Sunday, December 27, 2009

Sherlock Holmes 2009

I first fell under the spell of Sherlock Holmes before I was ten years old. I can date that fairly accurately as I remember reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles" that I took out of my public elementary school library(I switched to Catholic School in grade four, so that's why I can date it). At least I think it was that book; I can't be sure now. When I was 20, I received a book containing all the Sherlock Holmes short stories for Christmas and immediately began reading them and thorougly enjoyed them. I now have the complete works of Holmes in one volume.

When I heard that Madonna's soon-to-be-ex-husband Guy Ritchie was doing a Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. I knew I would be seeing it.

I confess that I am a bit of a fan of Robert Downey Jr. He was the best thing about Tropic Thunder and I think if it hadn't been for Heath Ledger dying, Downey would have won the Oscar this last year for Best Supporting Actor. He was absolutely brilliant.

Downey wasn't the stiff, loner, Sherlock Holmes. No, he was more physical. Downey's Holmes can box and shoot a gun. There are a few sequences when you are allowed into his thought processes as he quickly analyses and assesses his situation. He was a convincing Brit, and carried it off well. He doesn't take himself too seriously. I am not a fan of Jude Law; I would have preferred to see Ewan McGregor in the role of Dr. Watson, but Law handled himself well as Holmes patient, loyal friend.

True to the spirit of the stories, Holmes and Watson are roommates, with Watson engaged to be married to his beloved Mary. We see that Watson takes notes and keeps records of their adventures, which, of course, are the basis for the stories. (If you remember, Watson was the narrator of the stories). You may also remember that Holmes was a frequent user of cocaine. There is only the faintest of hints of that in this tale.

Excellent re-creation of Victorian-era London; art direction and costumes were well done. Along for the ride is Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, who was immortalized as "the woman" from the story "A Scandal in Bohemia". From what I remember, she was the "love" and passion of Holmes' life - and only woman who ever bested him. I was thrilled to see that they had they had brought that character into this story. McAdams plays the role with perfect zest and spunkiness - and looks great in the luscious period costumes she's given. I did, however, find her makeup a tad distracting, as I thought it was a little overdone for the period.

A thorougly enjoyable adventure which leaves the door open for a sequal. In fact, it's almost necessary.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Merry What?

Born December 25th to a virgin mother;
Son of God;
A travelling preacher who had 12 disciples;
Performed miracles;
Known as the "good shepherd", "the way the truth the light", "redeemer", "saviour"
Died at Easter

Sound familiar? Well it should. However, I'm not talking about who you might be thinking I'm talking about. I'm not talking about Jesus; I'm talking about Mithras.

The cult of Mithras pre-existed Christianity for at least 600 years. The similiarites between Jesus and Mithras were so similar and the early Church fathers were so fearful that their sheep would discover this that they claimed that the devil went back in time and created the story. Have you heard anything more ridiculous in your life??

Oh, and Mithras isn't the only demi-god that was born at Christmas and killed at Easter. There was Attis, Adonis and several more. Like the Mithras story, all those demi-god stories pre-dated Christ by several hundred years.

So, this begs the question. Which one is historically true? Which ones are myth? To me, it's obvious that NONE of them happened and they are all myth. Here's why:

One: We know that Caesar Augustus NEVER ordered such a census as Luke says he did. As I've said before, we have excellent records of that period of Roman history and no census was ever recorded. It would also have been logistically impossible.

Two: Look carefully at the geneologies in both Matthew and Luke. They contradict themselves. I've heard the contradictions explained away by being told that one lineage was Mary's and the other was Joseph's. Not true. Luke clearly states that it's Joseph's family tree and not Mary's.

Three: There was no massacre of the innocents by Herod as Matthew describes. There is absolutely no historical proof of this. Herod was a tyrant and despised by the Jews, but this is one crime he didn't commit.

Four: Quirinius and Herod were not contemporary. Herod was dead by the time Quirinius was governor of Syria, which Luke claims he was in his attempt to date Jesus' birth.

We all know that Christianity stole (or borrowed) things from the cultures it imposed itself upon. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about outright plagarism. There were no copyright laws back then, so no one had an issue with it. However, Christianity is the one religion that claims this stuff actually, historically happened. They claimed Jesus was unique. Obviously not true when so many parallels existed between Jesus and the other demi-gods. It doesn't bother me that Christianity stole the date of Jesus' birth. After all, Queen Elizabeth was born in April and the official celebration of her birthday is the Trooping of the Colour ceremony in June. However, if you strip away all the myth that pre-existed centuries before what are you left with? Um, not much. In fact, nothing at all.

If Jesus was so important, why don't we know more about him? The only records we have of him are in the Bible and a reference in Josephus. Yet, we now know that the reference in Josephus was a forgery. It was added by a monk a very long time later.

I'm not saying Jesus never existed. I don't know; I suspect he did, but I'm not sure. To me, however, it's obvious that he's not what we were told in the Bible.

So, where did all this mythmaking come from? I have read enough to be convinced that it was Paul - for many reasons. Paul was from Tarsus, which was a seat of the Mithras cult. Eating bread and drinking wine in a ritual meal was also part of the Mithras cult/Greek Mystery Religions. We know that I Corinthians (an authentic Pauline letter) was written before the gospel stories, so guess who made that up? You guessed it: Paul. Also, remember, since drinking blood or eating food with blood in it was forbidden to Jews, Jesus NEVER would have said, "This is my blood." I quote Hyam Maccoby (who, obviously, is Jewish):

“This is not to say, of course, that Jesus did not distribute bread and wine to his disciples at the Last Supper. This was quite normal at a Jewish meal... The leading person at the table would make a blessing (blessing is the original meaning of the word Eucharist) and then break the loaf of bread and pass a piece to everyone at the table. Then at the end of the meal, grace would be said over a cup of wine, which would be handed around at the end of grace... This procedure, which is still practiced today at Jewish tables had no mystical significance; the only meaning of it is to thank God for the meal He has provided. The addition of mystery religion trappings (i.e. the bread as the body of the god and the wine as his blood) was the work of Paul, by which he turned an ordinary Jewish meal into a pagan sacrament. Since the blood of an animal was forbidden at a Jewish meal by biblical law (Leviticus 7:26) the idea regarding the wine as blood would be found disgusting by Jews.” The Mythmaker pgs 115-116

Sometimes I wonder why I even post this stuff. After all, those that know this stuff don't need me "preaching to the choir" and those that want to believe in Santa Claus still will. I get tired of people telling me I've been deceived by "logical sounding lies" when they haven't read anything about church history and the origins of christianity. But if I can convince one person to look at the house of cards christianity is built on and rationally examine their beliefs by looking at the cold, hard facts, it will be worth it. This is shocking; heck, I know. It's as shocking to the modern day christian as Gallileo's heliocentric model of the universe was to those who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet, Gallileo was the one that was right. Experts say that mainstream christianity has only one or two more generations left. I hope so. When one wakes up from this myth, one feels as silly as if they were 21 years old and still believed in Santa Claus.

Merry Mithras, Happy Holy Days (whatever you chose to celebrate) but please try and keep the myth in Christmyth.

Monday, November 2, 2009

It's a Sad Day

It's a sad day in the stitching world. If you aren't a cross-stitcher, the name Teresa Wentzler probably won't mean anything to you, but for us stitchers, she was a well-known designer.

I first discovered her work in 1993. My first chart was her Rapunzel. So far, I've completed only one of her designs, a freebie, Jeanne Love's Angel. I don't have all her charts, but I have most that I want; there's just one or two more that I would like. Going through my "stash", it's her designs that I have the most of. In many ways, she is my favourite designer.

She specialized in mythological and fantasy pieces and almost singlehandedly brought cross-stitch out the dark ages of aida cloth and tea towels, and made it something special, and created wonderful art. Peaceable Kingdom, Egyptian Sampler Mermaid, and her Four Seasons Faeries rank high as some of my favourites of her designs. She was known as the "Queen of the Blended Needle" due to the profiliery of blended colours in her designs. Not only was she a very talented designer, she also had the reputation of being one of the nicest people one could ever hope to meet.

Economic times being what they are, it's not longer feasible for her to keep her business running. It's a real shame. It's always sad to hear of a designer or a Local Needlework Shop/Online Needlework Shop ("LNS/ONS") going out of business. It's a loss to the stitching community.

