A Look At The Trump Version Of The Bible (Satire)

In the week before Easter, Donald Trump began hawking bibles. Some religious people viewed that as sacrilege. Alexandra Petri (in The Washington Post) saw it as an opportunity for some biting satire. She wrote: 

“Happy Holy Week!" former president Donald Trump wrote this week on Truth Social. “Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.” The God Bless the USA Bible costs $59.99.

I recently got a peek inside, and some things seemed a little different. You would think that a book in which all the parts about loving your neighbor as yourself had been removed and all the “not’s” omitted from the Ten Commandments would be cheaper than a regular Bible, but that shows what I know. Here are just a few classic stories in their improved Trump Bible retelling!

The Creation: In the beginning, God created Mar-a-Lago. And then God said, “Let there be Light,” so that people could look at Mar-a-Lago and admire it. And then God said, “No, that Light is too much. Do not pay the lighting guy.” And then God created lots of other places, plants and birds and lots of things like that, and lots of real estate, but God ruined it by filling up with animals. Some call them people. But we don’t, do we? Not everyone is people.

Cain and Abel: And Cain did smite Abel, very peacefully and very patriotically, and God said, “We like this Cain fellow, don’t we, folks! We like the ones who don’t get smote, don’t we.” And Abel’s blood cried out from the earth, from wherever. Very weak, we hate to see it. And God said, “Let’s have Cain sing at my rally.” And God was so happy about Cain, he said, “Get me more guys like this guy! Cain is from central casting.” And he promised to pardon him the first chance he got.

The Tower of Babel: It was no Trump Tower.

Abraham: Abram had a very old wife. Much too old! Much too old. Embarrassing for Abram, the age of this woman. And she wanted to have children, which, disgusting. But Abram said, “Why not!” And God said, “Sure.” And they had a son. Fine for them, I guess. God said, “Sacrifice me the son!” And Abraham said, “Sure.” That’s loyalty, folks. We love to see loyalty.

Jacob’s Dream: Jacob did lay his head upon something hard and uncomfortable like unto a stone, and Jacob did say, “Wow! I love MyPillow!”

Joseph’s Coat: Joseph got a coat from his father. Very ostentatious! Maybe too ostentatious. And he had dreams. Sleepy Joe, we call him. Bundles of grain bowing down and fat cows coming up out of the river, I mean, what the hell is this guy talking about? Some call them nightmares, like the American Dream has become.

The Plagues of Egypt: Plagues, folks! Ten of them! Hail, locusts, frogs, darkness, death of the firstborn, pestilence, lice, flies, boils, and, of course, the bloodbath, folks. The water turned to blood, and it was a bloodbath for the whole country. A metaphor for the auto industry, of course.

Numbers: [The book of Numbers is mostly preserved, except none of them are accurate any longer, according to the New York attorney general.]

King Solomon Splits the Baby: Two women, folks! Arguing over a baby. And King Solomon said, “I have an idea! Let’s cut the baby in half!” Shall we do it, folks? Let’s cut one in half. Who has a baby?

Jesus’ Ministry: There was a man named Jesus. Satan offered him a lot of real estate one time, which also happened to Donald Trump, but Jesus wasn’t smart enough to make the deal. Unlike Donald Trump, he got along well with tax collectors, owned no Manhattan property and was born in a barn. “Suffer the little children,” he said. “Suffer the little children.” But he meant it the opposite way.

The Wedding at Cana: Jesus went to a wedding, and they ran out of wine, but there was water. And he did touch the water and nothing happened to it, but he charged $10.99 for it anyway because it was Water Touched By God.

The Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor, but I think the rich are more blessed. Even more blessed to be rich. The poor, they say the poor will inherit the earth. Maybe! The poor had better have good lawyers. Blessed are the meek? Mm, I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of them. I don’t think they can be all that blessed. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. No, thank you. No mercy. Who wrote this? This is no good.

The Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Many Still Believe Bible Has Solutions To Modern Problems

An embarrassingly large number of Americans still believe a book written by various authors 2000 years ago provides solutions to the problems of our modern society. That's the view of 55% of the American public.

The only saving grace to this is that the percentage has dropped significantly. In 1957, the number believing that was 82%. That's a drop of 27 points in the last 6 decades. At least things are moving in the right direction.

The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between May 3rd and 7th of a random national sample of 1,011 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.

Biblical Literalism Is At A Record Low In The U.S.

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll. They show that a record low percentage of Americans view the bible as the literal word of god -- dropping from 38% in 1976 to only 24% currently. Also at a record level (a record high) is the percentage who believe the bible is just a book of fables written by men -- climbing from 13% in 1976 to 26% currently. It marks the first time in the Gallup Poll where the number saying it's a book of fables is larger than the number saying it's the literal word of god. Note that the belief in literalism has dropped in every gender, age, and religious group.

The latest Gallup Poll on this subject was done between May 3rd and 7th of a random national sample of 1,011 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.

Biblical Marriage (Is Not Just A Man And A Woman)

(The image at the left is from patheos.com.)

Christian bigots like to hide their hatred behind religion. They will tell you that they believe in the traditional marriage as defined in the bible.

That makes me believe they haven't read much of the bible, because marriage in the bible is far more expansive than just a man and a woman. It has many variations -- most of which are no longer considered moral in this country (and some are downright illegal).

The christian bigots seem to have the ability to believe only the parts of the bible they like, while ignoring those parts that are inconvenient to their preferred point of view.

Those people would be well-advised to read the following article -- written by Rebecca Todd Peters for The Huffington Post. Ms. Peters writes:

This week's Supreme Court debates about the definition of marriage echo the same debates that have been dominant in communities and states across the country for the past several years. Justice Kennedy, who appears conflicted about where he stands on this issue, expressed his concern about changing a conception of marriage that "has persisted for thousands of years."

In truth, like most social institutions, the institution of marriage has shifted and changed over the years in ways that have strengthened it and made it both more accessible and more just.

200 years ago, we debated whether or not slaves should be allowed to marry. 150 years ago, we debated whether married women should remain their husband's property under the principle of coverture (the principle of two-becoming-one-flesh), or whether women should be regarded as their own persons, with full rights and responsibilities. 47 years ago, we debated whether or not interracial marriages should be legal.

In 1967, the Loving v. Virginia ruling eradicated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage and thus transformed the institution of marriage yet again, in ways that struck down discriminatory state laws in much the same way that a ruling in the current case might do. 

That ruling read, in part, "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man [sic]," fundamental to our very existence and survival . . .To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes . . . is surely to deprive the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law."

Even more recently, we have debated no-fault divorce, marital rape laws, and now marriage equality. In each of these cases where we have debated about the nature of the institution of marriage, we have shifted and expanded our understanding in ways that moved us a little closer toward justice in our society.

But, so often in this debate it is Christianity and the Bible that are brought up as the ultimate weapon in defense of a marriage between one man and one woman. The Genesis text that states that a man shall leave his parents and join with his wife to become one flesh is trotted out as "proof" that God has defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

Unfortunately, these folks must have stopped reading their Bibles at the end of Genesis, chapter two. Even a cursory read of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament demonstrates that marriage was not understood or practiced in any way related to the modern idealism we have superimposed on this text.

Marriage in the Bible was much more about property rights, ensuring paternity of offspring, succession, political alliances and tribal stability than it was about companionship, mutual support and affection as we think of marriage today. The patriarchs of the Jewish and Christian tradition often had sex with multiple women, usually, but not always, for the purpose of procreation. Many of the women in the Bible who were slaves, or servants, or handmaids were reportedly "given" by the legal or primary wife to her husband for the purposes of securing children. The notion of consent, particularly for women, in matters of marriage or sexual intercourse is not a relevant moral norm in most of scripture.

