Note to commenters, critics, crazies, and Christians:
The following document is meant as humor, satire, and just plain foolishness.
It is consciously created fiction.
No rational person could think such things, could they?
But then there has been big time criticism of a wonderful billboard erected by Ernest Perce, Pennsylvania State Director for American Atheists
that tries to show that the bible is pro-slavery.
No kidding. See:
http://www.thegrio.com/news/atheist-groups-slavery-billboard-offends-african-americans.php
Hopefully, this explanation will keep the villagers from coming after me with pitchforks and torches.

(Note to Editor: All of the spelling herein is quite intentional;
it, and the rich vocabulary, is adapted from that of certain Holocaust Deniers. Edwin)

 

Is Black Slavery a Myth?

Noted historian Dr. Felix von Krautschimer has determined that the notion taught in history classes that black slavery once existed in the American South is a myth. “Yankee liberals invented the whole lying thing,” Krautschimer said at a recent talk at the Moore Centre for Clear Thinking in Sperm Bank, Georgia where he presented his controversiant antecaesarian artatype. .

The conundrumian revisional theory has aroused some obliquity against its creator from the usual suspects. But the Reverent Guilder Smelt, of the Mail Me More Money Miracle Mission Movement’s “7 M s Club,” conversely said Krautschimer is a “great American” who has “corrected bad history,” claiming “the detractors are just in it for the money and are in cahoots with evilness people and scum who like to agitate against those who love God and recognize the fallacy of the hyperbola.”

According to Rev. Smelt, “They have faked the evidence, going far enough to build fake chains and cabins and stuff along the river to make it look like there was something that we know wasn’t and couldn’t have been.”

It is expected that the controversy will not be settled early, in that schools have invested a lot of money in textbooks that make it look like white people once owned black people.

However, given the fact that science books are soon to be changed to conform to other more revealed truths, it has been proposed that perhaps just one textbook would do that covered all things students really need to know.

“We don’t need revised books,” said Smelt. “We need a reborn book. We need a whole new textbook that tells the truth for once.”

Stay tuned.

Edwin.

 

It is better than a burka. A lot better.
A very brave young freedom fighter, Aliaa Elmahdy, has stunned the world that gave us burkas by appearing naked on the Internet. Then by putting out a calendar of naked women.
Sexist? Hardly. This is a strike at the heart of religious nonsense and control.
http://www.dailydot.com/news/aliaa-elmahdy-egypt-nude-photo-revolutionary/
http://www.feeldesain.com/aliaa-elmahdy-nude-revolutionary-girl.htm

 

Today March 8th is International Women’s Day (IWD). See:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day

 

Here is Aliaa:

 

http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/?zx=c672ff5bb7b187b6

 

And here (censored) is what may well become one of the most important photographs to emerge from the current struggle between freedom and those who want to wrap up women and thought and to keep them under wraps.

Way to go Aliaa!

 

 

Stay tuned. We will be hearing a lot more about this, I think.

 

 

Edwin
Edwin Kagin

Edwin.

Edwin Kagin ©

An op-ed in the New Your Times is friendly to Rick Santorum and says he merely recounted what lots of Americans think about how religion should control our government.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/rick-santorum-isnt-crazy/?emc=eta1

Brother Santorum, who wants to be President of the United States, was actually quite graphic. He said the very idea that America has separation of church and state makes him want to vomit.

Remember when American Atheists and some named plaintiffs sued over the World Trade Center “cross” being moved onto public land with public money? In their original complaint plaintiffs said that the idea of this artifact going into the World Trade Center museum gave them dyspepsia.

The media went crazy with ridicule. “It gave the plaintiffs a stomach ache,” they mocked.

So church and state coming together and causing gastric distress is funny. But wanting to vomit because of efforts to keep church and state separate is okay.

It is too crazy to contemplate in any rational way.

So here is my poem

 

Miscegenation Law

Never let the Church and State
Get close enough to meet and mate;
For the safety of our nation
Prohibit this miscegenation;
Keep Church far from the bed of State;
Separate their greed and hate;
Abstinence is what they need
Or the monsters they will breed
Will mongrelize both law and creed.
Never let Church marry State—
Do not even let them date.

Edwin Kagin (c)

Priest Alert: They Aren’t Just After Your Kids Anymore. (part III)

The scariest thing about the most recent nonsense wherein a candidate for President of the United States has announced that he does not think there should be a separation of church and state—read that “of government and religion”—in our country is that a lot of Americans seem to agree with him.

This may be what happens when you quit teaching Civics in public schools. Kids in school now do not know what a floppy drive is, or was, and they certainly do not know much about just why, and just how, our nation was formed.