Good luck, Teresa, and thank you. You will be missed.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

The Slippery Slope to Legalism

I've heard it suggested that if we followed the Ten Commandments, those are "standard moral laws". I find that interesting. You see, Christians are supposed to be "under grace" and not "under law". So, if one is trying to follow those and use the Ten Commandments as a guidepost because they are "good moral laws", then one is not following grace, but law. That's my definition of a legalist, someone who follows rules to the letter of law instead of the spirit of the law.

I submit that most Christians violate those Commandments every week. I'm referring to "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy". How is that? That's because most churches meet on Sunday and not the Sabbath (Saturday). Early Christians began meeting on Sundays and not Saturdays in order to distinguish themselves from Jews who met on Saturdays.

As James said, if you are guilty of violating one commandment, you are guilty of violating them all. (James 2:10). In other words, one is guilty of murder, committing adultery, bearing false witness, taking God's name in vain, etc. all because church meets on Sunday and not the Sabbath.

One could say that we don't have to worry about keeping the Sabbath because we are now under grace, but then that's a slippery slope, isn't it? What other commandments do we decide not to keep based on that? I eat bacon and shellfish; always have, and I see no reason why I would give them up based on some ancient rule. Both are forbidden under Jewish law (though not the Ten Commandments), so all my life I violated the law and was, by association, guilty of murder, etc. That seems overly harsh, doesn't it? And what choice did I have? None. I didn't decide when Church met; I was a child taken there by my parents. So, therefore, there were sealing my doom by taking me to a church that didn't line up with what the Bible said. Does that seem just? The church that I was raised in - and all that I've ever attended - therefore, were all not following the law. What about the grand total of 613 laws the Jews had? I can imagine some people saying that it doesn't matter to a christian if they eat such things as bacon or shellfish. But again, the slippery slope. If you throw out that, then you can't call yourself a Bible believing Christian, and claiming to strive to have your life "line up with God's word", or claim that your church follows the word of God because you are picking and choosing which rules to follow. Hey, I have no problem with not keeping the Sabbath or eating bacon, but then I'm not claiming to be a Bible-believing, Christian. All I'm saying is that if you are claiming to be such, you'd better think about what you are saying in order to be consistent in your arguments. Either one changes all church worship services to Saturday, or one admits that one doesn't have to follow the Ten Commandments.

If things like eating pork and/or keeping the Sabbath can be dismissed because one is now under grace, then one has to seriously think about the other laws that one doesn't follow anymore because we are no longer under the law but under grace. If one considers that the Ten Commandments are good moral laws, and that the biblical punishments for breaking those laws are just, then we need to be executing people for taking the Lord's name in vain, stoning those that work on the Sabbath, etc. Surely one must see how ludicrus this is because the Law does not just constitute the Ten Commandments.

Doing good deeds wasn't forbidden on the Sabbath. The Pharisees understood that. Jesus understood that. The Pharisees were somewhat pragmatists. They understood that sometimes you have to answer to a higher law. They, like me, had natural law tendencies. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. In fact, I've read convincing arguments that Jesus was himself, a Pharisee. Please see Hyam Maccoby's "Jesus the Pharisee" and "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity". Jesus words' in Mark 3 where he is quoted as saying that "the sabbath was made for man" was actually a Pharisaic motto according to Maccoby (but he doesn't cite his source for saying that). It was not original to Jesus. So, there was no way he was arguing against the Pharisees as the writer of Mark suggests. He was actually quoting Pharisaic doctrine and beliefs. The Pharisees were more traditional Jews and "of the people" and the Sadducees were nothing but Hellenized Roman quislings. The two groups hated each other and did not get along. I first heard of that in Bible College, and that seems to be confirmed by all the readings I've done. In the verses immediately following the story in Mark 3, it says that the Pharisees "began plotting against him [Jesus] with the partisans of Herod to see ow they could make away with him." This was impossible; there was no way the Pharisees would have done that, as the Pharisees were against the Roman occupation and the Herodians were for it. The word should not be Pharisees, it should be Sadducees. (The Mythmaker page 34). I can't recommend that book enough; it's fabulous and sheds a whole new light on Jesus and Paul. It's sad Maccoby is not better known that he is.

That also goes for the story in Mark 2, where Jesus and his disciples eat grain from a field in violation of the Sabbath rules. I quote: "One may violate all laws in order to save life, except idolatry, incest or murder." (Palestinian Talmud, Seviitt, 4:2 (35:a); Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 74a). When Jesus was questioned about the grain eating incident by the Pharisees, in Pharisaic tradition, Jesus recites the story of David eating the shew bread (which was forbidden) while David was fleeing from King Saul. It was a case of severe life or death, and so, therefore justified. All the Pharisees were doing when questioning Jesus was checking out the facts; they weren't accusing him.

My point is, one cannot get bogged down in rules and dogma. If one does, one will go crazy (almost literally) trying to keep every single piece of the law. Believe me; I've tried. In fact, it's impossible. Some of those rules were meant only for the times anyways due to the unsanitary conditions. They didn't have toilets or disinfectant soap and they had no idea of bacteria and infections and how germs and contagion could be spread.

I highly doubt Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." If someone was to say to you, "If you love me, you will obey me," what kind of person is that? That certainly does not show love, which Jesus supposedly came to do. That's something that an abusive, tyrannical wife-beating husband would say to his wife. Anyone that would obey under such circumstances is anything but free; they are under bondage and are obeying out of fear, not love. Either Jesus was nothing but a demanding control freak, or he did not say those words. I find the latter the most likely scenario. Here's why: Jesus supposedly said those words at the Last Supper. If so, why were they not recorded in the other three gospels? In no other gospel does he say anything like that. John was the oldest of the gospels, written possibly as late as 135 C.E., and it's authenticy was hotly disputed because of the gnostic teachings that pervade it. To quote Maccoby, "In the Fourth Gospel, that of John, Jesus has become unrecognizable. He uses no parables, nor any idiosyncratic rabbinical expressions; instead he spouts grandiose Hellenistic mysticism and proclaims himself a divine personage. Here the authentic Jesus has been lost in the post-Jesus myth. It is not here that we find the genuine Jesus, rooted in the Jewish religion of his time, and pursuing aims that were intelligible to his fellow Jews." (Jesus the Pharisee p. 136) Note the word I highlighted, Hellenistic, not Judaic.

One doesn't find grace by meditating on rules and law, but by looking beyond them to what the goal should be. I've never discovered anyone who followed a rulebook to the "last jot and tittle" that was gracious; in fact, quite the opposite. Jesus was willing to break some rules because of a higher goal, and I agree with him.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Some People Just Don't Get it

I just have to laugh at some people and shake my head. I really feel sorry for those christians who don't understand grace. They can talk all they want about it, but they are simply "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." I feel sorry for them, as they are missing out on so much. Anyone that would point to a list of mission groups and try to discuss grace on the level of "the doctrines of grace" just doesn't get it - especially if they name their blog after a lawgiver. It's so ironic. I really feel sorry for such people, as they are living under law and not grace. The sad thing is, they don't realize it I pity them. Yet I can't be too harsh, for I once was the same way.

Ryan O'Neil said, "Love means never having to say 'I'm sorry'" in the movie "Love Story". When I first heard that line, I really didn't get it. I think I understand it better now, as in many ways, you can substitute the word grace for love in that sentence. You don't have to keep saying "I'm sorry" and keep beating yourself over the head. God knows your heart. You don't have to keeping coming to him cowering and saying "I'm sorry". They even make fun of that in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Be warned: some people may not share the same sense of humour). You don't have to continually keep track of your errors. After all, sin just means that you've missed the mark. It's not a moral word. It means you've missed the goal, the target mark. That's what the word meant. It means you didn't score 100% on your test, or win the gold medal.

Do you really like people that continually pick at you and demand perfection, or you you prefer to be with people that accept you just as you are, warts and all? I know I certainly prefer the latter. Isn't that the way God is supposed to be? Then why do some people think that you have to keep confessing, or examining your heart and conscience before God? Doesn't grace mean that you are now a son of god and that you have the spirit of God inside of you guiding you? If so, how could you go wrong?