Wives could "give" their female slaves to their husbands for the purpose of sexual intercourse either as co-wives in polygamous marriages or as concubines. Concubines were women engaged in sexual relationships with men whom they did not marry. Both of these practices are commonplace in the Bible. Sarah is reported to have "given" her maid servant, Hagar, to Abraham "as a wife" so that God's promise of offspring could be fulfilled (Gen. 16:3). Other notorious polygamous marriages in the Hebrew Bible include Esau, Moses, Jacob, Gideon, David and Solomon who reportedly had 600 wives and 300 concubines!

Many prominent Biblical patriarachs had concubines, often in addition to their wives. Perhaps the most notorious concubine is the unnamed woman of Judges 19 who belonged to a Levite. She was offered up to a hostile crowd of ruffians to save the Levite man from harm. The crowd gang-raped her and upon returning to their home, the Levite cut her body into twelve pieces and sent the pieces out to the tribes of Israel as a warning of the depravity of the current age. No better example exists of how cultural context defines moral norms than the fact that this passage purports to tell the story of the moral breech of the code of hospitality that resulted in the attack on the Levite rather than the horror of a man offering up his sexual partner (or common-law wife) to be gang-raped all night to the point of death and then to cut her body into pieces to serve as a warning to his kinfolk. 

And don't get me started on Jesus' thoughts on marriage! He encouraged people to leave their wives, children, parents and families in order to follow him (Lk 18:28-30); encouraged followers to reject their families (Lk 14:26); and challenged conventional notions of family (Mt 10:34-39, not to mention prohibiting divorce (Mk 10: 10-12).

God protect us from Biblical sexual ethics, Biblical marriages, and Biblical literalists! 

The truth of the scripture is in its enduring message of justice and love as moral norms for humankind, marriage equality is surely an fitting expression both of these norms.

Zombie Day

(The image above was found on the pages of Godless Liberals.)

It's Zombie Day again -- the day that millions of supposedly rational people put logic aside and celebrate the rising from the dead of their favorite religious zombie. And according to their Bible (a book many say cannot be in error), Jesus wasn't the only zombie that rose from the dead at that time. According to the book of Matthew:

Matthew 27:51  -  And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

Matthew 27:52  -  And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

Matthew 27:53  -  And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

That sounds like a pretty extraordinary event -- an event that would be eagerly recorded and reported by historians. How is it, I wonder, that none of them seem to have been aware of this momentous event? Could it be that it didn't really happen? Could it be that the Bible, like other religious books, is merely a book of myths written by leaders to subjugate and control the masses -- and is still used in that way?

No Freedom Without Equality

I wish more fundamentalist christians understood this. They're allowed to believe whatever they want. But what they are not allowed to do is violate our Constitution by making laws based on those religious beliefs. American law is not now, and never has been, based on the Bible -- and hopefully, it never will be. Our law is based on the Constitution, which guarantees all Americans equal rights.

Obsession

Christians say they have a message of love from a god of love, but all too often the message they spread is one of hate. Why do they obsess over homosexuality, which their Jesus didn't even consider important enough to discuss, and yet ignore and reject his many teachings on helping and taking care of the poor and disadvantaged, which that same Jesus taught over and over? Is it really christian to pick some parts of the Bible to believe, and other parts to ignore?

Children's Bible Myths

Another bit of humor from The Atheist Pig. It reminds me of the Bible stories I was taught as a child in a fundamentalist church -- things like Jesus valuing children of all colors equally, loving your neighbor as yourself, not judging other people, how hard it would be for a rich man to enter Heaven, and how helping the less fortunate was like helping Jesus. Imagine my surprise when I grew up and found out that same fundamentalist church taught the opposite of those things to their adult followers. Then they couldn't understand why I stopped believing in their myths.

Religion Being Taught In Texas Schools

The book in the picture above (the Bible) is a textbook in many Texas high schools, and has been since 2007. That was the year the Texas legislature passed a law allowing the creation of Bible classes in Texas schools. The original bill, written by former-Rep. Warren Chisum, would have made these Bible classes mandatory (and included no guidelines on how the class should be taught).

