On Restoring Traditional Family Values by Edwin Kagin

KAGIN’S COLUMN

 

ON RESTORING TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES

 

Come, my friends,`Tis not too late to seek a newer world.  Tennyson

Say you wanted to destroy civilization.  Create a mythology whereby all products of human conception must be born.  Punish indiscriminate breeding by insuring that every pregnancy produces a baby.  Run slick T.V. ads showing a neurotic woman lamenting an earlier choice to have an abortion, a lament created by the mythmakers.  Show tidy, nicely dressed, scrubbed, well fed little children and convince people their unwanted kid will be that way.  Base all of this on the will of God, and decree the authority of scripture over absolutely everything, including evidence and common sense.  Ban all sex education, contraception and pregnancy interruption.  Deny public funds for abortion, but rather give women free state money for every baby produced.  This method will insure that the most useless and uneducated will have the most children.  Then those little gifts of God, unwanted, unloved and unparented, can grow up to kill and rob you, and make more kids who will, if the Mother Theresas prevail, accumulate to be seen starving or murdering on the nightly news.

One should then, with civilization in chaos, decide that the most Christian nation on earth is in trouble for drifting from the myths that created the problem.  Confident that the myth must win no matter what, create a movement to return to “Tradition Family Values,” i.e., a comprehensive mythical control system, based on the Bible, a prescientific bronze and iron age  document. If a Trojan horse wrecks your civilization, haul in another one to fix the problem.  Our restoration of Traditional Family Values won’t be the first time religion has destroyed a culture.  Just watch the news.  Better yet, read a history book.

To restore these Traditional Family Values, we should have some notion of what they are.  What type values?  What kind of family?  What is traditional?  That kind of thing.  “Traditional Family Values” means those beliefs held and customs practiced by a white Anglo-Saxon protestant church going married with children unit in a small American town between 1946 and 1956.  If we live exactly as they did, everything will be fine.  That’s the goal.  Any other vision is a highway to Hell.  Now that we’ve defined them, how do we restore them.

Basic to the restoration of Traditional Family Values is the abolition of democracy.  Democracy really has no place in Christian thought, is not found anywhere in the Bible, and is a troublesome holdover from pagan systems Christianity destroyed.  Democracy permits diversity and invention for individuals and cultures.  Expansion of ideas is forbidden by Traditional Family Values, for all we need know is in the Bible.  School boards must be controlled so wrong ideas like birth control, evolution, and the solving of problems without supernatural intervention do not get into students heads or text books.  Democracy prohibits this control.  Democracy encourages independence of thought and seeking of new ways for believing and doing.  New ideas and different  ways are bad — democracy must go.  Despite attempts by the righteous to establish a government controlled by their religion, our founders gave us a democracy.  Democracy has tolerated thoughts and actions that are properly forbidden, and the sooner we get rid of it the faster everyone will get back to right thinking.

In our efforts to restore Traditional Family Values, we should be able to learn from the examples of those who advocate them.  Regrettably, some of our finest models are flawed by over-exposure to democracy.  His soon to be Most Christian Majesty, King of England, Charles, heir apparent, has separated from his wife and children to sport in adultery with a married woman.  Our own Ronald and Nancy Reagan married following divorce and after conceiving their daughter Patti.  Patti, appears buff naked in Playboy  (July, 1994).  She is also on the periodical’s cover sky clad with a Negro standing behind her with his arms about her and his black paws cupping her exposed white breasts.  If not for that democracy business, she would be in prison for this pornographic display.  And this Reagan daughter was raised by parents who practiced astrology and who want everyone to return to Traditional Family Values.

The example of one Rush Limbaugh, an outspoken, if boorish, advocate  for the religious right and Traditional Family Values, may help.  He was recently united in holy matrimony with a woman by a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas.  Perfect?  Hardly.  Brother Limbaugh had been twice married and divorced before the wedding, as had been his bride.  Further, he and the female had cohabited, and, presumably, fornicated (a crime under Traditional Family Values) by engaging in sex before the church said they could.  This behavior deserves the Traditional Family Values Hall of Shame, not emulation.  And the marrying judge was civil authority, not church certified.  The judge was also a Negro.  Under proper Traditional Family Values, he would have been known as a nigger.  He could not have sat on a jury, much less the Supreme Court.  Indeed, he would have been in jail, for he has a white wife.  Othello, on the Supreme Court, would have been unthinkable, and Traditional Family Values prohibited interracial marriage.  The crime was called miscegenation.  So Traditional Family Values are simply not satisfied by persons married to four other people being married civilly by a nigger who couples lustfully with white women.  The evolution of constitutional freedoms has changed all that, but we are seeking Traditional Family Values as they are properly, and undemocratically, understood.

Failing to find, among the powerful and outspoken, proper role modeling for Traditional Family Values, let us attempt to construct a composite of what can be, and must be, if we are to restore what was and live by biblical truths.  Consider the ideal, in Francis and Felicity Fundangelical.  We meet them on their wedding day, in their bridal suite, alone at last, where Francis says, “Felicity, my darling, do you know what we are going to do tonight?”  “No, my beloved husband” she says, “what?”

Felicity knew from her Traditional Family Values training that her duty as a woman and wife was to obey her husband Francis as she had obeyed her father.  Men had received the right from God the Father to control women, daughters of Eve who had caused the fall of man from the Garden of Eden.  She was Mrs. Felicity Fundangelical and it was her wedding night.  Her Norman Rockwell world of Traditional Family Values was fulfilled.  She had her MRS degree and would devote her life to God, church, husband and children, in that order.  It was 1954, in Sperm Bank, Georgia, and all was right with the world.

The marriage of Francis and Felicity Fundangelical had made them one flesh.  Divorce was unthinkable–they were mystically joined for life.  Neither partner had any idea whatsoever of sexual union, for this nasty little subject was not discussed by anyone, inside or outside of marriage.  The couple generally knew that married people had babies (only married people!), but had been told they were gifts of God, and, for all they knew, occurred through spontaneous generation.  Francis had heard boys giggling about naughty things in shop class, but had averted his ears, and Felicity had wondered what her Home Economics teacher meant by the remark that a girl on her wedding night was well advised to think of canning apricots.

