Category Archives: Persecution

In the Wrong Body

Posted on by
5

prayer3What to do about those people who feel they don’t belong in the body they were born with? Those who disparage the vehicle that carries them through life? Should we ban them, shun them? Prevent them from using the same bathrooms – to use that ridiculous euphemism for places never known to include baths – as those of us who accept the body we’ve got? Should they be side-lined, castigated and ridiculed?

Well, no. Let’s go easy on Christians who believe they are somehow separate from the bodies that house them; who regard their bodies are inferior to the spiritual being God intends them to be. Christians who look forward to the day when they’ll be relieved of their physical bodies, which will then be transformed into spiritual ones, and who, in preparation for this miraculous change, claim to resist the demands of the body – the lusts of the flesh as the Bible puts it (1 John 2.16). Yes, those Christians, the same ones who disparage people who find themselves in the wrong bodies and want them to conform to the sex they know themselves to be; transgender people.

The Christians are wrong on every level of course:

  • They are not designed to be spiritual beings;
  • None of us is separate from our bodies;
  • The illusion of the self is a product of the brain and wider society, and we demonstrably do not have souls or spirits;
  • Bodies, while frail and susceptible to illness, injury and ageing, are all we’ve got; they don’t survive death and are not refurbished or replaced after it.
  • The demands of the body can be managed but not entirely ignored, not even by Christians who eat, drink, have sex, sleep, defecate and generally indulge their carnality in the same way the rest of us do.

Still, none of this prevents Christians from thinking they’re prisoners of a temporary yet  strangely inhospitable body while here on Earth. You’d think that would make them empathetic to people who are also in the wrong bodies, but you’d be wrong. They ridicule them and tell them that they’re sinful aberrations; they object to their use of the ‘bathroom’ that corresponds to the gender they know themselves to be.

What was it someone once said? ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. There sure seem to be a lot of sinless Christians about these days.

2015: How was it for you?

Posted on by
Reply

2ndComingI promised this time last year to revisit my predictions for the year that lay ahead. So how did I do in my prophecies for 2015?:

The first was that there would be no Second Coming in 2015. Well, how wrong could I be! As we all know Jesus returned on September 13th, just as John Hagee hinted he would be. It’s been so great, hasn’t it, living in Hell / God’s Kingdom on Earth (delete as appropriate) since that time. Fantastic. I’m so pleased to have been wrong about this one.

On the other hand, maybe what I said last year still stands: Jesus won’t be back this year. Just like he wasn’t back in 2014, 2013, 2012… 1985… 1914… 1868… 1497… 1000… 446… 35. Just think of all those years – count ’em, nearly two thousand – when he’s failed to return so far. Actually, he promised he’d be back while his followers and those listening to him were still alive, around AD30 or thereabouts. Safe to say he’s not coming back at all, just like dead people don’t. Not in 2015, not ever.

Of course it still stands. As ever Christianity fails to deliver. That hasn’t stopped True Believers™ from telling us that he’ll be back very, very soon. Which was prediction number 2: Christians will go on believing that Jesus is going to return any day now. I gave up collecting examples well before the end of the year – there were just too many – but here’s a few of them: here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Will the gullible Born Again ever come to their senses and stop listening to idiots like these? (Nope).

Prediction 3. There’ll be no natural disasters or human calamities as a result of gay marriage. There have been lots of disasters and calamities during the year, but here’s the thing – natural disasters have natural causes, not supernatural ones, and similarly, human calamities have human causes. Not one of the events this year (or any other) was the direct result of gay marriage. This hasn’t stopped the religious from claiming – as I predicted they would in prophecy number 4 – that disasters and calamities are God’s punishment for gay marriage; here, here , here, here, here, here and here, for example.

Prediction 5: More than one prominent Christian will call for the execution of gay people. Yup. Here are those loving men of God doing just that (and here, here and here too). Jesus would be so proud.

Prediction 6: Christians in the west will claim they’re being persecuted when they’re being expected to treat others fairly and equally, and not to discriminate against them. Yes, I know Christians are persecuted in some parts of the world, but the moaners I’m talking about are only focused on their own self-serving, self-inflicted ‘marytrdom’. Again, there are just too many of these to link to them all, but here are a few (and here, here and here).