Other representatives tried to make the bill a little better before it became law. They said the class should be on the Bible as literature (and not a religious class promoting christianity). They also made the class voluntary, and said the State Board of Education should pass some strict guidelines on how the class would be taught, and said teachers should be trained on how to teach the class. If that was what happened, it might not have been so bad (although I still opposed the bill at that time because I suspected that those intentions, that it would be taught as literature, would not be carried out).

Now it looks like I was right all along. The Bible class in many of Texas' high schools is being taught as a religion class (promoting christianity above other religions), and there is little or no oversight on how the classes are being taught. That is because the legislature refused to provide any funds for the training of those teaching the class, and the fundamentalist-leaning State Board of Education refused to pass any strict guidelines on how the class should be taught. The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund recently did a survey on these Bible classes in Texas high schools, and what they found was pretty shocking (except for those of us who expected this to be the result of that bad law). Here is some of what they found:

- Instructional material in two school districts teach that racial diversity today can be traced back to Noah’s sons, a long-discredited claim that has been a foundational component of some forms of racism.

- Religious bias is common, with most courses taught from a Protestant — often a conservative Protestant — perspective. One course, for example, assumes Christians will at some point be “raptured.” Materials include a Venn diagram showing the pros and cons of theories that posit the rapture before the returning Jesus’ 1,000-year reign and those that place it afterward. In many courses, the perspectives of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews are often left out.

- Anti-Jewish bias — intentional or not — is not uncommon. Some courses even portray Judaism as a flawed and incomplete religion that has been replaced by Christianity.

- Many courses suggest or openly claim that the Bible is literally true. “The Bible is the written word of God,” students are told in one PowerPoint presentation. Some courses go so far as to suggest that the Bible can be used to verify events in history. One district, for example, teaches students that the Bible’s historical claims are largely beyond question by listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe.

- Course materials in numerous classes are designed to evangelize rather than provide an objective study of the Bible’s influence. A book in one district makes its purpose clear in the preface: “May this study be of value to you. May you fully come to believe that ‘Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.’ And may you have ‘life in His name.’”

- A number of courses teach students that the Bible proves Earth is just 6,000 years old.

- Students are taught that the United States is a Christian nation founded on the Christian biblical principles taught in their classrooms.

- Academic rigor is so poor that many courses rely mostly on memorization of Bible verses and factoids from Bible stories rather than teaching students how to analyze what they are studying. One district relies heavily on Bible cartoons from Hanna-Barbera for its high school class. Students in another district spend two days watching what lesson plans describe a “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.”

Something needs to be done about this. The classes should be outlawed, or at the very least it should be mandated that these not be religion classes. The classes as they are being taught are a clear violation of the United States Constitution -- because it is a government entity (the public school) that is teaching a class that promotes the christian religion above all other religions. That amounts to making christianity a state-sponsored religion.

And making matters even worse, this teaching of christianity in the public schools is being done with tax dollars that come from people who do not accept or believe in the christian religion (both those who follow other religions and those who don't believe in religion at all). This is just wrong. I have no problem with christianity being taught in the church or the home, but it should never be taught in our public schools -- and tax dollars should never be involved in the teaching of any religion.

Morality Doesn't Come From Any Book

Most christians would say that the Bible is the basis for their moral views. Some would even go so far as to say that a person can't be moral without believing in the Bible. I have serious questions about the validity of that. Did morality not exist before the Bible was written? Of course it did. Writings of the Sumerians, Greeks, and others show a definite morality, and in fact, a reasonable argument can be made that the Bible got much of it's morality (and stories) from older writings.

The truth is that while the Bible contains many valid moral teachings, it also contains some that are no longer valid (and acceptance of slavery is only one of them). The world has changed (for the better) in the thousands of years since the Bible was written. The Bible can no longer be considered the be all and end all for moral guidance -- especially since modern christians must pick out some parts and discard others to create a morality for current times.

