Flying Spaghetti Monster: He who has EXPELLED Evolution!

Thanks to Ian of the University of Alberta, Atheists and Agnostics club and Terahertz fame, up in Edmonton Alberta, we have this trailer about a VERY SERIOUS documentary on the biases against research into the natural world based on Pastafarian ideas. As much as the new film “Expelled” with that dipwit Ben Stein tries to show how intelligent design is callously “expelled” from scientific research and intelligent design advocates are ostracized, Ian and Co. from Edmonton are advertising a movie that does the same for His Noodly Appendageness. They have produced a 7 minute trailer. Watch it and be convinced.

I think they should have contacted some of my buddies in the Religious Studies program there, because they, like us down here in Lethbridge, don’t have courses on Pastafarianism.

I should admit, however, that our dept was the subject of a VERY SERIOUS complaint in U of L.’s “3 Lines Free” section of the student newspaper. It was taken under (slight) consideration HERE. However, now that Dr. Jim has a WHOLE FREAKING YEAR OF STUDY LEAVE coming up, perhaps I could research the “Self-Actualization in the (Meta)phorical inverted id-ego Syntax of First Person Pro/pre/post-nouns in the Transcendental Poetic structures of Noodley Appendedness.”

Irony is a bitch! Tax Credits for Biblical Movies? NO WAY!

There is a great uproar about the proposed changes to Canada’s tax laws that grant credits to the makers of films in this country. Charles McVety, an evangelical political lobbyist, who also runs a Christian college with tax-exempt status is boasting that it is his influence that led to the proposed changes that many fear will lead to a form of censorship, since the Heritage Minister would be able to reject applications for tax credits if a film’s content does not meet moral standards or in otherwise not in the public interest (see by rather long post on McVety here).

One of the interesting things about the proposed changes to Bill C-10 is that Canadian film makers would have to be VERY PICKY about which biblical stories they wish to depict and how true to the text they would have to make their films.

Here is a bit from the Globe and Mail’s story:

Canadian Heritage officials confirmed yesterday they will be “expanding slightly” the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group. More details are promised next week.

Would the content of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ have received a passing grade if made in Canada under the proposed new rules?

It’s level of violence goes WAY beyond the level of violence of any of the New Testament gospels. An what of the Bible itself? Loads of gratuitous violence. Check out my slowing coming to completion list of 21 Really Badass Bible Passages. Here is one that will feature in a later installments:

Numbers 31:11-33

And they took all the spoil and all the prey, both of man and of beast. And they brought the captives and the prey and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan opposite Jericho. And Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp. And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. And Moses said to them, “Have you spared all the women? “Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. “But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. “… Now the booty that remained from the spoil which the men of war had plundered was 675,000 sheep, and 72,000 cattle, 34 and 61,000 donkeys, 35 and of human beings, of the women who had not known man intimately, all the persons were 32,000.2.

If a modern author told a story like that in which the heroes did these kinds of things, the religious right would be up in arms! Where the hell is the “educational” content here? What about Hosea 13:16?

Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

Does it really have to get into the murder of expectant mothers? Remember, this too, is meant to be a “good” thing, since it is God’s judgment. Examples of this kind of thing can be multiplied ad nauseum.

Judges 21:10-23 And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. “This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man.” And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the whole congregation sent word and spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; yet they were not enough for them. And the people were sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Then the elders of the congregation said, “What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” They said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel. “But we cannot give them wives of our daughters.” For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.” So they said, “Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south side of Lebonah.” And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch; and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. “It shall come about, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we shall say to them, ‘Give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle, nor did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.’” The sons of Benjamin did so, and took wives according to their number from those who danced, whom they carried away.

And what about more explicit sex? What is “educational” about this?

Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. The firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed.” They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s seed.” They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger arose, and lay with him. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus both of Lot’s daughters were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. The same is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. The same is the father of the children of Ammon to this day (Gen. 19: 30-37).

So, two girls get pregnant by their father. Besides the sin of incest, the story is linking the eponymous ancestors of two neighboring nations to the offspring of these illicit sexual liaisons. Is this not denigrating identifiable groups, essentially calling their fore mother a “Father-fucker”? Of course, they are no longer identifiable groups today, but the point can still be made. This story is essentially hate literature. And what of the kidnapping and forced marriage of the women of Benjamine in Judges

Ah, it gets smuttier: (Ezekiel 23:13-21)

“So she increased her harlotries. And she saw men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, like the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. “When she saw them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. “The Babylonians came to her to the bed of love and defiled her with their harlotry. And when she had been defiled by them, she became disgusted with them. “She uncovered her harlotries and uncovered her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her, as I had become disgusted with her sister. “Yet she multiplied her harlotries, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. “She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. “Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth.

