The fruitless search for self

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create; a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

So wrote Hunter S. Thompson as he reflected on the rise and fall of LSD as a viable door of perception. Dropping acid in the sixties was often an act of rebellion against ubiquitous materialism and consumerism. Like religion, it was used as a tool to apprehend something transcendently meaningful. It satisfied an age-old psychological urge by helping create the impression that some force is indeed tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

These days LSD is largely out of fashion. The kinds of people who would’ve taken acid in the sixties today resort to weed, meth, and other drugs whose chief effect is not “consciousness expansion,” but consciousness numbing. Rather than actively seek a path to illusory enlightenment, the chief aim of drug use today is mere psychological aloofness. Of course, smoking endless bales of marijuana is hardly a prerequisite for entry into the counterculture, which today is characterized by a fair amount of nonchalant douchebaggery in the form of nihilistic hipsters who seek meaning—but only ironically—through half-baked art house performances of topless body painting and male go-go dancing set to the theme song of Golden Girls, all while the audience samples fine artisanal cheeses.

But enough about the skin-tight jeans faction. How has the rest of America been coping with the constant cacophony of chaotic commercialism? To answer this, one need only consult the latest list of bestselling nonfiction paperbacks. Here is a sampling of titles.

Heaven is for Real. “A boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels.”

Have a Little Faith. “A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.”

Drive. “A look at what truly motivates us, and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better.”

90 Minutes in Heaven. “A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.”

Eat, Pray, Love. “A writer’s journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.”

The Checklist Manifesto. “The power of a simple idea to manage the increasing complexity of life.”

If the popularity of these books is any indication, the search for self is not only underway, but profitable. Indeed, “self,” not space, may very well be the final frontier. But the average American’s self, like space, is a vast expanse of nothingness containing just a few if any fleeting flashes of supernova-like brilliance that must ultimately give way to destitute black holes capable of only consumption, not creation. Hence the insatiable consumerism and the path of devastation it leaves in its wake. This realization is what awaits all honest seekers of self. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—very few will arrive at this point. Indeed, humans may have even developed an internal survival mechanism to prevent such a realization from occurring. At least, people in the United States seem to have. It is difficult to imagine America producing a Camus, for example, for the plain fact that his ideas threaten the American dogma that one must exist for something else—god, spouse, children, society, etc.—instead of existing for existence’s sake.

Like the cockeyed acid heads before them, today’s group of self-seekers assumes that some cosmic manager is minding the store. With science’s destruction of faith-based explanations for natural phenomena virtually complete, and the creeping absurdism that accompanies it, we can now perceive the rise of a one-size-fits-all “spirituality” that is slowly encroaching upon the territory of Old Time Religion. Of course, the die-hards will remain, praising Jebus and whatnot until their dying breath. But as for the rest, they will become increasingly receptive to the gobbledygook preached by Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Mitch Albom, and other garbage salesmen who incorporate a elusive spiritualism that on one hand satisfies the American need for religious mumbo-jumbo, while on the other is so vague that it can appeal to anyone who thinks there has to be something “out there.”

But there is nothing out there—nothing that can possibly be ascertained by our mortal minds, anyway. And not only is there no one tending the light at the end of the tunnel, there is no light at all.

If the Jews killed Jesus, where's their medal?

This week Joseph Ratzinger, stage name Pope Benedict XVI, made headlines by making a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus of Nazareth in his upcoming book, The Audacity of Aiding and Abetting Pedophiles.

So I made the last part up, but the rest is true. No doubt Ratzinger’s gesture is one of goodwill, but the fact that he felt compelled to convey such a message is evidence of an unfortunate and befuddling reality.

For 2,000 years, Jews have been scapegoated, targeted, and persecuted because, according to the largely apocryphal New Testament, a handful of Jewish priests asked Roman governor Pontius Pilate to have Jesus executed. So Pilate did. And after a weekend power nap, Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to be reunited with his estranged father. This wondrous event proved that Jesus was indeed the son of god, as he had said before, and that humans were thus saved from their iniquitous ways, so long as they gave Jesus his proper props as savior of mankind.

A more ridiculous and incoherent narrative would be difficult to conceive. Nonetheless, this is the Word for hundreds of millions of misguided individuals who think, (a) they needed to be saved from damnation, and (b) a vicious child sacrifice conducted in 1^st century Palestine has redeemed them.

I need not apprise you, dear reader, of the craziness and implausibility of such a situation. To even mount a counterargument to this hokum is to elevate it to something worthy of a rebuttal. Besides, I have already made counterpoints against this tripe before, so I need not repeat myself.

But if we accept the Anti-Semitic position that “the Jews are responsible for the murder of Jesus,” this begs a most obvious question: Why should Jews be persecuted for this killing and not praised? Indeed, the entire basis of Christianity is premised on the idea that Jesus of Nazareth had to die in order to absolve humanity of its inherently sinful and wicked ways. He had to be sacrificed, like a lamb in the Old Testament as an offering to his father who had sent him earthward for the purpose of being brutalized and victimized in a most unholy fashion. The whole sorry episode was a kind of sequel to the tale of Abraham and Isaac, except in this case the dirty deed was carried out to the awful end in a torturous filicide that finally quenched the bloodlust of the heavenly patriarch.