Do we really need a book, any book, to tell us what is right and what is wrong? Is it not obvious that doing things that help others is right and doing things that hurt others is wrong? With the exception of a few sick individuals (like sociopaths), haven't we, and society in general, always known that?

Proof ?

Quoting from a book doesn't prove whatever is written inside that book is true. All it shows is that the person quoting the book has decided they don't need any proof to believe what is written there. That is fine. After all, this nation has a constitutional provision guaranteeing freedom of religion. Anyone can believe (or not believe) whatever they want. However, when people try to force the myths they accept on others, they have gone too far.

The Texts Remain The Same

The post below is from the blog called The Immoral Minority. I thought it was excellent, so without further comment, I repost it here in the hope that it will provoke some thought:

Below are a few excerpts that came to my attention recently from a  collection of Twain's writings titled "Europe and Elsewhere," which he wrote sometime between 1872 and 1908. It was published in 1923, thirteen years after his passing.

The portions below are taken from the part of the collection called "Bible Teaching and religious Practice."  

The Christian Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes. 

The texts remain: it is the practice that has changed. Why? Because the world has corrected the Bible. The Church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession - and take the credit of the correction. 

Christian England supported slavery and encouraged it for two hundred and fifty years, and her church’s consecrated ministers looked on, sometimes taking an active hand, the rest of the time indifferent. England’s interest in the business may be called a Christian interest, a Christian industry. She had her full share in its revival after a long period of inactivity, and his revival was a Christian monopoly; that is to say, it was in the hands of Christian countries exclusively. English parliaments aided the slave traffic and protected it; two English kings held stock in slave-catching companies. 

Our own conversion came at last. We began to stir against slavery. Hearts grew soft, here, there, and yonder. There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one - the pulpit. It yielded at last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession - at the tail end. 

Slavery fell. The slavery text remained; the practice changed, that was all. 

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. 

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything. At Salem, the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood, more shame, more brutalities; it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand. In Scotland the parson killed the witch after the magistrate had pronounced her innocent; and when the merciful legislature proposed to sweep the hideous laws against witches from the statute book, it was the parson who came imploring, with tears and imprecations, that they be suffered to stand. 

There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

"The texts that authorized them remain."

Today we are dealing with the growing acceptance of homosexuality. And of course, as every time throughout human history, the church is fighting social change. Ultimately we know it will gain acceptance, and will no longer be the subject of persecution, despite the best attempts of the church to hold progress at bay.

The practice of fearing homosexuality and punishing those in the gay community will change. But the text will remain the same.

The text always remains the same.

Secular Country

This can't be repeated too often. The United States is a secular country, and always has been. It was not founded on or for any religion, and its laws are based on a secular constitution -- not the Bible. That fact may not make fundamentalist christians very happy, but it is the truth.

Religion Doesn't Require Belief In Inequality

One of the biggest debates in our society these days is whether to grant all citizens equal rights, or whether to deny equal rights to certain groups -- such as homosexuals having the same right to marry the one they love just like heterosexuals (with all the legal rights and privileges that come with marriage). Many fundamentalists claim that although they believe in the Constitution, their Bible (and their god) requires them to deny equal rights to the LGBT community.

But is that really true? Does their religion really demand they believe in inequality? Or are they just using that religion to mask their own bigotry? Or maybe they've stopped thinking for themselves and just accepted the barely-hidden bigotry of a preacher or priest. I believe they are wrong. I don't believe the Bible demands a belief in inequality.

I am an atheist, and I've never tried to hide that. But I grew up in a fundamentalist church, got my degree from a religious university, and have read the Bible. I know that Jesus only laid down two rules -- to love god, and to love your neighbor as yourself. I also know that choosing to hate (i.e., deny another person equal rights) is a violation of one of those rules.

