Astrotheology.net | Exploring ancient religion, mythology, archaeology and archaeoastronomy

Astrotheology.net | Exploring ancient religion, mythology, archaeology and archaeoastronomy



In case you haven't seen our new site yet. 

Victims of the Christian Faith

Victims of the Christian Faith

How many people have been killed by Christians since Biblical times? "WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD'S DIVINE GLORY" What your church does not want you to know.

Is atheism the answer? Part 3

Is atheism the answer? Part 3

Is atheism often the result of a reaction against human abuse by religion? So it seems to be, at least in significant part, as opined by both theists and atheists. Therefore, it is to this debasement of humanity in general by religion that we may look for the cause of much turmoil, including that of the past century, which is held up as a black mark against atheism because of such figures as Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. A common argument against atheism is that these individuals were all atheists who wrought horrendous atrocities against vast numbers of people. While this latter contention of these individuals committing infamy is certainly true and should never be forgotten or whitewashed, is it true that they were all atheists or were motivated by atheism, such that it is to be blamed? Was their lack of belief in a God behind their actions, which led to the deaths many millions?

Please read, comment there and pass it around!

The Religion of Environmentalism?

I have posted a new Examiner article:

The Religion of Environmentalism?

It seems that the only thing which will keep humanity from completely obliterating its natural world and causing its own extinction is a return to the "Pagan" Earth-loving attitude that teaches respect and reverence for our global home.

Please read, comment there and pass it around!

Iranian women imprisoned for converting to Christianity

Another new Examiner article -

Iranian women imprisoned for converting to Christianity

As usual, please read, comment there and pass around!

Social bookmarking like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook and so on is a great idea as well.

Thanks. :)

Acharya S: Freethought Examiner

I just got an important new gig at Examiner.com, and I've got a new article published there:

Science versus religion: the debate comes to the NIH

My work will now reach a new audience. PLEASE read my article and comment on it! And share it with all your friends. :)

Be sure to subscribe to my page and add me as a "Favorite Examiner!" A strong show of support will send a great message to Examiner.com that the Freethought perspective is very popular and that they made the right decision in welcoming me as the Freethought Examiner.

Also, if you would like to apply as a writer to Examiner.com, please include my name and ID code in your application in the Referral Details, where it asks "How did you hear about becoming an Examiner?"

D.M. Murdock
17009

Thanks!

Freethought Nation News

Hi friends!

I have created a new website that will continue to expand, hopefully, with any luck, time and help.

http://freethoughtnation.com/

Right now, I'm collecting on a daily basis - several times a day, sometimes - news from around the world that concerns religion in general as well as specific religions, such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. I am also gathering news items about atheism, secularism, humanism and freethought. I'm keeping an eye on news items about archeology, archaeoastronomy, astrotheology and mythology as well.

This news posting will be an ongoing function of my new website "Freethought Nation." I will be forwarding my forums there as well, and I intend to have a blog where I and others will post news with commentary. Of course, on the blog will be a comments area for visitors to leave their thoughts as well.

If anyone would like to help with this endeavor, let me know, as I do not have the time or tech know-how to make it all happen alone!

Freethought Nation News
http://freethoughtnation.com/

Be sure to stop back on a regular basis, as I will be posting news items there continually, with the newest posts at the top. And tell your friends about it!

Thanks - and enjoy!

Acharya S

Can Religion be Humanized?

For thousands of years, the world has been in an almost constant state of religious tension, dispute and violence. During this time, humanity has been hit with a continual wave of religious fanaticism that enslaves the body, mind and soul to a heinous and oppressive ideology. This pathology is obviously innate to the human mind, unfortunately.

Fortunately, what is also innate to the human mind is the desire to be free and liberated from all enslaving and degrading regimes and ideologies. The pathological and oppressive aspect of the human mind also possesses the megalomania to associate itself with "God," the greatest power of the cosmos. Hence, this criminal element that desires to enslave and exploit humanity passes itself off as a "religion."

Let us challenge all those of a religious bent to show us the humanity within their religion. In the case of the fanaticism that frequently defines a religion, the problem is, if this fanaticism becomes less harsh, cruel, brutal, intolerant and violent, it won't be the same religion anymore.

"Let My People Go!"

