Spirit of Paranoia: A Critical Analysis of “Zeitgeist” (Part 1)

The discussions of the origins of Christianity in Zeitgeist may sound very compelling to one who is desperately searching for that elusive single argument that destroys Christianity as a credible belief system in one fell swoop. The primary thesis of Part I of this film is essentially that Christianity stole various beliefs and rituals wholesale from other earlier religions, particularly Egyptian mythology, incorporating these borrowed beliefs and rituals into its own theological structure. This is only partly true; the formation of Christianity was certainly influenced by other religions and mythologies. But to the extent that this is true, it is trivial. Only to the claimed extent that this assessment is profound is it somewhat false and very misleading, and herein lies the problem. Instead of pointing out the actual religions that Christianity was influenced by, such as the Babylonian set of religions and Zoroastrianism (which were the two primary formative influences for Christianity) Zeitgeist opts to dive into completely unrelated belief systems and form spurious connections between them.

With the rise of Zoroastrianism and the Babylonian faiths, we essentially see the rise of monotheism and the dualistic concept of good and evil in its first stages of development. Concepts such as a worldwide flood, angels and demons, Manichean dualism and other elements of this sort were heavily influenced by Babylonian tales. Taken together in context, it becomes obvious where Judaism acquired these elements. The historian can then trace the various changes, additions and deletions that eventually formed what we recognize as orthodox Christianity today. Determining the source of Christianity's major tenets and rituals is not a difficult task, and anyone who wishes to research this subject will find evidence of a conspiracy in play during Christianity's formative years to be sorely lacking. Much of the information relevant to this research is contained in the pages of the Bible itself; a careful reading of the Bible will reveal that the Old Testament is essentially a buffet, from which the various off-shooting sects of Judaism that eventually became collectively grouped under the umbrella of Christianity chose which elements and themes they wanted, incorporated these into the documents that eventually formed the New Testament, and added in information about Jesus the Christ.

Rather than pointing out historical facts along these lines and delving into what is actually flawed about Christianity, the filmmaker makes claims about Horus being the Sun God of Egypt (which is erroneous; Horus was the god of the sky) and drags in lists of elements that are characteristic of most religions, such as resurrection from the dead. It is as if Peter Joseph is under the illogical impression that rising from the dead is a feat that would not be a ubiquitous desire across religions! Resurrection is a concept almost all people throughout history have been heavily interested in, especially people in ancient times who had little to no concept of medicine and who had very little understanding of what life really was. Thus, it comes as no surprise that it was very common and popular to believe that the sun created all life or that the sun is a powerful deity because it provides daylight and sustains life. Christianity had no need to steal these concepts. To claim otherwise, as Peter Joseph does in his film, is to be ignorant of history; Christianity had its own particular formative influences, one of these being Judaism, which in turn borrowed from earlier belief systems. Similarity does not in and of itself denote wholesale borrowing from the earlier idea. The bottom line is that Peter Joseph protests far too much in Zeitgeist. As mentioned above, there is a rich buffet of theological concepts and ideas within Judaism and the Persian religions its adherents came into contact with for the Jewish sect of Christianity to have selected from. Why would the proto-Christian believers have any need to turn to Egyptian mythology for inspiration? One does not have to study the history of Christianity very long before discovering the similarities with many other cultures in the surrounding regions; the stories being told over and over again did not all come out of Egypt.

Those who are familiar with Kersey Grave's seminal 1875 work The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors will recognize the strong allusions to its central themes in Zeitgeist [1]. In his book, Graves discussed a large number of comparisons and alleged precursory connections to the Christ story among other gods, Horus being only one. Much of what is discussed in Part I of Zeitgeist come from Grave's work. The fact that this book is not sourced in the film may be owing to the general consensus among historians that the book is unscholarly and unreliable. The primary sources listed for Part I of Zeitgeist are mythicist and conspiracy theorist D.M. Murdock (more popularly known as Acharya S) and the nineteenth-century self-styled Egyptologist Gerald Massey, upon whom Murdock heavily depends in her own writings. In fact, all sources for Part I ultimately lead back to Gerald Massey and other like-minded authors who are cited often by Acharya S, authors who are dismissed by most scholars as unreliable in their research methods. Because the claims contained in this part of the film are so strongly connected to the ideas that have made Acharya S famous, some background on who she is and what her methodologies are is in order.

It becomes fairly clear to any impartial follower of Acharya S's work that she seems to harbor a bizarre agenda against Christianity. Of course, it is popular among certain groups and demographics to hate Christianity, most especially among teenage atheists. But fostering an agenda-based dislike of a worldview one personally disagrees with, a mindset that predisposes those who hold it to discrediting rather than studying, is a phase people tend to grow out of. Acharya S seemingly has not grown out of her sophomoric crusade against Christianity, a crusade that is unscholarly at best and dishonest at worst. Having read many of her articles and blog posts on her website, what strikes me most are the claims she makes about her education. On both her “Who is Acharya S?” and “Credentials” pages, she claims to be fluent in Greek and Hebrew, and on the latter page she actually claims to have “sat down with the Bible – in English, as well as in the original Hebrew and Greek – long enough to understand it more than most clergy” [2].

This claim clashes starkly with her attempts to prove a connection between Jesus and astrological understandings of the sun by suggesting that “God's Sun = God's Son.” This is etymologically impossible, especially when it is the Greek and Hebrew languages (the languages she is allegedly a fluent expert on) we are talking about. “Sun” and “Son” sound similar only in English and Germanic languages, and in a few Slavic languages. But outside of Indo-European languages, the phonetics of these two words is completely different and there is little or no linguistic similarity whatsoever. The Hebrew word for “sun” is השמש (shemesh) [3] and the Hebrew word for “son” is בן (ben) [4]. Even the Akkadian word for the Babylonian/Assyrian sun god was Shamash. The only reason the two words sound similar in English is because the word for son was “sunu” [5] and the word for sun was “sunne” [6]. But Acharya S continues to promote the “God's Sun = God's Son” notion, signaling that her claimed credentials as well as the foundations of her "discoveries" are to be highly questioned. One would think that a person who is well versed in many languages, especially Hebrew and Greek, would realize that these connections cannot be made in this way. This criticism is borne out when one examines her use of sources. She uses Gerald Massey and similar writers as a secondary source quite heavily, but almost never uses primary sources. On the few occasions in which she does throw in a primary source to support her claims, it is often done so dishonestly.

I am not necessarily charging Acharya S with lying. It is entirely possible she is merely embellishing. It is also possible that she is uncritically receiving her information and sources directly from Gerald Massey, who has been denounced as a pseudo-historian by the academic world for over a century. Regardless of where Acharya S is coming from, much about her research methods and conclusions are flawed. Debunking Christianity is not difficult at all; lying and fabricating damning evidence is completely unnecessary. There is no need to make claims to the effect that Christianity was invented out of wholecloth from Egyptian religion, or that it was stolen from both Buddhism and Egyptian religion, as Acharya S claims [7]. Nobody's academic reputation is served well by going overboard with drawing parallels that do not exist between religions, to say for instance that other god-men from earlier religions were crucified when in fact they never were, and then to twist the knife in the wound by suggesting that such parallels necessarily means that the later religion must have stolen from the earlier one. Of course, it is true that Christianity borrowed many concepts from various Roman faiths. But Christianity did not steal nearly as many concepts from earlier faiths as Zeitgeist or pseudo-scholars such as Acharya S would have us believe. Even if it did, it is a logical fallacy to conclude that a religion whose tenets feature concepts such as recurring life and death (as one example) must have been taken from an earlier religion, simply because the earlier one also featured tenets of recurring life and death.

The filmmaker even goes beyond the erroneous parallels he makes between Jesus and other earlier gods such as Attis, Krishna, Dionysus and Mithra to make the claim that the cross is representative of the Zodiac. At the beginning of the film, Peter Joseph explains as follows by way of background:

This is the cross of the Zodiac, one of the oldest conceptual images in human history. It reflects the sun as it figuratively passes through the 12 major constellations over the course of a year. It also reflects the 12 months of the year, the 4 seasons, and the solstices and equinoxes. The term “Zodiac” relates to the fact that constellations were anthropomorphized, or personified, as figures, or animals.

In other words, the early civilizations did not just follow the sun and stars, they personified them with elaborate myths involving their movements and relationships. The sun, with its life-giving and -saving qualities was personified as a representative of the unseen creator or god. It was known as “God's Sun,” the light of the world, the savior of human kind. Likewise, the 12 constellations represented places of travel for God's Sun and were identified by names, usually representing elements of nature that happened during that period of time. For example, Aquarius, the water bearer, who brings the Spring rains.

The film implies that the Zodiac has always been connected with the constellations, and that there have always been only twelve of them. The oldest known zodiacs do not have twelve signs; the Babylonian zodiac, for example, originally consisted of eighteen signs [8], while the Mayan Zodiac consisted of twenty [9]. Despite the fact that the Egyptian and Greek zodiacs do contain twelve signs, these signs are not and were not recognized as representative of cosmic truth by all civilizations. Furthermore, there are in actuality thirteen constellations that the sun passes through. For some odd reason, modern astrologers do not take into account Ophiuchus, the missing constellation [10].

Later on in the film, Joseph adds sensationalism to his unscholarly understanding of the Zodiac's history and meaning, as we can see here:

Coming back to the cross of the Zodiac, the figurative life of the Sun, this was not just an artistic expression or tool to track the Sun's movements. It was also a Pagan spiritual symbol, the shorthand of which looked like this. This is not a symbol of Christianity. It is a Pagan adaptation of the cross of the Zodiac. This is why Jesus in early occult art is always shown with his head on the cross, for Jesus is the Sun, the Sun of God, the Light of the World, the Risen Savior, who will “come again,” as it does every morning, the Glory of God who defends against the works of darkness, as he is “born again” every morning, and can be seen “coming in the clouds”, “up in Heaven”, with his “Crown of Thorns,” or, sun rays.