Grace means you don't refer to some church's doctrines on the subject. It's something that happens on a personal level, and it can mean different things to different people. It's an experience and not one that can be found by reading doctrine. The legitimate letters of Paul talk about "radical" grace. The disputed letters contradict the legitimate Paul. Grace means that "If it pleases you to please the Lord, you can please yourself." No one has the right to judge you.

Martin Luther may have talked grace, but since he was a well-known anti-semite, he was definitely missing out on the whole point of grace. Yet, he was definitely on to something. However, no one that could say the things he did about the Jews really didn't understood grace. That being said, anti-semitism was rife in the culture, and he was a product of his times.

I remember a class in Bible College where the teacher was talking about groups of people in the church. There were those who could be hurt by your actions, by your "eating meat offered to idols". Those people you should be sensitive to. To put it in modern terms, be considerate and sensitive to people: don't go indulging in a bottle of wine in front of someone that has a problem with alcoholism. However, there are other peopl in the church, who run around and think they have the right to tell other people what to do: "Don't do that. You'll offend somebody!" These people weren't offended themselves; they were just control freaks justifying their actions by telling the person that they "might" offend someone. Such people one didn't need to be worried about upsetting.

Since I don't like control freaks, I have no problem ignoring such people.

It's just sad, and is a big part of the reason I no longer attend church, as I've said before.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Amazing Grace

Why is it that one so often finds more grace outside the church than inside? That's something I've wondered about for a very long time. Let me start this off by saying that I am not writing this from a victim's standpoint, whining and bitching that I've been hurt by people in the church and that's why I no longer attend. No. If I did, I would be extremely hypocritical, as I know that I, too, can be extremely ungracious; I still wrestle with it at times. To those I've hurt, I am deeply sorry. This may sound a tad hypocritical coming on the heels of my last post, but it needs to be said.

When I first started dating DH 12 years ago, he told me that he was a "radical gracist" in the Pauline tradition. When he at first explained to me where he was coming from, I really didn't understand it. I was one of those that really liked rules: black and white. I liked defined lines where I knew where I stood and understood my boundaries. If I stepped outside those boundaries, well I knew there would be consequences for my actions - but at least I knew that. I had a very sensitive conscience, and hated breaking rules. I didn't like things that were subjective. The funny thing is, I should have liked math, as there are always right and wrong answers, yet due to my chromosomal deficiency, I hated it. Oh, sure, I talked grace, but somehow I had missed out what it really was. I really didn't understand it. I didn't realize that at the time; I thought I did. But I didn't. I very much had a rod up my you-know-what and was a stick-in-the-mud and could be extremely judgemental. For example, I really didn't understand how certain denominations could justify ordaining gay ministers. I mean, it was right there in black and white in the Bible that they were going to hell. How could they not see it?

Yet, on the other hand, I always felt that it was more important to show people love than rules. I really didn't see how throwing a bunch of rules at someone would encourage them to come to church or convert them to christianity. Showing them that you cared was the only way to make them see that you had something special that they might be interested in knowing more about. Launching a lot of scripture at them would not be the appropriate thing to do.

In schools of legal thought, I would consider myself a natural law person, as opposed to a positivist. Let me take a moment to explain that. Natural law means that there is a higher law or higher principle than man-made rules. For example, if a pregnant woman was speeding to the hospital because she was miscarrying her baby and a policeman pulled her over, the right thing to do by natural law would be to let her off: there was a higher goal, preserving the life of the baby. Now, if the policeman was operating under positive law, he would give her the ticket: she had violated the law, and should therefore receive the ticket, even if there was a reason.

The whole idea of radical grace was a little disconcerting to me. I mean, Paul does say that everything is acceptable, but that made me uncomfortable. Everything??? When I thought of the ramifications, that made me very uncomfortable. Then I met some of DH's friends. They were some of the most gracious people that I've ever met. I haven't always been that gracious towards them, I'm sorry to say. Yet, they had something that I admired.

Slowly but surely, I felt some of my legalism and judgementalism strip away. It wasn't working anyway. The more I tried to be good and failed, the more miserable I was. I wanted freedom. Not because I was planning on running around abusing my freedom, but inwardly, I've always hated rules for the sake of rules. Sure, we need some rules to function by as a society, but there was enough of a rebel in me to say that some rules weren't worth keeping. Just because it's a rule doesn't necessarily make it right. For some rules, there is no basic moral reason behind them. For example, we don't drive on the right-hand-side of the road in North America because it's immoral to drive on the left.

As someone said to me, "If it pleases you to please the Lord, then you can please yourself." I began to realize that who was I to judge someone because they were gay? What did it matter to me? Wasn't it between God and their conscience? Why was it any of my business? Why did I think I had the right to judge them? When I realized that, it was a tremendous relief. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I realized that I had been very arrogant in thinking that I could play judge and jury. People are grown ups and can be responsible for their own decisions. Now, I may not necessarily like what a person may do, but it's not my place to judge. Here's an example: I don't like abortion - not by a long shot. Yet, I don't feel I have the right to force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want or can't afford. All I hope is that she makes an informed choice.

It reminds me of the novel, "In His Steps" in which a group of church members took a vow that for the next year they would do nothing without first asking themselves the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" How they anwered that question was between them and God. No one else in the group that took the pledge was to question a choice that another member had made. A decision one person made would not be the same decision that another person made. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could live like that? Wouldn't it be intensely freeing?

I'm not saying that *everyone* inside the church is ungracious; I'm talking more about the institution in general. I think Jesus was right when he said, "If your neighbour is taking you to court and on the way you meet up with him, settle it there." The reason would be it's better if you the two parties can work it out together; the minute you get an institution involved, you end up handing over some (or all) of your autonomy and nobody gets the result they want and often justice isn't served. The same thing with church; it's an institution. It seems to be the nature of institutions. The minute they are involved (whether government or churches), rules, protocol and procedure come into play and the whole goal of the exercise is lost. The rules are there so that people have guidelines of behaviour; so that people can "expect" others to behave in a certain way. The church, sadly, becomes more about keeping the flock in line than showing grace. How often has a person in a church either unconscionably or consciously done something unexpected? I don't need to elaborate; we've all seen the reaction and fallout when that happens.

A long time ago, I know of an individual who was going through a tough time (Person "A") and the church didn't make it easy on them. Yet there was one person (Person "B") who stepped up to the plate and went and did something very loving and gracious for Person A. I know some people thought that perhaps Person B was condoning what Person A had done. Who cares? I'm sure what Person B did was a real bright moment during what was otherwise a very very painful time for Person A.

Perhaps because we're all walking wounded and it's those that are disturbed by the legalism they've come across in the church that it's those of us who are outside can understand grace more than those inside. (Notice I said *can* not *do*). I'm not perfect - far from it. As I said, I still wrestle with legalism and ungrace. I still lose my temper (as evidenced by my last post). I'm a pilgrim on this road searching for truth - just as you are. Where your path may go, may not be the same as me. And I'm all right with that. I don't expect you to agree with me 100%. Wouldn't it be ironic if I got hate mail for this post? I think it would just go to prove exactly what I've been saying...

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Coming out of the Closet - The Fallout

This is specifically addressed to the person who responded to my blog post and decided to set up a blog themselves to show me the evil of my ways. You can see what they did here. I find it interesting that the person would call his blog "Beginning at Moses". Considering Moses was the lawgiver, you can see where the person is coming from: legalism and definitely NOT grace.

Dear sir,

Unless one has spent the time reading all the books on church history, origins of christianity, religious studies, and watched the hundreds of hours worth of documentaries that we have, then one really can't comment by saying "no contradiction" in one or more blog posts. Once you have read our list of books – and maybe come to a different conclusion, then we can possibly communicate. Then, perhaps, only then can we talk. I know where you are coming from. I’ve been where you are and changed. Yet, you do not know where I am coming from. Until you have walked in my shoes we cannot have a rational discussion about this. I cannot go back to where I was. If you see no contradictions, that's fine. I, for one, do.

The comment “bravo” was meant in the original context of the word, “brave” as my husband was proud of me for having the guts to actually speak my mind. I knew the potential consequences and I did it anyway. Because I’ve read dozens and dozens of books on these subjects, it’s hard for me to articulate in an abbreviated space what these authors have said in volumes.