Prediction 7. Christians will respond to criticism with clichés like ‘they wouldn’t dare say that about Muslims’… ‘Christians are the last group who are fair game’… ‘It’s time for Christians to speak out’… ‘Stand up for God’s standards…’ etc. Yes, predictable in more ways than one. 

Prediction 8: Christians will continue to dismiss and disparage anyone who doesn’t share their views, especially atheists. Look out for ‘atheists have no morality’,’the fool hath said in his heart there’s no God’ and ‘atheists want to oppress Christians’ occurring with tedious regularity. And they didn’t disappoint: here, here, here and here.

Prediction 9: There will be more revelations about the abuse of children by church ministers. Of course there were. Christians may be new creatures in Christ but that doesn’t stop some of them behaving in the same old despicable ways, God love ’em.

Ditto number 10: Church hierarchies will attempt to cover up the abuse of children by their ministers. And here they are at it. The body of Christ certainly seems to have an unhealthy interest in the bodies of others. Still, they always ever so modestly cover up afterwards.

Prediction 11. There will be the usual manufactured ‘war on Christmas’. Ho-hum. And you can guess who did the manufacturing.

And finally I offered number 12: these predictions have far more chance of coming to pass than any of the so-called prophecies of Bible. And do you know, they did. That’s because none of the Bible’s predictions have ever come to pass – not those purportedly about Jesus himself, nor of the second coming, nor the judgement of sheep and goats, nor God’s Kingdom on Earth – and (here’s another prediction) they never will.

So, another year of empty promises, failed prophecies and superstitious fantasy in the wonderful, wacky world of religion. May you all be safe from the effects of faith and fundies in the one that lies ahead.

Left Behind

Posted on by
Reply

Manning

A special guest post by the Rev. Dexter B. Wright, pastor of the Church of Holy Eternal Righteousness.

Let me tell you something, good Christian people: it’s unnatural! They say there’s 10% of them in the population but that’s just part of the propaganda and their sordid agenda. It’s a big fat lie. Even if there were that many, why should they have the same rights as the rest of us normal folk? They’d have you believe it happens in nature too but I’ve yet to see it. They flaunt their perversion, brazenly practising their sin in public instead of keeping it behind closed doors where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere. They seek to redefine what is Right, just as the scriptures said would happen in these last days.

Christian brothers and sisters, we must stand up and oppose this unnatural lifestyle. It needs stamping out, punished like it used to be. In the past, when people had more respect for God, these kind of people would be punished and humiliated – beaten even. Sometimes they’d have their hand strapped up to stop them using it for perversion. That cured ’em. Least ways I think it did – made ’em start to be behave right and proper like the rest of us. These days we’re too liberal; we make excuses for them, like ‘they can’t help it’ and ‘they were born that way’. Let me tell you – no-one is born that way! It’s a choice, pure and simple, because God doesn’t make mistakes. And you can be sure he won’t sit idly by while these perverts literally shake their fists at him. A society that accepts – openly accepts – the flagrant practice of sin can expect to suffer the full force of God’s wrath. I tell you, brothers and sisters, the tribulation is upon us.

You mark my words: we tolerate this, it will mark the start of persecution like the church has never known. Are you ready for that? Good Christian folks are already being forced to serve these deviants with wedding cakes and the like – it’s either that or lose their business – and next they’ll be forced to embrace people who want to write with their feet or something. Make no mistake, that’s the ultimate aim here. And you know who’s behind this sinister agenda, don’t you? That’s right, Satan himself, the Father of Lies.

God couldn’t be clearer in his Holy Word; if it ain’t Right, then it’s wrong. Our wondrous savior favors one hand and one hand only – and it sure ain’t the left. Soon as we stamp out this abomination the better.

 

Notes:

People have indeed suffered in the past for ‘choosing’ to be left-handed; ‘cures’ abounded.

The Bible frequently speaks of the right hand as the hand of note. See, for example, Matthew 25.31-34.

Picture: The ‘Honorable’ James Manning, chief pastor of the rabidly anti-gay Atlah church in Harlem, demonstrates how to make effective use of the right hand.

What Jesus should have said…

Posted on by
5

KnockLists are the thing, aren’t they. It’s time we had some on this here blog thingy.