Given the terms of this odious quid pro quo, the Jews—far from being villains in this sordid story—were crucially necessary players in god’s Divine Plan of human sacrifice and vicarious salvation. Without the Jewish elders’ entreaties to Pilate to persecute Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifixion does not happen, the sacrifice does not happen, and the salvation does not happen. Without this atrocious occurrence, there is no everlasting life, only darkness. The Jews are therefore heroes, deemed by god as such, who carried out this dastardly deed as foreordained by god himself. They were merely acting as the instruments of god, who knew damn well what was going to happen when he impregnated Mary, while poor Joseph was left to wonder whether his wife had been sleeping around on him.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

High school football player gets flagged for praying

I could sit here and say that even as an atheist I find this penalty ridiculous. I could also say that a player shouldn’t be penalized for a modest celebration or gesture whether religious or not. Furthermore I could say that this referee was being a bit too sensitive to the rules governing unsportsmanlike conduct. I could say all of that. But I’m not going to say that because it’s just too easy, goddamn it.

Damn straight you got a flag, buddy. You think busting an awesome touchdown run complete with great cutbacks and broken tackles entitles you to kneel and point to the sky? After the game, Mr. Play-and-Pray tried to explain himself:

“I do that to give glory to my heavenly father, Jesus.”

Oh really? Let’s see how the referee called this one during the game:

“Personal foul: praying to a supernatural deity whose existence cannot be empirically verified. Fifteen yard penalty will be assessed on the kickoff.”

Ok, so I made up the ref’s quote. But maybe we rationalists should start carrying little yellow flags around to throw at people who commit penalties against reason. Although this could be dangerous because living in America, I think I’d tear my rotator cuff.

ps: I’ll give this kid a break when he starts to give god credit for his failures as well as his successes.

- Max

The theocrackpots are whining yet again

“Waa. Waa.” - Bill Donohue

On multiple occasions I have noted that those who most fervently claim belief in a ubiquitous and all-powerful deity tend to be those most easily disconcerted by perceived affronts to that deity’s honor (see here and here). One would think that a truly robust faith in the veracity of the underlying precepts would obviate the compulsion to lash out at instances of blasphemy.

But clearly this is not the case.

The most recent example of theocratic encroachment on free society involves a favorite target of religionists: a “controversial” work of art housed in a publicly funded museum. This time the piece in question was a four-minute video assembled by the late avant-garde artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992. The video came into existence with no public funding whatsoever and the exhibit itself at the National Portrait Gallery—a branch of the Smithsonian Institution—was privately funded. I say was because the theocrackpots succeeded in imposing their religious agenda and the display was removed.

What exactly is so horrifying about the artwork, “A Fire in My Belly,” that has some Christians foaming at the mouth? You may watch the full video here, but it sufficeth to say that the main offense is the portrayal of Jesus on a crucifix covered in ants. Far be it from me to point out that Christians seem to revel in describing the tremendous suffering Jesus experienced, and that having ants walk all over him would have been kinder and less deadly fate than the one he actually endured.

Naturally, Catholic League president and serial whiner Bill Donohue led the charge by citing that the Gallery and its staff are publicly maintained:

“This is not the first time the Smithsonian has offended us,” he said. “I’m going to cast my net much wider. Why should the government pay for this? ... How dare they take our money to fund attacks on (our religion).”

It seems there is nary a time when Bill Donohue is not indignant at someone or something that dares to treat his beloved religion with any hint of irreverence. Five hundred years ago, a scoundrel with his level of fanaticism and blind loyalty to the Vatican would have made for a highly esteemed Grand Inquisitor with near dictatorial powers. I suspect that the sheer number of screams a medieval Donohue would have elicited from the tortured throats of his heretical victims could have put Torquemada to shame. Today, however, such men are reduced to canting at public officials via email and telephone to say how much their feelings have been hurt by some offense to their Christian faith.

Sadly, Donohue’s inevitable involvement is not the most grotesque part of this story. Indeed, it is bad enough that the National Portrait Gallery capitulated to his theocratic whims, but the situation becomes even more absurd now the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has involved itself in the matter:

GOP leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor spoke out against the display Tuesday, an exposition entitled “Hide/Seek.” The video in question was created by AIDS victim and late artist David Wojnarowicz.

“Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves [in],” Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said.

Cantor also demanded its replacement, and called it “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.”

For his part, Georgia congressman Jack Kingston was given an expectedly amiable audience in the form of Fox & Friends, a show whose hosts assume a childlike innocence that always morphs into shocked disbelief when they are “presented” the latest Beckian conspiracy theory centered on the nefarious machinations of liberals. On the show, Kingston wailed,

“This is a museum that gets $5.8 million in taxpayer dollars and in the middle of a high deficit, 15 million unemployed Americans, they decide to have money to spend like this. This is a museum that, by the way, has next to it a display of the American presidents, on the other side, Elvis, and then you go through this—which is really perverted, sick stuff—ashes of an AIDS victim, in a self-portrait, eating himself. Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast - lots of really kinky and really questionable kind of art.”