It's well known in academic circles that Paul never wrote II Timothy. It’s generally agreed that Paul’s genuine works are: Romans, I & II Corinthians, I Thessalonians, Galatians and Philippians. Most Bible Colleges, supposedly, teach that (but the pastors NEVER tell their congregation that). Please see The First Paul by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg. The rest were written “in his name” but not by Paul himself. Today we would call that plagiarism, but no one had issues about it back in the first century. In legal terms, he would have no subject matter jurisdiction to do a raid on the people of Damascus. It was out of his jurisdiction and he had no authority there. I know there are contradictory statements in Acts about Paul’s conversion experience and what Paul says happened in his letters, but I can’t find what book that was in. I think it was The First Paul I mentioned above. Paul was from Tarsus, a seat of the Mithas cult. (Tarsus/Taurus both meaning “the bull.”) I’ve read convincing arguments that what Paul was doing was basically rewriting the Greek mystery religions for Jews and that he was no Pharisee. No Jew would EVER have drunk blood – it was forbidden in the book of Leviticus. Jesus NEVER would have said, “This is my blood...” as Paul claims - even if it was meant as a symbol. I was stunned when I read that. I should have known that all along. It seemed so obvious to me when I saw it before me, but why hadn’t I seen it before? Even you can’t refute that drinking blood was forbidden to the Hebrews.

I'm not saying I know it all - heck no. I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone else. I challenged what I believed - and found it sorely wanting. If you challenge yourself, and it stands, I'm happy for you. For me, the Bible that I thought I knew (and I thought I knew it well) didn't stand up to too much scrutiny. It bothers me that something like Jesus' divinity came down to a vote – by someone like Constantine who had an agenda for political control. Some archaeological digs do support some things about the bible - some don't. It's estimated by the Jesus seminar that up to 84% of what we are told about him in the Bible never happened. And, how do you reconcile the stories of Mithras, Adonis, Attis that all pre-dated Christ by hundreds of years, or are you going to side with the church fathers who said the devil went back in time and planted the story? Surely you must see how ridiculous that claim is. But before judging me, go read them for yourself. James Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” also retells some of those myths. If you are content with believing that only one of those is history and the others are simply myth, that's all right. I, personally, had to be honest with myself and say I couldn't accept that. The stories are too close to be coincidence. Go and do some research on the cult of Mithras. You should be shocked at what you find and how much christianity stole from it.

These men and women who talk about the contradictions I’ve mentioned have spent their lifetimes doing this work. A lot are people like Bart D. Ehrman, a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and was (In his own words) "a committed Bible believing christian" and was "certain that the Bible, down to its very words, had been inspired by God. Maybe that’s what drove my intense study… Surely knowing them intimately was the most important thing in life.” Some are like John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop of Newark for many years before his retirement. Unless you have put in the hours and years of study that these – and other - men have, you can’t just simply dismiss them. To say that, “the heart of all Biblical challenge is spiritual unbelief, not intellectual incompatibility, though the latter is often sited and held onto for dear life, ironic as that is, by those who professing themselves to be wise have become fools” is pompous and arrogant on your part – when you have not walked in these men’s shoes. You do not know them, nor the journeys they took. How dare you be so self-righteous that you would call them deceived by the devil. You should at least listen to what they have to say. How dare you say they don’t know what they are talking about and that their research does not stand. The fact is you say that because you don't want the research to stand, and not because you know anything about them or their work. Your opinion is formed in sheer and utter ignorance. You’ve never read what they’ve said, nor read the manuscripts they have. Once you have, then you can form an opinion. Until then, you have no right to speak.

The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are NOT sound, and I quote Mr. Ehrman, “Matthew left out some names in the fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian disaster. In 1:8, he indicates that Joram is the father of Uzziah. But we know from I Chronicles 3:10-12 that Joram was not Uzziah’s father, but his great-grandfather. In other words, Matthew has dropped three generations from his genealogy.”

Do I know what happens when we die? No. And if you were honest, you don’t know either. You believe something. Belief and knowledge are two quite different things. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is all there is, but I don’t know.

I find your accusation that I am a “dead soul” very insulting, especially when you don’t know me. In fact, I find myself in a far happier place spiritually and more healthy emotionally and a more tolerant and gracious person now than when I was a Bible believing christian. I look back on the person I was then with shame. I now consider myself a “gracist” and believe that “if it pleases you to please the Lord, then you can please yourself” and I won’t question it. I would just hope that I would receive the same from you. When you spoke of churches “dummying down” I do understand what you are talking about. Now that I see things differently, I want to chew on some meat and not the milk I was fed at church. I now read the academic stuff; the books one reads in upper level theology classes. I find the stuff one finds at the average christian bookstore much too dummied down for my liking and trite. I consider myself fairly well read, and fairly intelligent – though my academic career is nothing compared to a lot of people. Heck, all I have is a one year Bible Certificate, my paralegal certificate and a love of reading and learning.

When I was in Bible College, we had a teacher that said that when he was a pastor, his goal was to work himself out of a job – to get the congregation to the place where he wasn’t needed anymore. I remember thinking how brilliant that was of him. As time goes on, I think more of him for it. To bring a person to the point in their (spiritual) life where they can stand on their own should be the goal. I don’t know what psychology you may or may not have studied, but when a person goes for counseling, they can develop “transference” and it’s up to the counselor/psychologist to make sure that transference – as painful as it may be for the patient – is broken. The movie “Holy Smoke” with Kate Winslet portrays it quite graphically. Kate’s cult deprogrammer, Harvey Keitel, in order to break transference slaps her across the face in order to force her to break from him. Perhaps those that have left the church have broken the transference and have the ability to stand on our own. Perhaps it’s us who “saw through a glass darkly, but now face to face.” My walk is my walk – and yours is yours. Surely after all this time you don’t need someone to tell you how to live your spiritual life. I have a theory that those who are still in the church are still afraid of their father (be it heavenly or earthly) and are too scared to stand on their own and need someone to tell them what to do. Once they grow up and are a little more spiritually mature, they, in theory, should no longer need that. God wants us to be spiritual adults – not simpering, whimpering, cowering children. He gave us brains for a reason: to use them to think. He didn’t make us robots.

As for Genesis, I know of a pastor in the C&MA church who doesn’t think there was a literal tree in a literal garden. I didn’t understand him at the time, but I do now. Are you going to say he’s going to hell for that because you see something different?

As for Judas, I suggest that you try and find a copy of “Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil” by Hyam Maccoby. It’s out of print now, but I was fortunate enough to get a copy a few years ago at a reasonable price. His basic premise is that christians used the character of Judas as an excuse to propagate 2000 years worth of atrocities on the Jews. Actually, it would appear that Andrew Lloyd Webber got it right in his musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” where Jesus tells Judas before the betrayal to (I’m paraphrasing) “wear the black cloak with pride”. The recently discovered Gospel of Judas seems to verify that. If Jesus was solely a spiritual leader, and had nothing to do with politics, why do as many as five of his disciples have ties to political groups (Judas Iscariot being one of them, Simon the Zealot being another). That figure of up to five I remember being told back in my NT class at Northwest Baptist. Are you going to say that he was wrong, too and/or just dismiss it because you don’t agree? Speaking of the disciples, can you even name all twelve? There are contradictions in those lists, too, depending on which gospel you read.

In the words of Steve Martin, “You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies." I would also say that there are a lot of life’s riddles answered in books. You need to do more reading – far more than what you can find in your christian bookstore. You need to read books that were written by Jewish scholars like Hyam Maccoby. After all, Jesus was Jewish and who better would understand Jewish culture than a Jew? You need to read books written by academics – real academics from real universities like Harvard, Princeton and Yale, not some bible-paper-mill. People like Elaine Pagels, Bart D. Ehrman, etc. The more you learn, the more you will find you don’t know – and that’s the beginning of wisdom: admitting you don’t know. The word virgin did NOT mean a young woman that had not had sex; it meant maiden, an unmarried young woman. It was mistranslated. If Jeconiah was so evil that God took the throne away from his descendants, then why did God promise David that his throne would be established forever? (II Samuel 7:11-16) Isn’t God contradicting himself, which God supposedly cannot do?