For some time now, the Religious Right has been trying to get rid of public schools so vouchers can be approved so children can go to the religious school of their parents’ choice. Quit having class in Phys Ed, Geography, Math, Evolution, and cut out music programs, and before too long a self-fulfilling prophesy will be achieved and, because the public schools are producing morons who cannot cipher or think critically about anything, people will accept vouchers.

This is the way religion can create a theocracy. Little bite by little bit. And before too long, the Priests are making all of the rules. The inmates will be running the asylum. Faith based programs will pick up, and before too long churches will be running the country. Fundamentalist Protestants know this, and the Catholic Church well understands—better than the poor dumb Protestants whom the brilliant minds of the church have managed to persuade to take their side on the question of abortion. All so that the infallibility of the Pope on the issue of abortion can be upheld and no longer challenged. The church has been there before and religionists have learned how to avoid certain mistakes that may make citizens not want to trust their priests.

Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. And church and state became one. The Holy Roman Empire was born.

A thousand or so years of religious rule then came to pass, in what we call the “Dark Ages.”

Our nation has been infected by a bad dose of religion. Australia got the convicts, and we got the Puritans. And today we suffer from their influence on our lives and government.

But to put fundangelical ideas to work in the government of our country is not only highly unwise, such is also screamingly unconstitutional.

Our founders knew what horrors could be wrought by religion. The hanging of women in Salem who were shamefully convicted of the imaginary crime of being witches is only one example. Read “The Crucible” for horrifying details.

I do not intend to provide a list of black collar crimes and religious horrors. This history is easily accessible, so far anyway, and we need not correct or refute some Jesuits who are posing as atheists on these pages to tell us just what is wrong about our clear understanding, not only of the truths of their faith that are seen as bad and wrong, but as to the true truths about their faith.

The Catholic Church has already paid out huge amounts of money in settlement of lawsuits brought against it alleging that priests of the church have committed unspeakable crimes against children.
If gold rust, what will iron do?

Would the Church have settled these cases if the facts were on their side?

Do Americans need to learn the hard way just why we have a First Amendment? The first words of the Bill of Rights are: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” That was not added without reason.

Note that it prohibits “establishment of religion,” not “establishment of a religion.” That is really important.

As before in this rant, please understand this is all satire and humor directed at an imaginary evil. Isn’t it?

This writing contains exactly 666 words. Neat, huh?

Edwin Kagin © 2012.

The rule of law held, and Roman Catholics who had been excluded from our new republic, and its guarantees that one may believe or not as they choose, gave way to welcome Catholics, and persons of any other religious flavor, to the land that had made real the Enlightenment vision that government can be, and should be, run without approval from any religion or religious authority.

There still remained a fear that if a Catholic was elected President of the United States, the will of the church would be revealed to that Catholic President and that this President would then subordinate our Bill of Rights to the dogma of the church.

Until John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President of the United States.

Here is what Kennedy said to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960:

“But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured–perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again–not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me–but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish–where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source–where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials–and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew–or a Quaker–or a Unitarian- -or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim–but tomorrow it may be you–until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end–where all men and all churches are treated as equal–where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice–where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind–and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe–a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

(Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2000/09/I-Believe-In-An-America- Where-The-Separation-Of-Church-And-State-Is-Absolute.aspx#ixzz1oGc07Ex0)

So, then enter Presidential candidate Rick Santorum who says that Kennedy’s statement on church/state separation makes him want to vomit.

Clearly Rick Santorum is no Jack Kennedy.

Article VI of the Constitution of the United States says: “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

What part of “no” don’t they understand?

Why is someone who speaks treason even given audience by liberty loving Americans?

Let us say the view became popular and implemented that some god’s laws could completely trump laws made by sober people in serious contemplation of real consequences.

If one is a church, then that church gets to get away with a great multitude of things that would get those not so attached to a church thrown in jail for awhile.

It’s simple. Your churches make their own rules and the civil authorities stand powerless before them.

If your church rule says it is okay to have sex with children, well “that’s that” said the grammarian. Secular authority that wants to give everyone “equal protection of the laws” will not interfere. So long as We the People put up with this, black robed evil will continue.

And if the laws of god control, please fantasize a world where those who do not believe are seen as enemies of the state. How could atheists possibly be pleasing to god? Therefore, god must be angry because we permit that which annoys him.

How to fix this? Get rid of the atheists. Let the priests tell you what laws you should make, break, or follow.

Then the priests will not just have your children. They will have you and everything you own as well.