The line about deficits and the museum’s funding are completely disingenuous because both the artwork and the exhibit of which it was a part were privately funded. This pretense is simply a backdoor way of passing judgment on an individual work of art that Kingston et al. either do not like personally or because they think it offends their respective constituencies. Kingston himself is gunning for the chairmanship of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and it would not surprise me if Kingston were simply grandstanding in this fashion in an attempt to garner support to that end.

The religious fascists have won this round thanks to the cowardice of the National Portrait Gallery in the face of relatively light opposition. People have the right to feel offended when viewing a work of art they find obscene, but they do not have a right to dictate the terms on which that art may be displayed. The right to take offense at art both begins and ends in the mind and speech of the individual. Any action that goes beyond is censorship.

- Max

Religion Does Not Make People Moral

The face of religious tomfoolery

Few things are lamer than attempts to demonstrate that religion is the foundation upon which moral behavior rests. Each new such endeavor seems to be as unconvincing as the last, with the same old tired canards being recycled in delusional ruminations about the necessity of divine approval in human relations. Such is the recent attempt by Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby in a particularly puerile Op-Ed, whose claims should repulse any freethinker.

The best part about Jacoby’s column, is that in arguing for the necessity of a Biblical foundation of morality, he actually refutes himself, thoroughly might I add. Read the following passage, where Jacoby is describing and ridiculing the American Humanist Association’s secular ad campaign. He says the organization is being unfair by highlighting only the shockingly violent passages of the Bible to quote, even though such passages are everywhere and easy to find. In a paragraph that is totally self-defeating for his own case, Jacoby whines,

Of course anyone can cherry-pick quotes to make a point. And of course it is true, as the humanist group’s executive director Roy Speckhardt maintains, that there are “religious texts’’ that “advocate fear, intolerance, hate, and ignorance.’’ Religion has often been put to evil purposes or invoked to justify shocking cruelty. Then again, the same is true of every area of human endeavor, from medicine to journalism to philosophy to the law.

He then proceeds to blow a lot of hot air about why religious morality is necessary for civilization, but it’s all moot, because in these two brief throwaway lines inserted with the purpose of defending his position, he actually destroys it before he even really gets started. Jeff Jacoby, thank you for playing, your column is over.

It is over because he outright concedes the point that religion is a human endeavor often “put to evil purposes or invoked to justify shocking cruelty.”

Saying religion is a “human endeavor” could mean one of two things. It could mean that religion is a human invention, with its gods, lore, and moral customs outright fabricated by humans using some sort of vague and illusory divine sanction. Or, it could mean that religion is truly a divinely-inspired enterprise whose execution is nonetheless ultimately in the hands of imperfect humans who put religion “to evil purposes.”

As a believer in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Jacoby’s understanding of religion as a human endeavor falls into this latter category. Not only does he concede that religion is capable of inspiring horrific acts, he actually puts religion in a category with medicine, journalism, philosophy, and law—strictly “human” disciplines. Thus, in his attempt to elevate religion to the status of the sine qua non of morality, he paradoxically “lowers” it to the level of earthly studies. His point is to show that religion too, is not immune to the taint of human influence. But if this is true, then what is religion for? If religion is as corruptible and susceptible to pure sophistry as any other “human endeavor,” then it stands to reason that whatever moral rules are said to derive from religion could just as easily have arisen by nonreligious means. Despite Jacoby’s claim that the secular ad campaign “cherry-picks” Bible passages that are especially abhorrent, the Bible is rife with instances of objectionable behavior by both humans and the heavenly father. It contains innumerable acts and instructions which no reasonable person could condone or follow. We do not stone those who work on the Sabbath. We do not kill those who practice witchcraft. We do not regard our women as chattel like the Tenth Commandment would have us. We do not punish those who hold different religious beliefs. We do not adhere to the lesser known commandment that we mustn’t wear clothing woven from two different materials. We do not allow our enemies to strike us without us striking back. And the reason we do not follow these and countless other commands—even though they are in the Bible—is because they are ridiculous and wrong. Members of the Judeo-Christian faiths “cherry-pick” from the Bible all the time, and we should be thankful for that. Otherwise our society would be characterized by a horrifying authoritarianism that regulates virtually every last detail of human behavior. The plain fact that not even Jews and Christians adhere fully to the Bible’s diktats is the clearest evidence that humans are capable of constructing a morality which is independent of revealed wisdom.

These considerations render Jacoby’s argument senseless blather, and his subsequent remarks contain all the intellectual rigor of a game of tic-tac-toe.

The truth is, people are not good because of religion. They are good despite religion. Believers tend to be more moral than the religions they practice, as shown by their unwillingness to adhere to the more despicable maxims which comprise their respective faiths. We may thank someone for that.