The Fundangelicals brought their collective life experiences to their wedding night.  They knew they lived, and would live, in a relatively secure world, with little crime, most people employed, and everyone doing and believing much the same, so long as they were just like the Fundangelicals.  And everyone they knew was.  Life would proceed as it presumably always had.  We are studying them as a model of Traditional Family Values to better learn how to restore the Traditional Family Values we’ve lost because of participatory democracy.  Prince Charles, Rush Limbaugh, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan all proved wanting as proper role models.

(Here it must be confessed that an error was made earlier in this treatise, wherein the human male standing naked behind the Reagan’s naked daughter Patti, and handling her breasts on the cover of the July 1994 Playboy, was incorrectly identified as a Negro.  Careful reading of the accompanying text, by Mrs. Lisa Mohnsam, has revealed he was not a Negro but a darkly tanned white dude.  However, he does simulate a Negro, mocking the Traditional Family Values we want to restore, mirroring similar pornography offered by Rolling Stone and Janet Jackson).

Our goal is to restore Traditional Family Values and to enjoy, in all its fullness, the world of the Fundangelicals.  To this end, Mr. and Mrs. Fundangelical provide a microcosm for explication of an America that tragically recedes before the assaults of godless humanism and democracy.  This world was not politically correct; it was religiously correct and grounded on the certainty that everything in contradiction was wrong.  There was prayer and Bible reading in schools, and everyone attended religious school plays.  There were church camps, potluck dinners, revivals, patriotic parades and minstrel shows.  Everybody smoked, even in hospital rooms and the minister’s study.  All men wore short hair and hats; women wore long dresses and girdles.  Library books were censored for right thought.  Divorce was illegal, abortion was illegal, birth control was illegal, strips bars and pornography were illegal.  Sex education was not taught in school, and certainly not in the home.  The Sears catalogue and National Geographic were the best sources for that information.  Science classes Francis attended were taught by the football coach, who knew evolution wasn’t true because it didn’t fit the Bible stories of God’s interactions with Adam and Noah.  There were no color televisions and no computers, two more things that have destroyed Traditional Family Values.  At least television and movies were moral.  Married couples were shown sleeping in separate beds, and while murder was okay, physical love was not.  It was no more discussed in polite society than cancer, or Uncle Herman passing out in his turkey and cranberries from alcoholism.

When one is right and good he naturally wants to keep himself and his children from people and ideas that are wrong and bad.  Traditional Family Values had erected for Francis and Felicity numerous barriers against wrong thinking and interaction.  Negroes (known as niggers) went to different schools, and had their own restaurants, restrooms, drinking fountains, waiting rooms, and places on public transportation.  They could go to the Fundangelicals’ church, but they sat apart in the balcony, while whites sat on the main level, fanning themselves with funeral home fans.  Interracial dating was unthinkable, and interracial marriages unlawful, except perhaps for Moses and Captain John Smith.  If we had restored Traditional Family Values in time, O.J. Simpson would not now be in trouble.  Of course he wouldn’t have played football either, at least not with whites.  No decent person interacted with the children of slaves as anything other than master to servant.  Some debated whether they possessed souls.

All foreigners, their countries, cultures, languages and histories were seen as vastly inferior to those values taught Francis and Felicity, who believed white Christians had “discovered” America.  The savages they discovered led to the maxim that the only good Injun was a dead one.  The Fundangelicals had learned cute xenophobic slurs for members of other races and of most foreign nations, and would teach them to their children.

Other religions were wrong, and were studied, if at all, only to refute them.  Jews were Christ killers, greedy, and universally damned; no Traditional Family Values person would have anything to do with this hated race unless absolutely necessary, like borrowing money to finance war.  The modern idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition was unknown.  Jews were bad people who refused to accept Christ’s offer of salvation and were to be shunned.  Catholics were little better.  They were Papist pawns and idol worshipers.  Francis and Felicity’s ancestors had killed many of them in holy wars.  A fish sandwich was known as a Catholic hamburger, and Catholics were called mackerel snappers.  Such religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam were understood as heathen beliefs having something to do with flying carpets.  All that was known of them was that they needed missionaries, or better yet, the killing of their followers.

Dirty minded readers probably think that when Felicity asked Francis what they were going to do on their wedding night that something sexual was afoot.  Repent!  We’ll get to it.  First, we must consider how to restore the Traditional Family Values of the Fundangelicals and destroy civilization and democracy.

If you want a taste of what those good old days were like, turn off the air conditioner

Those committed to an early and full restoration of Traditional Family Values should be heartened by recent events.  In Florida a religious crazy, named Paul Hill, shot and killed two gentlemen, a retired doctor who performed abortions and a retired U.S. Air Force Officer volunteering to help women exercise civilized democratic rights.  The Colonel’s wife, a retired nurse, was wounded.

In Rome, another religious crazy, his Holiness the Pope, John Paul II (J2P2) denounced a United Nations attempt to control the horror of humans destroying their species by over breeding.  J2P2 said abortion and artificial contraception deny couples the right to determine the size of their families.  And they could, if they didn’t want to populate, restrict sex to those days the female is not fertile.  This game is called Vatican Roulette and the players are called parents.  J2P2 believes limiting population any other way is unethical and immoral.

So we are well on our way to restoring the world of Francis and Felicity Fundangelical, the glorious world of Traditional Family Values.  Some who may find murder a bit extreme so early in the restoration process cannot argue with the results.  If civilization and democracy are to be destroyed by too many people overrunning a planet under dogmatic religious authority, no means of accomplishment is too extreme.