 

Remember, all of this monologue is only humor and satire.

 

Edwin Kagin.

Some years ago in Philadelphia, center of the birth of America and its freedoms, I was shown a “safe house” for Catholics who came to these shores, during colonial times, when they were not welcome to do so. Seems liberty loving Protestants thought an influx of Roman Catholics to America would endanger the very freedoms the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the spirit of religious freedom, and the right to have no religion, a right our nation was set up to protect and defend.
It was amazing. How, thought I, could our founders, who wanted religious freedom, possibly fear Catholics and want to exclude them from our shores?

It was feared, at that time, that, with a sufficient number of Catholics in place, the Roman Catholic Church could perhaps take over our government and take away the right of the people to choose which, if any, religion they wanted to follow, without interference by the powers of the state. This principal is known as “separation of church and state,” and is a basic tenet of our freedoms.

Rick Santorum may be unique among politicians for his forthright admission that he wants the United States to be run by his religion. Usually, they tap dance around their true intent. But not Rick. He doesn’t see us as a nation of laws; he sees us as a nation of sins.

And we now have priests and bishops of the Catholic Church telling people for whom, and for what, to vote.

Legislators who are members of the church are subjected to being condemned by the priests to eternal damnation unless the elected representatives vote as the church demands. How can this be seen as anything other than a criminal attempt to intimidate elected officials?

According to reports, the Catholic Church is getting tooled up for the American Religious Civil War (ARCW) by finding lawyers to argue that a takeover of the government by the church is not a violation of church/state separation.

While crying to keep big government out of our lives, the theocrats pass laws telling people what they can and cannot do with their sex organs, and who they can and cannot marry.

And, even more frightening, they tell our lawmakers that the rights of the unconceived need to be protected. And this, in their view, is morality.

In that this monograph is only humor and satire, as are any to follow, and in that everything said is my personal opinion, those who call atheists evil, deranged, depraved, and dangerous really have no cause to complain.

It is time to be afraid and it is time to do something while we still can.

It is my opinion that the church rulers really could not care less about the rights of a fetus or about who marries whom. What they appear to care about is power. Good old raw power. Banks, land, hotels and other buildings, gold, and cash.

Once they have taken over by getting laws passed making absurdities true and giving themselves complete power, they will no longer care what happens to the frozen embryos they were saving before those collections of cells became people by legal actions enforcing the Church’s understanding of divine decrees.

If the Catholic leadership wants to have input into laws, let them pay taxes like others not so blessed. Let them pay taxes on their real estate and on their gilded wealth.

Why should those who neither sow nor reap dine for free at the table reserved for “We the People?”

And if the Catholic Church has an embassy in our country and states that it is an independent country subject only to its own laws and rules, then why are its agents, the priests and bishops of the church, not subject to having to register as foreign lobbying agents attempting to influence our legislation?

And just why, pray tell, is it not treason to advocate ignoring our Constitution and laws to be able to do what one wants?

The answer appears to be that they can do it because they are the Church.

Time to straighten out some things.

Edwin Kagin
© 2012.

Tomorrow is the second Friday of “Lent.”  Lent is very important to Xians, particularly Xians of Roman Catholic persuasion.  Every Friday of every Lent, I try to go to a Catholic fish fry.  Such are held all over the place in Catholic churches.  Some of these feasts are better than others.  I try to go to a different one each Friday of Lent.  The Friday just before Easter is “Good Friday.”  A fish fry eat out would not seem respectful when one should be suffering thinking of the “passion” of Jesus being crucified, so they aren’t conducted that Friday.  Anyway, you should know the rest.  In any case, here we present:

ON EASTER

The things you are liable to read in the Bible, they ain’t necessarily so. Porgy and Bess

Easter is the High Holy Day of the Christian religion. In its many manifestations, Easter celebrates the myth of the reanimation from death of the god Jesus, aka the Christ. Like its womb mate Christmas, Easter is a marvelous blend of Christian and non-Christian nonsense. The Christian side is represented by “Handel’s Messiah” and hot cross buns (a seasonal pastry with a sugar cross on it) and the non-Christian nonsense side by “In Your Easter Bonnet…” and hunts for Easter Eggs (dyed boiled eggs in the shell–laid, young minds are taught to believe, by rabbits. Some hold the rabbits don’t lay the eggs, only deliver them. What do you think?).

