Bad Religion 

We often hear, from the atheists and their allies, the question: is religion a good thing or a bad thing? Take it or leave it, it's a package deal. Has religion been a gift to humanity or a curse? As with Jim Jones of Guyana, so it goes with Mother Theresa. The question must be asked in just this way for it to 'work' for the atheists. 'Religion,' as such, must be a good thing, or a bad thing. Can you possibly be so bigoted as to imagine that one religion is good, another bad? But perhaps it is a poorly formulated question; perhaps no simple yes-or-no answer can be given which is equally valid for the crocodile gods who devour their worshippers as for the service of the living God. If we direct that question to the Bible, God's revelation to mankind, the answer is not univocal. God has wiped entire population groups from the face of the earth because He despised their religion. On the other hand, we are told He smiles upon the religion which manifests itself by visiting the orphan and the widow. Is there such a thing as bad religion, and would we know it if we saw it?

Baal Worship

Former President George W. Bush was a man of faith. What was the content of his faith? That religion is good. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said something similar: "The absolute low point of this way of thinking came in a remark of the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who actually said — and I believe I'm quoting him fairly accurately — 'It's important that a person have religion, and I don't care what religion it is.'" (Lectionary Preaching Workbook, by Carlos Wilton, p. 175). Raised in the Jehovah's Witnesses, Eisenhower was baptized a Presbyterian, just in the nick of time, before entering the White House; does it really not matter what is a person's religion? The 'New Atheists,' like Sam Harris, want to examine the question, 'Is religion good?,' with the terrorist attack of 9/11 the central, if not the only, piece of evidence admitted for scrutiny. Does the Bible teach that religion is good?:

The Bible, God's holy word, in fact, sounds a distinctly negative note on pagan idolatry. Nowhere is it suggested that it doesn't actually matter whether you call God 'Baal' or 'Jehovah.' It seems like it does matter, actually. The psalmist explains that worshipping a metal or wooden idol, nailed in place so that it will not fall over, is not an especially good idea:

The Thugs

The word 'thug' has entered the English language, meaning, a violent person, a criminal. But the original 'Thugs' were a religious sect in India, suppressed by the British colonial government in the nineteenth century. These men fanned out across the country-side, killing and robbing, all for the greater glory of their goddess 'Kali.' Little girls are taught to be 'nice,' but Kali is one of those grown-up females who does not see any point in being nice.

Catholic author James Carroll looks forward to the next step in man's ascent, Vatican III, when all religions will be treasured: "There are numerous revelations of the mystery of God, and the shift initiated by Vatican III will be from, at most, a grudging tolerance of other religions to an authentic respect for other religions as true expressions of God 'beckoning' the human heart."(James Carroll, Constantine's Sword, p. 586). But how is Thuggery any display of God 'beckoning' the human heart? Is it God who wants to see innocent people laying there bleeding? As a working definition of bad religion, may I suggest that a religion which cuts short your sojourn upon the earth, and lands you in Hell for all eternity, is not good religion, but bad religion?

The Idol Juggernaut

Those gods who do away with their followers hold a very special place in the annals of bad religion. The crocodile gods of the ancient Egyptians, who from time to time would turn and devour their votaries, fall into this class. The idol juggernaut was a wheeled device dragged along the parade ground, under whose crushing wheels the votaries of this demented god-vehicle were either pushed, dragged, or jumped:

Crocodile Gods

The crocodile gods of the ancient Egyptians deserve a special mention as bad gods:

"An Egyptian woman nursed a young crocodile, and the Egyptians proclaimed the woman blessed, as being the nurse of a god: some of them also adored both her and the young crocodile. This woman had a son, who was now a lad, and of an equal age with the god, his playfellow, and with whom he had been nursed. And the god, indeed, as long as he was imbecile, was mild, but when he grew large he manifested his nature and devoured the boy. The miserable woman, however, proclaimed her son blessed in his death, as having become a gift to a domestic god." (Maximus of Tyre, The Dissertations, Volume II, Dissertation XXXVIII, p. 192).

Does bad religion get much worse than this? Aelian knew of these 'gods' as well: "In Egypt there are some, like the people of Ombos, who venerate Crocodiles, and just as we regard the Olympian gods with awe, so do they these animals. And when, as often happens, their children are carried off by them, the people are overjoyed, while the mothers of the unfortunates are glad and go about in pride at having, I suppose, borne food and a meal for a god." (Aelian, On Animals, Book X, Chapter 21, pp. 311-313 Loeb edition).