Just not god.

- Max

Gearing Up For The War On Christmas

Alright, let’s do this.

It’s that time of year once again when opponents of the separation of church and state decry…well…the separation of church and state. Christmas season provides no shortage of Christian zealots wishing to foist their iniquitous hocus pocus on others by using the public forum to display apocryphal scenes from Biblical lore and to spread the fraudulent words of their huckster messiah.

The inevitable and Constitutionally-minded secular pushback against such ignoble and illegal buffooneries will be met with perfunctory revulsion and shocking disbelief by those who are Holier than Thou. Editorial pages of the conservative press will be rife with indignation at the offense to this great “Christian nation.” Fox News anchors and like-minded media personalities everywhere will feature a seemingly endless parade of segments announcing that “the war on Christmas” is once again under way, with the godless factions “mounting this surge because they are aware that they have a large, untapped army of potential troops.” Christmas indeed seems to be under attack. Or so we are being told.

But the media, far from overstating the atheist objective as I understand it, actually undersells the broader objectives of the freethought movement. What I envision is not a war on Christmas, but a war on Christianity and religion in general. I am not content with merely keeping a nativity scene off the public grounds. That is but one minor skirmish in the wider war on superstition, gullibility, ignorance, and bigotry. If this writer had his druthers, no one would belong to any religion anywhere. That is not to say I am desirous of imposing nonbelief on the faithful. Far from it. The shedding of religious belief must be undertaken by one’s own volition, which is actually anathema to the manner in which religion itself afflicts human minds. Typically religion is simply inculcated on children who know no better than what their parents and mischievous clergy tell them. And that is how religion in the 21^st century must survive: through early indoctrination and general social sanction. Religion has no real merits of which to speak.

Neither Christianity nor any other faith can withstand the rigors of intellectual honesty and scrutiny. Indeed, one suspects that the religionists are so sensitive to perceived assaults on their faith because on some level they surely know that their beliefs are logically indefensible. Religion is therefore inherently weak, and this fact should encourage those who wish to see it destroyed. And be destroyed it must.

- Max

Score One For Zeus!

Awesome news out of Ohio. The regionally-famous “Touchdown Jesus” statue off I-75 was struck by lighting and got its shit ruined. Let’s see the Jesus freaks try to explain away this one.

- Max

Catholic Priest Arrested For Soliciting Sex From...An Adult Female?

Recently just across the border in New Hampshire, a 31 year old Massachusetts Catholic priest was arrested as part of a prostitution sting. The priest was responding to a Craigslist ad posted by police who obviously had nothing better to do than to commit entrapment and fabricate a “criminal” act where otherwise one would not have existed. Now mind you, this priest thought he was soliciting sex from an adult female, unlike the pederast ministers within the Catholic Church who prey on little children.

The priest in question has taken a forced leave of absence, and when the case is concluded the Boston Archdiocese will pronounce sentence on him. But we need not look that far ahead to consider that this leave of absence is already harsher than what the Archdiocese meted out for John Geoghan and other child-rapists who were simply shuffled from parish to parish once they had sampled all the available prepubescent ass at a given location.

But the police are arresting the wrong preacher. What of Bernard Law—the disgraced former cardinal of Boston who now resides in the Vatican out of the reach of the American justice system? Or of any number of Church officials still in America who helped cover up sexual abuse? Or Pope Ratzinger himself? These are suspects who had many victims, even if they themselves were not the ones pulling the pants off the children. Prostitution on the other hand, is victimless. Degrading? Yes. Criminal? No.

And what of the Nashua, New Hampshire police who set this sordid trap? Do they not have enough real criminals to track? Isn’t New Hampshire’s motto “Live free or die”? I find it ridiculous that a person can walk around New Hampshire with a loaded firearm strapped to his waste without getting hassled by any John Q. Laws, but a man may not anonymously and privately solicit sex in exchange for money. Ditto for the woman who offers such services. Am I missing something here?

The great irony in all of this is that a woman is allowed to sleep with whomever she wants, as long as money is not involved. If she posts an ad offering free sex to any man who comes along, that is fine. But request payment, and it becomes a moral scandal worthy of criminal prosecution.

I do not understand this society.

- Max

Of Christians And Atheists

A recent survey has confirmed what is already well-known: that Americans are a hopelessly religious lot, given to infantile delusions about their place in the cosmos and a penchant for believing the utterly implausible.

The poll found that 78% of Americans believe that not only did Jesus exist, but that he rose from the dead, a feat that was most notably replicated by the estimable Dr. Frankenstein. Like the barely literate ignoramuses who assembled the tall tale of Jesus, Dr. Frankenstein created his monster from an assortment of discarded parts, which, by their individual selves, were hardly remarkable in any sense. But with a few serendipitous tweaks and revisions, the good doctor struck the perfect combination and brought his beast to life.