To understand the phenomena of Easter, one must understand the Christian “Gospels.” These four small propagandist tracts, written long after the supernatural fact, by unknown authors who did not know Jesus, contain the only known evidence for the existence of Jesus. Believers will argue other historic proofs, but these are provable forgeries added centuries later by pious priests who copied or translated Jewish, Roman and Greek texts. If the ancient writers had deliberately omitted Jesus merely because they had never heard of him, this error was often fixed for later Christian editions. The only evidence for Easter beliefs comes from the gospels.

Here’s a neat bible study exercise for non believers. It will help you learn something of the Christian belief system and will prove useful in the American Religious Civil War when believers try to force you to play in their sandbox. Read all four gospels and, including every fact contained within them, write a concise, non-contradictory chronology of what happened between the time Jesus was crucified on a stake (the Greek word translates “stake” not “cross”–tell that to your preacher and watch him ring them bells) and the moment he went up to Heaven. Then you will know what Christians believe. To make the challenge more exciting, be sure to include facts, for the same time frame, from “The Acts of the Apostles” and from the letters of Paul. Paul really got Christianity going. He claimed to have seen Jesus after Jesus had gone to Heaven. Lots of people believed him. Lots of people believed Joseph Smith too. Joseph Smith wrote “The Book of Mormon” and claimed an angel helped him translate buried gold plates the angel later reburied. At least Paul had honest delusions.

The reason the death of Jesus is of importance to Christians is because if they believe Jesus died for their sins they get to live forever with him when they die. Because Jesus survived death, believers will too. Somehow Jesus’ “sacrifice” doesn’t seem like such a big deal, being a god and all, and getting to come alive again after being dead only one day and two nights. Many people have died for others and have stayed dead. There should be no shortage of volunteers willing to die to save everyone forever and be worshiped as a god if they could come alive again after being dead between Friday evening and Sunday morning.

Once you finish the bible stories about Jesus, you may well wonder how anyone could believe this stuff, and you should understand why the events were omitted from every other history of that time. When Jesus died on the stake, the bible reports that dead people came out of their graves (whether decomposed or not isn’t revealed), walked around the city and were recognized by many. This should have provoked some interest by the scandal sheets of the day, but no other reference is found of it. We might wonder if the risen dead sued to get their property back from their useless heirs.

You will note from your Easter biblical studies that the primary witness to the resurrection of the Christ was one Mary Magdalene, a woman thought to be a prostitute who had been possessed by seven demons, i.e., she was nuts. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the risen savior of the world had appeared in all his glory to the Roman Senate where literate rational humanists could have recorded an accurate account of this miracle? Why have your immortal soul hang in the balance on less than credible evidence? Should one accept that laws of nature have been broken and that a dead body has come alive again on the word of a deranged hooker? Would a just, rational, compassionate god condemn one to eternal torment for doubting such evidence? Clearly the Senate, or even a meeting of the Aqueduct Committee, would have been a better place to break the good news of salvation.

But we are not dealing with a rational god or even decent moral behavior in the Easter story. The god the myth says was the father of Jesus believed in child sacrifice. Previously content with blood drained from the slashed throats of sheep, goats and such, god needed more gore to save everyone. He wanted his own kid killed as a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world. This is what little children (kids) are taught in Sunday School (that’s where Christians violate the Fourth Commandment by worshiping on the first day of the week instead of the seventh as god ordered–no wonder we are in such trouble).

But if child murder for the sins of others isn’t bad enough, consider this. Christians celebrate the death and rebirth of the god Jesus in a grotesque cannibalistic ritual of (symbolically if Protestant; for real if Roman Catholic) eating his flesh and drinking his blood! This bizarre custom is known as “Holy Communion”–dare we call it “swallow the leader?”

If Jesus rose from the dead, and if he went to Heaven, and if Heaven is outside the known universe, and if the laws of nature invented by god apply to god, then Jesus could not travel faster than the speed of light. If he left for Heaven two thousand years ago, he isn’t there yet, and won’t be there for some time. Therefore, we really need not concern ourselves at this point about his return to earth. Presumably he will return sometime after he gets there.

So now you know about Easter. You will probably be a happier and better adjusted human being if you stick to the Easter Parade and pass on the eating of human flesh and blood. And please remember that this disgusting rite is practiced in buildings owned by Christian groups who do not have to pay taxes on their property or income.

And the next time some un-American lunatics want to have forced Christian prayer in public schools, tell them you are a spiritual vegetarian.

Happy Easter.

Edwin Kagin ©

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord… Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV).

…for there is one God; and there is none other but he… Mark 12:32 (KJV).

Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about
you… Deuteronomy 6:14 (KJV).

…in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit… Words of art contained in miscellaneous Christian blessings, baptisms, benedictions, etc.