Apollonius of Tyana

Apollonius of Tyana, an ancient mountebank who was an eager student of Eastern spirituality with its attendant practices of levitation, etc., is a preferred Christ-figure for the New Age crowd, superior in their eyes to the monotheistic Jesus of Nazareth. Apollonius was a spell-binder who could get a crowd in his grip, as shown in this terrifying narrative describing how he convinced an angry mob that pummelling a harmless old man to death would stem an epidemic:

Jesus of Nazareth cast out demons, leaving their innocent victims whole and sound. Apollonius of Tyana incited mob violence against an innocent victim, on the pretense he was a demon! Every harmless old European women ever executed as a witch,— because the crops withered on the vine, the cow got sick and died, and somebody must be found to pin the blame upon,— knows what this friendless old man went through in the closing moments of his life. Those who admire this man are revealing what manner of spirit they are of:

Mary Baker Eddy

People who watch TV have learned to say grace by saying, “Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing!” This however is not the right way. We should thank God for His gracious provision, even when He does not rain down manna from heaven upon our heads. When we go out in the heat of the sun to rake and hoe in the garden, whose creation is the genial sun whose light feeds the plants? Whose the nourishing rain? Everything we have is from Him, and so we thank Him, even if the means of providing it was not miraculous but through 'secondary causes.'

Some people think that, if Jesus can feed a multitude with loaves and fishes, then they ought to sit down and wait for Him to feed them without bestirring themselves. Or actually they don't; oddly enough, when it comes to food, a material substance without which our bodies do not function, people seem to 'get' it. When it comes to medicine, however, certain people think we ought to do without. Her metaphysics left no room for disease,— or matter, for that matter:

This does not exactly track with the Bible, which teaches that Adam was made out of the dust:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7).

Though she meant no harm to anybody, more than a few earthly pilgrimages have likely been cut short because of Mrs. Eddy. Thus, reluctantly, a place must be found for her in the halls of Bad Religion. She insisted that people must not seek medical attention, which is like insisting that a starving person not visit the grocery store across the street, even if his wallet is full, because God fed Elijah miraculously by means of ravens. The point of the Bible story of Elijah is not that food is illusory or unnecessary; she believed, however, that disease is unreal: "Disease is an image of thought externalized." (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, Chapter XII, Kindle location 5208).

Unreal? Certainly it is undesirable. When disease and mortality were tossed out, matter had to go with them, because, "Admit the existence of matter, and you admit that mortality (and therefore disease) has a foundation in fact." (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, with Keys to the Scriptures, Chapter XII, Kindle location 4663). But the Bible does not deny the existence of matter! She demurs: "Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to discover the condition of matter, when in fact all is Mind." (Ibid., Kindle location 4689).

Aztec Religion

The sun seems like a benign presence in our lives. Where would we be without him, and the nourishment he makes possible by powering photosynthesis? But some versions of the sun god, such as Huitzilopochtli, or persons claiming to speak in his behalf, didn't work for free.

The Aztec religion revolved around its central sacrament of the sacrifice of an unwilling victim to the sun. The sun, lest his fusion furnace begin to flicker fitfully, and ultimately his fires grow cold, must needs be nourished by the offering of a bound victim's still beating heart, ripped out of his chest. Otherwise the darkness will prevail and the world will end. Human sacrifice was meant to keep his motor running so he could keep chugging along, traversing the sky. Exactly how this was supposed to work is unclear, but many human beings met their end in consequence of this endeavor to provide nourishment to a recipitent 93 million miles away. Not only was the practice futile as a means to achieve its intended objective, but human sacrifice is an abomination to the living God:

False Messiahs

There have been many false messiahs in human history, and one true one. The false ones have worked a great deal of mischief; one pied piper led his dazed followers off a cliff into the sea! The most flamboyant of the false messiahs was Sabbatai Sevi, a messianic aspirant of the seventeenth century, who astonished the thousands of Jews who believed in him by converting to Islam!:

Not all false Messiahs are a threat to public safety, but one recent aspirant, Hulon Mitchell, who legally changed his name to 'Yahweh ben Yahweh,' wound up in prison for conspiring to kill members who left his cult, which was envisioned like the Roach Motel: guests could check in, but they couldn't check out.

Wall of Separation

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the free exercise of religion, and also prohibits any state establishment. While the protection of the right to free belief, worship, and propaganda is unlimited, in the nature of things the protection for acts cannot be unlimited. A murder committed by a practitioner of the old Aztec religion will be prosecuted just as any other murder; the First Amendment can offer no shield in this case. On the one hand, you are free to preach the old Aztec religion; however, it might get dicey if a parishioner acts upon your exhortations; are you a co-conspirator? The incarcerated Blind Sheik, who counselled a member of his congregation, wearing a wire, on what terrorist targets not to hit, and thus by implication cleared the way for other targets, discovered this conundrum. You can say, 'Kill all the infidels;' but when you say, 'Kill the infidel who lives at 17 Elm Street,' that is solicitation to commit murder.