So it went with the gospels, a collection of third, fourth, and one hundredth-hand hearsays about the alleged miracles of Jesus. Realistically, if he existed at all Jesus of Nazareth was most likely little more than an eccentric preacher, and thus by definition a charlatan. The gospels were written at different intervals, but all were penned at least fifty years after the death of Christ, which is plenty of time for the notable peculiarities of one man to morph into a fantastic story about the savior of humanity; and more than enough time for the countless clueless of antiquity to warm up to it.

A short meditation on this score: Most of us have played some version of “telephone” as children, whereby one child starts by whispering a statement to another, and that child whispers it to another, and so on and so forth. When the last child receives the news, she is to repeat aloud what she has just been told for all to hear. Very often the final statement is so bowdlerized, so misinterpreted and tinkered with, that it hardly resembles the opening remark if at all. Quite naturally, the likelihood of a sentence becoming lost in translation increases when there are more players. Now imagine a game of telephone that starts not with a statement, but a vague anecdote. Imagine also thousands of players, most of them illiterate and gullible. And suppose the game takes place not over a few minutes or over the course of an afternoon, but instead for more than a half-century. I should hope we do not need the informed opinion of a child to surmise that the fruits of this grapevine would be very rotten indeed.

The lack of contemporary extrabiblical sources accounting for Jesus does not bode well for this already extraordinary tale’s veracity. Indeed, the evidence on which Christians base their faith is put to shame by the available data speaking to the existence of the elusive chupacabra. Nonetheless, that hardly prevents 81% of Americans from believing that Jesus was sent earthward by god to serve as a child sacrifice so that humans could be absolved of their inherently wicked ways.

Naturally, these statistics are reported in earnest by the reputable media, no members of which deign to remark on the absurdity of the figures. Of course, with more than four-fifths of the general population having bought this sordid story of vicarious redemption, believers are going to be everywhere, including the media. But it is the political ramifications of this idiocy that produces the worst kind of mischief.

Article VI of our Constitution states, “[N]o religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Yet such examinations are given all the time, informally, by the virtuous and faithful populace which demands that the metaphysical beliefs of public officials do not stray too far from what the collective wisdom deems “normal.” That is to say, Christian. Failing that, a belief in a god of some kind is necessary. One survey indicated that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist than a Muslim candidate, which is puzzling for this observer since he cannot recall any atheistic terrorists waging jihad against the United States.

But mere belief in the proper deity does not always suffice to convince the masses of one’s virtue. It is often necessary to persecute some group or vice in order to demonstrate an adequate level of religious commitment. No longer is it considered appropriate in America to target Jews, or Mormons, or even Muslims. Thus xenophobia, a constant presence in American society from the moment the Europeans arrived, manifests itself in other ways more acceptable to so-called good society. Atheists are always a reliable whipping post, because while it is inappropriate to attack a man because of his religion, it is only right and godly to scold him for his lack of one.

- Max

I Have Seen The Light And It Is Christ (*April Fool's)

Our Savior

Although I haven’t posted in a few days, there is a reason for my brief hiatus. For the last several days I have undergone a remarkable personal and spiritual transformation. It all started on Sunday when a friend whose father recently died asked me to attend his church for a service dedicated in his honor. I was reluctant at first, but I came to realize that it would be kind of dickish of me to refuse the request of a grieving buddy. Besides, my friend isn’t really that religious, but just wanted to attend the sermon at his father’s church.

As I sat in the pew, my mind drifted in and out of the sermon being delivered by the oddly-proportioned preacher before me. He was a balding man, short and bespectacled like an evangelical George Costanza. And he was just as animated.

“We all deserve death,” he began what was to me a very strange way to start a sermon dedicated to a churchgoer who just died. “Every last one us. But through the grace of God, and the sacrifice of His Son, we are rescued from the darkness of death and are allowed to bask in the righteousness of His light.”

We all deserve death. Interesting.

“And in His light, all our desires are fulfilled. All our questions are answered. All our suffering is ended. If we glorify God during our life, he will surely glorify us upon our death.”

I’d like to be glorified, I thought.

“Not to glorify God during life is to fail God,” Pastor Costanza continued. “It is to do disobey him. It is to disgrace him. It is to turn your back on God. God will not tolerate the prideful because pride is Satan’s best friend. And pride goeth before the Fall.” He then proceeded to remark how my friend’s dad was one of the most unprideful people he had ever met.

For some reason I cannot explain, the sermon was resonating with me. And I could have sworn that the giant cross on the wall above the minister began to radiate, as if surrounded by an aura of that light he had just been talking about. I rubbed my eyes and even shook my head a couple of times, but the aura remained and seemed to pulsate correlative to the intensity of the pastor’s message. My brain felt numb, as if high on drugs, but this was no substance-induced high. This euphoria was not a natural phenomenon. The warm feeling that washed over me that day was nothing short of an otherworldly experience, no doubt brought on by unerring truth of the words emanating from the stocky and unassuming man at the front of the church. Had he been more charismatic, I might have chalked up the entire experience to the skillfulness of the messenger. But there was nothing remarkable about this preacher, which seemed to lend legitimacy to the very strange yet uplifting experience I was so gleefully enjoying.

