Silence…allows intolerable intolerance
February 25, 2007 by Bill
A biblical story familiar to everyone is of the man walking along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell among robbers who “stripped him and beat him, leaving him half dead.” A priest walked by, saw him, and walked by “on the other side of the road.” A Levite, servant of the priest, also saw the man in the ditch but chose to walk by “on the other side of the road.”
How much of the violence, bigotry, persecution and ignorance in our society today is due to the silence of those who pass by “on the other side of the road?”
The silence…of those ministers and officers in the Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist and Presbyterian churches who know that the bible says very, very little about homo-sexuality. Jesus said absolutely nothing about it. And as with the human slavery issue of past years…they choose to “pass by on the other side of the road.”
The silence…of those who refuse to speak up and be counted on the evil of bigotry, disrespect and the hate that is born of ignorance.
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Jefferson and the Christian superstition
February 18, 2007 by Bill
When John Kennedy was President, he gave a banquet in the White House that was without precedent. The banquet was for every living American Nobel Prize winner, with about 150 present. At the beginning of the evening, President Kennedy stood and announced he would make a toast. He said: “Never has so much talent…and so much genius…been assembled in one room…since Thomas Jefferson dined…alone.”
The author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant philosopher, theologian, architect, linguist, scholar, statesman, scientist, musician, horticulturist, agronomist, humanist, deist and master of the civilized arts wrote this:
“I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites, to support roguery and error all over the earth.”
Founding presidents not Christian
February 11, 2007 by Bill
One of my favorite times of the year is the Presidents month of February. Why? Because it gives me an annual opportunity to make a dent in the historical and religious ignorance of the political and Christian knee jerk right wingers. They spend almost full time in perverting American history claiming that the bible and Christianity were at the foundation of this nation. What total hogwash. Once a year I get to bring a few undisputed facts to their attention.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 1968, vol.2, p.420, quote:
“One of the embarrassing problems for the nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was the fact that NOT ONE of the first six presidents of the United States was a Christian. They were Deists.”
In Deism there is no personal God, only an impersonal “force” or “energy” or “natures God” or “providence”. In Deism, the bible is nothing but literature, and bad literature at that. Jefferson and Paine both called it “a dunghill” Others of our founders used the same language. In Deism, Jesus was nothing more than a nomadic teacher. I will now let these men speak for themselves:
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