Religion in the News

Random recent tidbits of religious interest:

• A Rastafarian has filed a religious discrimination suit against UPS, saying the delivery company refused to let him be a driver because his Rasta-beard didn't meet appearance guidelines.
• Intercessary prayer for heart-surgery patients by strangers does no good, according to a recent study. The authors of the study admit, though, that other studies have indicated that prayer by family members and friends does lessen post-surgical complications.
• According to a recent press release from the Center for Reason, Christians have just as many abortions as non-Christians, and Catholics lead the way, with abortion rates among Cathlolics above the national average.
• Apparently Baptists and fundamentalists are feeling poorly treated these days, whining that they've found themselves on the losing side in a War Against Christians. But even some evangelicals have told the cry-babies to stow it, and focus on issues that Jesus would care about, like poverty and hunger.
• Catholics are more likely that other people, religious or non-religious, to support the use of torture, according to a recent survey. Does that surprise anyone, given that the former head of the Catholic Inquisition (the Prefrect of the Congregation for the Doctrine and Faith) is now the Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church? Fifty-six percent of Catholics surveyed said they support torturing terrorists "often" or "sometimes," while 49% of white Protestants and 49% of white Evangelicals both said they support it often or sometimes. Only 35% of those who claimed to be non-religious supported torture often or sometimes. Twenty-six percent of Catholics said torture should never be used, compared to 31% each for white Protestants and white Evangelicals, and 41% of non-religious people.

Jigging for Jesus

Wearing a kilt emblazoned with the Star of David, wearing what looks like a Girl Scout beret and vest, and carrying a sign that reads, "The end is coming, Christ is near," Irish ex-priest Cornelius "Neil" Horan dances a jig for Jesus in this video from YouTube.

In August, 2004 Horam was given a 12-month suspended sentence for ambushing the front-runner in the mens' marathon in Athens, Greece, during the Olympics, according to the BBC. He also has disrupted the Grand Prix and other sporting events with his "end of the world" publicity stunts. He even has his own Wikipedia entry.

"Forget The Da Vinci Code! THIS is the real thing!"

"Forget The Da Vinci Code! This is the real deal," says arts and antiquities dealer Michel Van Rijn of the revelation two weeks from now that he believes will alter the world's thinking and undermine 2,000 years of Christian teaching.

Found in the 1970s in a tomb in Egypt, and later acquired by a Swiss foundation, The Gospel of Judas is set to be published in the April issue of National Geographic magazine, reports the Guardian Unlimited.

History tells us that a Gospel of Judas was denounced by a bishop in the second century. Presumably, this is the same text.

The text, reports say, presents Judas not as the vilest of traitors, but rather as a hero, doing what he did at Jesus's request. Indeed, it is supposed, that without the "betrayal," there would have been no martyrdom; Christ's destiny could not have been fulfilled.

Not everyone, of course, is as excited or worried about this bit of historical revisionism as is Van Rijn. The world will keep on turning, the Pope will still do what the Pope does, the Baptists will still do Baptists do, and this blog will publish yet another article. The masses won't even notice.

But slowly, surely, another brick in the wall of modern Christianity will be eroded, another "eternal verity" will be dispensed with. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

Reprinted from SacredFems.com

Christianity | Jesus Christ
Judas Iscariot | Gospel of Judas
Heresy | National Geographic | Egypt | Antiquities

Body-slammin' for the Lord!

Are you ready to rummmm-ble?

What do you get when you put a Christian evangelist in tights and bad make-up, call him by a Biblical name, and throw him into a ring? A body-slammer for Jesus!

Christian "rock" music wasn't bad enough. Holy Hotties buying lap dances for Jesus got my attention 'cause, well, they're hotties. But Wrestling for the J-man? Jeez....

Chase "Darkness" Cliett is strapped to a wooden cross while the Bad Guys beat the hell out of him, before he is saved by his angelic Good Guys. A red-suited horned guy finally gets knocked out, to the joyous shrieks of the crowd.