One of the best discussions of religion and whether it demands a belief in inequality is found on the excellent blog Unreasonable Faith. Here is a part of that discussion:

. . religions are variegated things that allow the individual more control than most folks acknowledge. We’re fond of treating religion as something you’re born into and stuck with barring deconversion. We don’t often talk about the streams of tradition within the religion that an individual must accept or reject.


Look around you: in our culture the chances are you’re going to see someone who is a Christian but holds to different interpretations of what Christianity means. Every sect has a tradition that explains how they’ve come to understand their religion the way they do. Every permutation has an argument as to why their tradition is legitimate. And this is fractal: every community has within it different streams of tradition that emphasis and interpret the components differently.


Perhaps you’re an evangelical who places high importance on the words of the Bible. But why do you take this passage at face value, while interpreting that passage in its historical context? Why is this verse intended only for that time and place while thatverse is immortal and internal? Why do you interpret this passage in light of thatpassage instead of the other way around?


More ink has been spilled writing biblical commentaries than writing Bibles. Many of these interpretations are reasonable and the arguments sensible. How do you decide which is the “right” interpretation? Different members of your community have honestly looked and yet come to differing conclusions.


Kohen offers one way out of this mess: certain principles are non-negotiable. With Kohen, one of these principles is that all humans are equal. If you’re thinking leads you to the conclusion that some people have rights that others do not have, then it’s time to think again.


This is an old, old method. Rabbi Hillel is supposed to have said that the golden rule is the core of the law, and that all the rest is commentary. If your interpretation of the law leads you towards treating someone in a way that you would find hateful if the situation were reversed, then your interpretation is wrong. Supposedly his followers expanded this to say that the love of one’s neighbor is the core of the law, and any interpretation that leads you away from that love is flawed.


This should be natural for Christians, since Jesus spelled out the two most important commandments in Matthew 22:36-41, one of which was to love your neighbor as yourself. If your interpretation of the Bible leads you towards treating your neighbor as if their love, vows and relationships are less real than your own, then – as we say on the interwebs – “ur doin’ it wrong.”


And, as Kohen concluded, if your only guiding principle seems to be that gays are icky and less than equal with heterosexuals, then we have to conclude that your principles are bigoted. No matter how prayerfully and deeply you hold to a bigoted principle, it does not stop being bigoted, nor do you.

The Big Lie About Marriage

Last week the majority of voters in the state of North Carolina added an amendment to their state constitution. That amendment assured that the government in that state would continue to discriminate by refusing to allow same-sex marriages (or even civil unions) -- putting their constitution in conflict with the United States Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for all citizens. The excuse used was for the protection of marriage (in spite of the fact that no one yet has been able to explain just how legalizing same-sex marriage would hurt heterosexual marriage in any way).

The fundamentalists want people to believe that the institution of marriage has been unchanged for thousands of years, and has always been between one male and one female consensually. That is nothing less than an outrageous lie. As the chart above shows, the same Bible used by these fundamentalist "christians" contains many examples of (evidently god-approved) marriages that do not follow the template of one man and one woman in a consensual union.

Some may want to point out that all of the examples in the chart above (click on it to get a larger version) are in the Old Testament, and that the "christian" tradition is different. That is also an outrageous lie. The truth is that the christian church has even consecrated same-sex marriage many times in the past -- a well-documented fact that was not uncommon in the early church. Here is a bit of church history for your edification:

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, "Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union", invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to "vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints". The ceremony concludes: "And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded".

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic "Office of the Same Sex Union", uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, "taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together" according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell's academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

The idea that marriage has always been between one man and one woman (who were both consenting) is simply not true. It is also not true that the christian church has always banned same-sex marriages. Right-wing fundamentalists spread the lies simply to try and justify their own bigotry. It is time for this to stop. It is time to honor the Constitution, and to actually extend equal rights to ALL Americans. Not doing so is not only unconstitutional, it is un-American.

Why Did God Make The Bible So Unclear ?