If you are going to say that God cursed Jeconiah and took the throne away from him because he was so evil, then do you condone the horrors of slavery that were imposed on Africans by their christian “massers” because Ham was cursed by Noah, and Africans are (supposedly) his descendants? That was the justification that “good Christian white folk” used. Are you saying that the estimated nine million Africans that died on slave ships en route to America somehow got what they deserved because of something that supposedly happened several thousand years before? Are you going to condone witch trials because all women were cursed through Eve? Are you saying the pogroms and the holocaust were justified because the Jews supposedly rejected Jesus? Surely to be consistent, you must.

If someone from the 15th or 16th Century were to time travel to our time and tell us that the earth was flat and it was the centre of the universe, would we believe him? No. Science has proven that’s not true. If he was to tell us that animals are “automatons” and feel no pain, would we believe him? No. (I find it hard to believe that someone as intelligent as Rene Descartes would say something so stupid). Would we believe him if he said that you couldn’t trust a woman’s word in court simply because she was a woman? No. Would we believe him if he said a woman must be a witch because he came down with a head cold after seeing her in the street (or some such nonsense?) No. Then why would we trust anything he would have to say about religion and the authority of the church? That would also go for the London Baptist confession of faith, too.

My hope lies in the fact that, if there is a god, he will not cast anyone out who genuinely seeks truth. I want to know who the historical Jesus was. I want to know, so much that I am willing to go beyond the borders of the playground I was told was safe to play in to find out who he was. Short of going back in time, the best I can do is read about him. No doubt he is disgusted, as I am, at the atrocities that have been – and still are committed in his name. Most recent of which is the Iraq war which President Bush said was to “avert Gog and Magog” and Sarah Palin called, “A Mission from God.” My hope does not rest in a two thousand year old book that that’s unreliable as history and science and contradicts itself. I believe Luther was onto something when he said, “faith alone” but I don’t take everything he says as true as it’s well known he was a raging anti-semite, so that taints some of his sayings which coincides with what I said in the previous paragraph.

How can I explain how it changes lives? Easy. It’s because deep within us, we passionately want to believe that we are important to God. It reaches deep into our psyche, something very primal. We want to believe there is something more to this life than the miseries we see every day. How can I explain how it’s lasted this long? Again, that’s easy. You obviously don’t know anything about church history and how much control they had to ask such a question. Can I explain why supposedly over 5,000 documents agree? Sure. It’s called scotoma: the eyes see what they want to see. If you are determined not to see errors in the scriptures, you won’t. You are wearing rose coloured glasses. I’m not saying the Bible doesn’t have a place in the world, but I do have problems with everything in it being taken as literal fact, when I’m convinced that not everything is. There was no divine author. The stories were written down by men – sometimes many hundreds of years afterwards. And these men had agendas. If and when you realize that some of it is metaphor, you will find yourself in a much happier place spiritually with new eyes to see. You will see so much more than what is in front of you and see the bible as a richer document and you will wonder why you didn’t see it before. As I said in my last post, I am not going to be the one that stands up says which part is which (even though some things are more obvious than others).

You just haven’t seen it yet. You may never. Until you do, we cannot communicate. Please do not speak of this again; I do not wish to communicate with you ever again. There is no point, as we will probably never agree and it’s just not worth the time effort, stress and heartache on my part. Until your eyes are opened, this whole exercise is pointless. It’s not because if you don’t agree with me, you aren’t welcome to talk to me. It’s just I don’t think there is enough common ground to have a rational discussion. I have made a conscious point of weeding out people like you from my life: legalistic christians that really don’t understand grace. What gives you the right to say to me "Turn to Him"? What gives you the right to ask me when last I asked the Lord for guidance? How dare you presume I don't. Who made me answerable to you? Arrogant, ignorant, condescending, paternalistic, chauvinistic, holier-than-thou attitudes and beliefs wrapped in the hypocrisy of “caring” like what you have displayed are what drove me and millions like me from the church. The Inquisitors said the same thing when they were torturing their victims: they were doing it for the good of the person’s soul. Based on your comments, I think in another day and age you would have been one of them – persecuting anyone who disagreed with you. Perhaps no one (especially a woman) has ever dared say these things to you, but since I will not be communicating with you ever again, I have no problem of telling you exactly what I think of you. Your brand of "christianity" needs to die. The sooner the better.

You may never have the eyes to see, but I pray your children do one day.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

It's Time to Come out of the Closet

Ha! Bet that title got your attention. I guess it's time I do something I normally don't do: talk about something personal on the Internet. This is going to be a very long post. Okay, let's start:

I was raised a (Protestant) Christian, went to Catholic elementary school, a horrible Pentecostal high school, and Baptist Bible College. I always got "A's" in anything to do with religion or the Bible. I sailed through my One Year Bible Certificate at Bible College. I was heavily involved in church and church-related activities. I sang in the choir, led music teams, taught Sunday School, was on the Missions Committee, etc. etc. I believed the Bible was the literal, inerrant word of God, that Jesus was the Son of God who came to earth to die for our sins and that all who believed in his message of salvation would go to Heaven.

Yet, deep down, I always had issues. I struggled with a lot of things. How could a loving God demand that the Israelites wipe out whole communities of people, including innocent children? These were people that didn't have the chance to hear about the Israelite god or given a chance to convert, and God demands they are wiped out and sent to Hell? I had problems with that big time. I saw one or two other things in the Bible that bothered me, too: why are there two stories of Judas' death in the New Testament? One is in Matthew 27, the other in the first Chapter of Acts. One says he hangs himself, and the other says he trips in a field and his intestines spilled out. There was no way I could reconcile the two stories. Then there were the crucifixion stories where one gospel says that the thieves that were crucified with Jesus both reviled him and another says that one begged Jesus to remember him when Jesus came into his kingdom. Okay, I could gloss over that one a bit. Two different people at the crucifixion were there at slightly different times. One missed the thief begging for forgiveness. Yet, still it bothered me.

It also bothered me that no matter how hard I struggled with my weaknesses, they never improved. No matter how much I really tried - and I did - I just kept failing. It was discouraging. I would continually fall into despair and dejection and a vicious cycle of legalism. I looked around at the people I was in church with and found myself incredibly lonely; I must be a very bad person if I was wrestling with this stuff - it seemed they had it easy. No one else seemed to be wrestling with the issues and questions I was. I just kept getting told to "have faith." I found those platitudes really unhelpful and insulting. I learned to keep my mouth shut.

Then, one day, I met DH. It was refreshing to talk to him, as he had wrestled with the same isues and questions. He suggested that there were others that had, too. In fact, a of of very intelligent people wrestled with those same issues. When I read Freud's "The Future of An Illusion", I was blown away by his statement that we try to gain god's approval as the same way we tried to gain our father's. It was true. I knew it. That's exactly what we do. DH also talked a lot about "radical" grace. It helped me see things in a new light. For several years I was still a mainstream christian and still believed, but then something else happened: I had an epiphany; a crisis. My world was ripped apart, and I would never see things in the same way. It was Easter 2001 and I read a book called, "The Hiram Key". It was a history of freemasonry; I wasn't expecting anything too radical, and I was interested in the masons and the Templars. But there was something in the early chapters that changed my outlook on everything I'd ever been told. In that book, there was a list of demi-gods that were born to human mothers and divine fathers around Christmas and sacrificed/crucified around Easter. Here are some of them: Mithras, Adonis, Attis, Dionysis. I was stunned - and these all predated Christ by hundreds of years. In all my readings, I'd never heard of any of this. I'd never even heard of Mithras. That was it. In that moment, it was like "scales fell from my eyes" and I never saw things the same. There was no way that I could dismiss the rest of those demi-god stories as myth and say that the one that I was raised to believe was the only one that was historically true. There was too much that could just be dismissed lightly. That was the end for me. From that point on, I could no longer accept Christianity as literally true. I walked away never to return. I've since done more readings that include those names and more. If you read Fraser's "Golden Bough" you'll come across more myths that are very much the same as the Jesus story. In fact, the parallels between Jesus and Mithras are so close, it's scary. So much so that the early church fathers claimed that the devil went back in time and screwed with the space time continuum and planted the story. Yeah. Right. It's sad to think that a lot of people bought that nonsense.