All free, liberated and sovereign beings need to ask fanatical religionists to demonstrate the humanity of their religion. Such a demonstration would mean allowing the following:

• Women may wear whatever they wish, in whatever colors desired. They can expose their beauty for all the world to see. If there were any decent god "out there," SHE would be disgusted by the treatment of Her beautiful creation within fundamentalist religion.
• Women may choose their husbands OUT OF LOVE. If men may have more than one spouse, women may do likewise. Women should be able to live in an abuse-free environment full of joy, happiness and love. ALL of humanity needs to strive for such a state of enlightened life. Anything less than striving for true love and community is a degradation of humanity, the creation and any creator of such.
  
• Children are free to believe what they wish about God, religion, afterlife, etc. - they can be taught about a wide range of beliefs and disbeliefs without being brainwashed into one religion/cult.
• Children should not be compelled to recite long, boring, VIOLENT and bigoted "sacred scriptures" that teach them not only to hate themselves but also to hate others who are not like them, who do not share their rigid beliefs and traditions.
• Children should be allowed to be children and not be indoctrinated into adult matters, including and especially warfare, hatred of others, bigotry, prejudice, genocide, misogyny, etc., ad nauseam. Teaching children these hateful things, including hating themselves and life in general, constitutes CHILD ABUSE of the highest order. This child abuse includes telling innocent and beautiful little children that they are "born in sin" pieces of garbage and unworthy in the eyes of the great and glorious God/Allah, who is wholly separate and apart from this "lower" creation. This emotional and psychological child abuse is a LIE. Period. It should not be allowed.

Just as is abusing their minds, beating children physically because they are not learning or accepting a religion is EVIL. Leave the children alone! They will develop naturally as healthy and happy human beings - and if there's any true religion on planet Earth, that is it! Nothing more and nothing less. The children know what life is all about - let them be children.

And let the children show YOU the way out of the manmade HELLS created on Earth because of religion. No decent god worth its salt would be interested in the oppressive and brutally anti-human psychosis that passes itself off as "religion" on this planet.

To humanize the current violent, malevolent and woman-hating religious fanaticism is to change it utterly to the point where it no longer exists. To humanize this sort of religion, therefore, is impossible, because it is so entirely inhumane and anti-human.

In the long run, that which is truly humane in any given religion, what constitutes common decency and morality, is already intrinsic within the human mind and does not need religion either to create or sustain it. If religion is to serve any purpose at all, it must emphasize and develop that common decency and morality which provides the greatest chance for benevolence to thrive to its fullest potential.

Global Environmental Destruction Will Lead to the Deaths of Millions

For several decades, ever since I was a small child, I have been what may be considered an "environmentalist." As a child, I had an innate and immediate love for nature, which was further inculcated by the responsible practices - not "tree hugging" - of my truly "caring conservative" parents. In the 1960s, my family was recycling as much as we could at the time, including newspapers, bottles and cans, and I honestly believed that was the way most people lived on planet Earth. When I moved to the Big Apple following college, I was stunned to discover that the largest city on Earth had no recycling programs, not even for newspaper!

That unconcerned development was appalling enough, but I subsequently discovered upon moving to Los Angeles that one of the sunniest places on Earth had almost no involvement in solar energy! Frankly, in consideration of the fact that even in some of the poorest parts of Greece decades ago one could find solar panels on homes for heating water, I view this omission in one of the richest areas of the world to be disgraceful. Moreover, all attempts at becoming "greener" have largely been met with open hostility, including "killing the electric car" and other atrocities committed by Big Business along the way.

Shockingly, the destruction continues, not only unabated but actually exacerbated, no matter how much effort many generous, world-loving individuals have put into rectifying the situation, with countless man- and woman-hours spent worldwide on rallying for a better global attitude and policy towards the only home we all possess and share.

Heaven Above Earth?

My own natural activism has always been first and foremost that of preserving our planetary home. Along the way in this process, I kept butting heads with the utterly obstructive and unbalanced mentality towards our Earth expressed by organized religion. Because of my own interest and aptitude to religion, I decided to combine my efforts towards improving attitudes about life on planet Earth. An entire study could be made, of course, of the effects of religious psychosis on the environment, a derangement that made itself abundantly clear in the statements of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan, James G. Watt. Based on his remarks, Watt was a fervent Christian whose apparent mission in life was to destroy the environment as much as he could because such global destruction would supposedly bring about the "Second Coming" of Jesus Christ. When I encountered this depraved mentality that would sacrifice hundreds of millions of people in order to "prove" the reality of a religious delusion, I was naturally struck by the notion that the First Coming had not even been proved to have happened, so it would be completely foolish to bet the house on the Second Coming.