Polygamy

Polygamy is a good test case of the Bill of Rights' protection for religious liberty. Mormon 'prophet' Joseph Smith preached and practiced polygamy, not only as permitted as is that practice in Islam, but as essential to heavenly exaltation. This was kept secret at first; the conflict which led to his death at the hands of an angry mob arose over efforts by Mormon defectors to publicize the practice, which was understandably controversial. The Supreme Court ruled that the Mormons have no First Amendment right to practice polygamy, even though it was at the time a mandatory practice of their religion:

In conjunction with obtaining statehood for Utah, the Mormon grandees decided that polygamy wasn't obligatory after all. The spate of small, 'fundamentalist' Mormon spin-offs which still practice it is therefore a headache and an embarrassment for the main organization, which craves respectability above all things. Because Nature and Nature's God have created roughly equal numbers of men and women, all who are willing can pair off, with none left over in this game of musical chairs. But when polygamy enters the equation, there is immediately a 'shortage' of girls, which leads to relentless downward pressure on the age of consent. Students of Islam will recall that Mohammed ibn Abdallah married an underage girl, Ayesha. Recently Mormon fundamentalist cult leader Warren Jeffs ended up in jail for, among other things, engaging in sexual relations with an underage girl. This is part of the baggage polygamy inevitably brings with it.

To outsiders to the Muslim religion, the terrorists' case for jihad can seem so crystal-clear, almost self-evident, that they suspect Muslim dissenters are dissembling. In a similar vein, to outsiders to the Mormon faith, their abandonment of polygamy can seem so obviously a concession to outside pressure that they wonder why the polygamous fundamentalists are not more prevalent. However it is an undeniable fact that polygamy is a bad, oppressive system, and its official discontinuance probably inspired a thrill of joy in more than a few female hearts. Mormonism as passed on from Joseph Smith to his successors left considerable room for improvement, and the fact that they have improved it leaves room for hope they might improve it still more, by dropping other bad ideas.

The Mormons are not the first heterodox Christian cult to revive polygamy. The Munster Communards of sixteenth century Germany did so also. This group practiced primitive communism, owning all things in common. They invited those hungering and thirsting for righteousness to come join them:

“The radicals were supported by hundreds of zealous newcomers; for months now, despite the blockade, Rothmann’s sermons and other leaflets printed by Knipperdolling had been circulating through Holland, Frisia, and northern Germany. In them Rothmann explained, among other topics, that much human misery stemmed from the idea of 'private property.' The very idea of owning anything, of thinking in terms of 'this is mine and this is yours' was evil. 'God had made all things common, as today we can still enjoy air, fire, rain, and the sun in common, and whatever else some thieving, tyrannical man cannot grasp for himself.'”

(Arthur, Anthony (2011-04-01). The Tailor-King (p. 23). St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.)

They also practiced polygamy. Both gathered groups experienced a population imbalance, with females predominating over males. Apparently when the new Jerusalem is proclaimed, women are readier to hear the call than are men. Polygamy may have struck some of the leaders as a common-sense solution to this problem. But in both groups, policy choices ultimately had to please one man, because neither were democracies. Munster under Anabaptist control was a lunatic police state, with the mad king himself lopping off the heads of wayward or dissenting citizens.

It seems as though an ambitious young man who succeeds in persuading people that, when he speaks, God speaks, is able also to persuade them that he is entitled to however much female companionship he desires.

I am God

Some of the people who say 'I am God,' like Shirley MacLaine, mean it only in the nicest way. They want to share, and play nicely with others; we can all be gods! The only loser by this system of false worship is the servant of such an inept and unsuitable god; if you are your own god, then your god is not mighty to save, but rather, prone to lose the car keys.

However some, like Father Divine, have escalated their god-claims to the point of demanding worship. They are not willing to share, or play nicely with others. One might expect these 'gods' to be persons of majestic countenance or great strength of will; but don't forget the Maharaj Ji, a pudgy young man who was idolized by legions of drug-addled hippies. He married his secretary, quarrelled with his family, and went on a second career as a life coach. Why anyone ever mistook this slacker young man for a god is difficult to fathom. In this crowd are many fakers, a few lunatics, and one honest man; can you spot the true one?:

The idea that you are God, or a god, is a feature of many odd-ball religions, including Wicca: "In some traditions (as with the Church of All Worlds concept of 'Thou Art God') the idea expressed is that we are the gods, only some of us (perhaps all of us) have not realized it." (Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler, p. 206). We are pretty dysfunctional and inept gods, if you get right down to it.

The Kabbalah

The Kabbalah is a medieval revival of ancient Gnosticism, a form of Christian/pagan syncretism. In medieval Christendom the teaching was transmitted by secretive groups like the Bogomils and Cathars. In the south of France, where the spread of gnostic ideas was so extensive as to provoke a papal crusade to re-establish Catholicism, gnosticism was tacked onto Judaism through the literary expedient of portraying Talmudic Rabbis chatting with one another, in their off-hours, on gnostic themes. The resultant pagan horror still has many adherents in the world today, and has probably influenced many unknowingly, because naive listeners are gullibly prone to believe this medieval pastiche is 'authentic Judaism.' One unexpected student of the Kabbalah is Joseph Smith, the founding 'prophet' of Mormonism:

Dionysus

As seen above, 'Kali,' the Beatrice of the Thugs of India, is one bad goddess. She is certainly in the running for the 'Bad God' prize, but there are other contenders. Paganism is not for the faint of heart; discover what is involved in following one pagan deity, Dionysius, not meek and mild but with a sadistic streak a mile wide. His devoted follower, Agave, receives what reward for her faithful service? She gets to rip her own cherished son, Pentheus, limb from limb (which is what the maenads used to do out there in the woods). If this is what Dionysus does to his friends, what pay-back may his enemies expect?:

The cult of Dionysus, which originated in areas to the north of Greece, spread like wildfire over the ancient world. Like the 'hippies' of the 1960's, they found in intoxication the secret of a happy life. One can readily imagine how that turned out: the ruined and blasted lives, the human detritus collecting in the gutters. The story tells, that Dionysus invaded India, with his troop of dishevelled, drunken women, many of whom met a miserable death at the hands of their Indian captors. The Indian king charged with protecting homeland security got it right:

"'No god, no god is that man; he has lied about his birth.'" (Demiades, quoted, in Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book XXXIX, line 53).

Analyzing the phenomenon in terms of the 'grift,' which sometimes can seem like the right way to think about new religious phenomena, the Dionysiac movement was wildly successful. No doubt much commemorative merchandise was sold. But the story of the impact the communal celebration of drunkenness had on individual lives was very likely darker than that.

Madame H. P. Blavatsky

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her associates were for a time describing their work product as 'esoteric Buddhism,' but then the Buddhists spoke up and complained, 'We have no idea what these people are talking about.' Certainly Christians can sympathize, when they read Madame Blavatsky's Bible interpretations, which are unexpected to put it mildly. Why is this so? Because the true doctrine, the wisdom of the ancients, is secret, which is why nobody but her knows anything about it:

One must wonder why Madame Blavatsky did not destroy all but three copies of 'Isis Unveiled' and 'The Secret Doctrine;' who are we, profane and common as we are, to turn her pages and imbibe the hidden wisdom? We were not initiated, after all. Sometimes you get what you pay for:

Jim Jones of Jonestown

No compilation of bad religion would be complete without a mention of this next contestant, because when he died, he did not die alone. Like the idol juggernaut, Jim Jones did away with his devotees. He began his religious pilgrimage in 'Oneness' Pentecostalism, but ended it in an uncharted Marxist-Leninist limbo. It is one of the great mysteries why so many people were persuaded to follow him (though some were 'persuaded,' at the end, to drink the Kool-Aid at the point of a gun).

One of the recurring myths of atheism is that religion is invariably conservative: "The clergy repay this friendly recognition of their place in society by an almost unfailing devotion to the constituted authorities. . .Their prayers have always gone up for kings, not for rebels and reformers." (Treatise on the Gods, H. L. Mencken, Kindle location 370). This idealized version of history leaves out of consideration, not only odd-balls like the Munster Communards, the Circumcelliones, and Father Divine's Peace Mission, but successful, history-making movements like Oliver Cromwell's king-killing Puritans. Jim Jones was on the radical left. He built a sizeable congregation, during the Cold War, by preaching unreconstructed Communism. It ended in disaster:

The standard rap against Jim Jones is that he was a religious fanatic, a man who followed orders from God: "Remember Jonestown. Those were Americans, even though they no longer lived in the lower forty-eight. And nearly a thousand of them committed suicide on account of some damn nutcase who told them to drink Kool-Aid laced with poison because God had ordered him to." (William R. Forstchen, One Second After, pp. 393-394). Some adjustment to this schema might be in order, because it is a ticklish task to explain how and why a professed atheist would follow orders from God. Bad religion cannot get much worse than the People's Temple, which spelled death to almost all of its blinded acolytes. But to speak precisely, Jim Jones' odd blend of hard-line communism and faith healing was an atheist cult like the Raelians.

Church of the Creator

This is a white supremacist outfit. The 'Creator' of the church's title is somewhat ambiguous; the theist naturally thinks of God, but the referent intended is the white race. They disdain to worship 'spooks in the sky.' An offshoot is now known as 'Creativity,' however, having lost a trademark dispute. This is an atheist cult; original founder Ben Klassen is quoted as saying, "A Creator is not superstitious and disdains belief in the supernatural. He will waste no time giving credence to, or playing silly games with imaginary spooks, spirits, gods and demons." (Wikipedia article, Creativity). The reformulated group attracted media attention when leader Matthew F. Hale was convicted of solicitation to murder the judge who ruled in the trademark case.

They are so sold-out to anti-Semitism that they are obliged to despise Christianity for its Jewish roots, as 'Pontifex Maximus' and founder Ben Klassen explains: "By Klassen's reckoning, Christianity was a 'Jewish creation. . .an unholy teaching designed to unhinge and derange the White Gentile intellect and cause him to abandon his real responsibilities.' Klassen concocted his 'religion' as a substitute doctrine, in which salvation rested with Nature (with a capital N) and the doctrines of Adolf Hitler." (Blood and Politics, Leonard Zeskind, p. 337).