At the official website WrestlingforJesus.org, you can see their line-up of wrestlers, buy their cheesy t-shirts, and have your ears blasted by loud heavy metal music.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christianity today. Someone should just throw these people to the lions!

Source: "Christian wrestlers body slam for God"

Photo is of "Darkness." Scary, huh?

Pro Wrestling | Jesus Christ
Wrestling for Jesus

Celebrating the Vernal Equinox

Happy Vernal Equinox! Today in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the first day of Spring, when the sun crosses the Celestial Equator and enters the sign of Aries.

It's a day for mourning the Goddess's consort, the Dying God, who has co-ruled with the Goddess during the autumn and winter months.

It is the first day of the year in the Zoroastrian calendar. It is the feast day of the Anglo-Saxon Goddess Easter, known to the Mesopatamians as Ishtar.

The Dying God is celebrated by an inscription in the Vatican, which says, "He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood, so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved." No, that's not Jesus talking, but the God-Man Mithras, upon whose Temple ruins the Vatican was built. Mithras was a solar deity known as The Redeemer. His worship was before and concurrent with that of Jesus, but eventually faded away.

Mithras was Known as the "Good Shepherd" and the "Light of the World," just as was Jesus. Mithras's followers shared ritual communion meals of bread and wine. Mithras was born in a cave, of a virgin, on December 25th. Shepherds attended at his birth.

As the Burning Taper discussed some time ago, many God-Men were born on the Winter Solstice, and many died on the Vernal Solstice. Attis's mother was Cybele, a virgin, known as Queen of Heaven. Further back, we find the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar and her dying/resurrected son/lover Tammuz, born/resurrected at the Winter Solstice, dying at the Spring Equinox.

Even the name Easter comes from the word Ishtar.

The cross is an ancient symbol, pre-dating Christianity, often used to represent a solar deity. Inside a circle, the cross represents the Earth and her four seasons.

From "The Temple of Love: The History of the Temple of Ishtar":

In Her Temples in many lands from Egypt to Assyria to Babylon to Crete to India, in Rome and Greece and many Celtic lands, Her Temples had Sacred Priestesses who were also called Prostitutes by those of body denial religions. Her worship was in the arms of the Priestess who embodied and represented The Goddess(s). These worshipers are sometimes known as pagans.

A fundamental difference in the concept of worship is important to note: In the Temples of the old ways people would go to the temple TO BE WORSHIPPED not to worship. Women would go to the temple to serve the Goddess to embody Her, to represent Her, to be worshipped as Her. Women would spend a day, or a week, or a year serving at the Temple as a priestess, as a sacred Prostitute, as a whore in service to the Goddess. There they would be worshipped as the incarnation of the Goddess, as The Goddess Herself.

Men would come to Her Temple TO BE WORSHIPPED. Men would be welcomed and served by the Priestesses and men would represent the divine male principal, the Horned One, the Sacred Bull, The God. Men would come to the temple to give their love and passion to The Goddess, and would receive the passion, love, and affection of The Goddess.

But some three millennia ago there came monotheists who refused Her Worship preferring instead to be diminished in body and spirit. They called Her, "The Whore of Babylon, who leads men into fornication." They called our sacred sexuality "sin," and cast shame on Her sacred Priestesses. They held up a "virgin" as the ideal that women should imitate instead of the sacred Goddess that they had always held as the most sacred image of Woman. This is essentially the state of things in the modern world.

The two principal deities of ancient Babylon were Baal and Ishtar. Baal was the god of war and the elements and Ishtar the goddess of fertility - both human and agricultural. These two deities have roots going back before Babylon to Nimrod at Babel and to Assyria. Through the ages they were imported into other nations and under different names but always retaining the same basic characteristics. Baal was also called Bel, Baalat, Molech, Merodach, Mars and Jupiter, and was frequently represented as a bull. Ishtar was also called Aphrodite, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Cybele or Sybil, Diana, Europa, Isis, Semiramis and Venus. The two main elements in the worship of Baal were fire and human sacrifice, usually children.