The history of the cross has very little to do with the Zodiac. The cross represents the traditional understanding that Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, and this is why Christians use it as the symbol for their religion. They have never used the cross to represent the Zodiac. If Jesus had been beaten to death with a club, perhaps the Christian symbol would be a club rather than a cross. Peter Joseph has simply taken the easy path of making false connections in order to prove something to people that conforms to and serves his agendas, and the people who fall for Joseph's claims are those who do not follow up with research of their own. Even if Joseph's claims were true, Christianity would still not be proven wrong, which is something that can be accomplished without a great deal of effort. Again, lying is completely unnecessary in accomplishing that task. Resorting to lies only suggests to those of us who have done our homework that Joseph and others with similar ideas have perhaps uncritically fallen for Christian apologetic tactics, and consequently proceeded to base their critique of Christianity on ideological or agenda-driven motives, rather than on reason.

The film's claim that “this is why Jesus in early occult art is always shown with his head on the cross” is not the case. Early occult depictions of Jesus showed his head on a halo, not a sun. Between the third and sixth centuries CE, halos were quite common for deities and other holy people. Many other deities and holy people with similar details surrounding their personages can be seen in ancient art that have no connection to the sun [11]. The filmmaker then attempts again to establish a connection between Jesus, the sun, and so forth. In this instance, the film fails to convincingly do so because it interprets all titles and traditional descriptions of Christ too literally.

Furthermore, there are a multitude of other instances in which the Zodiac could be used as a loose argument for establishing metaphorical connections. The ancient Hebrews, for example, were very aware of the Zodiac, as indicated simply by the existence of their phrase mazal tov (deriving from a Mishnaic word meaning “constellation” or “destiny,” and literally translating as “good luck”). But whether or not the cross of crucifixion (or any other cultural symbol pre-dating Christianity) is represented by the Zodiac is another matter entirely. In the case of the cross, the evidence from anthropology strongly indicates otherwise. The cross is one of the oldest symbols known, dating from as early as the Neolithic era, and was used by every known culture since that era for a variety of reasons that differ widely. The particular capacity in which the cross was used by any given culture in the past depended largely upon what the local population believed the cross to symbolize or represent. The cross-shaped sign in its earliest known form was represented as a crossing of two lines at right angles, in many cases forming an X that would be used to denote the mark of one who was buried. Another cross that challenges Joseph's portrayal of the symbol as one that remained sterile and conformed to interpretations of the Zodiac throughout history is the ankh, or ansated cross. This ancient Egyptian cross form, featuring a loop that circles on the top, symbolized eternal life and fertility and often appeared as a sign in the hands of the goddess Sekhmet.

I am not excluding entirely the idea that elements of Christianity were lifted from earlier influential mythologies. But to suggest that Christianity is nothing more than an amalgamation of different mythological ideas and that it was stolen from one single source and therefore somehow managed to perpetuate ages-old hijacked symbolism is far too great a stretch. There is no question that many concepts within Christianity were taken from or inspired by pre-existing belief systems and mythologies. But this is not the same as the misleading and inaccurate claim that every concept was stolen. The architects of Christianity were not actively or consciously stealing concepts from Egyptian religion and mythology as part of a conspiracy to politically control the lives of people.

In order to establish weak connections between Christianity and astrology, the filmmaker even stoops to the level of misquoting and misrepresenting the Bible (King James Version), a book that is already full of mistranslations as is, and which lacks a substantial amount of information that is represented in Christianity. Consider, for instance, what the filmmaker has to say about the Passover:

At Luke 22:10, when Jesus is asked by his disciples where the next Passover will be after he is gone, Jesus replied: “Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water . . . follow him into the house where he entereth in.” This scripture is by far one of the most revealing of all the astrological references. The man bearing a pitcher of water is Aquarius, the water-bearer, who is always pictured as a man pouring out a pitcher of water. He represents the age after Pisces, and when the Sun (God's Sun) leaves the Age of Pisces (Jesus), it will go into the House of Aquarius, as Aquarius follows Pisces in the precession of the equinoxes. Also, Jesus is saying that after the Age of Pisces will come the Age of Aquarius.

While the reply from Jesus is quoted correctly here, the question asked by the disciples is not. Luke 22:10 is quoted correctly [12], but the misleading nature of the claim the filmmaker is using this verse to support becomes clear when we take a closer look at the context of the disciples' actual question. Luke 22:7-9 tells us: “Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.’ They said to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare it? [13]’”

The disciples in this passage are not asking “where the next Passover will be,” but rather where they would be preparing and partaking of the Passover that evening. Still, even if the filmmaker represented the context correctly, the symbolism put forth by the film is inaccurate as well. The film describes Aquarius as “always pictured as a man pouring out a pitcher of water.” In the passage of Luke, however, the man the disciples meet is not pouring out a pitcher of water, but rather carrying a pitcher of water. If this is the symbolic reference that the film claims it to be, one may well ask why the symbolism is wrong.

This level of misrepresentation and misquoting is representative of the film's treatment of other Biblical passages as well, such as the filmmaker's claim that Matthew 28 is the main source for Christian understandings of end-times doctrines, as we see in the following quote:

Now, we have all heard about the end times and the end of the world. Apart from the cartoonish depictions in the Book of Revelation, the main source of this idea comes from Matthew 28:20, where Jesus says “I will be with you even to the end of the world.” However, in King James Version, “world” is a mistranslation, among many mistranslations. The actual word being used is “aeon,” which means “age.” “I will be with you even to the end of the age.” Which is true, as Jesus' Solar Piscean personification will end when the Sun enters the Age of Aquarius. The entire concept of end times and the end of the world is a misinterpreted astrological allegory. Let's tell that to the approximately 100 million people in America who believe the end of the world is coming.

It is interesting to note that the filmmaker dismisses the Book of Revelation as containing “cartoonish descriptions,” considering that the Book of Revelation contains the majority of the end-times predictions in Christianity's theological system. Either Peter Joseph has not read the Bible or he is utilizing very selective tactics in order to draw a parallel between the Zodiac and the Bible, a parallel that Revelation does not readily conform to. Matthew 28 is by no means the “main source” for Christian eschatology. Passages in Matthew 24 [14], Second Thessalonians 2 [15], the Book of Daniel [16] and of course Revelation [17] are far better and more in-depth sources. But it is clear that such misrepresentation and selective reasoning is required in order to prop up a case that the Bible is an astrological document. The King James Bible contains a total of 31,102 verses [18]. If the Bible is an astrological document, one would expect that there would be much more than a few verses indicating astrological connections between Jesus, Passover, the Zodiac, the dispensations, and so forth.

Also of interest is the fact that the film claims the King James Version of the Bible contains mistranslations, such as the word “world” actually meaning “aeon.” Yet the filmmaker uses the King James Version as a basis for his claims. The filmmaker appears more interested in levying a general attack on the reliability of the translation, presumably so that he can spin passages of his choosing however he chooses. While it is true that “world” in this case actually is a mistranslation of what should be “aion,” the Greek word is “αιων” [19] which means “eternity” rather than “age.” The Greek word for “age” is “παλαιώνω” (palaiono) [20]. Thus, despite the mistranslation, the general idea remains correctly conveyed, i.e., “even to the end of the world” versus “even to the end of eternity.”

The ideas presented in Part I of Zeitgeist concerning the origins of Christianity and the Egyptology/Christianity connections it makes have begun to make their way into popular culture, despite the fact that these ideas came into their own over a century ago at a time when in-depth scholarship on Christianity was not yet fully developed. For example, popular social critic and political commentator Bill Maher has begun to follow the same path in some of his statements. Many of the connections between Jesus and Horus that were made by Peter Joseph were made by Maher in his documentary film Religulous [21]. But this is the only aspect of the film as a whole for which Maher did not investigate claims as closely as he should have, and this demonstrates the need for even skeptics of the supernatural to be discerning in what we base our arguments on. Religulous is an example of a film that contains mostly hard-hitting and challenging truth, with a small amount of fiction mixed in. The opposite is the case for Zeitgeist; a very few points are correct, but the overwhelming majority of its points are untrue, nonsensical or completely irrelevant.

Conclusion

It is certainly true that the story of Christ is echoed by way of similarities or mythological motifs within ancient religions pre-dating Christianity. But this was by no means unique to Christianity, and to build a special case for Christianity being a fraud consciously perpetrated upon the masses based on the existence of similarities in past religions is illogical to the utmost. Furthermore, the film is also deceptive in the manner it presents arguments; the film makes direct claims to the effect that Christianity only stole its various central tenets from the ancient Egyptians, not bothering to reference any other influence upon the Christian religion. Christianity was indeed influenced to a slight degree by Egyptian religion, but there are far more inconsistencies than there are similarities, and the similarities that are there exist only to the extent that the ideas and concepts incorporated by Christianity were ubiquitous throughout Mesopotamia and beyond. Moreover, when religious scholars and anthropologists encounter concepts or philosophies in one religion that are more or less exactly the same across two pre-dating cultures (for example, the Egyptian faiths and Babylonian faiths), tracing the source of influence is often a matter of asking which culture or civilization was closer to the centers in which the newer religion developed. In the case of Christianity, it was the Babylonians who were closer and who therefore had a much more direct influence on Christianity's development. If Christianity borrowed elements from any earlier culture or religious system, it was the Babylonians, specifically the concepts of monotheism, dualism, angels and demons, a worldwide flood, and others. This is especially the case if one comes from a culture similar to surrounding cultures. In this case, it comes as no surprise that similar conclusions are sure to be reached, or that concepts are going to be borrowed simply because the people striving to create a model of the world that makes sense to them find other cultures' ideas very satisfying.