Prudence, however, dictates a more moderate approach.  We should simply repeal the Bill of Rights, and pass an Amendment making the Fundangelicals mythical system the law of the land.  Religious repression would then be fully constitutional and God, negligently left out of the constitution by the humanists who wrote it, would be back in control.  After all, God’s on the money.  There will be some resistance from Jews, blacks, liberated women, secular humanists, homosexuals, and probably the nation of Islam whose followers think they should be in control.

That’s the problem with democracy — too many different people thinking they’re right.  God’s on the side with the heaviest artillery.  Take away the guns of those who disagree with you.  Kill (maybe just jail) their lawyers, professors and judges.  Burn their books and write your own.  Outlaw computers.  If a manual typewriter was good enough for Harry Truman it’s good enough for us.  Ban color televisions.  The world should be seen in black and white.  Democracy will be gone and civilization will soon follow.  There will be arguments and tribal warfare over how best to enforce Traditional Family Values and just whose values are required by our Reformed Constitution.  But there are ways of handling these disagreements, assuming you are in power and have authority from God.

We are studying our model of Traditional Family Values,  Francis and Felicity Fundangelical on their Traditional Family Values wedding night. (Readers who may require Part I or II of this trilogy may request copies.)  The Fundangelicals actually believed their God had invented moral law.  To them, Socrates, Buddha, Cato, Euripides, and other pre-christian heathens had nothing to do with the awareness than an honorable life is to be preferred to a dishonorable one.  The moral law of Traditional Family Values would have seemed odd to those ancients whose works Christianity destroyed.  Particularly tonight.

Francis and Felicity’s first night as one flesh shows us the conflict between nature and nurture.  Their glands were programmed by nature, their minds by Traditional Family Values.  They knew that, now married, they were permitted to do something with each other, something beyond petting.  They knew they had God’s okay to go all the way.  There was great embarrassment and blushing, much fear, guilt, and fumbling.

To tell just what happened would be a gross violation of the Traditional Family Values we are trying to restore.  A description of that night could not lawfully be printed then or in the world we will have when Traditional Family Values are restored, the Constitution is changed, and democracy replaced by dogma.  From the later circumstantial evidence of babies, one might conclude they eventually got it right, but it was never discussed.  And there is precedent for exceptions.  We cannot, therefore, know what happened.  Before too long we will forget there was ever a time we could.

When Felicity told Francis she did not know what they were going to do on this night of nights, he took her soft hand.  He knew, without God, he and the wife he was to lead (sic) were incompetent to do anything.  He knew he needed guidance from a ready source of all answers.  He knew that earth was but a pilgrimage and Heaven was their home.  His world had not yet evolved beyond Traditional Family Values.  Francis looked at his wife Felicity with the fixed smile and thousand yard stare characteristic of the Fundangelicals and said “Let us pray.”

And the Fundangelicals turned off the light.

 

Edwin Kagin

 

ON DISPLAYING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC PLACES AS ANOTHER SATANIC STRATEGY FOR DESTROYING AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS

 

KAGIN’S COLUMN

 

Edwin F. Kagin is a lawyer‑poet.  He believes that, through grace and faith,

this will be a regular column and, if events are predestined, that whatever

he believes makes no difference whatsoever. He can be reached in care of

this publication, or through e‑mail at: edwin@edwinkagin.com

Permission for non-profit reproduction is given, so long as credit is given,

so the villagers will not go after the wrong person with pitchforks & torches.

ON DISPLAYING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN

PUBLIC PLACES AS ANOTHER SATANIC STRATEGY

FOR DESTROYING AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS

It is as I have said:  every statute in the Bible and in the law books is an attempt to defeat a law of God–in other words an unalterable and indestructible law of nature. These peoples’s God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible’s statutes. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all.  Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth.

As everyone knows, the United States of America was perfect until the 1950’s. Things started falling apart in the 1960’s, just after “In God We Trust” was stuck on our money, and “under God” was added to our Pledge of Allegiance.

We had gone through a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and various other dramatic, but easily solved, national problems, like slavery and women wanting to vote, without any need for a statement of reliance on a deity being placed on the cash or an unnamed god being added to our secular expression of loyalty to flag and country.

And Satan rejoiced. He saw the insecurity and the fear. He knew that people’s need for public religiosity and for revealed rules meant private personal ethics had been replaced by public show and by dictated declarations of forced faith of the sort condemned in the Sermon on the Mount. The U.S. of A. had fallen into Satan’s hands, and he has been pretty much in control ever since. The worse things have gotten, the more his maniacal merciless minions, wrapped in reeking robes of hypocritical righteousness, have caused the unsuspecting faithful to fall into the waiting clutches of that fallen angel.

Lucifer, that Great Serpent, deceiver of Eve, author of evil, nightmare enemy of all that is right and good, remains tirelessly at work in other ways, deceiving even the faithful, verily as he deceived our first parents. He has, for example, in his attempt to destroy our democratic freedoms and bring about our ruin as a free nation, laid it falsely upon the hearts of some, who are weak of faith and easily misled, that abortion is a sin prohibited by Holy Writ. It is not, of course. Satan knows full well that little souls not yet tempted to sin go straight unto their Heavenly Father, who in his greater wisdom and for his own purpose and pleasure, hath predestined them from all eternity to come early home and be in communion with him forever (it should be here noted that the Roman Catholic Church, a self-styled infallible only true church, had for centuries said that these wee souls went to Limbo–but now they have announced that there is no such place). Satan can’t stand it, for he wants to create chaos and destroy our hard won liberties and take away the personal choices that are only available to free people. He wants these children to be born unto sin, and to commit crimes, and to grow unto profane vice, and to fall from their innocent state of grace, so they can be his, so they can be denied the beatific vision and the heaven of the sinless that was planned for them. Satan has raised up “pro life” a.k.a. “right to life” groups, composed of persons misled and misguided, so innocent souls can be profaned by sin and required, under the very laws of god that are flaunted, to burn in hell for all eternity (for a more complete analysis of this particular line of blasphemy, please consult Kagin’s Column On the Mythology of Abortion, possibly available from this publication, or available for sure at www.edwinkagin.com on the Internet, if you can secure the assistance of an eight year old to help you work a computer–a device negligently not mentioned in the bible).