Like the Nation of Islam, this group's formation was premised on the idea of the superiority of one people group over all others. Fortunately neither group ever boasted of the numbers needed to cause serious harm to the hated out-group. One wonders at all the internet debates whether 'religion,' as such, is a good thing or a bad thing. There is nothing like bad religion to ruin your life here on earth, and then send you to Hell in the hereafter. Could anything much worse be imagined? Good religion and bad religion may seem to be fitly categorized together from a certain perspective, perhaps the ant's eye viewpoint, but from the viewpoint of ultimate destination, they are asymptotes.

Cargo Cults

A modern entry in the 'bad religion' sweepstakes are the cargo cults of the South Pacific. The natives of a number of South Seas islands noticed that the whites, who appeared to do very little work, nevertheless enjoyed great material abundance. Investigating why this was so, they discovered that the Europeans received this bounty in the form of 'cargo' shipped from abroad. They proceeded to build wharves, jetties and airstrips to await deliveries of 'cargo' sent by the ancestors. This hopeful expectation spread throughout the region and produced a kaleidoscopic variety of new sects, most of which eschewed violence but several of which took matters into their own hands:

"Clapcott had been the first to go; Runovoro promised that if the other Europeans were killed, the dead would arise, and the ancestors would return from a far land where the Whites had sent them. . .Runovoro prophesied that the ancestors would arrive after a Deluge in a great white ship loaded with Cargo. This would only be distributed to paid-up members. His followers built a large store for the Cargo; once they nearly seized a recruiting schooner, for 'every passing sail aroused great excitement and fire-signals from the anxious watchers posted on the beach.' . .In retaliation for the murder, HMS Sydney shelled the bush." (Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of 'Cargo' Cults in Melanesia, pp. 148-149).

Inasmuch as, presumably, dancing around empty, discarded cargo boxes has not produced any cargo deliveries for the sectarians of this new religion, this very worldly and practical-minded devotion must be dismissed as futile. This new religion did not take centuries to develop nor even decades, but sprang up as did Athena, fully-armed, from the forehead of Zeus. Cargo fever gained a new lease on life during and after World War II, when the South Sea islanders came into contact with American G.I.'s and noticed their superior standard of living, the result, it was again deduced, of cargo, but this time on an industrial scale. Some people in the nineteenth century liked to employ an adverb, 'gradually,' as if it were an explanation; but 'gradually' is not the right word to describe the rise of the cargo cults. Is there reason to believe this adverb applies to Christianity?

The forms in which cargo hopes and dreams have been expressed range from unreconstructed paganism to borrowed Biblical themes learned at the Christian missions. At least one Cargo Cult leader from the New Hebrides, John Frum,— if the historical John Frum is indeed a real person,— has claimed deity:

"Meetings were held from which Whites were excluded, as were women. These meetings were to receive the message of one John Frum (spelt sometimes Jonfrum), described as a 'mysterious little man with bleached hair, high-pitched voice and clad in a coat with shining buttons'. . .John Frum issued pacific moral injunctions against idleness, encouraged communal gardening and cooperation, and advocated dancing and kava-drinking. . .The prophet was regarded as the representative or earthly manifestation of Karaperamun, god of the island's highest mountain, Mount Tukosmeru. Karaperamun now appeared as John Frum, who was to be hidden from the Whites and from women.

"John Frum prophesied the occurrence of a cataclysm in which Tanna would become flat, the volcanic mountains would fall and fill the river-beds to form fertile plains, and Tanna would be joined to the neighboring islands of Eromanga and Aneityum to form a new island. Then John Frum would reveal himself, bringing in a reign of bliss, the natives would get back their youth, and there would be no sickness; there would be no need to care for gardens, trees or pigs. The Whites would go. . ." (Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of 'Cargo' Cults in Melanesia, pp. 153-154).

The failure of the Cargo Cult religion has sparked a whole new branch of junk history which one might label 'Inconsequentialism.' Instead of seeing in the laments of disappointed Cargo Cultists like Yali an opportunity to explain supply-side economics, Jared Diamond instead adapted the 'Just So' stories of contemporary evolutionary biology to the field, explaining that failures of this sort are not the result of unavailing ideologies but rather stem from the fact that the Eurasian continent is long on its east-west axis rather than north-south. People, he hopes, will be relieved to discover that human history is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, because its moving motor parts are things in their nature of no interest or consequence. No doubt those distressed by the failure of Marxism-Leninism will find this discovery a comfort as well.

Liberalism

Modern liberalism has produced a version of Christianity which combines a pallid Deism with the 'Jesus Seminar's' vision of a hippie Jesus, a counter-culture hero who scandalized all the religious folks. Religiously, they have regressed to the stage of shamanism. They like to dance, finding it a way to get in touch with 'the sacred:'

Burton Mack is another liberal savant. These people resemble Charles Taze Russell in that they aspire to start their own religion, and unfortunately also in the slovenly lack of attention to detail which mars their efforts:

Atheism

It may seem unfair to list atheism amongst the false religions. Isn't atheism, after all, the absence of religion? In theory it may be, but in practice it finds its natural rank amongst the bad religions. There is always something dangerous and irrational,— Richard Dawkins' 'Pale Blue Dot' for instance,— before which they demand that we kneel down. Karl Marx is a good case in point. He was the grandson of a rabbi; his career-minded father had conformed to the state religion, and young Marx even wrote school compositions from a Christian perspective. However at a certain point, a 'Promethean' note makes itself heard:

Prometheus was a Titan, who stole fire from the gods and gave this great gift, without which human life would be miserable, shivering and deprived, to man, for which he was duly punished. In Greek mythology, the gods are not necessarily benevolent nor interested in helping mankind. This viewpoint was taken over by gnosticism, which is a domestication of Jewish and Christian theology to a pagan outline, only to resurface, after bubbling along underground for some centuries, in nineteenth century militant atheism. This might be academic, except that millions of human beings died because of it:

Marxism-Leninism is only the beginning, not the end, of the parareligions or pseudoreligions spawned by atheism. From Raelism to Scientology, here is a sampler:

Children of God

David 'Mo' Berg was the founder and resident 'prophet' of the counter-culture 'Children of God,' now known as the Family. Many new religious movements arose during the hey-day of the hippies, appealing to that demographic. In some cases, as with Calvary Chapel, an orthodox Christian outfit, these new churches did not compromise at all with the gospel's demand for holiness. The sad case of the 'Children of God,' however, represents a catastrophic collision between the gospel and the sexual revolution then raging. Those children brought up in this cult, 'survivors' as they call themselves, who do not recall a childhood of sexual abuse at the hands of their elders, are a very small minority.

Sigmund Freud promoted a 'therapy,' a 'talking cure,' which cannot be demonstrated to have any therapeutic efficacy: it is the very definition of quackery, and yet at the time it was highly regarded. According to Freud, repression of sexual urges was at the root of most of mankind's troubles. He and his followers did not so much encourage child abuse,— though they perceived small children as sexual beings, they thought there was a 'latency period' that supervened,— however, they were responsible for the 'progressive' talk prevalent in that period, to the effect that child molesters are 'sick,' they need 'help' not punishment, etc. Under the influence of this talk, sentences for child molestation went down and down; but ultimately the children who had suffered this obscenity found their voice and turned the social trend around.

The Children of God embraced the sexual revolution which Freud's 'discoveries' had sparked, and ended up covered with filth as a result. The guiding promise of the sexual revolution was, what a paradise this world would be if we all discarded our hang-ups; no more neurosis, no more unhappiness. This mirage evaporated upon trial. Their founder-prophet, the reclusive alcoholic David 'Mo' Berg, was a pioneer in this trend. He molested his own family, according to the survivors' web-site:

"Because I had refused my father’s desire for an incestuous relationship, I had in effect refused to accept him as God’s Prophet. The prophet did not act selfishly or for his own personal design or pleasure—it was always under the direct inspiration of the Almighty. I had rejected the counsel of the Lord. I was no longer worthy to be called Queen." (Berg's daughter Deborah's written account, Testimony on XFamily.org, 'Life with Grandpa').

Never prosecuted for his crimes, this man died in 1994.

Pied Piper

During the Middle Ages, when Christendom stirred itself to liberate the pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land from Muslim domination, there occurred a strange eruption called the Children's Crusade:

"Still more symptomatic of the diseased spirituality of the time was the Crusade of the Children, which desolated thousands of homes. From vast districts of territory, incited apparently by a simultaneous and spontaneous impulse, crowds of children set forth, without leaders or guides, in search of the Holy Land; and their only answer, when questioned as to their object, was that they were going to Jerusalem. Vainly did parents lock their children up; they would break loose and disappear; and the few who eventually found their way home again could give no reason for the overmastering longing which had carried them away." (Henry C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Volume I, Kindle location 2603).

These deluded children, in those few bands who found their way to the Holy Land, ended up enslaved by the Muslim overlords of that region.

Southern Baptists

One would like to imagine there is a Chinese Wall marking the boundary between good religion and bad religion. Unfortunately that is not always the case. Think of the medieval Catholic church, which racked up appalling human rights abuses during the Albigensian Crusade, while still including believers in its ranks. An instance closer to our time is the Southern Baptist Convention, founded at the outset in order to provide a loving, accepting home for slave owners, at a time when other Baptist fellowships were turning toward abolition. Even after Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, they did not turn immediately toward the light; for many years, some members of this group actively conspired to undermine the civil liberties of their fellow citizens. Yet for all these years they earnestly preached the gospel, as well. So what to make of them? The communities which hosted this uncivil assembly might have been better off, in terms of communal peace, had their population taken up the Bahai faith; yet there is still a remembrance of the true faith buried several layers down. How can things of such heterogeneous nature become mingled and entangled like that? God's religion should be a unmixed good.