After the sermon I went home and consulted my Bible, which up until then I regarded as a work of literature only. I reread the Gospels and to my surprise, found that they actually made sense to me for the first time in my life. Not only did they make sense, but the truth of them seemed so obvious that I wondered how I could’ve been so stubbornly resistant to the Word. The reason was my pride, and like the pastor said, pride goeth before the Fall.

At that moment, I told myself that I would refuse to fall. Right there on the spot where I had been reading the Bible in my kitchen, I knelt on the hardwood floor and prayed to Jesus and begged him for forgiveness for having been such a prideful fool. Only weeks before I was telling a relative how I was utterly incapable of believing the “nonsense” in the Bible. Praise be to Jesus that I was wrong.

I am now glad to call myself a slave to Christ. I am here to serve Him and no other. Thus, in good conscience, I cannot contribute to this website any longer. It is embarrassing for me to go back and read the awful things I said against God, and I hope that Wolf will understand why I want to take them down. In the meantime, I am working on a new blog designed to spread the good news of Christ’s sacrifice. I will work tirelessly to make sure his message is heard loud and clear. I know many of you will be upset by my “conversion.” However, I can only ask you respect that I have had an epiphany that I can only hope will lead to a fulfilling life that is devoid of the rank cynicism that has hardened my heart for much of my life.

Thank you and God Bless,

Max Canning

Speak Of The Devil And He Doth Appear!

Frequently I find that I have perfect timing. A couple of hours ago in this post about Pope Ratzinger ignoring a letter from the Milwaukee Archdiocese regarding a pedophile priest named Lawrence Murphy in its midst, I wrote, “I can’t wait to see what convoluted excuse Bill Donohue comes up with to explain away this one.”

It isn’t often that I watch daytime television, but when I just flipped the TV on MSNBC, sure enough, there was Bill Donohue telling David Shuster that the New York Times article never stated for certain that Ratzinger had seen the letters. This, despite the fact that Ratzinger was the head of the Vatican office to which these letters were sent. Donohue then said that not only should we not jump to any conclusions about Ratzinger, but insisted that there be no further investigation into the matter. But as this letter shows, Murphy himself later wrote to Ratzinger personally to ask him for leniency, which apparently means immunity from disciplinary action. Shortly after this correspondence was received by Ratzinger’s office, the Church’s investigation into the allegations against Murphy ceased at the direction of Cardinal Bertone in Ratzinger’s office. Are we to believe that Ratzinger, who headed this department, knew nothing of this horrendous scandal?

Donohue went on to say that “Catholics aren’t stupid,” and that they know that New York Times has a pro-gay, pro-abortion, “agenda.” Uh huh.

He also said that by the time Ratzinger’s office was apprised of the situation, Murphy was a sickly old man and had already committed his crimes.

So? Does this mean Donohue thinks that former Nazi war criminals should get reprieves because their crimes are behind them? Plus, there was no guarantee that Murphy had stopped molesting kids altogether. He should have been defrocked.

At this point we need to seriously ask ourselves whether the pope or the Catholic Church can do anything that will repulse Bill Donohue. My money’s on, “no.”

If I can dig up the video of the interview, I will post it pronto.

- Max

Ratzinger Ignored Pedophile Priest

His Unholiness

Pope Joseph Ratzinger ignored inquiries from concerned church officials about ongoing sexual molestations by priests. As the New York Times reported yesterday, in 1996 then Cardinal Ratzinger was apprised of the case of priest and serial rapist Lawrence Murphy, who admitted to church officials that he had molested children:

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations…

… In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy [who died in 1998] landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse.

However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church. He wrote that since he had become aware that “solicitation in the confessional might be part of the situation,” the case belonged at the doctrinal office.

It should also be noted that Weakland would later use $450,000 in Church funds as hush money for his former gay lover who was threatening a lawsuit.

I guess this is what the repulsive and obnoxious American papist Bill Donohue meant when he said the Church should be allowed to treat child rape as “an internal matter.”

It is difficult to discern which party displayed more shameful behavior in this travesty: the Milwaukee Archdiocese, which, when faced with the reality of a confessed child abuser in their ranks, thought it appropriate to contact Vatican officials instead of the local authorities in this, an obvious criminal matter; or Ratzinger and Bertone who swept the allegations under the rug as if they were no big deal.

But as Joe Biden would say, this is a big fucking deal. This is about the future pope, knowingly and willingly ignoring letters from officials within his own church saying that they have a rapist on their hands and that they—incredibly—are unsure what to do about it. In any sane universe, in any responsible organization, Ratzinger would be forced to step down in light of such allegations. But that’s not going to happen because the Church thinks it’s infallible.

I can’t wait to see what convoluted excuse Bill Donohue comes up with to explain away this one.

- Max

Bill Donohue Is A Disgrace

Nice shit-eating grin.