Satan has also successfully inspired support for forbidden-by-god public prayer in public places. This has helped the Prince of Darkness to hasten the establishment of an unholy profane theocracy and to further damage and diminish personal freedoms so that democracy can be more easily eliminated. Misguided demonically influenced school officials and elected law makers have actually wanted people to risk their immortal souls by engaging in public praying–when the son of god has specifically forbidden such activity (Matthew 6: 6, Holy Bible), and said that those who disobeyed would be as imperiled as fools who build their houses upon sand. (See Kagin’s Column On Public Prayer–obtained same way as above). What are children to think or do when they read in their school required bible readings that their school required public prayers are in direct violation of the word of god?  Fortunately, this particular slippery slide to perdition has not been implemented in all that many places. In those venues where public prayer is actually regularly and heretically practiced, like in the Congress of the United States, the deleterious consequences are so obvious that reasonable persons cannot dispute the dire truth of the Savior’s warnings.

Then there is the Satanist plot called “creation science.”  This movement oxymoronically trys to replace scientific fact and proof with the pre-scientific biblical mythology of origins. If he can get us to accept this stuff and repudiate evidence, Satan will have made much progress in destroying what our society has achieved with science and democracy.

But that ancient terror is even more clever than previously understood. We note with horror that there is emerging a far greater Satanic threat–an attempted direct fatal blow aimed at the very heart of democracy.  He wants the gullible faithful, those who should know better but don’t, to make laws requiring that the so called Ten Commandments  be posted in public places–places like public schools, courtrooms, and government buildings.  Imagine!  Satan has gotten public servants to actually give official endorsement to a set of primitive rules written in Hebrew for a bronze age community of nomadic Jews.  He knows that the fighting and the bloodletting certain to result over the meaning, the enforcement, and even the correct translation, of these Hebrew rules will put democracy on the ropes for sure.

He has laid it upon certain of our elected elect the fanciful fear that without these dictated declarations of forced fealty, the faint of faith must needs wallow in sin. He has persuaded some uncertain souls that we all need certainty and a fixed moral law that should be interpreted for us by those in power over us.  And since the rules are unclear and impossible, like not coveting (there goes capitalism, the stock market, achievement awards, financial rewards, aspirations to succeed and acquire–in short, the American Dream that we had until god got put on the mammon), citizens are expected to constantly reaffirm their belief in the deity and his rules.  Like quoting the Nicene Creed for example.  This is not required if something is clearly so.  We do not chant together, “I believe in gravity; I believe if I drop a thing it will fall down; it will not fall up as the unbelievers say.”  A ritual for facts is so unnecessary it seems foolish.  Religious ritual is so foolish it seems necessary.  Try believing in the Holy Trinity without faith.  If a thing can be shown to be so, one does not need a religion in order to believe in that thing, and believing in a thing does not make it so.

Now it would indeed be nice if there existed on our earth  ten rules, precepts, laws, or anything for that matter, that everyone agreed were absolute rules of law and life that were so clear and so correct in their expression, application, and understanding that all people at all times would unanimously agree those rules should be followed as presented. Then we could post them in public places. And not a person would object, because everyone would agree with them and follow them as a matter of course. Sort of like the rule requiring breathing. Everyone follows it, and no one objects to the requirement that they breathe. Of course, in such circumstances, posting the ten commandments would be quite superfluous. We don’t really need publicly posted signs commanding unto breathing people, “Thou shalt breathe” (some religious types command “Thou shalt breed,” but that’s a different type of thing, and is another generally unnecessary directive).

Most people who think there is nothing wrong with displaying the Big 10 in public forums really don’t know just what they are.  So here are the ten commandments–in unnumbered Edwinian paraphrase:

I am the same god who brought you out of bondage in Egypt. There are many other gods, but you are not to prefer any of them over me, for I am a jealous god. You are not to make images of anything, worship any images, nor take my name in vain or I will punish your descendents unto the fourth generation. Because I created everything in six days, and rested on the seventh day, you are not to work on Saturday, nor is anyone in your house to work on Saturday, not even your slaves. If you want to live long in the land I have given you, you must honor your father and mother. You are not to steal, kill, commit adultery, lie about your neighbor,  nor covet anything your neighbor owns, like his wife, his livestock, or his slaves.

As a public service, and in the interests of promoting greater biblical literacy, especially among those satanically inspired to, and treasonably intent on, imposing the bible into all aspects of public life, your narrator additionally and thoughtfully now provides our readers with the actual words (King James Version, of course) of the so called Ten Commandments.  The sacred text says:

EX 20:1 And God spake all these words, saying, [2] I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [4] Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: [5] Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; [6] And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. [7] Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. [8] Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [9] Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: [10] But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: [11] For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

     EX 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. [13] Thou shalt not kill. [14] Thou shalt not commit adultery. [15] Thou shalt not steal. [16] Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. [17] Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

That’s them. The rules the pro posters say underpin our civilization and laws. Note there is nothing in them about democracy, due process of law, compassion, or being kind to your children so they just might honor you without a direct order from god.

God seems kinda insecure too.  Why need a god command worship if he is so clearly the better god?  Why should he care?  Does it bother you if an ant doesn’t believe in you?

Despite current claims that they have nothing to do with religion, the first four commandments are religious rules (the secular basis for our culture indeed!), and the remaining six prohibit behavior that most societies address in laws that are usually much clearer about informing citizens of just what is in fact prohibited. Those who say the commandments they want to publicly post are not religious should note that the first four have over twice as many words as the six that follow.

The commandments are subject to all kinds of interpretations and exceptions that can lead, and have led, to unpleasantness and even bloodshed.  This is why Satan wants us to do away with the notion of keeping church and state separate.  Forcing religion into public life is the very best way to destroy democracy.  What priesthood shall prevail?