It seems that they have, in all sincerity, put their past of stirring up racial animosity behind them. . .or have they? Even to the present day, they are industrious accumulators of the kind of political rhetoric that identifies President Obama, for instance, as a practicing Muslim, though he says he is not. Worse than embracing the conspiratorial side of political life, some of them are not unwilling to use deception to advance their goals. What to make of their loyal and loving embrace of Ergun Caner, a mountebank who offers his audiences an inside look into the life and mind of a trained terrorist:

In the current environment where we are urged to be 'Woke,' pitfalls await on every side. How will the Southern Baptists negotiate the present maze? It looks like they have wandered off course in both directions, if that is even possible. Some of the time they even go so far as to embrace Critical Race Theory, as an 'analytical tool,' but some of the time they take off in the opposite direction, embracing equal and opposite errors. Tasked with steering between Scylla and Carybdis, they have managed to crash into both. As Christians should, they have repented of their past involvement in the defense of slavery and Jim Crow. They have even put their money where their mouth is, hiring African-American clergy and funding start-up churches in minority areas. That's wonderful and commendable. But unfortunately some of the leadership of this church are willing to follow the 'Woke' into regions of political leftism that leave behind most of their constituency. Author Jemar Tisby identifies right-wing political ideology with racism; to be 'woke,' one must renounce, not only Donald Trump, but also Ronald Reagan. This in turn has stirred up a backlash, a counter movement that accuses the 'Woke' of dabbling in Marxism. But this counter movement is problematical in its turn, and perhaps involves a degree of over-correction.

They should realize that if they were wrong to support slavery, and they were, then their arguments in favor of slavery were also wrong and should not be revived. Recently a manifesto against 'Social Justice' was published, attracting the signatures of a good many Southern Baptists of the 'Reformed,' i.e. Calvinist, persuasion. In this document, the Southern Baptists seem to have come full circle, from their pro-slavery roots to a pro-slavery present, at least for some. The document betrays a certain fussiness of wording:

"WE AFFIRM that God’s law, as summarized in the ten commandments, more succinctly summarized in the two great commandments, and manifested in Jesus Christ, is the only standard of unchanging righteousness. Violation of that law is what constitutes sin.

"WE DENY that any obligation that does not arise from God’s commandments can be legitimately imposed on Christians as a prescription for righteous living. We further deny the legitimacy of any charge of sin or call to repentance that does not arise from a violation of God’s commandments." (Manifesto Against 'Social Justice').

What does that mean? What specifically do they have in mind? To take a not-so-random example, would owning slaves be considered a violation of God's commandments, as might appear to the reader who takes the Mosaic law at its word? It's a Reader's Choice: to a reader who understands God's law to condemn slavery unambiguously, as did Methodist evangelist Francis Asbury, unwilling to admit slave-owners to church membership, the statement clearly condemns slave-owning. But to a reader like pro-slavery apologist Douglas Wilson, the same statement explicitly condemns the condemnation, because this author claims there is nothing in scripture against slavery. It would have been very simple to clarify the document, which was written to attack the call by black pastors for racial reconciliation. Could this lack of clarity simply be what happens when a committee writes a document? No, the framers wanted it just as it is! The reader realizes with a gasp that this manifesto, which is all about race relations, could have been signed by an antebellum Southern slave-owner! Why is that? Because Douglas Wilson, who is not a Southern Baptist but a Presbyterian with a broad following in the 'Reformed' community, was consulted on the wording, as he himself has revealed:

How many of the signers of the manifesto viewed Douglas Wilson's perspective on slavery, as expressed in his book 'Black and Tan,' with detestation, and how many basically agree with him? How many of these people believe that slavery is a moral wrong, condemned in scripture, as the Northern abolitionists thought, and how many agree with Wilson and Robert Lewis Dabney that, while there may be abuses committed by slave-owners, these are distortions of a basically just system? To give Dabney's example, consider motherhood. From time to time a deranged woman murders her infant, but no sane person would suggest abolishing the institution of motherhood as a corrective. Her crime is an aberration and a distortion of a fundamentally sound and beneficial system.

It would be nice to think the number of signers who agree with Douglas Wilson is one, Wilson himself, but somehow I suspect otherwise. Why does Tom Nettles, in his essay at Founders.org, say things like, "Given those scriptural connections between slave and master by the apostles, how should we consider ante-bellum Christians who were slave owners as they viewed these apostolic instructions? If they knew that abuses plagued the system, but sought to work to correct those abuses, is it legitimate to place them within the category of heretics?" Perhaps what are meant by "abuses" are incidents when, for example, a slave-owner would inventory his possessions and then rape them, though Robert Lewis Dabney claimed that this never once happened (as proof he points out the lack of successful prosecutions for this offense in Virginia). It would be so easy for the manifesto-writers to give clarity on this issue, yet they do not. Are they for slavery, or against it? Until there is agreement on this point, it is futile to seek agreement on downstream issues. While they are right that 'wokeism' is a very bad thing, on a number of levels, they are not correct in thinking the American abolitionists were wrong on the Bible; they held the Bible high ground, just as tenaciously as they held Little Round Top.

