the Palestinians removed from Jerusalem, and tried to rebuild the temple. Imagine what sort of chaos that would have caused.
Whoa... I've finally completed the entire Divina Commedia. Hell and Purgatory were pretty quick reads for me, but Paradise... I dunno... all the footnotes (60% of the version I read were footnotes) were bound to get to me at some point. Anyways I'm done now. It's a very interesting book, although it contains too many errors that are caused by the fact that the book is a product of Medieval times. And no, it didn't change my point of view on the afterlife.
If there really is a Heaven and if there really is a Hell, I will choose the latter any day. It doesn't mean that I am evil, or anything like that. In fact, I think that if the whole concept as today's evangelical present it to us is God's truth with Hell being a place of eternal damnation, I think it's utterly profane to go to Heaven. The way I hear evangelicals talk about it, the number of people going to Hell will far outnumber the people who are going to Paradise, and once in Hell we are set to burn forever.
I admit, there are, and have been some EVIL sinners in the world, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Nero, and many more, but to send every sinner who doesn't repent in time to Hell for eternity is entirely disproportionate. If that is really what the GOOD LORD is about, I think His Ways are highly questionnable. If this is really the choice I'm confronted with in this life, I will side with the ones who are confronted with this injustice.
On the other hand, there is the Vatican. There are rumors that very soon they will publish a paper in which they announce that there is a very good chance that we all go to Heaven, and that Hell will be empty. In that case why not Heaven, eh? I do believe that in the Bible it says that God will eventually save all, so that does offer some hope for us all, but since evangelical these days seem to be convinced that they have a monopoly when it comes to the truth, their scenario is one I feel I need to comment on. And I choose eternal damnation.
Oh well, with my luck, the truth is Dante's Divina Commedia, and I don't get accepted in either.
On Dutch, Belgian, and German TV I keep seeing the same stuff lately: the Ku Klux Klan is on the rise again, with many a southern man eager to join, to defend America. What strikes me is how deeply religious these people are, and it got me thinking. If you have God on your side, why the hell do you hide in sheets? What do you have to fear, really? If people recognize you and go to the police, the worst things that can happen are either you go to prison for life, or you get a death sentence. What greater glory is there than dying to defend your faith? It's not a concept exclusive to Islam, although Islamists have corrupted martyrdom to include suicide attacks. The example was set by Christ Himself. Bunch a'cowards, the KKK.
I've decided to write another entry on religion. This time it will not be as critical of Christianity as the one about Easter hypocrisy. I'll just share my beliefs on evolution and creationism, or "intelligent design" as some call it (if you believe something, better really believe it: don't beat around the bush).
I myself are leaning strongly towards evolution, but if I have read Darwin right, I believe his theories aren't really that correct. If it were about the survival of the fittest, man wouldn't have survived past the first ice age it encountered, and the world today would have been dominated entirely by cockroaches, ants, spiders, and other bugs. It really isn't about who is the strongest. There are many different eco systems the world over, and the species that adapt the best to the various situation it encounters will prevail.
Darwin himself has brought up the Galapagos Islands as evidence for his survival of the fittest theory, and on the islands there is a type of bird that exists on each of the islands. Yet, on each of the islands there is a completely different eco system, which has forced the bird to diversify and adapt to conditions that exist on the various islands. On each of the island the local bird population has adapted to condition on that island itself, which means that on no two islands the bird species has the same survival strategy, and if one of these birds would another island, it'll have serious trouble sustaining itself.
Even in mankind this exists. Around the equator, the general populations are of a much darker color than on my parallel, and there are other differences. All simply caused by the geographics of where our ancestors have lived for the past thousands of years. In spite of all the attempts to protect their skin by wearing white sheets, I have read studies that claim that the klansmen in the south of the US show more facial features more likely to show up in people of African origin with every generation. They may not like it, but their bodies are simply adapting to the conditions. It may take a few thousand years before their offspring will really be black, but it will happen.
I also have no problem believing we descend from apes (I just hope apes feel the same way). Apes are not the stupid beings that are portrayed in cartoons, and children's stories. In fact they survive under much harser conditions than us, and do a great job at it.
I'm not a firm believer of creationism, or its euphemistic name, intelligent design. About that name, I really wonder what's so intelligent about the design of us human beings. Many believers come up with the human eye as proof, because it's so brilliant, but if that were the case, what about all the people who wear glasses, or the people who have varying degrees of blindness, and color blindness. It's more complicated than the eyes of the dinosaur, but it's had millions of years to develop, and the only reason it's better than the eye of just about every other species, lies in the fact that we simply have nothing else to go by. If I smell excrement, I get annoyed, but it doesn't warn me about the proximity of let's say... wolves. And since it's possible to smell things that are hidden in thick woods, but impossible for us to see, I must say I dog has a serious advantage over us.