Recently I wrote a post on the absurdity of Guardian writer Andrew Brown’s reprehensible defense of the Catholic Church in light of the most recent revelations of child abuse. His argument that Catholic priests are no more likely than adults in other professions to rape children is tasteless and irrelevant, especially since it has been documented that Church officials in various parishes and archdioceses actively covered up the abuses.

Until the other day, Brown’s recycled defense of the Church’s child abusers was the worst opinion piece I’ve read about any of the Church’s scandals. But enter Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and loudmouth windbag extraordinaire. For CNN.com, Donohue writes,

Employers from every walk of life, in both the U.S. and Europe, have long handled cases of alleged sex abuse by employees as an internal matter. Rarely have employers called the cops, and none was required to do so.

Though this is starting to change, any discussion of employee sexual abuse that took place 30 and 40 years ago must acknowledge this reality. Thus it hardly comes as a surprise that Cardinal Sean Brady in Ireland did not summon the authorities about a case involving a priest in the 1970s. What is surprising is why some are now indicting him, acting as if his response was the exception to the rule.

Selective indignation at the Catholic Church is not confined to Brady. Why, for example, are the psychologists and psychiatrists who pledged to “fix” abusers treated so lightly? After all, employers from the corporate world to the Catholic Church were told over and over again that therapy works and to give the offender a second chance.

Where to begin? First off, Donohue is confusing sexual abuse with sexual harassment. It is true that employers often treat sexual harassment as an internal matter. Sexist jokes and unwanted physical advances—when reported—are generally met with disciplinary action, as they should be. The police are not usually called because although lewd jokes or even an awkward grope are tasteless, the victim generally does not notify the police. Suspension or termination may be enough to remedy the problem. Sexual abuse is an entirely different story. The children under the care of pedophile priests were not merely subjected to harassment; they were sexually assaulted. No one I know of, with the exception of Bill Donohue and KBR, would regard rape in the workplace as “an internal matter.” Victims are entitled to press charges, and they should in order to shed light on the sexual perverts who lurk in our places of business and elsewhere.

Bill Donohue thinks differently. If priests, or lawyers, or physicians, or indeed, even kindergarten teachers are believed to be raping children, Donohue says that their supervisors should handle it as “an internal matter,” as he says is the custom. And handle it that way they did. The former Cardinal of Boston, Bernard Law, handled it by simply shuffling accused child-fuckers from parish to parish where they kept abusing children. I guess this is what Donohue means we he says we should “give the offender a second chance.”

Donohue has made it his sole purpose in life to defend the Catholic Church against all enemies, real and imagined, no matter how corrupt, immoral, disgraceful, and discriminatory the institution behaves. Indeed, whenever a set of allegations arises accusing Catholic officials of child abuse, Donohue steps into the breach not to condemn the abuse, but to decry the “hysterical” reactions that inevitably follow, as if the level of indignation at the Church is unwarranted.

Amazingly, Donohue is not a fringe figure. He can occasionally be seen on the various cable news networks whining about perceived public insults to Catholicism, a hilariously ironic development given the ubiquitous and omnipotent presence the Church once enjoyed in the Western world. Clearly, much progress had been made if Catholicism’s defenders have been relegated to complaining about potshots at the Church which they can do absolutely nothing about. Still, Donohue is a minor nuisance despite his overall irrelevance as a cultural “warrior.” Thankfully, the sixty-two year old Donohue and those who think just like him constitute a literally dying breed. And for this endangered species, extinction can’t come fast enough.

- Max

Guardian Writer Says Child Abuse By Priests Is Totally Overblown. (Did I Just Say "Blown?")

[The Pope’s brother,] Georg Ratzinger, 86, said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that he slapped pupils as punishment after he took over the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in the 1964. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir but did nothing about it.

AP

Child abuse in the Catholic Church. Nothing new here. But when I was reading the Guardian’s coverage on this story I came across Andrew Brown’s blog, where he rehashes an old argument about child fucking/hitting by priests. Titled “Catholic abuse in proportion,” Brown wonders, “Many Catholic priests...have abused children in their care. But is the church's record worse than the world’s?”

A more absurd or irrelevant question would be hard to formulate. Brown actually attempts to defend the Catholic Church by citing murky statistics on child abuse before concluding, “I think that objectively your child is less likely to be abused by a Catholic or Anglican priest in the west today than by the members of almost any other profession.”

Wow. And to think that for years I have railed against pedophile priests, condemned the Church for covering up their heinous abuses, and have attacked the practice of celibacy for priests, lest their biological urges to engage in sexual intercourse manifest themselves in such assaults. What have I done?

Please. These are priests, not plumbers. If the Catholic Church and its ministers are going to present themselves as the personification of piety and god’s representatives on earth, they ought to expect to be held to a slightly higher standard than the rest of the general population. Indeed, if, “We’re no more likely to fuck your kid than your stockbroker” is the best defense the Church and its apologists have to offer, color me unimpressed. If the leaders of Catholicism are just as moral or immoral as everyone else, which is most certainly the case, what is it for?