Solar Temple

The Solar Temple cult was responsible for a string of murders and suicides in Europe which occurred in October of 1994:

"In Salvan (Valais Canton, Switzerland), Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro asked a blacksmith to change the lock in their chalet, and bought several plastic bags. On October 5, at 1:00 A.M., a fire started in one of the centers of the Solar Temple in Switzerland, the Ferme des Rochettes, near Cheiry, in the Canton of Fribourg — which was also a center for natural agriculture — owned by Albert Giacobino, who as mentioned earlier was. . .an associate of Joseph Di Mambro in several esoteric and neo-Templar activities. The police found twenty-three bodies, one of which was a child's, in a room converted into a temple. . .The same day, at 3:00 A.M., three chalets, inhabited by members of the Solar Temple, caught fire almost simultaneously at Les Granges sur Salvan, in the Valais Canton. In the charred remains were found twenty-five bodies, along with remainders of devices programmed to start the fires (such devices were also found at Morin Heights and at Cheiry), and the pistol which shot the fifty-two bullets destined for the people found dead in Cheiry." (Odd Gods, edited by James R. Lewis, p. 307).

The rationale for these events is the usual drivel,

"It is 'not a suicide in the human sense of the term,' but a deposition of their human bodies to immediately receive new invisible, glorious and 'solar' ones. With these new bodies, they now operate in another dimension, unknown to the uninitiated, presiding over the dissolution of the world and waiting for an esoteric 'redintegratio.' There is also another class of less advanced members of the Solar Temple who cannot understand that in order to take on the 'solar body' one must 'depose' of the mortal one. The documents state that these members must be helped to perform their 'transition' (in other words, must be 'helped' to die) in the least violent way possible." (Odd Gods, edited by James R. Lewis, p. 308).

Heaven's Gate

Another suicide cult was Marshall Applewhite's UFO cult, 'Heaven's Gate,' whose 39 members did away with themselves in the belief this would facilitate their transfer to a spacecraft purported to be traveling in the shadow of Comet Hale-Bopp:

"It was from the Internet that the cult learned that a UFO was following in the slipstream of Comet Hale-Bopp. The comet's approach 'is the "marker" we've been waiting for — the time for the arrival of the space craft from the Level Above Human to take us home to "Their World,"' the cult warned in a 'Red Alert' message on its World Wide Web home page." (Newsweek, April 7, 1997, p. 30).

For unknown reasons, they shed their 'containers' or 'vehicles' with a five dollar bill tucked in their pocket, plus rolls of quarters. You just never know when you'll need quarters. Maybe the spaceship accompanying Hale-Bopp boasts gleaming corridors filled with long lines of vending machines. Their rented mansion was decorated with drawings of aliens. Comet Hale-Bopp was big with UFO cults at the time, owing to a photograph purporting to show a 'companion' object to the comet, which Courtney Brown, a guest on the Art Bell radio show, explicated as follows: "This object is approximately four times the size of the planet Earth, and it's headed our way. It apparently has tunnels in it. And it is moving by artificial means. It is under control. It's a vehicle. And there is a message coming from it." (The Men Who Stare at Goat, Jon Ronson, p. 108). Less credulous observers could not even see the object, much less the tunnels on it.

Astrology

The way this ancient Chaldaean discipline just keeps on trucking down through the ages excites astonishment. It claims an origin in empiricism. Those of a certain age may remember when the hippies burst upon the scene, offering new and unheard-of perspectives, like. . .

"When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
The Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!"

Oh wait, that's not new. Where did it come from? How has it changed down through the years?

Circumcelliones

The Circumcelliones of fifth century North Africa were the political action arm of the Donatist church. They were not out there doctrinally, but on some social issues, such as slavery, they were way in advance of the surrounding society. Unfortunately, like John Brown of Harper's Ferry, they were not averse to using violence to secure their goals. One eccentric habit they had, which all by itself would earn them a spot on the 'Bad Religion' cavalcade, was to fling themselves off cliffs:

Nation of Islam

Malcolm X, at that time a rising star in the Nation of Islam, explains that, after the race of "white devils" had devolved from the original black man, they fled to the caves of Europe, where they reverted to walking on all fours. They even grew tails:

"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that within one thousand years after the white people were up in the caves they were on all fours. And they were living in the outdoors where it's cold, just as cold over there as it is outside right now. They didn't have clothes. So by being out there in the cold their hair got longer and longer. Hair grew all over their bodies. By being on all fours, the end of their spine begin to grow. They grew a little tail that came out from the end of their spine...Oh yes, this was the white man, brother, up in the caves of Europe. He had a tail that long. You ever notice that anything that walks on all fours has a tail?" (Malcolm X, The Black Man's History, 1962).

Well, whatever. To this day there are people still trying to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. But wait, — isn't turnabout fair play? And weren't there 'scientific' racists in the day, claiming that whites were more highly evolved than blacks? So why shouldn't Elijah Muhammad make up his own narrative, not more nor less plausible than theirs, illustrating that it's just the other way around? Yes, but tails?:

Bishop Talbert Swan

The black racist space does not go unrepresented in the present day. Bishop Talbert Swan, of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), a sizeable black denomination, spends his days on Twitter ranting and railing against "wypipo:"