Happy Spring!

Sources:
Altreligion.About.Com
The Temple of Love: The History of the Temple of Ishtar
The Burning Taper: Let There Be Light
Born Jesus: Mother, behold thy Son! Son, behold thy Mother!

This article is reprinted from SacredFems.com.

Astrotheology | Ishtar | Baal | Cybele
Attis | Tammuz | Jesus | Virgin Mary

Jesus was a radical: No dogma, no creed, no ritual

Spartacus opens our eyes by pointing out Jesus was not perfect by 21st century standards. He was a racist, He was disrespectful to His mother and relatives, He advocated violence, and He was a Sage.

Swami Abhedananda, a Hindu Sage, said: "The religion of Christ or true Christianity had no dogma, no creed, no system, and no theology. It was a religion of the heart, a religion without any ceremonial, without ritual, without priest-craft. It was not based upon any book, but upon the feelings of the heart, upon direct communion of the individual soul with the heavenly Father. On the contrary, the religion of the church is based upon a book, believes in dogmas, professes a creed, has an organized system for preaching it, is backed up by theologies, performs rituals, practises ceremonials, and obeys the commands of a host of priests."

Read more...

Jesus Christ | Theology | Catholicism
Christianity | Hindu | Swami Abhedananda

We're all Jesus's children

Is there a bloodline from Jesus to the present day? Yes! And we're all part of it. That is, if Jesus had children.

We tend to think we can trace our roots back to a specific individual, but we also tend to forget the other people who donated their genetics to us. At 20 generations back, most of us have between 600,000 and 1,000,000 ancestors; at 40 generations, the number is phenomenal. At 120 generations, the whole world was our mommy and daddy.

Read more....

Thanks to Spartacus for clueing us into this article.

Jesus | Bloodline | Da Vinci Code | Ancestry
Geneology | Genetics | Dan Brown

Mother, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!

This statue and shrine is part of a small chapel near a cemetary at the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Alabama. On the grounds of a Cathlolic church and prepatory school, the grotto also houses an incredible display of "little Jerusalem," dozens of miniature representations of Bible-era Jerusalem, European cathedrals, scenes from the Bible, patriotic themes, and much more, all built by hand by a monk who was denied the privilege of becoming a priest because an accident at the monastery left him a hunchback. Fascinating.

Most people see here a statue of a weeping Mary holding her dead son Jesus, with a crucifix overhead and above that, a round stained glass window. The border of the stained glass window says, "Mother, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother."

Typical Catholic stuff, you say. Yep, I say.

But I see so much more.

I see the Queen of the Heavens — the female representation of the Mother / Sky / Heaven / the Universe/ the Moon — holding the dying and soon to be resurrected Sun / Son / God of this World. Since the dawn of Man, the Sky and the ancient planets (which included the Sun and the Moon) have been held in awe... have been worshipped and adored and sometimes feared.

Above the two figures, we see the Cross, the Crucifix, the actual emblem of the dead and resurrected God / Man / Sun. The Cross as a religious symbol predates Christianity. The Cross represents the Earth, and four quadrants the Seasons. More than that, it represents Life itself. And yes, the Cross represents Death itself, or rather, the constant renewal, the constant regeneration, the constant interplay between Birth and Death. The cross also represents the Male and the Female, both necessary to bring forth new life. The vertical shaft of the Cross is driven into/through the horizontal beam of the Cross, representing the physical requirement of Man entering Woman in order to perpetuate the Life cycle.

Male and female... mother and son... behold, Life!

The circular stained glass also represents the spherical Sun... and the Moon.

And taken as a unit, the circle atop the cross is the symbol for the heavenly Venus, Aphrodite, Hera, Juno, Ishtar, Astarte, Esther, Isis, and of course, Mary, the Queen of the Heavens.

Not to mention, the universal symbol for Female.