Around the time I started reading "The Hiram Key," DH was reading a book called, "The Templar Revelation" and, at one point, he leaped out of his chair and said, "Have you seen the Last Supper?" I said, "Of course I've seen the Last Supper." He asked me to pull up a picture online, and I did. He pointed out the person sitting on Jesus' right (our left) and he said, "That's a woman." I had to agree; it looked like a woman to me. Little did we know that within two years, millions more people would see it too with the publication of "The DaVinci Code" but I'm getting ahead of myself. It was one of those moments you never forget. You look at the painting, and look at it and wonder why you hadn't seen it before. It could very well be scotoma: the eye seeing what it wants to see. Does that mean that I want to see a woman now? Perhaps. I'm not ruling that out. Art historians claim that John was often painted very effeminate looking (look at Leondardo's painting of John the Baptist to see what I'm talking about. You can see it here

The next year (2002) I read, "The Holy Blood, Holy Grail" "("HBHG"). DH had been trying to get me to read that for quite some time and I was now ready. I was captivated from the first chapter. It started with the atmosphere of a detective novel about a priest called Bérenger Saunière in southern France in a small place called Rennes Le Chateau. The priest found "something" under his church and suddenly he became VERY wealthy. He was visited by all sorts of important people and even went to Rome. He never spoke of where the money came from. There is some talk that he trafficked in masses, but that doesn't explain how filthy rich he was. When he died in 1916, he was refused the last rites by the attending bishop who walked out of the room ashen faced. The writers went on to hypothesize that what Saunière found was documentation that proved there was a bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene and that the royal houses of Europe traced their ancestry back to them ("the divine right of kings"). That line of kings were called the Merovingians. They were later betrayed by the Catholic Church who replaced them with the Carolingian line.

Now, I'm not saying everything the authors said was right - even they don't claim that. Yet somehow, it made a lot of sense to me. The Hebrew word "messiah" meant earthly king; it was not meant to be a heavenly king. The Jews were right in expecting that. It also made sense to me that the Jews would have kept track of David's royal bloodline and heirs. No, I'm not talking about the census in the Gospel of Luke; historically, that never happened. Augustus NEVER ordered such a census. We have excellent records of that period of Roman history and there was no such census ordered. It would have been logistically impossible. Also, Herod was dead by the time Jesus was born (approximately 4 B.C.) and he (Herod) was not contemporary with Quirinus who Luke claims was governor of Syria at the time Jesus was born). While reading HBHG and it's sequel, "The Messianic Legacy" I could literally feel the physical healing of my soul.

Yet, I was confused. I was in a place Joseph Campbell would call "The Dark Night of the Soul" and I wasn't sure where I stood on a lot of things. I was convinced that a lot of the Bible was metaphorically true and not historically true. I was sure that Jesus giving a blind man sight could easily be giving him the gift of spiritual sight and curing spiritual blindness and not curing physical blindness. To me, they were both miracles. Was I going to stand up and say, "This one is history; this one is metaphor? No way.

The more I read about the early church and church history, the more repulsed and angry I became. Constantine was no christian; he was lifelong member of the Sol Invictus/Mithras cult and converted to Christianity on his deathbed. (I've wanted to trademark that phrase for a long time now: "Constantine: The Original Deathbed Catholic"). I found it very easy to believe that there was an agenda to cover up the fact that Jesus was married and possibly fathered children. On one side, there was the matter of secrecy, in order to ensure the survival of the family and, two, there was the agenda of disparaging Magdalene (and thereby denegrating all women) as the church fathers were misogynists. It's estimated that millions of European women were denounced as witches and tortured to death by the church. And guess who benefited? The Church. For the lands and properties of those victims of witch killings were seized by the Church. One tends to think there had to be more motivation than just the elimination of heresy: it was greed. Today, when I see photos of St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel, I no longer see the beauty, I see blood money and I am repulsed. I think to myself, "How many innocent women paid the ultimate price for this?" Monty Python got it right in their scene involving a witch trial in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." You can see the scene here. You may laugh, (and it is funny) but if you know church history, sadly, the logic they follow is fairly accurate. In an episode of the Simpsons where they recount the Pilgrims coming to America, Bart denounces Lisa as a witch. Her response is, "Bart, the ability to do double-digit addition does not make one a witch." (or words to that effect, I'm can't find the exact wording). And I'm only talking about women; the church's treatment of Jews is another matter. It's shocking to think that the attitude that "the Jews killed Jesus" still persists. The facts are they didn't. Jesus was crucified, which was a Roman form of execution - not Jewish. The Jews used stoning as a form of execution. Since Jesus was not stoned to death, but crucified, the Jews were NOT responsible for his death. Sadly, it's led to a lot of horrors perpetrated against them: pogroms, expulsions, and, of course, the holocaust.

Keep in mind, this was all before The DaVinci Code was published. As DH said, "I'm so glad you read all that stuff before it became cool to believe it." When The DaVinci Code was published in 2003, I knew I would have to read it, and I did. My only problem with reading the book was that I knew where he was going with the story; we'd read the same books. DH never read it (he very rarely reads fiction), but we saw the movie opening weekend and he was impressed and said, "He [Dan Brown] did his homework." When DH had read "HBHG" way back in the 80's he said he felt the premise would make for a good thriller and said Dan Brown did a far better job than he ever could have with it.

I am constantly amused and frustrated at the vitriol that is thrown at the book. Come on, people. It's fiction. To me the arguments they throw at it are "straw man" arguments; they weren't attacking the real issue. If you want to address the real issues Dan Brown raises, then attack "HBHG" and the other books like "The Templar Revelation" that Dan Brown used as the basis for his research - the books that are non-fiction. The one argument that amuses me that people raise is, "If Jesus was married, it would be in the Bible." Well, I'm not sure about you, but I see a lot of information missing about Jesus in the Bible: What were his first words? How old was he when he began to walk? What subjects did he like in school? Who were his playmates? What were his favourite foods? etc. etc. The Bible is not some reality t.v. or "The Truman Show" where the cameras were on him 24 hours a day capturing his every moment for posterity. The Bible never said Jesus (to quote the Steven Curtis Chapman song), "...cried when he was hungry; did all the things that babies do. He rocked and he napped in his mother's lap and wriggled and giggled and cooed." The Bible never talks about those things, but one can assume that they happened since Jesus was fully human. I've heard arguments from an evangelical perspective (can't remember where, but it might have been at bible college) where I was told that, based on Hebrew culture at the time, that it would have been unusual for Jesus not to have been married, as it was a Jewish young man's duty to marry and bear sons.

Okay, so if it would have been normal for Jesus to have been married, who would be the most likely candidate based on what we know? It seems (almost) obvious: Mary Magdalene. Legends persisted that she went to France after the crucifixion taking the grail with her and was accompanied by a "dark-skinned servant girl" named Sarah. Woah, nelly. San greal (Holy Grail) was probably a copyist's error; it should read sang real, which means royal blood, or blood royal. Think of the drink sangria: it's red. So, Mary Magdalene goes to France with the blood royal accompanied by a servant girl named Sarah? If you know the meaning of the name Sarah, you should be stunned: it means princess. Is it so far fetched to believe that someone who was fleeing for their life and wanted to conceal her child's royal connections would refer to her as a "servant" (think of both Abraham and Isaac in the Old Testament - they both did the same thing when it came to their wives; they referred to them as "sisters"). Is it so hard to believe that people would have had to cloak this in metaphor and symbols for the protection of the family?

In order to tarnish Magdalene's reputation, the Church called her a prostitute. She was no such thing - yet the stigma remains. There was a Jewish tradition that God had a wife, but the Catholic Church did all they could to wipe out the sacred feminine. However, belief in the "goddess" survived. She was transplanted in the belief that Mary, the mother of god (not Mary Magdalene) is the Queen of Heaven and the intermediary between man and God. (Hey, that's what I was taught at Catholic School). The final scene of the mini-series "The Mists of Avalon" depicts it beautifully. You can see it: here. That's Julianna Margulies as Morgaine (Morgana Lefay) who is also narrating the scene.