Is that all prurient voyeurism really necessary to describe the religious apostasy of a city (Jerusalem)?

Dr. Jim is hardly an advocate of censorship, so I won’t advocate banning the Bible by any means. But this book is distributed to kids, and churches get a tax break to preach from it. What good comes from any of this? I think it is time for folks to get a strong voice against censorship, no to mention tax concessions to religious groups that have only their own ideological and political agendas in mind.

Another Video Extravaganza: IPU vs. FSM

“Interesting” says the boring old fart, Dr. Jim…

Dr. Jim is now a Rap or Hip Hop or whatever the @*#!%@ you call it Fan! M.C. Hawking saves the world!

Found this at GIFS. Absolutely hillarious!

A Witch Worth Blowing Your Whistle Over?

Yeowzah! I’ve just “discovered” an advert for the Whistleblower magazine’s January issue on the Ultra-Right Political and Religious site World Net Daily. A witch, and what a witch! A very western womanly witch. Apparently witches are not simply fictional characters but:

The real thing – that is, the stunning phenomenon of more and more American housewives, students, professors, and even soldiers self-identifying as “witches” – is the topic of the January edition of WND’s elite monthly Whistleblower magazine…

What is witchcraft? … Is magic real? Why do witches often perform their ceremonies naked? And most of all, why do so many people today aspire to be witches?

Wicca is an official, legal religion in the U.S., and a fast-growing one at that…Witches in the armed services have even formed covens and routinely “worship” on U.S. military bases.

How did this happen – and why?

“Witchcraft, sorcery, magic and idol worship have been around since the earliest days of man,” said WND Editor Joseph Farah. “They do, indeed, pre-date Christianity as we know it today – just as their practitioners like to point out with pride. But they do not pre-date the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the one who created the universe. They are, in fact, part of a rebellion against Him and His laws.”

Added Farah: “Ever since the 1960s, this rebellion has been growing. It’s kind of the spiritual side of the political and social rebellion that took place in the latter part of that decade. Yet, this spiritual rebellion has continued unabated since then, and has grown exponentially faster and darker with each succeeding decade.”

Holy Jebus B. Gobley! What kind of government would allow nikkid witches to do stuff that isn’t Christian? Perhaps the same government that allows Christians to do stuff that isn’t Jewish, or Hindu or whatever.

A lot more is going on in this magazine and its cover, though. The woman on the cover is presumably not a wiccan but she is terribly good-looking, done up to the nines, and is posed rather “invitingly”. I actually like the picture a lot (ahh… I give away too much). But is it right for the cover of a magazine that purports to be defending a “Christian” way of life?

The magazine links the idea of ‘naked’ witches to this beautiful young woman. They are really perpetuating a stereotype of femininity that links women’s sexuality with religious apostacy and, indeed, an out-right society wide rebellion against God. The link between women and “dangerous” social behaviours and “destructive” religious activities has been with us for thousands of years and is a very prominent theme in some biblical passages (Hosea 1-3 anyone?).

A lot of Wiccans (and other folks who tend towards feminist perspectives on culture) would decry popular culture’s obsession with representations and idealizations of glamourous and amourous women (I will admit to being influenced rather a lot by those kind of images). The Whistleblower’s cover girl is presumably at ease with those kinds of styles and constructions of feminine beauty and the photographer has used them for all they are worth (without being too revealing). I don’t want to defend these stereotypes or the unrealistic expectations they create in the minds of self-conscious girls and women, but by linking this kind of image to what is considered “bad” the magazine is really shooting itself in the foot.

Indeed, in employing this kind of image to seduce readers to pick up the magazine (and that is what cover photos are for, aren’t they?), the publishers are trying to combate one percieved “social” problem while reinforcing another. They are marketing women as sexual objects to sell their publication. The reading public gets their fix of sexualized women vicariously through playing the ’self-righteous’ card. One can imagine countless Christian men thinking in the back of their minds:

Ohhh look at her! Wicca is so bad! Wow, I can see how people are drawn to this, she is gorgeous, this is awful! Look at her eyes, sooooo seductive. Must resist… Maybe if I buy the magazine I can resist, especially if there are more pictures of her inside…. ooooh, look, the ad says she will probably do her “rituals” naked! Imagine that, I better read more!

Certainly Christian women are as adversly affected by the media’s over active use of women as a marketing tools as are women of other religious/philosophical dispositions. Now, tell that to David Kupelian and the marketing genius behind the cover of his book that is also sold on World Net Daily:

The image, of course, evokes the second of the Bible’s creation stories (beginning in Genesis 2:4) in which the first women, Eve, ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and convinced her hubby, Adam, to do the same. The biblical story has a LOT of sexual connotations and it has has often been used throughout history to blame society’s ills on women who don’t do what they are told or keep their libido in check. I wonder if the irony of this has ever struck Kupelian. The advert says of the book:

Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents’ generation – from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers. Does that mean today’s Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history.

