Important to get facts straight about religion
John Walker asks who cares about the history of Christmas. Anyone who believes in arguing for truth and historical context about the origins of Christmas as whether we like it or not, Christmas and religion has shaped the western mind. Christmas is not trivial, it has massive consequences both good and bad on the world.
It is important to get the facts straight about how and why Christmas and Jesus came into existence. Even today the world is burdened by the role religion plays in politics and in holding back human progress. For a thousand years after the fall of the Empire, one church held back human progress during the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages. As Ann Rand said, the shadows of the Middle Ages are still lurking.
I don’t write to give comfort especially when one group’s comfort causes misery to so many others which religion does in abundance.
Point blank, it is important to have open and honest debate about everything in the Bible and to show why it is wrong on history, science, and is still used as a tool to fuel conflicts and wars around the world.
We cannot argue against the distorted worldview of the religious if we do not expose the ugly bits of the faith that they claim to follow (when it is convenient). Religion can always be counted on to make bad situations even worse. To work towards a better, fairer, more equitable world there is no other way than to put a spotlight on religion and to question its very foundations.
Religion survives because people have an emotional attachment to the faith that they didn’t choose but were born into. For the true believer, logic and reason are the enemies. No one is born a believer, that must be indoctrinated into them first by parents and later Sunday school. Or being put in a faith-based school to be turned into believing clones of their parents which robs children of the freedom to choose to be believers or non-believers.
Some critics of religious dogma manifesting itself in politics will go no further then saying no, you’re wrong. I go beyond that and go to the core of the problems which scripture has inflicted on the world for 2,000 years. I don’t just say scripture is wrong, I go for the marrow that that dogma is based on and which cannot stand up to fact-checking.
I accept nothing on faith, I accept nothing that cannot be supported by evidence and when it comes to religious beliefs there is no other source supporting them other than the Bible which is all too human inspired, right down to the god that men created in their own image.
You cannot quote from a book and use that as proof. That the Holy Book is holy because it says it is. That’s called the circular argument and wouldn’t hold up in court.
Now do you understand, Mr. Walker, why talking about Christmas is important despite your cavalier dismissal of the topic? It is important to knock religion off its pedestal as it is religion itself that is the cause of so much bloodshed in the world even now.
The saying from the 60s was question everything. I’ll amend that saying to include question dogma and faith-based traditions which are dubious at best and dangerous at worst.
I show why religion is a house of cards and I have no trouble pointing out how it is scripture itself which promotes so much hatred, misogyny, homophobia, and anti-Semitism in our world.
I dare much in order to free us finally from the shadows of the Middle Ages so we can progress from our cultural tribalism and given the invented reasons for the season, pointing out the facts behind celebrating just another god being born on the 25th of December like Horus, Mithras, and Hercules before early Greek writers included Jesus in that list, is important and fair game and the stakes are far from trivial.
The term gospel would better be translated as the original fake news story except there is nothing truly original in the pagan Jesus story. Certainly, nothing to base a sane worldview on in the modern era.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City