Did you ever wonder why, if god wrote the Bible, he made it so ambiguous and unclear? There are hundreds of christian sects (not to mention many jewish sects), all of whom claim to be the proud possessors of the "truth" which they got from the Bible (which they claim is the word of god). It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they can't all be right since they all disagree with each other, and it gives rise to the question of whether any of them are right.

Maybe the Bible is just a book written by men in an effort to control other men. Surely god would have made himself clearer about what he wanted if he were to write a book. At least that's what Ken Pulliam believes. Dr. Pulliam, who has a PhD in theology from Bob Jones University (one of the most right-wing fundamentalist schools in America), gives us this thought-provoking quote:

"Christians disagree on just about every doctrine there is .. If the Bible is really a revelation from God and if God really loves man and really wants to reconcile man to himself, would he not have made it much clearer how someone is to be saved? I know that if my children were separated from me and I had the opportunity to write them a letter to tell them how to get back to me, I certainly wouldn't do it in parables and language that's ambiguous enough that it can be interpreted a thousand different ways. I would do my best to make it crystal clear how they could find me .. and if I would do that as a finite human being, certainly god being infinite and being omniscient could find a way to do that. So as I looked at the Bible, as I read it, as I studied it I just came to the conclusion that it cannot be from a divine being."

Using The Bible To Fight The Rules

There are accommodations made to public school rules for religious purposes, and I have no problem with that. If it is a requirement for all adherents of the religion, then there should be a way for the rules to allow it. But I have to wonder in the following story, if this mother is not just using the Bible as a weapon to get what she wants.

Dyker Neyland sends her daughter to school at Thomas Haley Elementary School in Irving, Texas. The school has a dress code and requires students to wear uniforms. Part of the dress code is that uniform shirts must be tucked in. But Ms. Neyland opposes the "tucked in" rule, saying, "I don't want her behind showing. I don't want her body being exposed."

Neyland said the rule violated her rights as a christian. To prove her point, she quoted from 1Timothy 2:9, which dictates that "women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing."

What makes me wonder just how serious she is about her religion is the second part of the verse -- "not with braided hair...". As you can see in the picture above, both Neyland and her daughter seem to have no problem with the biblical exhortation to avoid braiding their hair.

Are they members of some cafeteria-style religion, where they can pick and choose what parts of the Bible they will believe. Where they can accept some parts and ignore others? Or is this just a case where a woman used the Bible as a weapon to back up her daughter who didn't want to tuck in her shirt?

The school board granted the woman's request and the daughter is now immune to the "tuck it in" rule. But how long will it be before some other rule violates this woman's rather spotty interpretation of the Bible?

Job And Biblical Literal Truth

This is the weekend where christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is supposed to represent the action of a just and loving god -- the fact that god so loved mankind that he sent his son to die on the cross so their sins would be forgiven. Now I've never understood why this sacrifice had to be made before forgiveness could be given by god. After all, if he is truly all-powerful,why could he not just forgive anyway?

But that is not the point of this post. I was not always an atheist. I was born and raised in a fundamentalist christian sect, and even went to a fundie college to become a preacher at one time. But that didn't last long. All I really learned in those studies, was that I could not believe in both the literal truth of the Bible and the concept of a loving and just god. The two simply do not go together.

If every word of the Bible is literally true (and this is what fundamentalists profess to believe), then there are many times in the Bible where god is neither loving nor just, but instead looks fickle or just downright mean and vicious. Just a few examples are god choosing to favor Abel over Cain, even though both had given what they had, god striking a man dead just for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling, god killing the firstborn of Egypt and god commanding the Jews to completely exterminate all inhabitants of cities in the "promised land" (and in fact, promising them land already owned by others).

But the faith-breaker for me was the book of Job. After god brags about how pious Job is, satan says it is just because he is prosperous. Now a truly loving and all-powerful god could have laughed that off and went on, but he didn't. He let satan goad him into proving Job's piousness (although why an all-knowing and all-powerful god should have to prove anything is unexplainable in itself).