Despite various improvements made - because of the great personal cost and sacrifice by many individuals, including Christians who bucked the trend and were widely ridiculed, castigated and abused for it - the attitude of many devoutly religious people today remains: "World be damned, my personal faith must reign." This selfish attitude is particularly obvious within the religions of Christianity and Islam. While Christians have made tremendous inroads from the dark days of Watts, because of their conditioning many Muslims continue to believe that they can and must outpopulate everyone else on the planet and that their "superior" religion must rule by hook or crook, regardless of the terrible cost to the environment and to human and non-human life.

The facts are that we all must continue to address environmental degradation on every front, including and especially religious delusion that has no concern for our planetary home. Such delusion - such dementia - needs to be thoroughly addressed and aggressively removed from the mass human psyche, or else we will see the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, not only because of a pending World War III or "Armageddon" based on religious psychosis, but also because the rampant overpopulation by the religiously inclined who have absolutely no concern for the environment or any particular life form on Earth but who are obsessively focussed on the "afterlife" and protecting the "good name" of God will undoubtedly lead to an environmental holocaust of global proportions, with the result of not only tremendous human suffering but the massive loss of life within the natural, non-human world as well. Frankly, it is quite apparent that at this point many if not most Muslim nations have very little interest in the environment. Again, religious psychosis evidently demands the destruction of the environment.

In the end, no god possessing any decency at all would be interested in the massive destruction of "his" creation, including loss of life in numbers that stagger the mind - and that is precisely where we are headed. This fact of pending decimation means, of course, that when hundreds of millions are dead, all of this mindless religious bickering will have been for naught, proving itself not only useless but also highly dangerous, as many people believe it to be.

If we are going to save this earth for future generations, we simply must contain the rabid religious delusion ruining life, with absolutely no concern for "offending" religious sensibilities of any sort that stand in the way of preserving our global home. Such "religious sensibilities," in fact, are utterly offensive to those of us who actually care for being alive on planet Earth, who love this world, and who want to see our children and grandchildren live in health and happiness. Religious fundamentalism is one of the greatest threats to realizing this dream, and it needs to be checked now, or we will see the deaths of hundreds of millions within the coming decades.

See also:

This Stinkin' Earth
Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate
"Tipping point" on horizon for Greenland ice
Al Qaeda use two Down's syndrome women to blow up 99 people in Baghdad markets
Sustainable World

Sam Harris on Islam

The following is a partial transcript of a speech given in 2007 by philosopher Sam Harris regarding the mainstream muzzling of those who speak out about the very serious threat of Islam. We are extremely fortunate to have someone as eloquent, measured and persistent as Sam Harris to talk sense to the world at large during this very dangerous crossroads of human civilization. Harris could not be more correct in his assessments. We ignore his words at our own peril.

"Consider how we as atheists are constrained to talk about Islam. And Christians often complain that atheists balance - and the secular media, generally - balance every discussion of Islam with a discussion of extremist Christianity. The usual mode is to say, 'Well, they have their jihadists, but we have people who kill abortion doctors.' I think our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of evenhandedness. The truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery at this moment than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And we have to point this out.

"You might remember that Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed from Iraq noticing that some Sunni militias were fighting alongside American troops against al-Qaeda, and he asked a Sunni militant why he was doing this. And the militant said that he had recently seen an al-Qaeda member decapitate an eight-year-old girl, and this convinced him that the American crusader forces were the lesser of two evils. Okay, great, so even Muslims, even Sunni militants, can discern the line between ordinary crazy Islam and the utterly crazy, once it is drawn in the spilled blood of little girls. This is a basis for hope of sorts.

"We have to be clear, unremittingly clear, about what is on the other side of that line. This is what we and the rest of the civilized world, and the semi-civilized world, are facing: Utter religious lunacy and barbarism in the name of Islam, with, I'm unhappy to say, some mainstream theology to back it up.

"To be evenhanded, as we are constrained to be as atheists, when discussing the problem of Islam, is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain that all religions have their extremists is bullshit - all religions don't have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists.