I know that C.S. Lewis said that Jesus was either a lunatic, liar or Lord. But, as I read in Bart Ehrman's "Jesus Interrupted", Lewis was missing another category: legend. I am fairly convinced that there was a Jesus (though Jesus is a title, and not a name). I've read convincing arguments that Jesus was a pharisee. If that was true, that would be an even stronger argument that Jesus was married, as you had to be married in order to be a pharisee.

This brings us to the other night when we watched a documentary called "Bloodline". We were unsure if it was going to shed any new information on the subject, and we were both stunned. For guess what? It would appear that they have found Mary Magdalene's tomb in France - just as the stories claimed she was. In the words of the first Lord of the Rings movie: History became legend. Legend became myth - and for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Yes, Tolkien was in on it, too. He knew. Aragorn was definitely a Merovingian. Aragorn's father, just like St. Dagobert (a Merovingian king who was betrayed and murdered) was killed with a spear through his eye, and Aragorn had the ability to heal, which was characteristic of the Merovingian kings.

Don't shoot the messenger. In the words of the X Files: "The truth is out there" for those that wish to see. History proves that Christianity is built on nothing but a pack of cards, violence, and lies. It's high time that Christianity as we know it is destroyed. Go read for yourself. Here are a list of books I've read that have highly influenced me:

Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh;
The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird;
Mary Magdalene - Christianity's Hidden Goddess by Lynn Picknett;
Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contraditions in the Bible (and why we don't know about them) by Bart D. Ehrman;
Jesus for the Non-Religious by John Shelby Spong;
The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby;
Jesus the Pharisee by Hyam Maccoby;

If you read the same books and come to a different conclusion, I don't mind. I was shocked to discover so many contradictions in the Bible. There's a lot more than I believed possible. I have no issues with people that challenge their spiritual beliefs and may come to a different place. As the pastor that married DH and I once said, "There is truth in all places." For me, this was where my journey took me. In no way am I saying that I have all the answers. In fact, the more I read, the more I realize I don't know and am always open to re-evaluating my beliefs. New archealogical discoveries are always being made; new books are always being written. Do I still consider myself a christian? Yes and No. Yes, because it's the mythology that's influenced me the most. No because I don't believe the doctrinal statements. I consider myself somewhat of an "emergent christian". I refuse to ever again attend a regular church, but enjoy discussing religious issues and subjects with DH and a few other friends who no longer attend church. I do miss the sense of community, but I just don't fit in anymore - and there's no going back. What has been seen, cannot be unseen. Do I believe in God? Perhaps - but certainly not the vengeful, bloodthirsty god that's depicted in the Old Testament. Yet, I've seen too much of some divine guidance (for lack of another word) to completely dismiss a spiritual realm.

In the words of Bill Maher, in his documentary "Religulous", (which I highly recommend) "If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler - a mafia wife."

But one thing I am sure of, I WILL NOT be a mafia wife any longer. I wasted over 30 years of my life believing something that was nothing more than mythology and a fairy tale. I plan to spend the rest of my life working to bring it down. If you've made it this far doing this extremely long post, thank you.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Mr. President, I agree with you.

Something President Obama and I agree on: Kanye West is a "jackass". Here's the story.

Sunday night, at the VMA's, rapper Kanye West made another of his imfamous classless moves during Taylor Swift's acceptance of her award for Best Female Video. He left his seat, went up on the stage, took the microphone away from Taylor and said that Beyoncé had one of the best videos "of all time." The camera panned to the seated Beyoncé, who was clearly embarressed at West's remarks.

This is a guy that's famous for charging the stage when he lost an award in Europe and for claiming in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that President Bush, "Didn't care about black people." I really wonder at the mentality of someone that doesn't realize how ridiculous it makes them look. What kind of a person would deliberately ruin someone's moment to shine? Even if Beyoncé did make it up to Taylor later (which was the right thing to do) the moment was still ruined. I'm not saying he doesn't have the right to his opinions. He does. It's what he did - and in the name of someone else.

Some people really shouldn't open their mouths in public.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

R.I.P Patrick Swayze

In a year that seems to have claimed more than its fair share of Hollywood-types, late yesterday afternoon we learned that actor Patrick Swayze had died after valiantly battling pancreatic cancer for over a year.

I was very saddened to hear this. Though I wouldn't consider myself a *fan* per se, I did like him and I liked the movies that I'd seen him in. Not only was he handsome, but he was talented. Back in the 80's and early 90's when musicals were out of style, he was one of the few "triple threats" in Hollywood that could sing, act and dance. Now that musicals are "back" we're seeing a few more people show off their singing and dancing skills, like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellwegger, Richard Gere, Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman to name a few. Personally, I would have liked to have seen what Swayze would have done with the role of Billy Flynn in the movie Chicago; not that Richard Gere was bad (he was quite good) but I think Swayze also could have pulled it off. (He placed the role in the Broadway revival).

I'm not sure which role I liked him best in. It's a toss up between Ghost and North and South. I loved him in both of those. Yes, he was also very good in Dirty Dancing, but it's those two that have a special place in my heart. I always felt it was a pity he didn't become a bigger star than he was.

He was not one of those who was in the tabloids; he kept out of the limelight pretty much - that's something I liked. His 34 year marriage to wife Lisa Niemi was another. It's not often you read of that in Hollywood, the graveyard of so many marriages.

He fought his disease with courage and dignity and brought attention to a cancer that has a 90% fatality rate.

Rest well, Patrick. You will be missed.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Sleep Well Sweet Princess.

Wow. Time sure does past fast. It was one of those evenings that started off like normal. It was Saturday, August 30th, 1997. I was over at a family friend's where we were doing needlework and watching old movies. We used to do this a lot.

Then sometime around 8:00, we heard that Princess Diana had been in a car accident. I distinctly remember thinking, "She'll be all right. She's Diana." We turned off the movie and turned on the tv to CNN. Within minutes it was confirmed that Diana was indeed dead. I was devastated.

I stayed way past midnight, glued to the tv. When I got home, I continued watching. It was surreal. I couldn't believe it. It just couldn't be true. I finally went to bed sometime around 3:00 a.m. It was then that I let loose all the tears I'd been holding back and cried myself to sleep.

I felt like I had lost a friend. I had been an admirer of hers since 1981. She had her faults; we all do. I don't agree with some of the decisions that she made in her personal life - but who am I to judge?

I was in London the summer she got married. Almost every store was decorated for the event and selling memorabilia of some kind. It was then that began my love of all things royal.

I met her in 1986 when Prince Charles and Diana came to Expo 86. My best friend and I got up very early and waited three hours at Central Park to see them. It was worth it. We couldn't believe our luck when they rolled out the red carpet right in front of us. There was a child next to me getting squashed against the barricade. Diana bent down to talk to the child and said, "Dear, are you squashed?" She straightened up and looked around at her bodyguards and said, "Can't we do something?" Prince Charles shook his head and said, "It happens everywhere we go." I managed to hand her a single red rose and a note. I even managed to snap a few pictures. I was struck by her beauty. She was stunning. No picture ever captured how truly beautiful she really was - I'm not exxagerating. The afternoon I met her was the day she fainted in the California Pavillion at Expo 86. A few days later, I received a reply to my note. It's a treasured momento (even if was only signed by her secretary).

It's so sad that someone so beautiful was snatched away so young. Thirty-six is far too young to die. To think that her death was completely unnecesary. For all that I don't really care that much for Prince Charles, it is a credit to him that William and Harry have turned out so well.

Rest well, Diana.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Happy Birthday

Wow. Time sure has flown. My little blog is two years old today. Not that I post as often as I should. I'll try to do better; I seem to post in fits and starts. Here's hoping this starts a few flurry of posts.

Here's to the first two years - and to more to come.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Two Thumbs Up to Pixar

In case you think I write too many rant/soapbox-type posts, here's one that's completely different.

All I can say is, "Well done, Pixar. You've restored my faith in the goodness of humanity." I couldn't help but cry as I read this story a few days ago. It still chokes me up.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31448115/ns/entertainment-movies/

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Star Trek - 2009

DH and I went to see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon, and since I made it known that we were going, I am under pressure to post a review. Here goes:

Let me start by saying, I'm not a die-hard Star Trek fan. I'm a Star Wars fan. I have seen a fair amount of episodes of The Original Series("TOS"), but I've seen almost six full seasons of The Next Generation ("TNG"). Though I like TOS, I prefer TNG. I've seen almost all the movies (with the exception of #3 "The Search for Spock").