Unitarians, it is said, believe that at most there is one god. Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian. He wrote our Declaration of Independence. Various Unitarian churches are named after him, e.g., “Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church.” “Unitarianism” is considered a heresy by other Christians who view themselves as “Trinitarians.” In that this difference of supernatural opinion has proved at least as important to human progress as the much warred over issue of whether soul-saving baptism is best accomplished by dunking or by sprinkling, and in that this controversy over the nature of the godhead has led to much bloodletting, has caused much human misery, and could well prove useful for secular humanists in surviving the ARCW, the dispute merits some consideration.

Popular mass religious culture holds that monotheism– the belief that there is only one god– was introduced into human thought by the Jews of the Old Testament, and was rarified and glorified in the New Testament by Jesus, the Christ. It is widely, and uncritically, believed that the idea of there being only one god was original to the Judeo-Christian tradition (whatever that is) and that this “monotheism” clearly demarcates Jews and Christians from lesser breeds who hold to the more primitive eschatological (maybe “ontological,” but certainly metaphysical–it’s hard to keep this nonsense straight) view that there are many gods. As with much religious belief, it just ain’t so. And kindly refrain from yelling that one who points these things out is engaging in “religion bashing.” Your author didn’t make the facts. If he had, they would be quite different from what they are.

The sad truth is that the Jews of the Torah, like most people of the time, clearly believed there were many gods. A notable historic exception was the Egyptian heretic pharaoh Ikhnaton (or Akhenaton). His belief in one god got him murdered by priests who made their money from the old time religion–it is comforting to know there are some absolutes. The point of the “covenant” with Abraham, Moses, et al, was that Yahweh (Jehovah, God, I Am That I Am, or whatever) agreed to be the god of the Hebrew people, and they agreed that he was to be their god. Sort of a contract–one that might read, “Out of the many gods, other people can have their god or gods, but you will be our god, and we will be your people.” Thus, in the Ten Commandments (second edition, of course), it is decreed, in the very first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Similarly, the second commandment (the one about not making graven images), states, in pertinent part, “…for I the Lord thy God am a jealous god…”

There is nothing here about this god being the only god. The other gods could stand side by side with him, but should not be before him. Further, he is a “jealous” god. Jealous of what? Of the other gods, of course. And he has reason. Much of the Old Testament involves the children of the covenant worshiping other gods. They were doing it even as Moses was getting the ten commandments. If they believed there was only one god, why were they worshiping a golden calf? Because they knew there were lots of gods, that’s why, and they were trolling for a better god than the god of their covenant. A great deal of holy ink is spent on god asserting himself as the god of Israel. He has contests with other gods. He is as paranoid about protecting his position as Superman is about protecting his secret identity. None of this competitive zeal would have been necessary if the Hebrews truly believed there was only one god, i.e., him. By the time the stories of the bible made the bible, the Jews had no doubt convinced themselves that there is in fact only one god. The Christians were not so sure.

Jews, in general, follow the teachings of the bible better than Christians. They celebrate the Sabbath on the Sabbath, as god ordered; Christians do not–they celebrate it on Sunday, without a whit of biblical justification for ignoring god’s orders. Jews also rather carefully follow the proscription against making or worshiping graven images. Christians apparently don’t think this commandment is very important, as they peddle religious statutes of every possible variety (the more offensive ones can be found at any decent redneck truck stop). Roman Catholics deal with the problem by leaving the commandment out of their bible. Getting one god out of many took greater creativity.

If there is ever a contest to choose history’s worst villain, the award might well go to the emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. In 325 C.E., he convened a council at the city of Nicaea to stop Christian squabbling over the nature of god and to establish once and for all, by majority vote, what Christians must believe to be saved. Seems there was much argument over whether god was one person or three.

The council produced a remarkable document known as “The Nicene Creed.” It remains the official statement of Christian faith recited every Sunday in many Christian churches. Some Protestant churches use a simplified version known as the “Apostles’ Creed.” Both versions reject the idea of one god while claiming to embrace it. Simply put, the doctrine, and “mystery,” of the “holy trinity” holds that while there is in fact only one god, he consists of three distinct, yet indivisible parts: “God the Father,” God the Son,” and “God the Holy Spirit.” Or, in choir boy humor, “Daddy-O, J.C., and Spook.” If it made sense, there would be no need for faith to believe it. This is true of many religious doctrines. After Nicaea, the belief in only one unitary god, instead of the triune god, became a heresy that could get you killed. And we dare call the priests who wasted Ikhnaton heathens. See now why Thomas Jefferson, the Unitarian, didn’t want an official religion?