"A recent poll in the UK showed that a third of young British Muslims say they want to live under sharia law and think that anyone who wants to leave the faith should be put to death for apostasy. This is a third of British Muslims. 68% of British Muslims think that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted. 78% think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people do not have a clue about what constitutes a civil society.

"It seems to me that reports like this coming out of Muslim communities living in the West should concern us before anything else about religion concerns us."

Confessions of an Empath

It's time for me to come clean about why I do what I do. You see, I'm an agent. Yep, that's right - I am an agent for change.

Seriously, I do what I am doing because I cannot stand the notion of suffering - anywhere in the cosmos, much less here at home on good ol' planet Earth. My motives practically since birth have been the same: I am sickened by violence, injustice and man's inhumanity to man and other creatures.

A little known fact about me is that I spent the first decade of my life becoming physically ill at the mere thought of violence. My family shielded me from violence, but still it managed to creep into my innocent psyche through images in the media, in movies, TV, books and magazines. I recall one Life magazine photo of a bloated corpse being pulled from an African river - a more grotesque sight my child eyes had never seen before.

I didn't vomit at that image, but I did puke all over the upstairs hallway after my older sibling explained to me what a "leper" was, as I was watching the movie "Ben Hur." As it was described to me, leprosy was "where your fingers and other body parts turn black and fall off." Not exactly a clinical definition, but it sufficed to have me running for the bathroom. I didn't make it.

Nor did I make it to the barf bag my family had brought especially for me to the drive-in movie theater, where we watched the scene of a man being hung in front of a jeering mob during the era of the American Wild West. Nope, that time the candy took the hit, as I grabbed the wrong paper sack. Needless to say, my siblings weren't thrilled at losing the candy.

Prior to the Ben Hur incident was a nightmare at grade school - fourth grade, when I was 9 years old. The kids in my class were surrounding one pupil, looking at a photo sent by his penpal and going, "Ooohhhh, grossss!" The children were also laughing, so I peeked over the boy's shoulder to see what they were looking at.

To my horror and shock, the photo was a picture of an American GI holding the severed heads of two Vietnamese soldiers - and smiling. I immediately backed up from this diabolical image, turned around and walked away, choking back tears and vomit. I was incompassionately pursued by the other children, who ridiculed me for not being a "good American," because these slaughtered human beings were "the enemy." Horrified, I looked to the teacher for relief, but she seemed to be joining in the finger wagging!

A Decisive Moment

That moment in my life was decisive. I knew then that I was very different from most people. I had seen an image of two human beings viciously murdered, while the others had seen "the enemy." I've never tortured or killed anyone, and I cannot even stand the sight of such atrocities; yet, I feel sometimes as if I'm all alone on this planet.

At some point during my first decade on this planet, it was suggested to me that, in order to survive in the world, I would need to become "inured" to its horrors. If by "survival" is meant that I couldn't go on barfing, I agree. And for many years I managed to push hideous atrocities out of my mind. A couple of decades later, I finally woke up, once and for all. I will never become inured to the horrors of this world. I am simply too emphathetic not to feel the evil that men do. Indeed, my empathy was the mechanism by which I would become sickened and vomit as a child. I would actually feel the terror, pain and suffering of individuals as they were tortured and killed. I am still feeling the suffering of my brothers and sisters globally, and I am compelled to expose this suffering and help it to heal.

Unfortunately, there are some very evil characters on this planet, and their sickness is infectious enough to have spread far and wide to what amounts to millions of people. These loathsome characters have created their clones and drones, desensitizing them to a mind-numbing level of violence against other living and breathing human beings. The crimes of these evil creatures are beyond comprehension, including but not limited to:

• torture of all manner
• floggings, lashings and beatings
  
• beheadings
  
• slitting throats
  
• stonings
• hangings from cranes and other devices
  
• hacking off hands and feet
• rape - gang and individual of both genders
  
• child abuse, including rape and sodomy
• animal abuse
• "honor killings"
  
• female and male genital mutilation
  
• depriving women of air and sunlight, and subjecting them to sweltering heat beneath black or other dark-colored clothing
• acid attacks on women's faces and other body parts
  
• slavery
• genocide

Most sickening, these atrocities and crimes against humanity are being committed by entire groups of people in the name of God! In other words, these horrors are unleashed as a major part of "religion." Is it any wonder there are "angry atheists" speaking out against the very notion of an all-powerful, good and merciful God in charge of everything? If the scenario just listed is "godly," what the hell is satanic?!