I do not have an ulterior motive in being highly skeptical of these claims in the film. I am by no means a Christian, much less an apologist for the Christian faith. Christianity remains a very flawed religion whether Peter Joseph's claims are true or not. Thus, it does not make a difference to me if I am falsely charged with being a “closet Christian.” What matters is discerning truth from falsehood, and this is not accomplished based upon what a person or group professes to believe as opposed to what I or anyone else believes. Thus far in our examination of Zeitgeist, the central arguments presented in the first part are seen to be factually and logically wrong, and are easily debunked by following up on the sources used in the film itself. There is nothing at stake for me personally if I am wrong; if the various disparate claims contained in Zeitgeist were proven to be true tomorrow, I would not have a reason to care, except to correct my critiques. A great many conspiracy theory enthusiasts are under the false impression that skeptics make the time and effort to debunk conspiracy theories because we have something to gain from debunking them. Hence, the most common accusations levied against skeptics of conspiracy theories such as those promoted by Peter Joseph is that we are closet Christians, government agents, or on someone's payroll. When cornered in debate, accusations of this ilk are often the conspiracy theorists' only recourse.

It is also quite interesting to note that conspiracy theorists with an agenda-driven mindset, such as Peter Joseph and Acharya S, seem to operate under the false assumption that nothing original can be created within new religions or belief systems, or that all true ideas are necessarily original. This is seen in the film's baseline assumption that every single concept within religions such as Christianity must have been stolen from earlier sources. What they either ignore or fail to realize is that it is not difficult to come up with original ideas and concepts, to imagine supernatural reasons why the sun shines, for instance.

NOTES

1. Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ (1875; Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2001).

2. Acharya S, “What Are Acharya's Credentials?” Truth Be Known, http://www.truthbeknown.com/credentials.html (accessed 30 March 2011).

3. “השמש” http://tinyurl.com/ypqxbg (Hebrew language - reference for word only, accessed 30 March 2011).

4. “בן” http://tinyurl.com/29jd22 (Hebrew language - reference for word only, accessed 30 March 2011).

5. “Son (n.)” Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=son&searchmode=none (accessed 30 March 2011).

6. “Sun (n.)” Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=sun&searchmode=none (accessed 30 March 2011).

7. Acharya S/D.M. Murdock, “Is Buddhism Atheistic?” Truth Be Known, http://truthbeknown.com/lifeofbuddha.htm (accessed 30 March 2011); Acharya S/Murdock, “Beddru is Beddou is Buddha,” Truth Be Known, http://truthbeknown.com/beddru.html (accessed 30 March 2011).

8. Derek and Julia Parker, The New Compleat Astrologer (New York: Crescent Books, 1990), p. 194.

9. Barbara Tedlock, Time and the Highland Maya (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1992).

10. Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion, Stars and Planets: The Most Complete Guide to the Stars, Planets, Galaxies, and the Solar System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

11. “Artists by Nationality: Greek Artists,” Artcyclopedia: The Ultimate Guide to Great Art Online, http://www.artcyclopedia.com/nationalities/Greek.html (accessed 30 March 2011).

12. Luke 22:10 and Parallel Translations, Bible Suite, http://bible.cc/luke/22-10.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

13. Luke 22:7 and Parallel Translations, Bible Suite, http://bible.cc/luke/22-7.htm (accessed 30 March 2011); Luke 22:8 and Parallel Translations, Bible Suite, http://bible.cc/luke/22-8.htm (accessed 30 March 2011); Luke 22:9 and Parallel Translations, Bible Suite, http://bible.cc/luke/22-9.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

14. “Matthew 24:1” (and following web pages), Scripturetext.com: Online Multilingual Bible, http://scripturetext.com/matthew/24-1.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

15. “2 Thessalonians 2:1” (and following web pages), Scripturetext.com: Online Multilingual Bible, http://scripturetext.com/2_thessalonians/2-1.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

16. “Daniel 1:1” (and following web pages), Scripturetext.com: Online Multilingual Bible, http://scripturetext.com/daniel/1-1.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

17. “Revelation 1:1” (and following web pages), Scripturetext.com: Online Multilingual Bible, http://scripturetext.com/revelation/1-1.htm (accessed 30 March 2011).

18. Stephen M. Miller and Robert V. Huber, The Bible: A History – The Making and Impact of the Bible (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2004), p. 173.

19. “Mat. 28:20,” Blue Letter Bible, http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Mat&c=28&v=20&i=conc#20 (accessed 30 March 2011).

20. The reader can confirm this for herself by consulting the Greek-English/English-Greek online dictionary at http://www.kypros.org/cgi-bin/lexicon (accessed 30 March 2011).

21. Larry Charles and Bill Maher, Religulous (Thousand Words, 2008).

Spirit of Paranoia: A Critical Analysis of “Zeitgeist” (Introduction)

Zeitgeist is an Internet film sensation that has rocked the freethought world since its release on Google Video in the spring of 2007. The film, whose title is the German word for “spirit of the age,” has become something of a cult phenomenon; many people have expressed that the movie wholly blew them away and “opened their mind.” While Zeitgeist is useful as a primer for those unfamiliar with different fringe ideas surrounding religion and politics, I argue in this essay that people should be extremely wary of accepting its claims as gospel. I also intend to discuss why I do not agree with the majority of claims made in this film, and why I disagree entirely with the overall message that the many claims made in the film are intended to convey collectively. A great deal of the ideas presented in Zeitgeist range from the factually wrong to the outright absurd. The approach is cognitively dissonant as well. The same standards of critical thinking the filmmaker purports to utilize in analyzing religious claims are not applied to many of the historical claims employed to support his analyses.

Zeitgeist is the film that first introduced me three years ago to the world of conspiracy theories, and I have been fascinated by conspiracy theories ever since. As a result, I have followed the work of figures such as Alex Jones (a household name among the conspiracy theorist community) having seen every one of his movies and listened to several of his radio broadcasts. But it is disappointing to discover that, when one looks for information concerning the material that people like Alex Jones promotes, there is for the most part very little commentary from the opposing side. This disappointing observation was also made by atheist and skeptic Edward L. Winston, who responded by creating the “skeptical inquiry consortium” ConspiracyScience.com, an excellent website resource devoted to debunking conspiracy theories of all kinds. Winston has expanded beyond shedding light on what are typically categorized as conspiracy theories to debunking common misconceptions and regular myths that websites such as Snopes.com are not likely to cover. For example, Snopes.com will probably never discuss the accusations that have been erroneously raised by some that Barack Obama is a crack-smoking homosexual [1]. Winston's website covers issues of this variety, because he does not place undue emphasis on being family friendly. His website pushes limits to a certain extent, perhaps to a PG-13 level.

The skeptic's first and most important task in discerning truth from falsehood in relation to conspiracy theories is to seek out the source of a conspiracy theory through thorough research, including what individual or group conceived of it, what agenda they may have, and the original evidence (if any) they drew upon. When that point is reached, the skeptic then stands in an informed position to figure out exactly what is wrong with the conspiracy theory or popular myth and why different groups feel motivated to add different elements to the same story. Of course, this methodology does not work for every claim, but it does work for the vast majority of them. Consider the “North American Union” conspiracy theory as an example (this is an idea discussed in Part III of Zeitgeist). Where did the idea of a North American Union originate? The strictly hypothetical and speculative concept originated in a book written by Robert A. Pastor in 2001, entitled Toward a North American Community [2]. Prior to the release of this book, there was never any mention by anyone of the North American Union, nor of the Amero currency that Pastor proposes in the book. A few years later, Alex Jones received word of Pastor's idea and immediately declared the emergence of a North American Union to be an absolute fact, disregarding the fact that the NAU was nothing more than a speculative suggestion, which Pastor himself did not support.

This is what conspiracy theorists typically do with every piece of information they stumble across. They will read a blog post or an op-ed piece from a news source that fires up their imagination, and then proceed to declare what they have come across to be fact, a sure indication that something will definitely transpire. The internal contradiction that plagues the conspiracy-around-every-corner mindset can be seen in this tendency. Conspiracy theorists constantly tell us that we cannot trust mainstream news sources, but then attempt to back up their claims with clips from major news media sources. They trust the news only insofar as their conspiracy theories can be validated. They distrust the news when information contradicting their claims is shown by news media. When one looks at the source of conspiratorial claims, she or he will also tend to discover exactly why the conspiracy theorists making the claims harbor the various agendas that they do. It is usually the case that uninformed people who spread unfounded conspiracy theories on social networking sites have good intentions in mind, to notify people of what they have been led to believe is really transpiring. But those who initially start conspiracy theories and claims usually have monetary interests, political gain, or simply a desire for fame in mind as they use their imaginations to invent myths.

Before delving with a critical eye into the content of Zeitgeist, crucial background information on the Zeitgeist Movement is in order. The Zeitgeist Movement is a group that was started by Peter Joseph, the creator of the film, who envisioned and created the group as a venue through which the ideas that he advocates in the second and third Zeitgeist films can be actively expressed [3]. TZM is Peter Joseph's way of not only promoting his movies, but also the concepts behind an unrelated venture called the Venus Project, a movement founded by social engineer and futurist Jacque Fresco that seeks to bring to fruition an artistic dream of a Technocratic resource-based economic utopia [4]. Like TZM, the Venus Project has not outlined any goals of a specific nature and has not accomplished anything to date. One of the purposes of the Zeitgeist Movement is to attempt to construct a plan to aid the Venus Project in establishing their agenda.