The logical gymnastics of the trinity is but one example of the discomfort Christians experience in trying to believe in one god. They also believe in angels, the Devil (Satan, etc.), demons, and all manner of disembodied occupants of the spirit world. There are “legions” of them. Many are prayed to as “saints” and are asked to intercede with god on behalf of the believer, e.g., “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

Now just what is a “god?” A god is any supernatural personage that isn’t a living human being. In other words, one is, if not an animal, either a human or a god. Clever attempts at creating subdivisions among immortals, while maintaining there is only one god, simply don’t work. While believers want to believe in one god, they really can’t. A single god would have to embody contradictory attributes, like good and evil, male and female (does god the father have both male and female DNA?). In that this is impossible, at least in Western thought, believers invent good gods and bad gods, just like the heathen do. If attempts to argue this is in fact monotheism prove unbelievably absurd, the problem can be easily corrected by calling any contradiction a “mystery.”

The only real mystery is why adults give this matter any serious attention at all.

Edwin F. Kagin

“A Republic, Madam—If you can keep it.”
Attributed to Benjamin Franklin,
in response to a question a woman is said to have asked him,
in the late 18th Century C.E., regarding what kind of government the
Constitutional Convention had established for their newly created nation,
The United States of America.

There are lots of different methods available to operate nations. Democracy is one of them. And democracy is a rather recent and highly unreliable form of government. Democracy is an upstart newcomer in the pantheon of national gods. The oldest, and most reliable, form of government is that of an absolute dictatorship run by one person, usually male, with the necessary backing of a loyal priesthood. This priesthood, if not forcing the common folk to worship the ruler as a god, represents the ruler to the people of the nation as either the living embodiment of a god, or as one whose authority to rule over all others of the nation comes directly from a god. King by the Grace of God.

This is the method of government set up, recognized, endorsed, and encouraged by that grouping of legal and literary writings and myths collectively known as “The Holy Bible.” Keep this in mind when chatting with those—sadly growing in number—who would have it that our land of freedom, our America, be “restored,” to “biblical values.”

But we just might not be all that happy with these biblical values. Democracy is not mentioned in the bible. The concept was unknown. The very idea of it would have been rejected. It would have been thought to be a notion as absurd as permitting women to make laws or to rule over men. The practice of voting had not evolved in those times, when there was no air conditioning or computers, when people thought dreams foretold the future, and believed the only way humans could know right from wrong was if some god gave them the rules and the priesthood of the god explained the rules to them. The closest thing to “voting” was choosing a thing, or someone to do something, “by lot.” This was a form of gambling, where each candidate might, for example, put the name of a thing, or their name on an object, like a stone or piece of wood, and one object, with the thing or the name on it, would be selected in some manner by chance alone. God was credited with providing the outcome, a result every bit as reliable as predicting the future by looking at the guts ripped with a knife out of the belly of a sheep. The idea of a jury is not found in the bible either. Nor is that of “due process of law.” Neither “compromise” nor “humanity” appear in the King James Version of the bible—the only bible used by fundangelicals until recently, when they discovered that their beloved good King James was, in life, a homosexual.

But I digress, and my editors are stern.

A totalitarian form of government works because of the Golden Rule. The one with the gold makes the rules. And that person has absolute power over everyone else. If one disagrees, one can be killed. Simple, effective, and stable. Our American democracy has thus far survived a little more than two hundred years. And in that short time has seen a Civil War that all but destroyed its delicate fabric. And we now face another crisis of division that could destroy us. More of this in a moment. By contrast, consider that the ancient Pharaonical government of Egypt was measured, not in hundreds, but in thousands of years. There was as much time between the first king of Egypt and Pharaoh Ramses II as there has been time between Ramses II, who died in 1314 B.C.E., and the November, 2000 Presidential Election. This fact should cause us to pause. For the latter event threatens to put our infant democracy as inexorably into the category of history past as other little understood events consigned to memory the kingdoms of those who prayed to Ra rather than to Jehovah for those fortuitous events of history they were pleased, when random chance operated in their favor, to call “miracles.”

Government by decree requires only that the one doing the decreeing have the ability—make that the power—to enforce the decree on those who might disagree with the decree, and if need be, to see to the elimination of those who disagree with, or disregard, the decree. Safety comes from obedience. Just as one can know what is right and what is wrong by relying on the safety of the certainly of obeying the law of the god. Obey or die. Simple, effective, easily enforced, and easily understood. To be free, you see, you need to obey the decree. As the church song puts it, “Trust and obey / For there’s no other way / To be happy in Jesus / Than to trust and obey.”