Astrotheology | Heaven | Catholicism | Ave Maria Grotto
Jesus | Solar Worship | Astrology Symbolism | Mythology
Virgin Mary | Mother Mary | Mother and Son

Falwell: "No Jews in Heaven!"

Jerry Falwell claims that he loves Jews so much that he "seriously believe[s] that few Americans have invested more time and resources in the defense of Israel in this generation" than he has.

But, so sorry, Jewish people: He says you're still going to hell. "...[It] is categorically untrue... that I have recently stated that Jews can go to heaven without being converted to Jesus Christ."

Source: "A Gracious Correction of the Jerusalem Post," written by Jerry Fallwell, March 2, 2006

Jerry Falwell | Jerusalem | Judaism | Jews
Hell | John Hagee | Dual Covenant

Thetans vs South Park: The Million Year War

Isaac Hayes quit the show South Park recently, complaining that the show that had returned him to stardom "disrespected" religion. Apparently Hayes didn't mind disrespecting Baptists, Mormons, Catholics and Jews. It was when they got around to disrespecting Scientologists that his morals and compassion kicked in.

On Wednesday, Comedy Central abruptly pulled the scheduled South Park episode about Scientology, called "Trapped in the Closet," and aired instead an episode featuring Hayes called "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls."

While the South Park creators didn't directly comment on Comedy Central's decision to pull the episode, they issued an unusual statement to Daily Variety indicating the battle is not over.

"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

The duo signed the statement "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu."

South Park | Chef | Xenu | Isaac Hayes
Scientology | Trey Parker | Matt Stone

Saving the Nazi Church

In 1932 Nazis began joining local parishes in a clandestine effort to undermine the Church's power to resist Hitler's rise to power. By 1935, two-thirds of the membership of the Martin Luther Memorial Church were members of the Nazi party.

The church building was built in 1929, designed in the Bauhaus style. The inside was modifed by the Nazi members in the 1930s.

“There was a bust of Adolf Hitler in the nave,” Isolde Boehm, dean of the church, said, the Times of London reports. “A carved face of Hitler has been replaced by one of Martin Luther. There is even a rumour that the church was supposed to be called the Adolf Hitler Church.”

The image of a Nazi storm trooper side by side with Jesus Christ has been carved into the pulpit. An Iron Cross-shaped chandelier illuminates the entrance

Bare patches in the walls marks where swastikas have been ripped out.

Two Protestant priests — Frau Boehm and the Reverend Malte Jungnickel — want to have the church declared a listed building. They are asking the German government to fund restoration of the church, expected to cost €3 million (£2 million or $3.6 million US).

"Look at the face of Christ on the cross," Herr Jungnickel said. "It is the face of a victorious Aryan, with a bodybuilder’s frame, not the suffering Jesus."

"So far, thank God, the neo-Nazis have not discovered the church as a place of pilgrimage," Frau Boehm said. [Neo-Nazis apparently don't have the Internet, and will never read this. — Ed.]

German art critics find themselves in an ethical dilemma: How much Nazi iconography should be saved?

The Nazi church is something of an embarassment; it reminds people of how clearly the Protestant Church aligned itself to Hitler.

Bells embosssed with the swastika rang at the church until 1942, when they were melted down for use in war munitions.

Not all the church members during the Second World War were Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, however. Max Kurzreiter, the local priest in the 1930s, gave shelter to members of the dissident anti-Nazi Confessional Church.

And prominent anti-Nazi and writer Jochen Klepper married a Jewish convert at the church in 1938. "That required a great deal of courage from the priest," Herr Jungnickel said.

Klepper, his wife and one of his daughters killed themselves in December 1942. "The problem we will always have with this unique church is that whenever we stand in the pulpit and say something, we have to preach against our surroundings; that’s incredibly hard," Frau Boehm said.

"Somehow we have to find a way of preserving the building, keeping its interior as a warning, but also supplement it with a documentation centre explaining the complicated history of the church in the Third Reich."

