Evangelos on Prayer

January 2, 2005

This essay is based upon a letter to the Editor of the Toronto Sun.

I agree with most of Mister Coren's 'prayers' ; however there are a few comments I'd like to make.

His statement that homosexuality was considered immoral for 5 thousand years is absolutely wrong as you have even stated in earlier articles regarding the moral values 'being different' and accepted by ancient cultures such as the Greek and Roman where homosexuality was both accepted and considered normal.

It is commonly stated that Julius Caesar was 'every woman's man and every man's woman'. The best of Spartan soldiers were compromised of homosexual lovers in the belief that they would fight the hardest to protect one another. The Spartan resistance of Persian invaders at Thermopylae is an example of the resolve of these homosexual lovers.

It was after the rise of the Old Testament and later the New Testament and mainly Christianity that made homosexuality taboo and defined as immoral. This was mainly due to the fact that most values that the Pagans had were deemed immoral by Christians, such as the celebration at the Winter and Summer Solstices as well as the Pagan celebrations at the Equinoxes of the Sun. Anything and everything that the Pagans held as sacred was made immoral and deemed illegal by the early Christian zealots: homosexuality was just one of many values turned topsey-turvey by the early Christians and persisted for one and a half millennia, more or less.

After centuries of trying to stop the Pagans from celebrating these special solar occasions, the Christians renamed them and gave them 'Christian' significance, like the Birth of Christ to replace the Winter Solstice as well as the crucifixion to replace the Pagan tradition of Eostre, which is still called Easter to this day.

The bunny and eggs at Easter are because of these Pagan values which celebrated fertility as did most ancient civilizations until the sexually repressed Christians deemed sex itself as immoral and to be avoided except for procreation: it was immoral to enjoy sex for sex' sake! The Christians tried hard to stop the Pagans from celebrating at these times through perpetual purges on Pagan temples and clerics - which were mostly women, whom both the Jewish and the Christians deemed inferior beings - as well as the murder and persecutions of the common people.

Their 'All Saints day falling the day after the Pagan 'All Hallow's Eve' or Halloween is another that the Christians deemed as 'Satanic' - another character that the Christians appropriated - stole, renamed and given evil characteristics - again from earlier Pagans.

Before the rise of the Jews and Christians, most priests were women. It was after the spread of Christianity, due to its anti-woman values based in Judaism that this became a fact.

This also influenced the anti-woman values of Islam which is far more obvious to Westerners due to the fact that the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and Science forced Christianity to moderate its anti-woman values, though it took centuries to take a hold and is still not fully implemented in most Christian societies: women are still denied individual rights and not allowed as clerics.

Jewish prayers still, to this day, start with 'thank God for not having made me a woman'! And the Enlightenment and Renaissance never occurred in Islam. Women were and are still considered 'dirty' and inferior due to their menstruations! What once was revered and sanctified by Pagans was deemed immoral and less 'God' like.

The second point is Mister Coren's belief that praying will bring about the changes he lists. To this I say bulls*it! People have prayed to their various makers for eons to no avail and this will never produce any significant changes in anything: never has and never will!

It is only through the use of rational thinking - an asset that got Adam and Eve thrown out of the Garden of Eden if you buy the myth that is the Bible! An all knowing God who supposedly created Man in his image, as well as the forbidden 'tree of Knowledge' as well as the Snake - Satan - all created by the same 'all-knowing' God.

So did He foresee Adam and Eve's transgression and set them up for their fall? And if Adam and Eve were dumb like the other animals, why is it that God only talked to Adam and not to the other animals? And how could Adam know what He was talking about before eating of the Forbidden Fruit?

Or did God talk to all of the other animals as well? If so, where are the manuscripts of these conversations? And these inconsistencies are all in the first chapters of the Bible. There are countless others in the rest of that 'man' written book.

If Christians should question these inconsistencies and many others in the Bible, with 1 one thousandth the rigor that they search for evidence to refute Evolution, they might see how silly it is to base civilization and morality on something that has proven to be the most immoral influence and murderous cult the World has ever known. And that is Christianity!

It kind of reminds me of something said about 'foundations in sand' versus secure foundations: Moral Foundations based on Christianity (and all derived Jewish Religions) are the former while morality based on Reason and Science is the latter.

It is not praying to ancient superstitions that will have any effect but the use of Man's Rational mind that will. Praying may make one feel better about one's self but does little else. Thousands of years of praying to various Gods is proof of this.

Such is the myth of Christian morality and tolerance!

last modified:Wednesday,March 19, 2008 at 04:40