Zeitgeist is composed of three parts. Part I, entitled “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” discusses the origins of Christianity, asserting that the major tenets of Christian beliefs were taken from pre-existing myths. Part II, entitled “All the World's a Stage,” discusses the “truth” behind 9/11, arguing that the attacks on September 11, 2001 were an inside U.S. Government job that was covered up. Part III, entitled “Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain,” is concerned with arguing that the federal government and the banking systems are conspiring for power and wealth consolidation. The main body of my upcoming critique of Zeitgeist will be written in three parts, covering each section of the film in its turn.

NOTES

1. Edward L. Winston, “Barack Obama – Obama’s Personal Life and Past,” Skeptic Project 1 August 2009, http://politics.skepticproject.com/articles/obama/obamas-personal-life-and-past/ (accessed 28 March 2011).

2. Robert A. Pastor, Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World to the New (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute, 2001).

3. http://TheZeitgeistMovement.com/.

4. http://www.TheVenusProject.com/.

5. For more in-depth information concerning the Zeitgeist Movement, see Edward L. Winston's helpful analysis at http://www.conspiracyscience.com/articles/the-zeitgeist-movement/ (accessed 28 March 2011).

Part I: The Greatest Story Ever Told

Part II: All the World's a Stage

Part III: Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain

The Old God's Struggle Against Science

Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands at the beginning of the Bible, concerning God's deadly panic over science? . . . Nobody has understood it. This essentially sacerdotal book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: he knows only one great danger, consequently "God" has only one great danger.

The old God, entirely "spirit," a high priest through and through, and wholly perfect, is wandering in a leisurely fashion round his garden; but he is bored. Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in vain. What does he do? He invents man, man is entertaining. . . . But, behold, even man begins to be bored. God's compassion for the only form of misery which is peculiar to all paradises, exceeds all bounds: so forthwith he creates yet other animals. God's first mistake: man did not think animals entertaining, he dominated them, he did not even wish to be an "animal." Consequently God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment, but many other things ceased as well! Woman was God's second mistake. "Woman in her innermost nature is a serpent, Heva" - every priest knows this: "all evil came into this world through woman" - every priest knows this too. "Consequently science also comes from woman. . . ." Only through woman did man learn to taste of the tree of knowledge. What had happened? Panic had seized the old God. Man himself had been his greatest mistake, he had created a rival for himself, science makes you equal to God, it is all up with priests and gods when man becomes scientific! Moral: science is the most prohibited thing of all, it alone, is forbidden. Science is the first, the germ of all sins, the original sin. This alone is morality. "Thou shalt not know": the rest follows as a matter of course. God's panic did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can one guard against science? For ages this was his principal problem. Reply: man must be kicked out of paradise! Happiness, leisure leads to thinking, all thoughts are bad thoughts. . . . Man must not think. And the "priest-per-se" proceeds to invent distress, death, the vital danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, decrepitude, and affliction, and above all disease, all these are but weapons employed in the struggle with science! Trouble prevents man from thinking. . . . And notwithstanding all these precautions! Oh, horror! The work of science towers aloft, it storms heaven itself, it rings the death-knell of the gods, what's to be done? The old God invents war; he separates the nations, and contrives to make men destroy each other mutually (the priests have always been in need of war . . .). War, among other things, is a great disturber of science! Incredible! Knowledge, the rejection of the sacerdotal yolk, nevertheless increases. So the old God arrives at this final decision: "Man has become scientific, there is no help for it, he must be drowned!" . . .

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (Section 48).

The Ethics of Belief

"The Ethics of Belief" by William Kingdon Clifford (1877)

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and and refitted, even though this should put him at great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.

For it is not possible so to sever the belief from the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it . . . If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future . . . No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.

And no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

[I]t has been judged wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. The reason of this judgment is not far to seek: it is that . . . the belief held by one man was of great importance to other men. But forasmuch as no belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind, we have no choice but to extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves but for humanity . . . Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his beliefs with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.

It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn . . . It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.

Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me. Men speak the truth of one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, "Peace," to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbours ready to deceive.

To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it--the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally published in Contemporary Review, 1877. Reprinted in Lectures and Essays (1879). Presently in print in The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (Prometheus Books, 1999).

This excellent three-part treatise can be read in its entirety at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html

All Agog: A Response to Chris Quintana's Prophecy Challenge

"[T]he whole business is childish and nonsensical. Interpreters of prophecy during the last few centuries have been most of them in the same position; one of them sees in the sublimities of the Revelation the form of Louis Napoleon where two hundred years ago half Christendom saw the Pope, and the other half Martin Luther. The other day one of the seers saw Sebastopol in the prophecies, and now another detects the Suez Canal, and we feel pretty sure that the Council at Rome will soon be spied out in Daniel or Ezekiel. The fact is, when fancy is their guide men wander as in a maze. Spiritualistic interpreters see, like children gazing into the fire, not what is really before them, but what is in their own heads." ~ Charles H. Spurgeon (British Particular Baptist Preacher), 1834-1892 [1].

“Rapture Ready Radio,” a lively radio show which broadcasts multiple times each week, is a cult sensation among right-wing doomsday-predicting fundamentalist Christians and a potential source of great entertainment and laughs by its secular listeners such as myself (my masochistic tastes being what it is, I enjoy Rapture Ready Radio almost as much as I enjoy the likes of Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind). A typical show features long tirades denouncing as a false believer any Christian who does not stand with them on every issue and enthusiastic commentary on various natural and political disasters around the globe, which in their mind is supposed to signal the soon arrival of their god-king to whisk them away to paradise.

But on a January 4, 2011 broadcast, Chris Quintana, one of the show’s hosts, presented a challenge to Brian "Box" Brown, an atheist cartoonist who appeared as a guest on the program after featuring hosts Quintana and Matt Buff in a satirical comic. Brown, who held his own well enough during the discussion, understandably had no comment to make on this challenge, being unprepared. But Quintana’s challenge struck me as one that was worth making a serious and substantial response to, given the overly-confident manner in which he presented it:

I'd like to get your take on something here for us. One of the wars that the Bible predicts is found in the Book of Ezekiel, okay? It's in chapters 38 and 39. Here's the interesting thing: For somebody like yourself as a total skeptic, if you're to go ahead and look at the countries that are mentioned there, what you would find is that they are modern-day Turkey, everything that is pretty much south of Russia, all the way down to Iraq as far over as Pakistan, most of the northern portion of Africa with the exception of Egypt. Now, looking at that part of the world, that the time that Ezekiel wrote it, there was nothing whatsoever that galvanized that group of people, their different cultures, ethnicities, continents, everything.

Here's the deal: As Ezekiel writes all of that, there was nothing that galvanized that whole group of people. Now here's where it gets interesting. What Ezekiel saw, and the only thing that those countries now and those groups of people now have in common is Islam. And if you look at the things that those people say, their desire is to see the elimination of the nation of Israel. So here's what I have to ask for anybody who wants to be objective about this: How is it that Ezekiel could talk about a coalition of countries coming after Israel, especially in the last century when, for a good portion of it, Israel didn't even exist. And what else could galvanize that group of people in the modern day, aside from Islam?

You say that everything that we're telling you is ridiculous and that the Bible is self-fulfilling. I'm giving you an example of something that was written long before the event, and you can't give me a good reason to explain how he could have known this. Nostradamus spoke in generalities and very vague things, but there's no way that you can actually say [it's] like what Ezekiel did. He told us what is modern-day Islam, and all the people that have arrayed themselves against Israel. And I just find it fascinating that you say it's self-fulfilling. How is Israel going ahead lining up all of its enemies under a religion that didn't exist when Ezekiel talked about it? How's that work?

Please, prove me wrong! I'm serious . . . This would be great! You can go ahead and look, and you can prove it through history who he's talking about, okay? This is your great opportunity to take a Christian guy like myself and show me that I'm totally all wet and prove to me where I'm wrong. This is great! Look at the opportunity that's now before you. What I'm giving you is the opportunity to shoot guys like me completely through, you know, as far as our theory, and maybe you can enlighten me through this. How about I give you the places to look, and you can find out who they are historically. And please tell me what they now have in common aside from Islam. I'd love to know it. If I'm wrong, which you think that I am, I'd love to hear an alternate theory.

For one thing, Quintana's argument relies completely on a shaky underlying premise which, when dismantled, undermines his entire case. This premise is the assigning of modern-day countries to countries mentioned in ancient religious texts. Prophecy enthusiasts like Quintana have adopted a slapdash etymology that attempts to say that names read in the original Hebrew correspond to somewhat similar-sounding names of modern geographical locations. But this lacks any linguistic basis or sense.

In the particular case of Ezekiel 38 & 39, identifying Lud and Put in 38:5 to be Persia, Ethiopia and Libya (as the King James Version does) is in fact not far-fetched. There is good reason to think that the text corresponds to those three countries, based on other ancient references. But the traditional prophecy buffs are mistaken when they equate Meshech and Tubal in 38:2-3 to the Russian cities of Moscow and Tobolsk respectively in the U.S.S.R. Russia as a whole also finds its way into these etymological word games based on the word "Rosh" in 38:2-3, which translates to "head," implying a chief (as in the head man of a tribe). "Rosh" is thus said to be Russia, the head of its domains of Moscow and Tobolsk [2].

