Religious Superstition Threatens to Destroy Civilization (Again)
The Religious Right is really OUT OF CONTROL and is exerting a greater and greater influence on our society. They are flexing their muscles in the political process, the economy and our entire culture.
Let us remember that the first time Christianity spread rapidly and gained control of the government (from 200 - 500 AD) it resulted in the utter collapse of Western Civilization and ushered in 1,000 years of darkness, superstition, ignorance and suffering.Finally, after a millennium of Darkness, mankind began to see the Dawn of The Age of Reason and The Enlightenment. Humanity recovered some dignity, science was freed from the chains of religious superstition and real progress began.
The Constitution of the United States of America was one of the crowning achievements of The Enlightenment, being a document for the Establishment of a government that did NOT MAKE ONE SINGLE REFERENCE TO "GOD". With the establishment of the United States, government as well as science was freed from the domination of religious superstition.Now, every day in the news there is some story about how the religionists are exerting their influence. Radical Clerics like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell get air time on network news. Religionists are organizing and boycotting businesses that do not adhere to their version of personal morality.
The specter of religious superstition is once again casting a frightening shadow over our world. The ghosts and demons of the Dark Ages, once believed to be banished forever by Reason, are again haunting our culture. Christianity destroyed civilization once before - it could happen again.
Antidote to Fundamentalist Nut-Cases is a Revival of the Freethought Movement
I think what we need is a Freethought movement similar to what the US had around the turn of the 20th century. Robert Ingersoll was touring the country, lecturing on secularism and exposing the claims of revealed religion to be false.
Unless something breaks the stranglehold of religious fundamentalism in the US - and in the world - I think we are going to continue the slide into Theocracy and destruction.- Freethinkers could produce TV ads that exposed the claims of Christianity to be falsehoods.
- Freethinkers could form an 'anti-Gideons' and leave copies of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and Robert Ingersoll's "Why I am Agnostic" in hotel rooms.
- Freethinkers produce tracts and pamphlets showing the contradictions in the Bible and exposing the rip-off of dozens of pagan beliefs and their incorporation into Christianity.
We could have a Second Enlightenment, a Second Age of Reason? We could re-secularize a world gone mad with religious superstition.Robert Ingersoll's "Why I Am Agnostic"http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.htmlThomas Paine's "The Age of Reason"http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml *****
From "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine (1795)EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it. When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.
It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.
It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything. The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.Consider a Freethought PAC to Run Attack Ads Exposing Religious Superstition on TV
I think what we need to counter this type of crap is a Freethought PAC - One that would run aggressive attack ads on TV. "Freethinkers for Truth", or something along those lines, to debunk religious superstition using 30 second TV attack ads. They could feature "Great Moments in American Secularism and Freethought" with "Great American Freethinkers" like Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll.
If TV stations would not run the ads, we could pull the same, "help, help, I'm being repressed!" crap that the fundies are always whining about. And of course the refusal to run the ads would draw attention to the works of Paine and Ingersoll, which are in themselves a very effective antidote to religious superstition.
The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstitionhttp://freethought.freeservers.com /
Freedom from Religion Foundationhttp://www.ffrf.org /
Secular Humanismhttp://www.secularhumanism.org /
Secular Webhttp://www.infidels.org/index.shtml Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason - Onlinehttp://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtmlComplete Works of Robert Ingersoll - Onlinehttp://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.shtmlDominionism's Theocratic Designs and Radical Clerics
Fundamentalist Radical Clerics such as Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson are not merely medieval throwbacks or misguided religious hacks. They are part of a well organized subversionary movement known as "Dominionism". Dominionism constitutes a serious threat to American Democracy. These Radical Clerics have developed and are executing a detailed plan to gradually replace the free, secular democratic society of the United States with a Theocracy.
It is critical that people become aware of the extreme agenda these people have for the United States and ultimately for the world. The results of the 2004 Presidential Election were not a fluke or something that was drummed up over a period of months. It has been in planning for over 20 years, and what we are seeing take place now is, in the words of Katherine Yurica, "the swift advance of a planned coup".
The Swift Advance of a Planned Coup: Conquering by Stealth and Deception - How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Powerhttp://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htmThe Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/Statehttp://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htmVideo on the Christian Reconstructionist Dominionist Theocratic Agendahttp://www.theocracywatch.org/av/video_dominion.ram The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party
a public information project from TheocracyWatch.orghttp://www.theocracywatch.org The Religious Right - An Anti-American Terrorist Movementhttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8816.htmEvolve Fish - Your One-Stop Shop for Freethought Materials
http://www.evolvefish.com
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