List 1. 10 things Christians pretend Jesus didn’t say:

1. Treat others as you like to be treated (Matthew 7.12)

2. Forgive so that you’ll be forgiven (Matthew 6.14)

3. Don’t judge unless you want to be judged (Matthew 7.1)

4. Sell all you have and give it to the poor (Mark 10.21)

5. Turn the other cheek (Luke 6.29)

6. Go the extra mile (Matthew 5.41)

7. Give to all who ask and lend without expecting anything back (Luke 6.30 & 35)

8. Love your neighbour as much as yourself (Matthew 22.39)

9. Love your enemies (Luke 6.27)

10. Don’t worry about the future (Matthew 6.34)

If Christians followed these injunctions, what a very different world it would be. Instead, what do we get..?

List 2. 10 things Christians think Jesus should have said, but didn’t (with a few examples):

1. Show love for others by telling them what sinners they are (1, 2)

2. Stand on principle as much as you can (1, 2, 3).

3. Take easy offence (1, 2)

4. See persecution everywhere (1, 2, 3, 4)

5. Sue those who upset you (1, 2)

6. Demonise those who don’t share your world view (1, 2, 3, 4)

7. Hate homosexuals and oppose same-sex marriage (1, 2, 3)

8. Set yourself up as defender of God’s standards (1, 2)

9. Argue endlessly about points of doctrine (1, 2)

10. Obsess about the future and the state of the world (1, 2, 3)

This is the Christianity we’ve got. Well done, o righteous ones, for perverting Jesus’ radical (and yes, ridiculously impossible) message into this unsavoury concoction of mean-spirited self-centredness. It’s what he wouldn’t have wanted.

 

Why_Christians_Don't_Cover_for_KindleMy book Why Christians Don’t do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead looks at how Christians ignore most of what Jesus says in favour of a Christianity of their own making. You can find it here in the UK, here in the US and on Kindle. Go on. You know you want it.

 

Respect?

Posted on by
Reply

HebdoI could so easily take offence at this. (The caption reads ‘But who wants the English in Europe?’)

How far should we respect religious beliefs? I would suggest, not at all. The multitude of religions that exist in the world, not least the big five – Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism – are all built on mythologies that require belief in supernatural beings, highly improbable events and meaningless rituals. There is no evidence these beings exist or have ever existed, no evidence the improbable events ever occurred and none that the rituals lead to results of any sort.

Most religions have their revered teacher, prophet or saviour who died centuries or millennia ago, and about whom stories are told that cannot possibly be true. How can any thinking person respect the idea that one of these figures rose from the dead? Or that another flew to heaven on a winged horse? Or another grew a jewel tree from a toothpick? These stories deserve as much respect as other ancient tales – like the one about the man who killed a one-eyed giant or the dude who returned to life after being hacked to death and eaten. The preposterous stories told by today’s religions are of the same order.

For this reason, as well as many others – not least how religion causes some of its adherents to act and relate to others – religion is not above criticism. Indeed, there is a moral imperative to criticise world views based on far-fetched stories, especially when they cause some who subscribe to them to discriminate against others, advocate murder and  take it upon themselves to carry out executions like the ones we’ve seen in Paris this week. I’ve written before about how, while most religious believers are not themselves extremists, it is moderate believers who sustain the culture responsible for those who are. Fanatics, extremists and terrorists do not spontaneously create themselves; they emerge from mosques, churches, synagogues and temples. As Bill Maher said about Islam this week, ‘when there’s this many bad apples, there’s something wrong with the orchard.’

While some have argued that the magazine Charlie Hebdo provoked Muslim extremists to attack it with its satirical drawings of Muhammed (among many other religious ‘leaders’) it is absurd to suggest that publishing provocative pictures automatically leads to murder, as if the perpetrators have no choice in the matter. Of course they do. Caricatures of the pope have also appeared on the magazine’s cover and, as bizarre as the Catholic church is, it has not responded to these depictions with violence.

There is, in any case, a good argument to be made that offence can’t be given, only taken. While no doubt there are Muslims who don’t find rather poorly drawn, largely unfunny cartoons of Muhammed offensive, there are those who choose to. (Just like I could choose to take offence at the cover above.) But provocation, whatever the context, is no defence and no excuse for the slaughter, violence or incarceration of those with whom we’re offended.

The religious need to grow up and put away childish things; to stop taking offence so readily, insisting they’re being persecuted when they’re not and constantly assuming they and they alone have the right to mete out punishment. Is the god each religion claims for itself so weak and feeble he cannot look after himself, his standards and his reputation?