This doesn't mean I rule out that there is a God or anything. I hope I'm not that cocky. When I read my Bible however, I always get a feeling that it's completely unimportant where we come from. The only thing that matters is how we die: do we die at peace with the LORD, and go to heaven, or do we die cursing His name, and go to hell. Where you were born, or where we all come from has no meaning. In fact, the first Christians never even commemorated the birth of Jesus Christ Himself. Therefore, I believe, that if the Bible were the absolute truth, the creation story would not have been in it, not the Eve and Adam version, not any other version.
Besides, if we look at the origin of the Bible, not the scriptures in it, but the Book itself, you'll find it was put together under the stewardship of the two Roman Emperors Constantine and Theodosius. Many of the scriptures in it were selected to serve them, and not necessarily the truth. The Book of Job for example is very likely to have been popular fiction in its days, rather than a truthful account about what happened to a servant of God.
I also wonder why it is so hard for Christians to believe in the Big Bang theory. All the evidence is there. Besides, I think the Big Bang, and all the energy released in the process, is a gesture worthy of an Almighty Being, and the size of the universe and how long it took for us to evolve to this stage could very well serve as a testimony to His Greatness.
Even evolution itself could very well be the work of God. You can't expect even God to know everything before He has ever done anything. The dinosaurs were a grand experiment, but God wasn't satisfied and sent a comet to wipe the slate clean, and start anew, giving mammals a chance. That has led to our being here. And if you attribute that to God, well, you know what is awaiting us, when God decides he's seen enough.
Even in the Bible God Himself evolves. From the unforgiving pettiness of punishing sinners with a deluge that very nearly wiped us out, to sending Jesus to die for the forgiveness of our sins. That's a completely different God. If we just remove Genesis, and the Book of Revelation from the Bible, it could be a very reasonable explanation for the order of things in this world.
When I started this blog, I never intended to tackle this subject. You just never know who you may offend, when talking about religion. Religions are screaming ever louder these days, however. What little I have to say will hardly have an impact on anyone, so why the hell not. The only risk I see here, is being exposed as an ignorant fool without the ability to think the things I say through, but that doesn't frighten me one bit.
First of all, I must say that I'm an atheist, and when I say atheist, I mean atheist. I believe in nothing supernatural. I do read both the Bible, and the Qur'an, but certainly not on a daily basis, so I do know things about both religions, but I really have to search my mind at times to come up with the goods. If I had to make a choice at gunpoint though, I would probably be drawn to Paganism, because of the many wonderful legends and colorful characters that come with it. I find the Bible pretty mind-narrowing before anything else.
One of the main reasons I chose to write this entry is the discussions about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc., that are raging in the United States, and that are beginning to reach Europe as well. To me this discussion is pure hypocrisy, nothing more, and certainly nothing less. Yes, it's true that neither Santa nor the ole rabbit are mentioned nowhere in the Bible, but I never read anything about Christmas and Easter there either. There is an English Bible translation that does include the word Easter someplace in the Gospel of Acts, but that's simply a mistranslation.
Where Christians are trying to get rid of Santa and the Easter Bunny, they should really be getting rid of Christmas and Easter. These feasts are a collection of many ancient Pagan customs and rituals, and the Bible states in many places that Christians shouldn't learn the way of the heathen (Jeremiah 10:2 most prominently). In reality however, they have done just that, corrupting many interesting and wonderful rites in the process.
Now, I won't say Christians should stop observing these two feasts. I mean, it's only a place in heaven they're risking, but in choosing Pagan holidays, they should stop whining and take them just for what they are, Pagan holidays, with all the jolly old men in red suits bringing presents, and bunnies hiding eggs that come with them. If you really want to get rid of these characters, it's time to go back to your Bibles and find the feasts it does sanction.
First up is the week-long Feast of Passover, (also known as the Feast of the Unleavened bread) which starts at sunset on April 2, which, if you know your Gospels, was faithfully observed by Jesus Christ himself, teaching nothing about replacing them with Pagan feasts. Only if you choose to observe these two feasts as well, you can come back and tell me about flying reindeer and brightly colored eggs. If not, stop crying and let me celebrate the holidays I so cherish.
No, I haven't returned to MySpace. This acquaintance goes back eleven years.
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