Who is to say what the law of god means?  For example, “Thou shalt not kill” sounds reasonably clear. One might naively think this law of god prohibits killing. Not so. It is okay to kill animals, and okay to kill humans in war, in self defense, and in capital punishment. God endorses these (depending on who you ask), and other killings, but one learns this in Sunday School, not from the simple statement of the commandment itself.

People don’t agree on how, or whether, to follow the ten commandments with anything like the unanimity with which they agree on the not needed law requiring breathing. Roman Catholics, for example, don’t have the second commandment as listed by the Jews and Protestants. That’s the one about not making any graven images or worshipping any images.  That’s what it says, and it still says it even if one don’t like it. The Catholics don’t like it, so they leave it out, and get their version of the ten commandments by making two commandments out of the last one. The practice of accepting as holy only those rules of god one likes and ignoring the rest is so common among different religious groups that they may be understood collectively as cafeteria christians.  That’s why various christians have public prayer, while others handle snakes, have women preachers, let kids die by withholding medical attention, think god really created the world in six days, believe the earth is flat, and so forth.

The fourth commandment (all references hereinafter are to the Jewish / Protestant Decalogue–that’s the one the public posting promoters are talking about–certainly not the other set of ten commandments in the Old Testament that prohibits, inter alia, the boiling of a kid in its mother’s milk) says to worship on the seventh day of the week, Saturday, as the Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and others do.  It doesn’t say to worship on the first day of the week, Sunday–as most Christians do, with no biblical authority whatsoever for so doing.

There is not a single commandment that is not subject to wildly different interpretations.  And therein lies the problem. In matters of faith, whose understanding should control? How do we know they are right?  Shall we, as in the past, have religious wars to decide?

But these matters are minor.  Satan’s true evil genius in selecting this issue to destroy democracy is seen when those who are both Theists and Satanists (if you believe there is a god, you are a Theist; if you believe there is a Satan, you are a Satanist) cannot even agree on which translation of the bible to use, much less on the meaning of the disputed text. Catholics use a different bible than do those Protestants they denounce as heretics.  Jews read it in Hebrew, and they read it backwards.

If we really want to destroy American democracy by declaring that the ten commandments are really secular, and that the rules contained therein regarding which god to believe in, and how to worship this god, and when to go to church, and so on, are not religious, then we should take care that we use the right translation of the Bible when posting these non religious principles to use for controlling the lives of others, for those who want them posted in public tend not to read Hebrew, and those who do read Hebrew tend to understand all too well how religious doctrines can be called something else when employed to harm others.

Since it’s translation into English in 1611, the King James Version has been the bible of choice of Protestants.  It was the bible brought to our shores by our Puritan forefathers.  It is the bible people know and quote.  It is the bible that, for well over three hundred years, has been to many the only divinely inspired true translation. It is the bible most quoted when the ten commandments are posted.  It is the bible quoted above.

Yet other fundamentalists have recently condemned it, and denounced it as unfit for Christians to read.  This is because they have finally discovered that King James I of England, who authorized the translation, was a homosexual–a fact historian have known for all those years the King James Bible has been the inerrant word of God.  This fundamentalist attack on the fundamentalist’s bible has been led, say the reports, by the Christian Coalition, the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, and the Family Research Council (FRC). Gary Bauer, of the FRC, is said (falsely, by the way—the quote was satire—but it does seem the right tune) to have said “Anything that has been commissioned by a homosexual has been tainted in some way.” And Christian Coalition leader, Pat Robertson is quoted as saying, “It’s very important that we stand up to the homosexual wherever and whenever he appears” (for an analysis of homophobic thought, see Kagin’s Column On Homosexuality). Satan must be happy indeed.

How can this possibly be resolved to satisfy everyone?   Maybe we should just keep church and state separate and keep our democracy.  Maybe we should make public display of our American Bill of Rights.  There are ten of them after all, and they were written in English.

Unless, of course, we don’t really believe in them.

 

Edwin Kagin.

ON THE PRIESTHOOD by atheist Edwin Kagin

ON THE PRIESTHOOD

Fight the real enemy.  Sinead O’Conner, while  ripping up, on national television, a color photo of His Holiness the  Pope, an as yet unprohibited splendid example of the exercise of both protected speech and symbolic speech, an act roughly  analogous, in public outrage, to flag burning.

Someone (who, I can’t remember and apologize), observed that the priesthood originated when the first con artist met the first fool.  Con artist, Priest, tells Fool what to do because Fool believes the world is run by gods, and Priest says he speaks to one or more gods who tell him what to communicate to Fool.  All Fool has to do is obey the gods, i.e. Priest, and Fool will have better fortune, go to a pleasant immortality or indulge whatever fantasies  Fool thinks can only be satisfied by Priest, acting in loco deus. Fool is happy, and Priest has the roast sheep, wine, treasure or whatever Fool offers to the gods through Priest.

When this senerio first began is uncertain, both in religion involved and location.  It doesn’t really matter.  All Priesthoods work roughly the same.  Certain absolutist views are held by a group of people.  The Priests teach, spread, and reinforce the given myth.  Every religion has its priesthood, persons learned in the often highly complex system of belief and practice that, long repeated, become the creed and ritual of the faith.  Priests acquire specialized knowledge in the secrets or “mysteries” of their religion, and in manipulation of the believers through cultic magic presented and accepted as coming from the gods.

Understandably, this power is enormous and the priesthood knows it.  “Priesthood” means a collection of priests, the females sometimes called “priestesses.”  No matter how humble a priest may be, the ability to instruct on the thoughts of gods and deliver the will of the supernatural carries a lot of clout.

In some societies, religions have been, and still are, one with the civil government of nations.  That means the priesthood runs the country and controls people’s lives.  The law is the religious law, revealed to, and enforced by the priesthood.  Disbelief is a crime that can get one jailed or killed.  Such a government is called a theocracy.  That’s what some religious nuts want established in our country, and that’s why we have the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights to stop them.