This is patently incorrect. The name "Russia" derives from the Rus', a tribe of East Slavic horsemen who inundated the steppelands of central Russia and Ukraine from the north in the ninth century C.E. The Rus' have no connection whatsoever to "Rosh" or the "head." Instead, Ezekiel 38:2-3 is describing the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal and does not indicate a third name. Meshech is not Moscow, and Tubal is not Tobolsk. These were two ancient territories located adjacent to the Black Sea. One can find them on just about any old "World of the Bible" atlas. Tubal was the place that the character Tubal-Cain is made an eponymous ancestor of in Genesis 4:22. Being the mythic culture hero that he was, Tubal-Cain is here said to be the inventor of metallurgy, an "instructor of every artificer of brass and iron." Tubal is mentioned in Ezekiel 38 because their people were on the map at the time the text was written, and they were metal workers. They continued the fashioning of weapons in the tradition of their father Tubal-Cain, their eponymous ancestor. Meshech is not much different; the people of this land were known as the Mushki. Neither they nor the people of Tubal have any connection with modern-day Moscow and Tobolsk. Those who claim otherwise commit an error similar to (but even more egregious than) the error of trying to trace the Turks back to the ancient Ionians. While the Turks and the Ionians lived at different times in the same territory, they are completely different ethnic groups descended from different lines. The Turks came in from central Asia much later, during the early Middle Ages.

Now to move on to Gog (the most interesting of the points to be made): The best scholarship we have on this subject strongly suggests that there is only a mythical or semi-mythical association with this name. “Magog” is not a parallel name; it simply means “land of Gog,” to denote the land which Gog rules. In Greek, “Gog” is translated Gugeis (or Gyges if one prefers to Latinize it). Gugeis was a mythical character in Meshech (ancient Lydia), or in the surrounding borders. The king of this territory was Midas. Gog (or Gugeis or Gyges, take your pick) shows up in Middle Eastern mythology as a kind of monster reminiscent of the Leviathan traditions, sometimes associated with Iskandar Dhul-Qarnayn (literally “The Two-Horned One”).

This name, which some scholars conjecture is a reference to Alexander the Great, is found in the Qur’an (Surah XVIII:83-99). According to this passage, Dhul-Qarnayn is said to have imprisoned both Gog and Magog inside a mountain from which they are to eventually escape in the end of days. Gog and Magog are also mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible (20:8: “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog & Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea”).

In the Old Testament’s Book of Ezekiel, Gog and Magog are pictured collectively as a single Leviathan-like creature: “And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws ...” (38:4a). The picture is one of God fishing the great primordial serpent out of the ocean, thereby defeating him as he did Leviathan and Rahab.

Of course, biblical prophecy enthusiasts could argue that this interpretation of the Ezekiel passage is simply mythic allusion intended by the writer himself to metaphorically describe a real state that is monstrous and dangerous in nature and which God will defeat. This may in fact be true, but this argument does not avail the prophecy apologist in any way. For one thing, mythic allusion was used to describe almost all major villains, whether whole nations or individual leaders. Even the mythical Azdahak in ancient Iran, the very first Antichrist figure to be conceived, was intended to symbolize the invading Assyrians. The vast majority of characters in ancient mythologies had political dimensions that were relevant to the times in which they were created and written about.

This means that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not an example of prophetic writing at all. Scholars are unanimously agreed on this point. If these chapters were written as predictions of the far future, they would be completely irrelevant to the people the prophets were trying to address at the time. Gog and the land that Gog rules (Magog) have come to mean something completely different than what it was originally intended to mean in modern apocalyptic thought. At the time the author of these Ezekiel passages was writing, they were simply meant to describe (through the metaphoric picture of the great sea monsters that God had defeated in primordial times) nations that were believed to be harassing Israel at the time. They were describing current events. Both literary and historical analysis supports this understanding.

This leaves open Quintana’s question of who the armies described in these Ezekiel chapters are supposed to be if not modern Islamic countries. Remember, Quintana says he would “love to hear an alternate theory.” Many scholars say that Gog and Magog represented the historical Scythians, who swept down as mounted horsemen from the northern kingdoms, though they never did get as far as ancient Israel and Judah. However, it was anticipated that they would successfully make it that far, and that is what Ezekiel 38 and 39 are about. I would strongly advise non-scholars like Quintana not to trust the likes of Hal Lindsey and the tradition he represents in his famous 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth of spinning etymology and history in order to make Ezekiel 38 and 39 all about Russia.

To wrap up, we must address Quintana’s claim that these chapters in Ezekiel must be prophetic of modern Islamist countries and that this is borne out by his claim that nothing galvanized the countries he thinks are mentioned together in any coherent way, until Islam gave them something in common.

For one thing (as I have already mentioned above) if these writings were about the far distant future, they could not have possibly been relevant to the original readers, Ezekiel’s intended audience. For another thing, it is highly doubtful that there exists any evidence for what Quintana is saying, whatever the nature of Ezekiel’s writings. Yes, the countries and geographical regions Quintana mentions were somewhat diverse, but he seems to overlook the fact that they were cheek-by-jowl on the map! They could not have been so different that they had nothing to unite over.

It may be technically improbable that these people would band together for a common purpose, but then again, this is exactly what people are often heard saying today concerning the Shiite and Sunni terrorists. The popular but flawed reasoning has been that there is nothing to fear, because Iraq could never join forces Iran to retaliate against us since one is predominantly Shiite and the other predominantly Sunni. Similarly, we have been told by many that al-Qaeda could never receive any support from the Mullahs of Iran, due to the same Sunni and Shiite differences. This is exactly the naïve, faulty reasoning Quintana is applying in his argument.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Common causes are made on the basis of this truism alone all the time, and throughout recorded history. Eventually, once victory is achieved, they may turn on each other. But this is certainly not evidence of any kind that they had not once united as a group for pragmatic purposes.

Then again, all this assumes that Quintana and other prophecy spin doctors are correct in their identification of the countries attacking Israel in these Ezekiel chapters. But, as I think I have shown, he is very likely wrong in his attributions. Again, the scholarly evidence suggests that the armies of Ezekiel 38 and 39 were the Scythians. Even the ancient writer himself may have gotten the identification of the armies wrong. But more importantly, I have shown that Quintana does not have a valid argument or evidence to lean on even if he is correct in his identification of the countries.


Notes

1. Quoted in James Comper Gray (1871). The Biblical Museum: A Collection of Notes Explanatory, Homiletic, and Illustrative, on the Holy Scriptures, Especially Designed for the Use of Ministers, Bible-Students, and Sunday-School Teachers. Vol. II. Containing the Gospels According to St. Luke and St. John. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, p. 179.

2. While Quintana does not in my quotes explicitly claim that Gog and Magog correspond to Russia both he and other hosts of the show have made it clear in other broadcasts that they are strong adherents of this idea. I suspect he carefully avoided mentioning this here, since Russia’s population is made up of slightly more Christians (17-22%) than Muslims (10-15%). This figure upsets Quintana’s “non-galvanized” foothold, so he instead starts with “south of Russia.”

Christian Suicide and the Danger of Theological Consistency

The human propensity to wrest what a person says completely out of context is astounding at times. An excellent example of this tendency of human nature is displayed in a YouTube video made by a moronic vlogger who goes by the name "ShockofGod." In this video, Shock appropriates a short clip from The Atheist Experience, a public-access call-in show presented by the Atheist Community of Austin which is broadcast worldwide over the Internet. In this appropriated clip, show hosts Matt Dillahunty and Martin Wagner are discussing the Christian doctrine of salvation which says that saved sinners will be spirited away to a glorious afterlife that is unimaginably better than mortal life here on earth. Matt Dillahunty then makes the point that if Christians truly believed this, they should kill themselves. Here is the contextualized quotation from the show:

Matt: Meaning and value are things that we imbue, are characteristics that we imbue upon objects, including ourselves. But the theist has this idea of some grander meaning, as if there's some other intelligence out there that would value us, and that without this other intelligence valuing us, we are worthless, that this is all irrelevant. Which I find very, very sad.

Martin: Well, they say "meaning" as being something that has to be externally imposed upon your life.

Matt: Yeah, I find that very sad. It reminds me of the people who, you know, a psychologist might evaluate somebody who's in that position in a relationship as having dependency issues where, or validation issues, where they can't do anything unless there's some approving figure to do this. But what Chris said, which kind of got my dander up, was that his view is that this life, this existence that we have, is all ultimately meaningless, even in his view. That the pain here is temporary, and that at some point you're going to graduate from this existence and go on to a better existence or whatever else, and what you suffered here will really become negligible and irrelevant. And I find that to be one of the most appalling ideas I've ever heard: There are people who believe that there is this God Thing that created your Soul Thing, and then stuck it here in this Meatsack Machine Thing for a period of x number of years to be . . .

Martin: To judge whether or not it's worthy to go on to the next phase of existence.

Matt: If you really believed that that was the case, then you should kill yourself. Now hang on, hang on. Don't actually do it. I'm not advocating that anybody do this. What I'm saying is that if it was somebody's sincere belief that this existence is relatively meaningless, and is a place to wipe your feet before you go in to the Happy Land, then the natural, logical conclusion from that is that the best thing you could possibly do is kill yourself. And religions know that this is the logical conclusion, which is why some of them have direct prohibitions against suicide.

Martin: Yeah, they figured that one out pretty early.

Matt: That was really of it. Well wait a minute, if Happy Land is where I really want to be, and all of this is irrelevant, then if I kill myself then I go there now. "Oh, no no no no no. You don't get there if you kill yourself."