Well of course he can’t, because he doesn’t exist. Every god there has ever been, from Osiris to Christ, from Zeus to Allah has been a human invention. And if no god exists, then neither do his standards and reputation, nor his prophets and teachers, his Sons and emissaries; they’re all largely made up too. No-one should be punished for failing to respect the figments of primitive people’s imagination. It is beholden on all of us who have indeed put away such childish things, to disregard the sensibilities of those who subscribe to and peddle puerile nonsense and point out as often as we can that not only does the Emperor have no clothes but there’s not even an Emperor. Only then can the world work towards being free from the tyranny of religion.

Simplistic maybe, but the alternative is to continue tolerating the intolerable. And look where that’s getting us.

Predictions for 2015

Posted on by
3

BrideMy predictions prophecies for the year ahead:

1. There’ll be no Second Coming in 2015.
Jesus won’t be back this year. Just like he wasn’t back in 2014, 2013, 2012… 1985… 1914… 1868… 1497… 1000… 446… 35. Just think of all those years – count ’em, nearly two thousand – when he’s failed to return so far. Actually, he promised he’d be back while his disciples and those daft enough to listen to him were still alive – around AD30 or thereabouts (Matthew 16:27-28; Matthew 24:27, 30-31, 34; Luke 21:27-28, 33-34). Safe to say he’s not coming back at all now, just like dead people don’t. Not in 2015, not ever.

2. Christians will go on insisting Jesus is going to return any time soon.

3. There’ll be no natural disasters or human calamities as a result of same-sex marriage.

4. Christians will claim natural disasters and human calamities are the result of same-sex marriage. Shaking our fists at God… the wrath of the Almighty… sign of the End Times… blah, blah, blah.

5. More than one prominent Christian will call for the execution of gay people.

6. Christians in the west will claim they’re being persecuted when they’re being expected to treat others fairly and equally, and not to discriminate against them.

7. Christians will respond to criticism with clichés like ‘they wouldn’t dare say that about Muslims’… ‘Christians are the last group who are fair game’… ‘It’s time for Christians to speak out’… ‘Stand up for God’s standards…’ etc.

8. Christians will continue to dismiss and disparage anyone who doesn’t share their views, especially atheists. Look out for ‘atheists have no morality’, ‘the fool hath said in his heart there’s no God’ and ‘atheists want to oppress Christians’ occurring with tedious regularity.

9. There will be more revelations about the abuse of children by church ministers.

10. Church hierarchies will attempt to cover up the abuse of children by their ministers.

11. There will be the usual manufactured ‘war on Christmas’.

12. These predictions have far more chance of coming to pass than any of the so-called prophecies of Bible. I’ll return to them at the end of the year so we can see.

A happy new year to you all!

 

Original picture: Ursula Klawitter / zefa / Corbis

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Posted on by
2

PersecuteThe Reverend Andrew White, vicar of the Anglican church in Baghdad, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning about the persecution of Christians in Iraq. Undoubtedly, appalling things are being done to these people – beheadings, torture, theft of their possessions – just because of what they believe. The Sunni Muslim militia doing the persecuting are routinely referred to in the UK media as ‘Islamists’ or ‘extremists’, in a vain PC attempt to distinguish and distance them from other of Mohammed’s followers. Whatever we call them though, men, women and children who follow a different long-dead prophet are suffering at their hands.

It is a sad fact that whichever religious group holds the reins of power, it persecutes those who hold different beliefs. History is replete with examples and because Christianity has, for most of the last 2000 years, held the whip hand, it is Christians – the church – that has invariably meted out the persecution. And still does.

There are Christians today who, in God’s name, think that atheists, women and homosexuals should be supressed, denied their rights, deported and even imprisoned. In the West, God’s gentle people (‘Christianists’? ‘Extremists’?) tend not to get their way, but in countries where Christianity still holds sway, they do. Christians persecute minorities, in Uganda, Nigeria, the Gambia, Cameroon and elsewhere, as they themselves are persecuted in predominantly Muslim countries. It’s all so terribly human, as they eagerly jettison the command to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated in favour of a ‘holiness’ that drives them to deprive their victims of life and liberty. Christians have been and are no better than the fanatics who turn on them when the boot is on the other foot.