- Max

Catholicism Is A Hateful Doctrine

And we’re sure the Catholic Church is anti-gay?

Catholicism’s bigotry reared its ugly head once again last week in two high profile reprehensible decisions by Catholic officials. First, in anticipation of Washington D.C.’s allowance of gay marriage which went into effect last week, Catholic Charities in D.C. announced that it would no longer provide health insurance to spouses of new employees or spouses of employees not currently enrolled in a plan with the organization. The reasoning is clear enough: gays are second class citizens and must be denied health coverage–even if it means denying straight employees insurance as well. Second, a Catholic preschool in Boulder, Colorado told a lesbian couple that their child may not re-enroll when next school year’s classes start because of their sexual orientation. As the abominable Archdiocese of Denver put it, “Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment.”

Well fuck Catholic teaching.

I wonder if the Denver Archdiocese also checks public records to ensure that their schoolchildren’s parents aren’t divorced. I doubt it. And if they did, that would also be ludicrous.

It will be a cold day in hell when I take love and sexual advice from an institution comprised mainly of crusty old virgins. The preachers of the Catholic Church have no idea what it’s like to be married. They have no idea what it’s like to raise children; they only know how to fuck them. The ones who aren’t pedophiles still live in a celibate fantasyland—a very unnatural place where the biological urge to copulate is suppressed and labeled evil (but a necessary evil for the laity when procreation is the motive.) Hence the Church’s absurd position on contraceptives—that they are immoral—and Pope Ratzinger’s criminal assertion that condoms will only make the AIDS epidemic in Africa worse.

This transparent bigotry from the Catholic Church is astonishing given the dwindling number of church attendees in America and Europe. My late Catholic grandmother viewed the Church as a source for good for most of her life. But when a series of scandals involving pedophile priests hit the news in the early 2000s, even she was incredulous at the behavior of the molesters, as well as the Church officials who either willfully ignored the reality, or actively helped cover it up. Many Catholics like her put their hands up and finally said, “No thanks.” And yet, at a time when we’d think that the Church would be doing all it could to increase its ranks, its leaders cannot help but revert to their hateful ways, which is what the aforementioned incidents are: hate.

Religious bigotry is often excused because it generally has some biblical or koranic justification behind it. Let’s look at the Denver Archdiocese’s statement once again regarding the lesbian parents:

“Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment.”

Translation:

“We hate fags and anybody else who violates our antiquated notions of morality.”

For those who do not think that this blacklisting is grounded in hate, then what do you call it when one group punishes banishes a child for who his parents are? Just because there is an emotionless, bureaucratic-sounding excuse behind the bigotry does not make it any less hateful or disgusting. In fact, it makes it worse. At least people with irreligious prejudices do not hide behind the dogmas of the bible or the koran to attempt to vindicate their Neanderthal worldview.

While I have a hard time understanding why any adult would ever call himself a Catholic, I particularly will never understand why any adult would ever call herself a Catholic. Women are, after all, second class citizens in Catholicism. The Church teaches that women are deficient because they cannot serve as ministers. It’s a total sausagefest. (Should it really surprise us that priests used helpless children as an outlet for their repressed sexual urges?) In the United States, the Catholic Church boasts the largest female membership of any officially sexist organization. Millions of women regularly attend mass, tithe, and count themselves among the faithful. How is this possible? Imagine an American or European political party of which anyone can be a member, but only men may run for office. The party would be a laughingstock, if not a reviled assemblage of chauvinistic buffoons.

The Catholic Church would be a laughingstock were it not for its sizeable following. But as mentioned, thankfully Church attendance is on the way down. The percentage of self-identifying Catholics in America has been stagnant as the Church remains unable to adapt to the changing social landscapes because of its rigid dogmas. In 2009, only 45% of Catholics said they went to church at least once a week (and even some of those were probably overstating), down from 54% in the mid-1970s, and 75% in 1955. The number of priests in America has gone down steadily since 1975. All signs point to a terminal Catholic decline. Although the Church has been making inroads in Africa, its power is waning. The once mighty institution that tortured and murdered those who dared to hold differing religious opinions, has been reduced to a shell of its former self; a curious novelty act in which the main players wear flamboyant attire and practice pagan rituals such as flesh-eating and blood-drinking.

I’ve never cared for cannibalism, or sexism, or homophobia for that matter. If you are a person who calls himself or herself “a Catholic,” then I strongly urge you to consider what that means. I personally know many Catholics who do not share the abhorrent views of their Church, but nonetheless continue to identify with it. How much disagreement must there be before there is a clean break? How many others must be discriminated against before Catholics across America and the world declare, “I no longer want anything to do with this organization”?

Hopefully not many. It is high time for a mass exodus from the Catholic Church, leaving behind only the most hardcore haters. As I see it, the main element that lends respectability to the Church is the laity, who collectively do not care much for doctrine, but describe themselves as Catholics merely out of habit. That pattern must be broken as soon as possible.

- Max