religion

The most pernicious religious doctrine

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged religion SanityProject on by

A religion’s success depends upon its having followers. A reliable technique for getting and keeping followers is the threat of divine punishment for infidels. Believe and get a great reward; don’t believe and get a horrible punishment. God can read your mind, so there’s no use faking belief.

The Gospel of John says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:18, NIV) Only a handful of people had heard of Jesus in his time, much less believed he was God’s son, so this was a declaration of damnation for virtually the entire human race in the early first century. Whether Jesus actually said it is a separate question. Evangelical Christians place great stock in this assertion, whatever its source.
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Anniversary of a massacre 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged Hamas Israel liberty October 7 religion on by

A year ago today, Hamas conducted an orgy of brutality against innocent civilians. Such things have happened many times, but this case was unusual in attracting the support of a small but significant number of Americans. I don’t normally venture this deep into politics, aside from First Amendment issues relevant to writing, but I have to say something today.

I’m not talking about people who want peace or who object to Israel’s conduct in the war that followed. I’m talking about people who supported the massacre and want Israel wiped off the map. Also, we have to recognize that even groups with despicable goals have the right of free speech. They do not, however, have the right to physically interfere with other people’s legitimate activity.

Yesterday, as reported in the news, “Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators temporarily blocked traffic on Storrow Drive in Boston on Sunday during an emotional rally on the eve of the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.” Given the timing, any protest should have said something against that slaughter. The report doesn’t mention anything of the kind.
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Deva Prison

This entry was posted in Music My writing and tagged history liberty music religion on by

I’m the kind of person who always needs to have a project or two going. Things have been slow in that department lately, and FAWM is still about six weeks away. The two novels I wrote were enjoyable to do, but fiction isn’t my strongest point. The research I did for them has proven fruitful, though. I thought about writing a book on the Protestant Reformation and its effect on the emergence of personal freedom. I can’t claim to be a professional historian, though, and the readership would undoubtedly be small.

But I can write songs. The idea I’ve developed is a song cycle which combines music and history while connecting to my novels. Hans Lorenz is Thomas and Frieda’s son in The Magic Battery and Spells of War. He’s a small child and isn’t developed much as a character, but he has strong musical abilities. In this cycle, the adult Hans is the singer of songs which could get him into bad trouble for the ideas they expressed; but doing that runs in his family. (His father was on trial for his life, his mother’s book was burned, and his grandmother was killed in prison, accused of witchcraft.)

The first song, which I’ve put up on SoundCloud, is “Deva Prison.” It presents history which most listeners won’t know, so it’s followed by a short talk by “Hans” to his audience about the facts behind the song. This is a pattern which I plan to follow in other songs in the cycle.

A fact that might get a few people more interested: Dávid Ferenc, the subject of the song, was the founder of Unitarianism.

If I achieve my goal, this cycle will present some important history which isn’t familiar to most modern audiences in an entertaining way. Let me know what you think.

(Un)banning the Bible in Utah

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged books censorship education religion on by

The Davis school district in Utah has reversed an earlier decision removing the Bible from middle and elementary schools. Few people thought it should be banned; the challenge to it was supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum of the policies that led to the removal of other books. Unfortunately, the appeal committee and the district officials missed the point. They said that “the Bible has significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains.” Of course it does. The point is, so do many other books. Violence and vulgarity, even outright immorality, aren’t a sufficient reason to exclude books from school libraries.

The Bible is a horrible book. The Old Testament presents a sadistic, murderous God who drowns nearly the entire world population, firebombs cities, orders the extermination of every man, woman, and child in other cities, and decrees death penalties for many kinds of actions. In the New Testament, this sadist comes to us, not to beg for forgiveness for his crimes, but to say that he’ll forgive us, on the condition that we believe he turned himself into a human in order to be executed. People who don’t believe that claim will be tortured forever.
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Religious authoritarianism at San Francisco State

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship education religion on by

It’s not just Hamline University. A professor at San Francisco State University is being investigated for failing to comply with the rules of some conservative branches of Islam. The Office of Equity Programs and Compliance has launched an investigation of him. 14th century Islamic art showing Muhammad receiving Quranic revelation from the angel Gabriel

San Francisco State University is, as the name implies, a government-run institution. It has no business requiring its faculty to comply with religious rules. Maybe the investigators think they can require compliance with a Muslim law because the professor was born in Tehran. It doesn’t work that way. The First Amendment protects him in the United States regardless of what country he came from or what ethnic group he belongs to.
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