Martin: Yeah, because God decides when you go. You don't get to decide when you go.

Matt: Yeah, they had to add a loophole in there, because I mean, it's painfully obvious to anybody. So for these people who have made up their own theology, who have these ideas that don't, where their doctrine or their beliefs don't include a prescription against suicide: I think it's painfully obvious that they actually do not believe what they claim to believe. They just hope that it's true. They just hope that there's something more than this. And while I think on some level it's fine to hope for more, on another level it's not so fine. Because every minute that you spend hoping for something more is a minute that you're not spending appreciating what you do have, the one and only life you know you're going to get.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhamIdVbIM).

At the point where Matt says that sincere believers in Christianity should kill themselves, co-host Martin Wagner and the caller on the line both chuckle, simply because the absurdity definitely prompts a little chuckling. Matt proceeds quickly to explain that they are not actually calling for people to kill themselves. He said this to make a larger point, which can be made effectively in other similar ways. One good example is seen in the horrific case of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who in June of 2001 murdered her five young children in the sincere but delusional belief that it was better to kill them while young and below the age of spiritual accountability rather than allow them the opportunity to grow up and risk them potentially preferring sin over God, being held responsible and sent to hell [1]. Within the particulars of the religious doctrine that she firmly adhered to, this horrific act was the expression of a wholly rational conclusion. Within the confines of her delusional beliefs, what she did was the most logical and even loving thing to do. The problem was that her presuppositions and premises were wrong and obviously criminally insane.

In his video, ShockofGod, a rabid fundamentalist right-wing Christian, incorporates the narrow eight-second clip of Matt Dillahunty saying "If you really believed that that was the case, then you should kill yourself." He then goes on the following triumphant rant, taking this statement hilariously out of context and treating it as proof that Dillahunty hates Christians and wants them all to commit suicide:

Now did you hear that? That's bizarre! Look at it [zooming in to Matt Dillahunty]: the face of insanity. Let's rewind it; Now, I'm going to let you listen to it. Afterwards he says, "Now don't go do it," and this guy [zooming in to Martin Wagner] is cracking up laughing at the fact that Matt would say "Go kill yourself." This is unbelievable, and actually shouldn't even be allowed on YouTube because it's promoting suicide. But here we go, listen to this:

"If you really believed that that was the case, then you should kill yourself. Now hang on, hang on . . ."

Now, did you hear the guy laughing in the background? This is just madness, guys. I don't have time to go through all of it. They have another one where they're saying, "Well, what if hell isn't that bad?" And people are going to say they don't believe me on that, well here it is, look [screenshot of video and title]: "What if Hell isn't bad?" And they talk about how, you know, hell could be a wonderful place. I mean, it's just unbelievable! Unbelievable! So thank God you're not an atheist.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tami62FsHSQ).

Does ShockofGod realize how stupid and inane this is? Did he really not watch the rest of the clip? Perhaps he did, but those who are familiar with ShockofGod and the material he puts out will know that this vlogger will grasp at absolutely anything he can to defame atheists, which is what most of his 850+ videos are devoted to. He has approached the theism/atheism discussion with a presupposition, and his well has been deeply poisoned such that he is only capable of looking at everything one way. The fact is that Matt Dillahunty's only implication was that the logically sound decision to make if one is a Christian who believes that the value of mortal life pales in comparison to an eternal afterlife is to commit suicide. Unless, of course, there is a specific religious prohibition against it, such as the Catholics historically invented. ShockofGod's video falsely implies that atheists are saying, in effect, "All you Christians are vile, and we want you all to kill yourselves!" It is simply mind-blowing how anybody could think in the diminutive way this vlogger thinks and still be a functioning and competent person. But ShockofGod, like all other entrenched fundamentalists, can see only a red pointy tail, horns and a pitchfork when they look at atheists. This is very amusing on one level, and at the same time not amusing on another.

As atheists, we do not want any Christians to kill themselves. Indeed, the take-home message of Matt Dillahunty's statements is that theological consistency on the part of Christians is dangerous to their own well-being and that consequently such beliefs should be avoided. What we want is for Christians to start thinking for themselves. And is there any better demonstration of how unwilling or unable a person is to think for himself when he finds an edited YouTube clip and from it immediately assumes that there is an insane and evil person in Texas who is telling Christians to kill themselves? And even if Matt Dillahunty was in fact intending to say this, what possible difference should it make to anybody? If someone was posting blogs and videos on the Internet saying atheists should kill themselves, I for one cannot imagine getting angry or bent out of shape about it. My response would be little more than to remark on what a sad and pathetic individual such a person is, and to feel sorry that he or she was filled with hate. On the other hand, I do not know or associate with any atheists who are even moderately filled with hate. I am not saying some are not out there, but simply that I have never encountered such a person.

I have often been accused of hating Christians, so this is a good place to clear up this misunderstanding. What I actually despise are the doctrines and the actions that people take on behalf of those doctrines, not the people themselves. The aforementioned case of Andrea Yates is a prime example of what I despise, not who I despise. I do not hate my parents, for example, simply because they happen to disagree with me on every single issue related to the questions of gods, and I do not hate anybody else who happens to disagree with me on the question. On the other hand, there is a sizeable number of people who firmly believe that I and every other non-Christian deserve to be tortured forever in a lake of fire. This is a fate I would not condemn anyone to or wish on anyone!

Of course, Christians attempt to soften the doctrine of the deserved tortuous fate of unbelievers by saying that they deserve such a fate as well, but that their God's magnanimous grace and mercy is going to save them. They have convinced themselves that it is somehow less vile to state that it is not only unbelievers who deserve eternal torture, that we all deserve it and that they just happen to have been saved. And I could be saved as well! Why would I not want to be?

This twisted justification reminds me of a quote from anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Donald Symons that author Sam Harris references in his book The Moral Landscape, in which he attacks moral relativism from a secular perspective:

If only one person in the world held down a terrified, struggling, screaming little girl, cut off her genitals with a septic blade, and sewed her back up, leaving only a tiny hole for urine and menstrual flow, the only question would be how severely that person should be punished, and whether the death penalty would be a sufficiently severe sanction. But when millions of people do this, instead of the enormity being magnified millions-fold, suddenly it becomes "culture," and thereby magically becomes less, rather than more, horrible, and is even defended by some Western "moral thinkers," including feminists [2].

I could not agree with this reasoning more. The cultural practice Symons describes and the morally relativistic attitude of many ivory tower intellectuals in the West towards it are absolutely repugnant to me. But the selfsame mentality is in play when Christians tell me that they deserve to be eternally tortured along with me as a way of convincing themselves and me that they are not attacking me personally. What I am strongly objecting to is, in the words of Matt Dillahunty, "the fact that you've sacrificed your humanity, your dignity, your integrity on the altar of genuflecting servility to a corrupt moral policy that is entirely bankrupt and that is poisoning and polluting the planet."

Such is the nature of my objections as well. I still respect Christians as fellow human beings, and I enjoy and value the friendship of many Christians. But my optimism that people can change is all too often mistaken for hatred by people like ShockofGod. I am not eager for any Christians to die; they should have every right to live and enjoy their life. But there does exist a radical fringe that need to get out of the way so that human progress can be maintained.


Notes

1. Carol Christian; Lisa Teachy. "Yates Believed Children Doomed." Houston Chronicle 6 March 2002.

2. Sam Harris (2010). The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York: Free Press, p. 46.

The Unholy Bible: A Case Study in Obscene and Perverse Literature

Throughout history, people who have felt that their moral beliefs are superior to those of all who do not think and believe as they do have campaigned and crusaded to censor or destroy books, and more recently movies and music, as part of their declared mission to push their morality on everybody else. The primitive, medieval mindset that conceives and executes book burnings and book banning campaigns is still with us today, and signs of humanity outgrowing this childish and asinine mindset are unfortunately not forthcoming. However, I am convinced that if the Bible had hit bookstore shelves today as a new book that nobody had yet read, many of the same people who campaign to censor and destroy books all over the world would in fact be campaigning to burn and ban the Bible. My aim in this essay is to demonstrate that this is the case.

The Bible is X-rated and obscene, and this is simply irrefutable. In the pages of this revered book, we find vulgar, disgusting and vile passages about eating dung (Isaiah 36:10-13; II Kings 18:27; Ezekiel 4:12-15), divine threats to spread feces on the faces of those who fail to glorify God (Malachi 2:1-4), cannibalism, and human sacrifice. I provide representative examples of the latter two below.

Cannibalism - II Kings 6:24-30

In this passage, the city of Samaria is besieged by Benhadad the king of Syria, which results in a devastating famine in Samaria. Inflation continues to rise as the siege progresses, until a donkey's head is sold for eighty pieces of silver and quarter of "a cab of dove's dung" is sold for five pieces of silver. One day, as the king of Israel is walking upon a wall of the city, a woman cries to him asking for his help. The king tells her that if God is not able to help them, he certainly will not be able to, but then allows her to tell him her problem. The woman answers with this story: "This woman said unto me, 'Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.' So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son" (vv. 28-29).

According to this story, at least one woman resorted to killing, boiling and eating her own child because of a plague sent by God. This potently reflects the severity of the situation and the desperation to survive on the part of these women, although there is also a disturbing sense of relish in the way the report is delivered, betraying the voice of the writer of the narrative and not the despairing character herself. But it bears mentioning here that while there is a voluminous amount of creepy and disturbing content in the Bible, the biblical writer may in many such passages be trying to make a point or take a stand against what is being related. There are times in our hermeneutic approach when we must be careful to discern whether characters, events or concepts are being portrayed as good or evil [1].