It is probably comforting to many to have on their side a select group of the elite who communicate with the deity.  The system is so transparently paternalistic that some practitioners of religion actually address their priest as “father” or “mother” and a priest may respond “my children,” “my son,” etc.  This artificial family may be necessary to satisfy the yearnings for family of priests, many of whom are celibate, and the need of their flock for the authority of religion and for faith in something beyond the natural world.  Maybe some people are born to lead and control others; maybe some are born to follow.  The con artist and the fool are found in different forms in all human interaction.  The inability of the sheep to be sure which shepherd to follow leads to thousands of contradictory enclaves of religious thought.  Wouldn’t it be nice if any gods that be were to give a clear sign of their existence and will, like a message written on the moon, or the sky indisputably filled with angelic hosts singing hosannas.  Maybe the gods enjoy watching the confusion of mortals.

At any rate, why choose any priesthood at all?  What true leadership can these folks who claim to talk for gods really provide?  Is there evidence of moral superiority in any priesthood that makes its members better qualified to advise on earthly and eternal matters?  Actually, the behavior of many priests ranges from laughable to criminal.  What claim can a religion have to any ethical high ground when its leaders are hauled off to jail for everything from fraud to rape?  How can religious leaders who suppress the human search for knowledge and repress the human spirit really claim to represent the best within us?

Of course there are priests who are decent, caring human beings.  But such persons are not confined to any one religion, so these individuals are not proof of the correctness of a particular belief system.  Further, there are plenty of non-believers who, in their private and public lives, better exemplify the humanistic principals found in a given religion then do the acknowledged priests of that religion.

Living with uncertainty can be tough, but may be better than following a mythical system that is demonstratively absurd.  Priests certainly have a legal right to do their thing, but don’t hold them up as models of correctness and virtue, and don’t give them the power to control what you do with your life and your body.  There are worse things than ripping up pictures of Popes.  These worse things include religious authorities ripping up lives.

Be your own person.  Don’t be an “ite” following an “ism.”

Edwin

Edwin Kagin

On Public Prayer

       The family that prays together stays together. Religious putdown of the families of non-believers.

Prayer is the means whereby humans communicate with the supernatural deity or deities in whom they believe.  Most religions accept uncritically the reality of beings who exist outside the laws of nature and who can, upon appropriate application, alter those laws for the benefit of the believer.  One makes supplication to the god of choice by silent or vocal praise and the lodging of requests for divine intervention.  This practice is known as “prayer.”

Christianity is the dominant religion of the United States.  It is mythically based on the life and teaching of Jesus, the deity made man.  Fundamentalists believe every word of the Bible (the sacred texts) to be the word of God.  Here’s what God, through Jesus (also God), said about prayer: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.  Verily I say unto you they have their reward.  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”  Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:5-6 King James Version in a stolen Gideon Bible.  We need not bother with the more recent translations.  If the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it’s good enough for us.

What we have here is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the World, God Incarnate, the Light of the World giving definitive, authoritative, and unimpeachable information on how to pray if the person praying wants God to pay attention.  Preempting all contrary mandates, the one God has given his orders on prayer to all people for all times until the end of the world.  The instructions are strict and inflexible.  There are no exceptions.  When one prays he should go into his closet and shut the door.

This command of the deity on earth in human form was given publicly in the “Sermon on the Mount,” wherein the Christ conveyed the will of the Father.  The Lamb of God went on to dictate into the record an example of how to pray:  “Our Father which art in heaven,” etc.  (How Jesus was God and discussed the will of his father, who was also God in heaven must wait for a future consideration of the mythology of the “Holy Trinity.”)  This is known as “The Lord’s Prayer.”  When one prays it, or any other prayer, one has to do so behind closed doors in one’s closet, not publicly.  The “Lord’s Prayer” was not openly prayed by Jesus, but was taught to be repeated only in private.  When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, before being crucified, he prayed privately.  He probably didn’t have a closet.  While hanging on the cross, he prayed with others about, but he really couldn’t, under the circumstances, be expected to deliver these final prayers elsewhere.  Thus, prayers are to be given from behind closed doors unless you are alone in the mountains or trussed up for execution.  In fairness, the orders probably leave room for any silent or quiet prayer that is not rendered in public.  All public prayers are forbidden and are a deliberate disobedience to the will of god.

The Son of Man not only set out the rules for prayer and other matters in the sermon on the mountain but concluded with a warning of the dire consequences of disobedience:  “And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

Matthew 7:26-27.

So there it is.  Our world is coming unglued and we suffer crime, violence, and war because of public prayer.  The more out of the closet prayer, the more awful things get.  Those who yell loudest that the Bible is the inerrant word of God are the worst offenders.  The more they argue that we must return to the Bible, the more they blasphemously engage in uncloseted prayer.  They doom us by their forbidden entreaties to the Almighty whose commands they flaunt.  Nowhere is the influence of Satan clearer seen.  Satan has deceived the faithful to engage in prayer meetings, prayer breakfasts, and all manner of condemned celestial communications reaching into the very foundations of government.  Heaven help us, there are even those who advocate publicly praying in our schools as a solution to the problems directly created by that very disobedience to ultimate authority.  There are prayers on radio and on television, in churches, in homes and in auditoriums.  The more we publicly pray, the more we become the most violent and crime-invested nation on earth.  Is this our American heritage, our family values?  Why do we deliberately disobey God?  The American civil war was conducted by armies who publicly prayed and believed god supported their cause and was on their side.  Lincoln observed that “both sides may be, and one must be, wrong.”

Humanists who wrote our Constitution tried to prevent the problem.  God is not mentioned in the Constitution, and church and state are separated in the Bill of Rights.  This is probably all that has kept Satan from totally leading us to destruction.  Our greatness comes from humanists, our problems from the folly of those who advocate and practice public prayer.

It is all so simple.  A believer is not permitted to disregard a direct order from the deity without consequences.  Better to be a non-believer than one condemned under one’s own rules.  Examples that impious prayer doesn’t work are legion.  Every fundamentalist bigot in the country publicly prayed that Mr. Clinton not be elected president of the United States.  The prayers failed.  God is not mocked.