Democracy puts a bit of a kink in this straight and true path to the way citizens conduct their lives. This is something the fundangelicals of our free land have never understood. Their biblically endorsed forms of government simply cannot be reconciled with the idea of democracy that is foreign to their scripture. One cannot both obey authority and chart their own way. This is why, no matter what they think or teach, religious authoritarians really don’t believe in the concept of separation of state and church that was, and is, so central to the American experiment.

Democracy requires that those who participate in it be, to a degree at least, of one mind. The citizens of a democracy must all accept certain ill defined basics if this new experiment in human affairs of governing one’s selves has any chance at all of working. Happily, much of the time this is so. Thus, we have been free of the revolutions and civil conflicts that too often attend the transfer of power in lesser countries. By the processes of democracy and the democratic vote, and by accepting the will of the majority, we have become, in our short history, both great and unique among the parliament of nations.

But there are dangers; there have been, and are, fearful portents and omens. The Liberty Bell did crack into ruin when first it was rung. We did have a great Civil War. This bloodiest and most disastrous conflict in our nation’s brief history occurred when we were but “four score and seven” years. Now that we are not yet seven score years distant from that national disaster and shame, we are again threatened. And the threat is now, as the threat was then, a dagger aimed at the very beating heart of our democracy.

We have accepted a working illusion, an operational definition that has kept our republic afloat longer than expected by its detractors. This is because we as a nation attempted to live by our motto, E pluribus unum, “One out of many.” Sadly, in the 1950s, the unworkable “In God We Trust” replaced this motto and things haven’t been right since. Our Ship of State may, like other crafts that lacked the wit to survive, be destroyed while attempting to pass safely between the Scylla and Charybdis of our divided land’s oppositional perceptions of the world. These worldviews may be understood as a conflict between those who believe in humanism and those who do not. Our democracy thus far, and not unproblematically, has been able to accommodate those who truly believe in democratic principals and those who really, whether they know it or not, want us to be ruled by authority, by gods and kings of their choosing.

This was what our Civil War was really all about. We were then, and we are now, two countries. Two nations, divided by a common language, forced by our democracy to live in unhappy harmony under the loosely stitched together tents of two very different ideologies. This is true despite the seeming need of each side to mouth much the same god talk. During our Civil War, both sides claimed god was on their side. Lincoln then observed that both sides may be, and one side must be, wrong. Deep down, these two sides truly hate each other. Somehow, with the exception of our Civil War, that is still not over, that is still far from resolved, we have managed to keep safe from one another with the mutual acceptance of an uneasy peace. Until now.

The American Religious Civil War (ARCW), that was foretold, and has been reported upon, in these pages now threatens to destroy us, in consequence of an election so close that the voters of our democracy cannot agree on who won. This time the winners were not so clear that the losers could with honor fain the patriotism of acceptance and the humility of acquiescence to the public will. As we fractionate, each faction increasingly fears and distrusts the honor and motives of the other. Each side believes the opposition has cheated them of their rightful votes in an attempt to steal the election of our President and to pervert their democracy. At this writing, each side is in the courts, invoking the rule of law, our secular god, on behalf of their position. The only certainty is that without this rule of law, that we all have agreed, and must continue to agree, to accept, there will be nothing left to save. Should the judgment, the final decision, of the rule of law not be accepted by all sides… .

Apart from the clear and present danger of such a situation, it is truly high humor. Aristophanes would have loved it.

The ancient tensions and hatreds are straining at the tethers of civilization. And, as of this report, we do not know what end will come. There is little sign of compromise or restraint. There is mass confusion concerning just how the casting and counting of votes really operates. People are seeing defects that have been forever present, but, until now, not generally known. And moronic legal interpretations and opinions are creating a great pooling of shouting ignorance. Fanned by the public press, much shrill talk is shoving aside reason and legal knowledge. The ordinary citizens (peasantry in an earlier age) are already in the streets with signs. Soon they may come with pitchforks and torches.

That which could happen is too fearful to contemplate.

If it does not happen, which is likely, that which did not destroy us may strengthen us.

If it does happen, we will become a footnote to history. We will be one with Ramses.

It may be that we really do need two countries. Then, we of like mind can live in peace and harmony, and those others will have to get passports to come in. Relocating everyone should be easier that straightening out this voting mess. Surely we will be happier. After all, those on our side get along with each other, for we understand things in much the same ways. I think our country should be in the mountains, with woods, ponds, streams, and cool mornings. My Helen, for some reason, thinks it should be by the ocean, where it is hot, salty, barren, sandy, and full of sand fleas. Can you believe such irrationality?