Nazi | Hitler | Third Reich
Christianity | Protestant | Martin Luther Memorial Church

Chef quits South Park; says show disrespects religion

Isaac Hayes says he has had it with South Park.

Since 1997, he has voiced the character of Chef, the ladies' man/school cook that the kids look up to on the animated Comedy Central satire.

"There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said.

"Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored," he continued. "As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices."

Hayes, a Scientologist, did not specifically cite in his complaint the 2005 "Trapped in the Closet" episode, which goofed on Scientology with visits from Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

"There is a place in this world for satire,” Hayes said, “but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins."

South Park co-creator Matt Stone told the AP: "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks - with our show making fun of Christians."

The AP report continues:

Last November, "South Park" targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called "Trapped in the Closet." In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out.

Stone told the AP he and co-creator Trey Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

Links:
Watch the episode about Scientology
South Park Studios homepage

South Park | Chef | Isaac Hayes
Scientology | Tom Cruise | John Travolta

Marriage

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

The Tie-In of Tie-Ins: The McPassion Meal

What if Mickie D's had done a Fun Meal tie-in with the movie The Passion of the Christ? Watch this video and find out!

Three different meals!

• McLast Supper
• McLoaves and Fishsticks
• McProdical Son with Lo-Carb Calfburger

Each comes with Gethsemane Garden Salad and a delicious Vinegar Sponge Drink!

And a Da Vinci Decoder Ring!

It's a bit twisted, but funny.

McDonald's | Parody | Passion of the Christ

God's own Lite-Brite

Thomas Kinkade's deliberately inspirational and dreamy images of landscapes and street scenes have brought "God's light" into people's lives, the artist says.

The self-proclaimed "Painter of Light" says he's a devout Christian for the past 20 years. "When I got saved, God became my art agent," he said in a 2004 video biography.

But Kinkade has a dark side, some former employees, gallery operators and others contend.

Some former gallery owners depict Kinkade as a ruthless businessman. Kinkade denies the accusations, but last month a three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association ordered his company to pay $860,000 for defrauding the former owners of two failed Virginia galleries.

Not only are his business practices under scrutiny, but many people have come forward to say that his personal behavior is anything but like the wholesome image on which he's built his empire.

Ex-employees and others have accused Kinkade of:

• getting drunk and heckling illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas
• cursing at a former employee's wife who came to his aid when he fell of a barstool
• manhandling a woman's breasts at a signing party in South Bend, Indiana, while saying "You've got great tits!"
• urinating on a statue of Winnie the Pooh outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim while saying, "This one's for you, Walt."

While working as a film animator and peddling his paintings in grocery store parking lots, he spent his life's savings on creating prints of his artwork. His gamble paid off, and now he has a lucrative career painting and selling originals and prints of what the L.A. Times calls "his distinctly romantic, idealized images of street scenes, lighthouses, country cottages and landscapes.... a world without sharp edges, all warm and fuzzily aglow with setting suns and streetlights and luminescent windows."

The Times said:

Critics have described Kinkade's works — with titles such as "Sunset on Lamplight Lane" and "The Garden of Prayer" — as little more than mass-produced kitsch. But that has not deterred the multitudes who pay from a few hundred dollars for paper prints to $10,000 or more for canvas editions he has signed and retouched.

"It's mainstream art, not art you have to look at to try to understand, or have an art degree to know whether it's good or not," said Mike Koligman, a longtime fan who with his wife owns Kinkade galleries in San Diego and Utah.

"This is God-given talent," another Kinkade fan said. "He is a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci or Monet. There is no one in our generation who can paint like that."

There aren't any other painters in our generation making the kind of money he is, either.

Thomas Kinkade | Mass Market Art | Kitsch

Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich sells on eBay for $28,000.00

Insane. That's what people are.

Twenty-eight grand for a ten-year old toasted cheese sandwich?

Looks more like Marilyn Monroe to me....