So if you must be a believer, get it right.  Read your Bible.  Do you think Jesus was wrong?  Obey your God.  Stop all forms of public prayer.  It’s hard to stand on your feet when you’re on your knees.

And don’t naively assume your daughter has religion when she comes home with a Gideon Bible in her suitcase.

Edwin Kagin ©

Edwin with Hand on the Foot of Jesus.

Thanks to the Mormons of Salt Lake City.

This is the first attempt by this blog to insert pictures or any kind of “media” other than type.

If this works, and you can see a photo of Edwin with his hand on the foot of Jesus, then it (whatever it is) did work and you can expect more blasphemous images from

Edwin.

On the Coming American Religious Civil War (ARCW). A Prophesy Re-visited.

ON THE COMING AMERICAN RELIGIOUS CIVIL WAR  (ARCW)

 

War is hell.  Little understood aphorism.

 

THIS MAY BE YOUR FIRST NOTICE OF THE COMING AMERICAN RELIGIOUS CIVIL WAR (ARCW). If so, you should date and preserve this warning.  Then your distant descendants (maybe the “Daughters of the ARCW”) can have something to be smug about–in the unlikely event that they, and this notice, survive the fires, and anybody can still read.

The ARCW has already been started by the superstitious. They call it a “civil war of values.”  The shooting has already started. They call that “protecting innocent life.” The purpose of the war is to overthrow  science and constitutional democracy and  to replace them with the Bronze Age myths and laws of ancient Iraq that became preserved in a collection of writings known, in translation, as “The Holy Bible.” They regard this undertaking as “bringing America back to God.” Loyal Americans should regard it as treason.

The effects of the stated ends of the traitors include: harming children by not teaching them about human sexuality; harming adults by irrationally circumscribing consensual sexual and reproductive freedom; harming democracy by imposing laws enforcing mythological interpretations of a supernatural being’s will; harming civilization by preventing inquiry and suppressing evidence that disproves the myths; harming human development by teaching that humans have a duty to live for some superstitious  spiritual world rather than for the world of flesh in which they happen to exist. The traitors do not view their teachings or methods as harmful, but neither did their pious ancestors who beat children and burned women alive for their own good.

The fanatics have declared war on reason and human progress. They have done this because they suffer from fundamental misunderstandings of the nature of American democracy and of the Bible.

History tells lies. It is important to understand this to understand the ARCW. A particularly harmful lie is that the United States of America was founded as a Christian nation. The traitors truly believe this because it has been taught them since they colored pilgrims with crayons in church nursery school while their parents were in the sanctuary learning to be more judgmental. As the young bigots grew into adultery(sic), they accepted this teaching uncritically, just as they accepted that everything in the bible is true, and that science is wrong, if not evil, when it proves that humans have evolved from non-human life forms. The traitors should, in fairness, be permitted to prove the intensity of this mental abuse in their defense at the ARCW war crimes trials.

America was not established as a Christian nation. To the contrary, it was intentionally set up as a godless nation. That’s why no god or religion of any kind is mentioned in our Constitution. This was so important that it was memorialized in the first words of the first amendment to our Constitution, to wit, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of  religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The people who started this country knew what religious war and holy terror was, and they wanted to be very clear that America was a democracy set up under human law, not religious authority or rule.  This was made exquisitely clear when, in a treaty with Tripoli, signed by President John Adams on June 10, 1797, the United Stated Senate unanimously declared, “…the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” That’s that, said the grammarian. People who don’t like the American way, and think church and state should not be separated, really ought to move to Serbia where they can kill and rape non-believers with impunity.

The traitors who push the ARCW think they are doing god’s will by trying to force their sacred texts and prejudices on those who want to dance to other celestial music or simply stay  home Sunday mornings and brush the cat. Before our Constitution, several states made criminals of people who didn’t attend the right church, or, whisper the thought, did not attend holy services at all. Some very wise people made us a nation where it is legal to stay home with the cat. If we want to keep it that way, it is necessary to win the ARCW.

 As the believers, who think the fault is in the stars and not in themselves, are waging the ARCW on many fronts, thus on many fronts must freedom be defended.  Particularly valuable allies can be found among Christians who find attempts to force their foot into someone else’s shoe offensive. After all, if the existence and will of any god were clearly known, there would be no need for faith or debate. No one seriously doubts that objects fall down if dropped, but there is  murderous dispute over beliefs that cannot be proved as convincingly as gravity.

This is a wake up call.  Don’t press the snooze alarm.  The barbarians are at the gates, and, because they encourage breeding beyond the ability of the breeders to house, feed, and educate the breedees, violence and social disorganization continue. As the most Christian nation on earth watches its civilization dissolve like a Dove bar fallen off of that ark, attempts to enforce irrational superstitious solutions will accelerate. That Branch Davidian thing was a sample. Lots of other messiahs are waiting. Maybe we can have court ordered Branch Davidian Social Services counseling for people who won’t share their wives with god’s anointed.  Maybe courts can acquit murderers if they believe god’s finger was on their trigger.  Maybe the barbarians will actually succeed in assuring that books, pictures, ideas, doctors, judges and military commanders share their vision. Then we will have a lot of interesting tribal warfare.  One useful defense will be humanistic hermeneutics.

“Hermeneutics” is a fancy word for biblical interpretation.  When religious types want to make something simple sound holy and mysterious, they often give it an important sounding high falutin’ name. This practice contrasts sharply with the usage of secular humanists, who, in explaining their views, employ simple words, that fall trippingly from the tongue, like “eupraxophy.”

Hermeneutics can be an important weapon to use against religious fanatics in the coming ARCW. The hard core nut cases– those who would control every aspect of our lives by forcing us to accept their understanding of the will of their god–tend to share certain operational assumptions.  These include the belief that:

1) Every word of the bible is true.

2) The English translation of the bible authorized by King James the First of England, completed in 1611, Common Era, is the only fully acceptable, authoritative, and inspired-by-god translation of holy scripture.  This translation is accurate in every respect, including punctuation marks.