“The Marketing of Evil” reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive – in a word, evil.

In this groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, Kupelian peels back the veil of marketing-induced deception to reveal exactly when, where, how, and especially why Americans bought into the lies that now threaten the future of the country.

For example, few of us realize that the widely revered father of the “sexual revolution” has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia. Or that giant corporations voraciously competing for America’s $150 billion teen market routinely infiltrate young people’s social groups to find out how better to lead children into ever more debauched forms of “authentic self-expression.”

I wonder if he also condemns the marketing of prayer-cloths, prophecies and so forth in the name of Jesus! Or the sale of Christian magazines with worldly images of beautiful women on the cover! His own marketing campaign is reinforcing a sexual stereotype the rest of the marketing industry relies on, too. OOOOOH, sorry, that one must be ok since it is biblical…

Getting back to Wicca, modern witchcraft, neo-paganism and so forth , what motivates a lot of people to get involved in these movements? For many there is a real ‘rebellion’ against the Chrsitian religion that construes society in ways these people do find acceptable. Many Wiccans reject Christianity because of the Bible’s construction of women as weaker, less moral or easily tempted into sin that will engulf all society. These biblical views are emphasized to a greater or lesser degree by varios denominations. There is a level of empowerment that “alternative” religions seem to offer. In many cases, there is a rejection of just those very kinds of images “Whistleblower” is employing to warn of the dangers of modern Witchcraft!

The sexualization of Christianity’s “enemy” and the feminization of the “enemy’s” human cohorts, are perhaps best seen in the witchhunts in which suspected witches were torturd until they confessed to submitting to Satan’s sexual advances, but it really goes back much further. Women bring death to the world, that is the message many Christian preachers have taught from the story of Adam and Eve. Eve the seduced and Eve the seductress:

Western society has been massively influenced by Christian ideas, and the gender constructions and “sub-cultures” that have developed in the West are no exception. Wicca would not be Wicca if Christianity (among other influences) had not shaped western consciousness and the western repertoire of symbols and images in the way it has. It is impossible to wiggle out from under the baggage of the past whether one is an atheist, a Wiccan, a Christian or whatever. The church has (however inadvertantly) given us a whole stock of symbols and ideas that people employ, redraw, celebrate and evolve into something else entirely in a myriad of unpredictable ways. It is part of our ever shifting cultural “language”, if you will. Wicca throws many of these concepts in the church’s face (not to mention the faces of other social institutions!). The reactionary response of the Christian right, however, only illustrates that behind the inventive and (at least to some oberservers) corney Wiccan and Pagan movements is a real commentary that shows us a lot about our society.

Oscarology

As everyone knows astrology is an ancient divine art, incredible in its ability to accurately foresee world events and personal minutia. Why wouldn’t the stars have a powerful influence on the way our world unfolds? My mother-in-law just recently warned us not to go car shopping this month because Mercury is in retrograde. Well, you may be surprised to hear this, but not only the stars, but The Stars have influence on our personalities and decisions. Witness Greta Christina’s Oscarology:

Oscarology is a system of astrology I invented — excuse me, that was revealed to me in a powerful mystical experience — based on what movie won the Best Picture Oscar for the year you were born. I blogged about it a couple of days ago, asking for people’s birth years… and have been spending the time since then communing with the Spirit of the Oscars and transcribing the visions it has vouchsafed to me.

1974: The Godfather Part II. The Godfather Part IIs are intelligent, powerful, self-controlled, and highly skilled at planning and strategic thinking. They have strong family feelings, but tend to be controlling, and their zeal to preserve and protect their family often leads them to alienate and even harm them. They often have clear ideas about what they want from life, but have a tendency to be distracted from those goals when life events or personal ambitions intervene. Nevertheless, they are often considered to be as successful, or even more so, than their forefathers or predecessors.

Find yours on her site. I am giving a 100% money-back guarantee that Oscarology is just as accurate as more traditional forms of astrology.

Bill Maher on Conan, talking about Republicans and religion

A youtube sent my way by Matt Letts

I take it he is voting democrat…
The best bit was his comparison between JFK’s speech about religion and Romney’s.
Maher also says you can’t reconcile rationality and faith and that religious folks are schizophrenic because they think they can bracket out their rational faculties on Sundays. That is probably a bit over done, but a good little bit all the same

“I can’t remember a thing!” Jesus’ missing years.