However, the point I am trying to make here is a different matter. Whether or not, for example, the two women in this tale of cannibalism are villains not acting in accord with the will of the "good," the point is that any book would have been banned or heavily censored for this content if it were found in any other than the Bible [2].

Human Sacrifice - Judges 11:29-40

This account speaks for itself:

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon.

And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back." And she said unto him, "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon."

And she said unto her father, "Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows." And he said, "Go." And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

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Ezekiel 23 paints a potent metaphoric picture of the judgments levied against two harlots named Aholah and Aholibah (who represent Samaria and Jerusalem respectively). While both sisters commit spiritual adultery with the Assyrians, the younger sister Aholibah goes further and becomes a whore of Babylon. Verse 20 of this chapter describes Aholibah's paramours as being endowed with genitals the size of donkeys, and whose emissions are compared to that of horses: "For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses."

This verse is obviously obscene, vile and disgusting in terms of what is being described. Of course, the writer of Ezekiel is not portraying this as something good. But the context is irrelevant in this particular case. The point is that this verse is contained in the Bible, and I am not particularly interested in having the image as given in this verse impressed upon my mind's eye. But avoiding the image is difficult, because reading it compels me to wonder how the writer (and his audience) would even know how much ejaculate a horse produces. I suppose work done in animal husbandry would give one an idea of this, but there is certainly no reason this information should be included in a book that is claimed to be holy and inspired by the all-wise and all-knowing Supreme Being. Now, I do not support censorship of any kind. My only scruple here is in suspecting that very few people, myself included, have any interest in being privy to these details or in discussing them. It is nothing short of baffling to me that people joyfully and willingly hand this book to their children and believe that God will bless those who read it. There are sacrilegious and crude jokes on late-night HBO specials about religion that are far tamer than what is contained in this book.

Thomas Paine once stated that "any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system." He was referring specifically to the Bible in this statement, and he makes an excellent point. The Judaeo-Christian scriptures are frequently called the "Good Book" and the "Holy Bible," and a strong case can be made that those who refer to the book using these titles have not read the Bible in its entirety, if at all. After all, even Christians (both fundamentalist and moderate), do not follow the morality of the Bible any longer. Most Christians do not even know what is written in their own holy book, and would readily label as morally objectionable many of the concepts and actions endorsed in its pages if presented in any other context. How many Christians who believe the Bible to be their God's inerrant, infallible and unchanging guide to life have actually followed the Bible's command to take their children to the edge of town if they have been unruly and rebellious and stone them (Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9, Mark 7:9-13, Matthew 15:4-9)?

It is in light of these considerations that I find news stories such as the one below very fascinating by virtue of its extreme irony. This was reported by Reuters on May 16, 2007:

Hong Kong - More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as "indecent" due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible by noon Wednesday.

The complaints follow the launch of an anonymous Web site -- www.truthbible.net -- which said the holy book "made one tremble" given its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.

The Web site said the Bible's sexual content "far exceeds" that of a recent sex column published in the Chinese University's "Student Press" magazine, which had asked readers whether they'd ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.

That column was later deemed "indecent" by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, sparking a storm of debate about social morality and freedom of speech. Student editors of the journal defended it, saying open sexual debate was a basic right.

If the Bible is similarly classified as "indecent" by authorities, only those over 18 could buy the holy book and it would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice.

TELA said it was still undecided on whether the Bible had violated Hong Kong's obscene and indecent articles laws.

But a local protestant minister shrugged off this possibility.

"If there is rape mentioned in the Bible, it doesn't mean it encourages those activities," said Reverend Wu Chi-wai. "It's just common sense ... I don't think that criticism will have strong support from the public," he added [3].

The next time I hear Christians attack and seek to ban or censor any book, movie or music for containing rape or incest or some such thing, I will definitely be quoting the Reverend Wu Chi-wai, who obviously does not know his Bible. After all, the vast majority of books, movies and music that are attacked by Christians for these reasons do not encourage the activities depicted in any conceivable way. The even greater irony is that this cannot be said about the Bible.

Rape in the Bible

Rape is definitely found in the Bible, and not always in a negative light. There are in fact a number of passages in the Bible which, for all intents and purposes, not only implicitly endorse rape but actually instruct people to rape. For example, in Numbers 31, God commands Moses and his army of Israelites to kill everyone in Midian (all men, male children, every woman who has known a man and any child still in the womb) but "all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (v. 18). The intent behind this command is not for these girls to bake cookies for the Israelite soldiers! Further, the command is not simply "Thou shalt rape," but apparently that "Thou shalt statutorily rape."

One of the first questions that presents itself is how the soldiers were able to tell who was a virgin and who was not. Simply asking them surely would not have been a very reliable method, since most of the young women who had known a man would presumably catch on quickly enough to say they were virgins in order to avoid certain death. Virginity, it would seem, was never so popular as after that particular battle [4]. Numbers 31:35 gives the total number of virgins captured as booty as 32,000.

When Moses instructed his army to kill the Midianites, he was doing so as a messenger delivering the instructions of God himself (v. 1). Personally, I do not believe that any god exists; if this story actually took place (which I highly doubt), Moses came up with the instructions himself. But for those who believe that God exists and that the Bible is the literal truth by which this God reveals himself, a number of uncomfortable facts simply cannot be avoided: God first killed 24,000 of his own people with a plague in Numbers 25 (that story forms something of a prologue or backstory to the story in Numbers 31), then instructed Moses and his army to head out and destroy an entire tribe and city and to keep 32,000 virgin girls for themselves. God's murder of all the firstborn children of Egypt in Exodus pales in comparison to this, as well as to the destruction of hundreds of tribes and cities he facilitates throughout the Old Testament.

A more blatant and clear example is found in Deuteronomy 21:10-14:

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife: Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails. And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that, thou shalt go in unto her and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will, but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

Notice that what is described here does not take into account at all what the captive woman's wishes are or what her will is. The Israelite soldier has captured a woman, brought her to his house, given her a month to cry and moan over the death of her family at the hands of this man's army, only to have this man suddenly have sex with her (The term "go in unto her," in the original Hebrew, is a euphemism for sexual penetration). She then becomes his wife, and it does not matter what she might think of it. However, if the woman does not please her captor, he must then let her go wherever she wants, with the stipulation that he cannot sell her for money. The phrase "because thou hast humbled her" refers to the woman being humiliated, which is the reason provided for why she should not be sold as a slave. In other words, the man can fuck her but cannot sell her off if he does not enjoy the experience.

This should give pause to the careful reader. Imagine you are a woman whose people have all been killed, and you have been captured and forced to shave your head and clip your nails (to ensure that you will not be able to easily defend yourself, yet another reason why this passage is describing sanctioned rape). You have been allotted one month to mourn the loss of your family, after which your captor, who was in the army that killed your people, comes in and has sex with you. Are you going to make any effort at all to be good in bed? Would not your best course of action be to lie there like a limp rag so that the man is dissatisfied at the end and releases you? Of course, it is possible that the one-month mourning period given to the captive girl before being taken sexually may have been intended for a specific clever purpose. The fostering of what we today know as the Stockholm Syndrome may have been in mind, in which the prisoner comes to appreciate or even love their captors. Regardless, whether it be psychological or purely physical manipulation, the result is the same.

On the other hand, where was a captive maiden supposed to go if she was rejected? Presumably, she is in a strange and unfamiliar land. Even if she were to somehow find her way back to her own land, she would most likely not have a home to return to with her family imprisoned or killed.

In Deuteronomy 22:23-27, we find this gem of a law:

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her: Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife. So thou shalt put away evil from among you. But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her, shall die. But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing, there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

This law is fairly straightforward: If a betrothed virgin is seduced in the city, she is absolutely required to cry out. If she does so, that act constitutes rape. If she does not cry out, it constitutes consent and she is thus guilty of a crime punishable by death along with the man. Notice again the term "hath humbled," which refers to rape. But if they are outside the city, isolated from any other people, and the man forces himself onto the virgin, then only the assailant is to be stoned to death since there was no one around to hear the girl cry out.

This law is decidedly unjust, as it does not take into account a number of possible circumstances beyond a woman's control. If a woman is raped within city limits, she may be gagged by her assailant to render it impossible for her to cry out or threatened with even greater harm to render it dangerous to cry out. In either circumstance, the woman will still be condemned to death by stoning. Such a nonsensical law could surely not originate from an all-knowing, all-wise God.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is another example of equally shoddy law design:

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found: Then the man that lay with her, shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her: he may not put her away all his days.

In other words, if a man wants a woman and she does not want him, he can rape her and then subsequently buy her to be his wife as the penalty by paying fifty shekels of silver to her father. All the rapist has to do to get away with the act and score a wife is pay his victim's father. The woman in this situation is now not only property to be traded, but has no rights and no input. That which is specifically classified as rape even in this text has now become a viable means of ugly trolls obtaining an otherwise non-consenting and uninterested wife whom he cannot keep his penis out of.

To be as fair as possible, the viable means of getting away with rape and getting a wife at the same time may be an unintended consequence of very bad law design. The intent of the formulators of this law was most likely not to provide an incentive to rape, although this was a very probable result. From my informed point of view, the writers of this law had the mindset that once a woman has been raped by a man, no other man is going to want her because she is no longer pure. The best course of action in their mind was to allow the rapist to have his victim as wife for the price of fifty silver shekels. The point we can take from this instance of biblical law is that an all-knowing and all-wise God would certainly never devise such a statute [5].