Every day, day in and day out, these vile thugs are grabbing people - including children of both genders - against their will and doing heinous and evil things to them. In all too many places, these montrous tyrants get away with this despicable behavior all the time, because they are allowed and commanded to do so by the governing authorities, both political and religious. Psychotically, these sadists believe themselves correct and righteous in seizing other living, breathing beings against their will and beating, torturing and murdering them. These savages have such power that large groups of people are under their dominion - and they are not content to stop there.

Who is stopping these constant abuses against innocent human beings? Who can these voiceless victims turn to for respite and salvation? As a person of empathy, I am feeling their pain and suffering - and I am outraged by their persecutors' audacity and megalomania. This unmitigated hubris of vilely destroying God's creatures is absolutely ungodly.

And it must be stopped, because it's making not only me but all of us sick. If there has ever been any creator, it seems "he" has long abandoned his flawed creation to its own devices, much to the dismay of all rational and compassionate human beings. That is to say, all true human beings. I can only fervently hope that there are enough of us true human beings to stand up to these sadistic bullies wherever they may be found.

Adulterer Gingrich Destined for Hell

In yet another display of unmitigated arrogance, while giving the commencement speech at recently deceased fundmentalist minister Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, American politico Newt Gingrich called for an attack on "radical secularism." Gingrich's hypocritical "holier-than-thou" stance is particularly amusing in light of the fact that he is a twice-divorced, known adulterer.

In his pretentions of being a moral cop, possible presidential candidate Gingrich peppered his speech with quotes from the Bible, presumably leaving out the following scriptures:

... take heed to yourselves, and let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (Mal 2:15)

And Pharisees came up to [Jesus] and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." (Mat 19:3-9)

According to the New Testament, Jesus was squarely against divorce, as well as remarriage, calling the latter "adultery." Since Gingrich is by biblical default and admission an adulterer, let us look at biblical scriptures concerning adultery and adulterers:

You shall not commit adultery. (Exd 20:14)

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. (Lev 20:10)

Neither shall you commit adultery. (Deu 5:18)

He who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself. (Pro 6:32 )

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.... It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Mat 5:27-32)

And Jesus said, "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness..." (Mat 19:18)

While Jesus upholds the proscription against adultery found in the 10 Commandments, the gospels do not record Christ as assigning the death penalty as a punishment for adultery, as does the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus is depicted as stopping the stoning of a woman on the charge of adultery, uttering the famous words, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." (Jn 8:17)

So egregious is the sin of adultery, however, that St. Paul lumps adulterers in with "the immoral...idolaters... sexual perverts... thieves... the greedy... drunkards... revilers [and] robbers." According to the New Testament, none of these individuals "will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor 6:10)

Thus, it would seem Newt Gingrich is destined for Hell!

In his Liberty-University speech, Gingrich also remarked:

"A growing culture of radical secularism declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded... We are told that our public schools can no longer invoke the creator, nor proclaim the natural law nor profess the God-given quality of human rights.

"In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms....

"Too often, the courts have been biased against religious believers. This anti-religious bias must end..."

In reality, not only is religion divisive, but the a priori assumption by religionists that God exists, as depicted in the Bible and other "holy texts," is utterly dishonest and is at the root of many of the world's problems. The honest debate should be not whether or not "God" is to be allowed in public schools but whether or not the anthropomorphic god as portrayed in the Bible even exists.

The fact is that the majority of individuals in the United States consider themselves to be religious, including judges and legislators, and there have been no professed atheists on the Supreme Court since its inception. Fortunately for Newt Gingrich, however, the courts have been biased against fervent believers in the Old Testament punishment for adultery, i.e., stoning. Gingrich had better hope for his own sake, therefore, that the wall of separation between church and state remains high and unbreachable.

Dr. Robert Price's Review of "Suns of God"

I am delighted to announce that I have just now posted online the review by Dr. Robert Price of my book Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled. This review is long awaited, and the hard copy of it, appearing in Price's "Journal of Higher Criticism," is going to press as I write. Bob has kindly allowed me to post this preview copy online. As one can see, after the previous debacle with my book "The Christ Conspiracy," Bob has come forth to prove himself a real mensch.

Dr. Robert Price's Review of Suns of God

Enjoy!