Perhaps they don’t go in for beheadings quite so much these days, though there are still Christians who advocate stoning as a preferred method of purging society of sinners. Others take it upon themselves to campaign against the human rights of those they’ve taken a dislike to. Recently, the Family Foundation of Virginia announced a forty day fast that it thinks will impress God enough he’ll destroy same-sex marriage in the States. It’s a fast with a difference though – those taking part can eat during it: ‘We are asking the entire Body of Christ to join us for this fast,’ the group says. ‘Giving up physical food isn’t necessary – but feeding on the spiritual food provided is vital.’

I don’t know about you, but I always understood that fasting meant doing without food. A fast isn’t a fast otherwise.

This laughable nonsense beautifully encapsulates religious belief; take on the outer aspects of a faith, including its language and its rituals, and reinterpret them in whatever way suits you. That way, showing the love the saviour commands means treating others with contempt; fasting to get God to do what you want really means filling your belly; following Jesus means ignoring most of what he said and doing what you like.

It’s all so empty, so human, so meaningless – so very hypocritical. If only it weren’t quite so dangerous for those on the outside.

Why would someone choose to be like this?

Posted on by
Reply

KissJesus and friend enjoy a quiet moment of intimacy.

Over at Barbwire, a particularly prickly Christian web-site about guns and how the world is going to hell in a handcart and how Christians are persecuted – persecuted, I tell you! – just because, out of love, they trash homosexuals, they’ve been discussing gay Christians. In a totally fair and balanced way, they’ve concluded you can’t be both because of something or other the Bible says.

What I don’t understand about gay Christians is how anyone would choose – and it is a choice when there’s no evidence they’re born that way – to be something as destructive, unhealthy, degenerate, unproductive and downright icky, as a Christian.

 

 

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 18: We’re the ones being persecuted!

Posted on by
Reply

Persecution

You think Christians don’t say they’re persecuted? Take a look at a recent entry on Christian Voice, where the claim is made that Christianity itself is being ‘criminalised’ in the UK. Visit American Christian blogs where they insist they’re being persecuted. Listen to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, complain ad nauseam that Jesus’ followers today are marginalised and mistreated.

And why do they feel this way? Usually because they don’t like being told they should stop persecuting gay people. It’s their religious right, they tell us, to ‘live according to conscience’ and to bash (if only verbally in this country at least) a maligned minority. And any attempt to stop them from doing so, they say, is an infringement of religious liberty. Hatred of homosexuality has become such an integral part of the Christian faith these days.

Suggest to Christians in the West that they’re not experiencing persecution at all, but only a fair and reasonable attempt to make them treat others as they themselves would be like to be treated (didn’t Jesus say that?) and they respond, as a Christian Voice supporter did the other day, by sending you a link to the site of the Christian Liberty Council. Here’s the proof that Christians are really the victims! Go to the link and what you get is, yes, a list of believers who’ve been cautioned for abusing LGBT people. It’s so unfair! And that’s it, that’s their evidence.

If Christians were prevented from gathering together for worship, imprisoned for their belief in Jesus, stopped from talking about their faith, denied the means of praying together and so on, then perhaps they could reasonably say they were being persecuted. As it is, they’re the ones doing the sniping – and whining when they’re chastised for it.

In fact, their saviour tells them in Matthew 24.9 what to expect when any real persecution or ‘criminalisation’ comes along. They should, he says, whinge about it at length, even if it’s only a very remote possibility.

Oh, no wait, that’s not it; see it as a gift, he tells them, and pray for those doing the persecuting (Mark 10.30 etc). Problem solved! As ever though, they choose to ignore him. They much prefer to hang on to their prejudices and see themselves as the real victims.

Picture shows, clockwise:

Pat Robertson, US TV evangelist, who says gay people want to destroy marriage and the church itself.

Yoweri Museveni, Ugandan president and evangelical Christian who this week approved a bill toughening penalties and punishments for gay people.

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who complains about how dreadfully Christians are treated in Britain.

Scott Lively, American evangelist currently facing a lawsuit for ‘crimes against humanity’. Influenced the anti-gay laws recently introduced in parts of Africa and, possibly, in Russia.

Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, which officially condemns homosexuality, whatever conciliatory noises Frankie himself appears to make.

Stephen Green, operator of Christian Voice, which insists Christians in the UK are being criminalised for their intolerance.

Caption suggested by an article on the excellent Joe.My.God blog.