The Religion News Service has an article about a new movie on Jesus’ missing years to be called The Aquarian Gospel (directed by Drew Heriot). Suspiciously, the movie’s title is identical to the book upon which the movie is based. That book, of course, is not a canonical gospel, since the four canonical gospels are not in the least bit interested in telling folks what Jesus did between the years of 13 and 30.

“Did he have zits? Did he have crushes? Did he play basketball?” asks Dale Martin, a religious studies professor at Yale University…

Drew Heriot, whose previous credits include “The Secret,” a best-selling but controversial self-help DVD that claims “to reveal the most powerful law in the universe,” is set to direct, and said the film will show Jesus not only as a young man but as a traveler to the East.

The $20 million film will follow Jesus as he follows the ancient Silk Road, with stops in India, Persia and Egypt among other places. Along the way, Jesus will come to know “the world’s greatest seers and sages,” and will reunite with the Magi who visited his crib in Bethlehem, say producers of the film…

In a recent interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Hassnain said Buddhist scrolls mention Jesus’ visits, and coins from that time period refer to Jesus. Still others have pointed out that trade routes between East and West were well traveled at the time.

But Jeffrey Siker, chairman of the theology department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said no one particularly buys the idea that Jesus was ever in India.

Martin, from Yale, agrees, calling it “highly, highly unlikely,” and said any Buddhist reference to Jesus is simply the result of one tradition pulling from another as “a way to validate itself.” Islam, too, makes mention of Jesus in the Quran for the same sorts of reasons, Martin said.

According to Wikipedia–the finest “research” tool in the world– the book ” Aquarian Age Gospel of Jesus, the Christ of the Piscean Age” came to light in 1908 and purports to be ancient and accurate. A certain Levi H. Dowling claimed to have transcribed it from some other purportedlyancient document, the Akashic Records. All of this was part of the popular occult theosophical movement of th elate 1900’s, not to mention the rise of interfaith dialogue in that period that was trying to find common ground between the different faiths, if only to combat secularism.

According to Wiki:

The Aquarian Christine Church Universal, Inc.(ACCU). The Aquarian Christines share many common theosophical teachings with the I Am Movement which includes The Saint Germain Foundation and The Church Universal & Triumphant / The Summit Lighthouse. The title is derived from the astrological naming of time periods in terms of constellations; in that system, the Age of Aquarius is approaching.

Of course, visions of the uproar over the Da Vinci Code should be dancing in people’s heads as the church historians, other scholars and the faithful debate the folks who give such texts (especially when legitimized by a Hollywood movie) credibility. Doubtlessly there will be more speculation about Vatican coverups, how corrupt church-men usurping power from the “true church” that was far too airy-fairy and generally nice to be sullied with politics, empire and power.

Most curious from my point of view will be the uneasy truce between the secular academics and the devoutly conservative Christians for whom such books would be heresy supreme. Both will be battling the same rival ideas, but for radically different purposes.

This raises a question, though, how can real scholars of religious history introduce people to the credible research that has been going on in these fields? Books like the Aquarian Gospel are religious texts, and deserve to be studied as such, yet they are not ancient books. Their true setting is the late 19th century spiritualist and theosophical movement. The constructed past narrated in documents like these are the production of mythological thinking, and needs to be read as such. The Aquarian Gospel is not a source from which one might learn anything about Jesus. It may well be an interesting source form which to learn about how people a century and more ago created a mystical Jesus to suit themselves.

On a lighter note, overt fiction about the missing years of Jesus is not hard to come by. I highly recommend Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Outrageously funny and kind of poignant too.

Shocking Confession!

I like Gospel Music (egad!).

Not the crappy modern Christian rubbish they play on the Christian radio station in town, but the African-American gospel music that inspired blues and rhythm and blues.
My friend Sharon loaned me some CDs by

Blind Boys of Alabama     

and Mahaliah Jackson     

Love it. Here’s Mahalia Jackson - “Study War No More”

I can also recommend the blues singer Rory Block

 

who does a lot of traditional blues and very emotionally charged gospel numbers. She has a great album with Maria Muldaur and Eric Bibb that has a lot of gospel stuff on it.

Sorry, this old atheist just had to admit that.

A Christian Film I want to see: “What Would Jesus Buy?”

Now, I’m hardly one of the flock, but when I saw the ad for this film I thought “Three Cheers for these Guys!” I can’t stand Christmas commercialism. I would actually prefer more ”put the Christ back in Christmas” propaganda over the endless barrage of flyers and the annoying ads.

Here is the blub from the movie’s website:

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

From producer Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas.  Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer’s jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a  journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.

Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas?  What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we’ve all been searching for.

The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?