This new movie sets the story back with the original crew (Kirk, Spock, Chekov, Uhura, McCoy["Bones"] Scotty, and Sulu. We are introduced to a younger crew, back when some of them were cadets at the Starfleet Academy.

The movie starts off the day that James Kirk is born. We are then fast-forwarded to a young Kirk as a rebellious teen in Iowa. We are also introduced to Spock as a child on his home planet of Vulcan. Then we are fast-forwarded to Kirk as a young man (Chris Pine) getting himself into trouble in a local watering-hole where he meets Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) for the first time.

If you remember your Star Trek, you will know that Captain Kirk was not the original captain, it was captain Christopher Pike. He was in the pilot episode, "The Cage." This time around, he's played by Vancouver actor, Bruce Greenwood ("I Robot", "National Treasure 2", "Thirteen Days"). Taking the mantle of James Kirk is Chris Pine. He was fine. He had Kirk's swagger and roving eye with the women. There was a moment when he was lounging in the captain's chair just like William Shatner before him. He certainly had the looks to play the young Kirk, and occassionally if I closed my eyes, I thought I heard William Shatner's voice. Zachary Quinto (tv's Heroes") as Spock was also a good choice. He had the look to play Spock and the mannerisms. He didn't quite have Nimoy's gravelly voice, but he was fine. Zoe Saldana as Uhura was all right; nothing special. I think she could have been better, or perhaps they could have got someone better. There were moments when I thought I was watching Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. John Cho ("Harold and Kumar") was miscast as Sulu. For one thing, he doesn't even look Japanese; he's Korean. Didn't have the voice or the mannerisms. I think they could have got someone better. Simon Pegg as Scotty didn't really look like James Doohan, but he had the Aberdonian accent and was otherwise true to the character. Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov had the voice down perfect, but I don't ever remember Chekov with curly hair. Other than that, he was fine. Eric Bana ("Troy", "Munich") as the villian "Nero" was unrecognizable. It wasn't until it was almost over that I recognized his voice. Saving the best for last, Karl Urban ("Lord of the Rings II and III") NAILED Bones. He looked like him, acted like him, and had the voice. He was perfect.

Directed by JJ Abrams (tv's "Lost" and "Alias") I was looking forward to see what he would do with the series, since I consider Lost and Alias two of my all time favourite tv shows. He did a good job. The special effects were great. Don't look for some moral lesson which is something one could expect from both TOS and TNG. This was no morality play speaking out about social issues of the time. (If you know the series, you will know that Kirk and Uhura shared the first inter-racial kiss on tv). I was thinking that under Abrams' hand, perhaps there would be something like that here, but there wasn't. Abrams is known for things like that in Lost and Alias, especially moral ambiguity. msnbc.com called it, "popcorn perfection" and I agree.

You don't really have to know the series to enjoy it. However, it does help if you know what a kobayashi maru is. (If you don't know, go do a google search, but I'm not spilling the beans).

Go see it. It's great. I give it 4 1/2 stars out of five.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

By now, you've probably heard of Susan Boyle, the Scottish singer who has literally gone from unknown obscure citizen to a household name. If you don't know who she is, you can see her here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Obviously, what makes her so special is that you didn't expect such a quality powerhouse professional-level voice to come from someone like her. Watch the video and you'll see when Susan says that she wants to be a professional singer that one girl in the audience rolls her eyes. When she says she wants to be as famous as Elaine Paige, another girl can be clearly seen to say, "Who's Elaine Paige?" For those of you who don't know, Elaine Paige was the original Evita from the 1978 Andrew Lloyd Webber stage production. The female judge, Amanda, appears a little sceptical at first, judging by her face, but seems to be reserving judgement about what she's about to hear.

That is until Susan started to sing. She sang Fantine's aria, "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. She sang it better than at least one professional actress I've seen play the role on the stage. Watch the reactions of both Simon and Amanda. They were completely blown away. No one expected that.

Good luck, Susan. You represent all of us who were laughed at, scorned, bullied, made fun of and ridiculed in school. I wish you much success with your dream. If you release an album of show tunes, I will definitely buy it. Your success is an inspiration for those of us who were laughed at and told we would never succeed in this life.

You go, girl.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

In Defence of Barbie

So, yesterday there was a story on msn that some West Virginia lawmaker wants to ban the sales of Barbie. Here's the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29508066/ .

It's good to know with a war going on in two fronts, an economic mess on their hands, global warming, and the worst economic downtown in 70 plus years that this lawmaker has nothing better to do with taxpayers' dollars. His reasons: "such toys influence girls to place too much importance on physical beauty, at the expense of their intellectual and emotional development".

I had Barbies growing up and some of her cool accessories: Country Camper, her Townhouse, and, of course, lots of clothes. I think I was about 12 or so when I gave up playing with them, but I still like them. To this day, I have a Scarlett O'Hara barbie. If you saw how I dressed some days, you would know that Barbie did not force me to "place too much importance on physical beauty."

Did it cause me to not pursue "intellectual and emotional development"? Not likely. I was a reader; I read lots. In fact, I can't think of another kid I went to school with that read as much as I did (and that includes the Bible and other spiritual books).

Sure, Barbie has her detractors and people are entitled to their opinion. Yes, I know of one woman (I think she was in Britain) that was obsessed with Barbie and thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery to look like Barbie, but that's her problem. She's the one that needs some self esteem; don't blame the doll.

If I had a child, I'd rather they played with Barbies than toy guns, learning how to kill people and learn of war. Get your priorities straight.

Barbie is a rite of passage in a girl's life, and the age passes quick. Let them enjoy it while they can. If parent's don't like it, they won't buy it. People will vote with their dollars. Let the parents decide what's right for their child.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Oscar Night in Hollowood 2009

Well, it's that time of the year. It's the night when Hollywood hands out the hardware and the culmination of awards season. Here are my predictions in the major categories:

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire;
Lead Actor: Mickey Rourke (the Wrestler);
Lead Actress: Kate Winslet (the Reader);
Supporing Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight);
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona);
Directing: Slumdog Millionaire.

I'll report back later on how I did and to report on the ceremony itself. I'm looking forward to it; we have only missed it once in the 10 years we've been married. Besides, it's three hours of uninterupted stitching time!! whoo hoo.

Edited to add:

Well, I did pretty well in the major categories, with the exception of Best Actor. I don't care for Sean Penn (over actor) so I wasn't pleased to see him win again. Overall, I did 13/24 in my picks. I was very surprised that Slumdog won in categories like "Sound Editing (or was it mixing?)." That didn't make sense to me as something like The Dark Knight would have been far harder to mix and/or edit.

Good to see Kate Winslet finally win an Oscar. She looked lovely, as did supporting actress winner Penelope Cruz (both were high on my best-dressed list, as well as Amy Adams). Nobody really stood out as horribly dressed, though I didn't like Jessica Biel's outfit, nor Beyonce's.

I thought it was a nice touch having past winners in the acting categories introduce this year's nominees. Hugh Jackman did a good job of hosting. I really liked his opening number, especially when he grabbed Anne Hathaway up on stage for a Frost/Nixon routine. She was a good sport.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Morning Smile

This morning, I was reading something that made me laugh. This is *not* meant to offend anyone in any way; it just made me laugh.

In the book of Exekiel, Exekiel says, "Your Father ws an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite". (Exekiel 16:3) I couldn't help but hear John Cleese in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries."

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Musings on Valentine's Day

So, it's Valentine's Day, a day dedicated to love. When I was single I dreamed of a romantic Valentine's Day. When DH and I married, we decided that we would alternate planning Valentine's Day; he would plan the even years and I would plan the odd. Some years that meant simply watching a romatic movie, or a romantic comedy, but we always tried to do "something."

Fast forward to this year. For whatever reason, I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't figure out why. The best that I could come up with is that I didn't feel I needed Hallmark to tell me that I loved DH or he loved me. Heck, after over 10 years of marriage, it should be obvious. I realized that really Valentine's Day is for single people; couples that aren't married. It's their day.

Our wedding anniversay is the day for us to celebrate our love; not some artificial thing. Mind you, I won't say no to some chocolates.

Happy Valentine's Day.