Just hope the rule of law holds.

Edwin Kagin

KAGIN’S COLUMN

Edwin F. Kagin is a lawyer poet. He believes that, through grace and faith,
this will be a regular column and, if events are predestined, that whatever
he believes makes no difference whatsoever. He can be reached in care of
this publication, or through e mail at: [email protected]
Permission for non-profit reproduction is given, so long as credit is given,
so the villagers will not go after the wrong person with pitchforks and torches.

ON THE DISPOSAL OF HUMAN REMAINS

Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go. humorous tombstone

Today’s cheery topic treats what to do with your carcass when you are dead. Like it or not, one day you will have to be disposed of. Animals don’t make a fuss of this fact; they go off and die. Humans, believing they are better than animals, invent religions. The prime motive of most religions is to create a myth about some kind of individual continuance after all electrical activity in the brain stops and the organism starts to rot. As the old preacher put it, “Brothers and sisters, this is only the shell; the poor nut has gone.” Where the nut has gone is a matter of much debate, as is the problem of what to do with the shell. Some religions believe the body must be buried, others hold it must be burned. Take your choice.

Traditional Christian human remains disposal involves burying the corpse in a box in the ground. Bodies were to be laid East to West, so the dead flesh could rise to great Christ who is coming from the East. No kidding. Christianity teaches a bodily resurrection and an ascent of the reanimated cadaver to heaven. The Bible says nothing about humans possessing an “immortal soul.” You can win bets with believers on this point. Them bones are to rise again. The ghoulish, and those who have witnessed autopsies, may wonder how those who slept in the graves will get by with the brain, heart, lungs, intestines and other really important stuff removed and thrown away. And mystical indeed will be the rebirth of the decapitated — say a saint like Sir Thomas More whose body is in one place and whose head was stuck on Traitor’s Gate. Ah, the mysteries of faith. What of those who died in Christ in explosions or carnage that converted living flesh to mangled roadkill? What of the woman whose murderer husband ran her dismembered body through the wood chipper? Will those whose bodies are cremated to ashes in a fiery furnace yet in the flesh see God? So goes the belief. The Book of “Job” says yes, even if the carcass is eaten up by worms, you will see God in your bodily form. The age you will be isn’t revealed. Maybe you get to choose.

Persons planning to be buried should understand that no grave on earth is anything other than a present or future crime scene or archaeological site. Eventually, someone will dig you up for saleable goodies or for information your burial stuff and postmortem analysis can reveal about your time. Or your grave can be scooped away to make room for a subdivision to house the children of the “life what a beautiful choice” movement. The greatest tombs of the greatest kings, designed to be secure for eternity, were magnets for thieves who weren’t fooled by myths of curses. You can stroll through the burial chamber of a pharaoh, stripped by tomb robbers centuries before archaeologists put the living god’s remains in a glass case in a museum. Native American sacred burial grounds, and even Civil War graves, are being plundered by the irreverent, who sell the honored dead’s tools and belt buckles at flea markets. One third of all the people who ever lived on earth are alive today. If everyone is buried, eventually there will not be space available for both the living and the dead. Guess who wins that argument.

You could donate your body to a medical school for dissection by students, but there are usually more than enough dead incompetents to satisfy this need. The best way to get rid of your burdensome dead body is to burn it up. Crematorium ashes are sterile and far easier to dispose of than decaying meat and bone. The ashes can be scattered somewhere, cast into a bust of yourself (to be sold at some future garage sale), put in a decorative vase, or used to plaster the wall or provide variety in the cat box. Your then heirs can be creative. It doesn’t matter — for you won’t be there. The Bible says, “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.” Ecclesiastes 9:4-5, by God. How the foregoing can be reconciled with the notion of life after death is another of those mysteries of faith.

If you have lived in such a manner that anyone will miss you or lament your absence, there are rational ways for them to celebrate your existence, share and purge grief, and then get on with their lives. Those tending to your disposal should cremate your corpse privately and quickly, after permitting family, if they wish, to see how your dead body looks. It may help them appreciate you are really not going to be seen or heard from again. After a suitable number of days or weeks, depending on how your survivors feel, they can have a party in your memory. Photos and videos could accompany anecdotes of your presence on earth, and artifacts of your life’s journey could be displayed as, amid feasting and merriment, you, in your diversities (if any), are remembered.

Before you return to wherever you were before you were born, it might be a good idea to so live that people remember you fondly. This is not a dress rehearsal. Life ends / Tao flows.
Don’t take life too seriously; you won’t get out of it alive anyway.

Edwin Kagin