3) The bible is the basis of all morality. Without it there can be no morality.

4) The United States of America was established, and should be governed, according to biblical principles.

5) The bible is without error.

6) No part of the bible is in conflict with, or contradictory to, any other part.

7) Hermeneutics can be used to clarify and explain those truths of god in the bible that might appear, to finite minds, to be in conflict.  The goal of hermeneutics is to reconcile all portions of the word of god (the bible) into a seamless, complete, infallible, and final statement of all past and future history (the latter is called “prophecy”), of divine law, and of how humans should behave and understand morality.  The bible, properly interpreted, is the final word on everything.

Ignorance, while regrettable, can lead to some interesting discussions.  As an example of how hermeneutics works, one gospel tells us Judas hanged himself after betraying Jesus.  Another gospel says Judas threw himself off a cliff.  Proper interpretation, guided by the holy spirit, reveals this to mean Judas hanged himself over a cliff.  Then the rope, or branch, broke, and Judas fell down the cliff.  If the author of the “Song of Solomon” in the bible appears to drool over a woman’s breasts, this is not to be understood in some sexual sense that would keep the bible out of family friendly libraries, but rather as a poetic metaphor of Christ’s love for his church. See, it’s really quite simple.

Fanatics feel that only the godless and the immoral could possibly understand the bible as a collection of diverse literary myths, sexy stories, primitive laws, and biased histories, unconnected in their presentation, and unworthy of belief in their totality.  Such true believers are quite satisfied with the famous refutation of reason of the early Christian church, “I believe it because it is absurd.”

The problem is that they are not content to believe what they want and let others believe, or not believe, as they choose.  The ARCW they have declared has the avowed purpose of making our democracy one nation under their idea of god.  This is treason in its purest and most virulent form.

America was not founded on biblical principles.  There is nothing in the bible about democracy.  Democracy was invented in Greece, some five hundred years before Jesus.  It was overwhelmed for centuries in religious bloodbaths of kings and emperors, and, with minor exceptions, disappeared from human affairs until it was rediscovered and memorialized in the Constitution of the United States of America.  To insure that dictators and priests would be kept forever at bay, after much debate, our Constitution was consciously created as a godless document that established a wholly secular state.  Love it or leave it.

The religious fanatics who are traitors to our way of life must be stopped before their un-American attempts to replace our democracy with their mythology causes the ARCW to become a shooting war.  Using their principles of hermeneutics, their own book can become a powerful weapon against them in ways reasonable people (including most Christians) can understand.

The bible contains a relatively limited vocabulary when compared with the great contemporary literary works of Greek and Roman writers. The style is also awkward by comparison.  One might argue the a work dictated by god should be expected to be better than the writings of heathens, but, alas, it is not.  There are no original ideas or thoughts in the bible.  Much of it is plagiarized from Egyptian and Babylonian sources.  There is little that passes for morality as we understand it.  Slavery is condoned, as is the murder of children of non-believers; a rebellious son should be stoned to death, and women are to be totally subjugated to men.  A man could have many wives in the Old Testament.  If it is argued that the New Testament created a “new covenant” wherein only one wife is permitted, we might wonder if the changeless god changed his mind.  If so, how can every word of the Old Testament be taken as the will of god?

From a search of the sacred text itself, using a computerized King James Bible, available in Christian bookstores, we discover that the following words do not appear in the bible:  cooperate; cooperation; moral; traditional; values; rational; rights; morals; independence; congress; compromise; progress; republic; republican; democrat; democracy; insight; morality; jury; vote; test; due process; consequences; coincidence; parliament; majority; minority; constitution; achievement; aspire; human; invention; explore; discovery; humanity; humanism; university; universe; homosexual; fairness; harmony; treaty; logic; sexuality; abort; abortion; fetus; poet; poetry; artist; creativity.

If the bible is the foundation of morality and our way of life, we are in serious trouble indeed.  If the ARCW is lost, we will have no need for those omitted words.

Ed Kagin

August, 1995

AMERICAN ATHEISTS TO FLY ATHEIST BANNER AT SUPER BOWL

American Atheists, Inc.
February 3, 2012
AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.

For more information, please contact:
Dave Silverman, President 732-648-9333
Blair Scott, Communications Director 256-701-6265 

An Atheist civil rights group announced today that it will be flying an airplane banner on Super Bowl Sunday around Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The banner will read “Football beats church anytime – atheists.org.” The banner is scheduled to be in the air from 9:30-11:30 AM local time.

 

Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists, stated, “We took advantage of a unique opportunity to remind many Americans that their religion is not as important as they like to pretend it is. In many cities around the country the running joke is that football is the most popular religion.”

 

Mr. Silverman continued, “The banner will be seen by thousands of tailgaters, who clearly agree with American Atheists since they chose to sit on a tailgate instead of a pew. They chose to party with friends instead of praying with preachers.”

 

American Atheists notes that statistically speaking there will be more atheists in Lucas Oil Stadium than Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists combined and doubled.

 

American Atheists sends a special welcome to the atheists attending the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. The organization also extends an invitation to atheist fans to attend the Reason Rally and American Atheists Convention in Washington, DC this March, both of which will be even more fun than a football game.

 

Blair Scott, Communications Director for American Atheists, said, “There are thousands of Super Bowl related employees working on the Sabbath, which according to the Bible is a sin worthy of being stoned to death. Our desire to be entertained on Sundays puts a lot of Americans to work, but Christian mythology dictates that these American workers are doomed to hell.”

 

In addition to the 70,000 fans sitting in the bleachers at Lucas Oil Stadium, it is estimated that 130 million fans will watch the Super Bowl this Sunday. Based on available statistics, 20 million of those viewers will be atheists: enjoying their Sunday without church.

 

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a national non-profit 501(c)3 organization that defends civil rights for Atheists and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church-mosque-temple and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
American Atheists, Inc.PO Box 158Cranford, NJ 07016

Tel: (908) 276-7300

Fax: (908) 276-7402