Jesus' Temple Tantrum

The Bible-believer cannot hide or disguise these things by pointing out passages about turning the other cheek and the meek inheriting the earth (and why would those who are truly meek even want to inherit the earth?) The commonly-used retort that the Jesus of the Gospels disavowed Old Testament barbarism and made its obscene laws null and void is faulty as well. In Matthew 5:17-18, the words attributed to Jesus are: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

In direct contradiction to the very words attributed to him, Jesus is reported in the Gospels to have directly violated all manner of statutes laid out in the Mosaic law, especially those laws concerning the Sabbath. In addition, a number of passages in the Gospels give the lie to the notion that Jesus was a meek and mild sage with a gentle, shepherd-like disposition. The most striking example of this is the scene in John's Gospel in which Jesus makes a scourge and heads into the Temple to chase out all the money changers and the livestock. This story appears in all four of the Gospels, but in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), there is no mention of him actually making a scourge and using it as a tool to drive people out of the Temple. These three Gospels only mention Jesus overturning tables.

By contrast, John 2:15 describes the scene with this added detail: "And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the Temple, and the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables ..."

It is important to compare this account with the other three. The Synoptic Gospels' version of this story convey the distinct sense that Jesus' action was a spur-of-the-moment situation in which he simply became irate to the point of righteous anger and threw all the moneychangers out. But in John's account, Jesus makes his own scourge, and this takes a significant amount of time and premeditation. The implication of John's story is that Jesus had to become angry, stop what he was doing at the moment, leave to manufacture a cat o' nine tails, and then head back to the Temple to do his dirty work. It is fascinating to note that the original Greek word used to describe Jesus' scourge is phragellion, which literally means a "whip of rushes or ropes." This is the same Greek word used in Mark 15:15 and Matthew 27:26 (in the verb form phragellOsas) to describe the scourging of Jesus during his Passion ordeal. This is how we can be fairly certain that the writer of John's version of the temple cleansing intended to describe what has come to be called a cat o' nine tails when writing about Jesus' weapon of choice. If the reader has seen Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, he or she undoubtedly recalls Jesus' flesh being ripped to shreds by such a whip until being reduced to what looks in the film like hamburger meat. What damage might Jesus have wreaked on the people in the Temple with such a bloody device?

But there is even more to this story than I have so far unraveled. Most biblical historians agree that this act on the part of Jesus must certainly have been the deed that signed his death warrant. The Roman authorities and the priestly aristocracy on their payroll likely came to an agreement that this revolutionary had to be taken out of the picture [6]. If this incident occurred at all, it would have taken place in the form of a massive riot. The passage relevant to this striking detail is Mark 11:16, which reads: "And [Jesus] would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple." The vessels referred to here, which Jesus was not allowing any person to carry into the Temple, are sacrificial vessels. The Greek word translated "vessels" in this verse is skeuos, which specifies the sacred vessels that were used in the Temple. This means that Jesus must have had to commandeer all entrances to the Temple, which was more than three football fields in size! In order to carry out this cleansing, Jesus would have had bring in a large armed group, a small army even, and withstand the many Roman guards posted throughout the Temple at all times, precisely in case something of this nature should happen! After all, the national treasury was located in the Temple along with banking facilities, and thus would have attracted experienced criminals. S.G.F. Brandon, the late scholar of comparative religion, thus argued that the author of Mark's Gospel was attempting to tone down what must have been a violent military raid on the Temple by Jesus and his small army by portraying the event as one in which Jesus merely becomes irritated at the commercialism of petty traders [7]. This watered-down and sanitized portrayal accounts for the ubiquitous conception of this event as one in which Jesus throws over a few cardtables in a church basement rummage sale.

The apologist will be quick to point out that the account does not say that Jesus actually hit anybody or physically harmed them in any way. Perhaps he did not, but the odds speak differently in my estimation. If a man comes charging angrily into the Temple, backed by a small army and shaking what we today would call a cat o' nine tails, he would very likely have to hit at least one person in order to chase the lot of them away from their business. In fact, an individual or group effort to interfere with legitimate and necessary business transactions would be met by violent opposition immediately. But even if he did not strike a single person, it would certainly not have been for lack of intention, given the time and resources that went in to making the scourge himself. It is highly doubtful that he would have gone to that trouble if not to threateningly swing the whip around. Whether he struck anybody or not, this is certainly not what one would expect of a peaceful individual. Thus, there are discrepancies between the kind of person Jesus is portrayed to be in the Gospels and the kind of person Christians have traditionally understood him to be. John's version of the Cleansing of the Temple directly contradicts the doctrines we are accustomed to hearing from Christians when they preach about the "Prince of Peace."

Conclusion

Having explored the Bible as an example of obscene and perverse literature, we should conclude by asking ourselves if the Bible qualifies as good or great literature. My contention is that the Bible does not qualify as such. There is certainly fascinating content in the Bible, and that I do not deny. I have studied the Bible a great deal, and I highly enjoy these studies as an intellectual interest. Figuring out what ancient peoples and cultures believed and trying to gain a sense of what ideas the ancient writers of scriptures were originally trying to convey is an academic exercise I enjoy immensely.

That being said, it is simply undeniable that the Bible is an obscene and perverse book. Matt Dillahunty, president of the Atheist Community of Austin and host of The Atheist Experience show, has often issued the challenge I myself am about to put on the table and issue to anyone who disagrees with me on this point: If you believe the Bible is a good and wholesome book full of moral insight, will you allow me to read a Bible passage of my choosing to your young children?

I suspect I will never have any takers on this challenge. But if any dissenter does ever take me up on the challenge, I would have to decline to prove him or her wrong by reading an obscene passage. This is because I have far more respect for young children than their parents do who teach them that the Bible is perfect and should be their moral guide, and the last thing I want to do is pollute young minds with this garbage. Instead, I would most likely choose to read passages from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which was written by a non-believer and is by far the Bible's best book and my personal favorite. There are certainly parts of the Bible that may qualify as great literature (Ecclesiastes and several of the Psalms come to mind as examples). There are parts of the Bible that can enlighten, entertain and perhaps even raise one's consciousness level.

But considered as a whole, the Bible falls far short of the standard of great literature. And nobody needs the Bible for enlightenment, entertainment or consciousness-raising. These things can be gleaned from any number of authors who write inspiring works. Read any book by Mark Twain, for example, who never fails to deliver all three of these elements far better than anything found in the Bible. Speaking for myself, I learned far more inspiring and beautiful things from Voltaire and David Hume (the two philosophers with whom I identify the most) than I did from the Bible. Maya Angelou has written far better poetry than is found in the Psalms or Song of Solomon. Charles Darwin's seminal 1859 work The Origin of Species is of far greater importance than the Book of Genesis (or anything else in the Bible for that matter). Contrary to what many people think, Darwin wrote as far more than just a naturalist who collected scientific observations into a book. Darwin wrote surprisingly beautiful prose on the human condition and on his departure from belief in The Origin of Species. On this note, Darwin's autobiography is also a must-read.

Christians who revere the Bible and consider it to be the perfect work of God may confront me by asking who I am to pass judgment on God's book. Who am I to decide whether the "written word of God" is a good moral guide or not? In answering this question, I would like to adopt their framework of belief, to meet them where they stand, so to speak. According to the Bible, I am a creation of God and I was endowed by this God with a functioning brain. That is the reason I am justified in judging the merits of the book God allegedly authored and inspired. Moreover, every single Christian who asks me who I am to judge God and his word also judges their God. A consistent person simply cannot judge God's good actions and choose not to judge God's bad actions. This is called hypocrisy; what I aim to do is evaluate both the good and the bad, and make a reasoned determination from that evaluation. The reason most Christians are bound to object to this essay is because I have not limited my focus to the fluffy, feel-good elements of the "Holy" Bible.


NOTES

1. Many people who are quick to attack a work of literature for what they perceive to be offensive content fail to take into account the possibility that the author may be trying to portray the offensive content in a negative light, not in an endorsing manner but rather to portray such things as villainous or evil. For example, conservative Christians who attack J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series have often quoted a line from the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, as evidence that the books promote an amoral worldview: "There is no good and evil, there is only power." What they are either not aware of or are lying about is the fact that this line comes from Lord Voldemort, who is the main villain of the series!

2. Other biblical references to cannibalism include Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, Isaiah 9:19-20, 49:26, Jeremiah 19:9, Lamentations 4:10, Ezekiel 5:8-10, 24:10-12, Micah 3:2-3 and Zechariah 11:9.

3. Reuters, "Bible Drawn Into Sex Publication Controversy," Reuters 16 May 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSHKG26218320070516 (accessed 25 March 2011).

4. In the modern-day Christian subculture, pious young adults often take pacts to remain celibate until marriage, or even to remain celibate for good after becoming a born-again believer. For either case, a faith-based abstinence program called the "Silver Ring Thing" is marketed to Christian teens and young adults, who wear a silver ring on the ring finger of their left hand as a token and reminder of their vow to remain virgins. Seeing these rings on people now always makes me think of this Numbers 31 passage, rather than the I Thessalonians 4:3-4 passage that is inscribed on the rings.

5. A slight variation on this law is given in Exodus 22:16-17, which takes into account situations in which the father of the violated girl refuses to give his daughter to her seducer. In this case, paying a monetary price for the girl to be had as wife is still instituted as something the father must accept, but the price here is set as "according to the dowry of virgins" and not specified as fifty shekels of silver.

6. Mark 11:18: "And the Scribes and chief Priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine." In the very next verse, Mark adds the interesting note that Jesus left the city in the evening, clearly with the intention of avoiding inevitable nocturnal arrest. See also Mark 12:12.

7. S.G.F. Brandon, The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1968), pp. 83-85.