In order to basically win a bet with satan, god allows satan to take all of Job's wealth and possessions, kill his family (except his wife), and then finally cover his body with itching horrible boils. Job refuses to curse god even after all his tribulations, so god wins his bet. He goes on to reward Job with new possessions, children and wealth.

But Job's first family is STILL DEAD -- sacrificed to win a bet (or argument). That does not sound like a loving or just god to me. It sounds more like a vain and uncaring god. And yet, if every word in the Bible is literally true, then that is what happened.

Personally, I don't even want to believe in a god that could act in such a capricious way toward those who believe in him. And I really don't understand why anyone could believe in a god who would kill off a man's family just to test or prove his faith.

Is Bible "Full Of Mistakes" ?

There are many fundamentalists who would have people believe the modern Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. These are the same people who want to force "creationism" on the world, among other ideas such as a 6,000 year-old Earth, and the co-existence of mankind with dinosaurs. Biblical inspiration can be debated, but it now seems certain that the modern Bible contains many changes, or "mistakes".

The world's oldest surviving version of the Bible is the Codex Sinaiticus. It dates back to the fourth century, and has been hidden intact in St. Catherine's Monastery since that time. It was rediscovered in the 19th century, and now parts of it reside in four different countries -- Egypt, Germany, Russia and Great Britain.

The Codex is now in the process of being digitized and will be put on the internet for anyone concerned to read. The Problem? In addition to two extra books (Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas), there are thousands of differences between the Codex and the modern Bible.

Most troubling for those claiming biblical inerrancy, is the differences between this earliest text and modern texts of books contained in the modern Bible. How could an inspired and inerrant book have changed so much over the centuries? The changes (or mistakes) are obviously manmade (for the only other option is that an infallible god had to correct his own mistakes by putting out a revised edition).

Some of the big changes between the Codex and the modern Bible are:

-The Codex does not mention the ascension of Jesus into heaven, or contain any mention of his resurrection.

-The Codex does not include the story of the adulterous woman about to be stoned (the "let him without sin cast the first stone" story).

-The Codex does not have Jesus saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" from the cross.

These are just three of thousands of differences between the Codex and modern texts. Obviously, the earliest versions of the Bible did not fit the religion being taught, so it was changed by scribes to fit it better. The modern Bible is not "inerrant". It is simply the latest version of the stories.

Maybe the fundamentalists would be better served to explain these "mistakes", before they try to force their own self-righteous beliefs on the rest of us.

Bible Doesn't Give Immunity For Rudeness

Fort Worth's public transportation system is known as "The T". Last Saturday morning, a bus driver for The T kicked a woman and her children off the bus for disruptive behavior. The woman had been reading to her children in a very loud voice.

The driver asked the woman to lower her voice, and she told him "no". Then she continued her loud reading. The driver said rules against loud behavior are posted on every bus, and the other passengers were looking at him like "Are you going to enforce the rules or what?" Since she would not cooperate and obey the rules, the driver stopped the bus and escorted the woman and her children off.

That sounds like the driver was given no choice, and acted within the rules. But the woman saw it differently. The book she was loudly reading from was the Bible. Evidently she thinks that since it was the Bible, that makes her immune to the rules that ALL bus passengers must obey.

The woman called several local TV stations and claimed she had been persecuted because of "religious speech". A spokesman from The T said she was not thrown off the bus for reading the Bible, but for loud and disruptive behavior.

This woman was in the wrong, and had no right to be rude to the other passengers. She has to obey the same rules as any other passenger -- regardless of whether she was reading from the Bible or another book. This is not discrimination.

I'll bet she would have been the first to complain if a fellow passenger was reading too loudly from the Koran!

NOTE -- The T did go the "extra mile" in this instance. The driver called his supervisor, and the supervisor took the woman and her children to their destination -- church. Personally, I think this is more than she deserved.