Christmas Myth-Making
(The following is a reprint of an article I wrote for The Secular Web)
Who Was Wenceslas? The Origin of Christmas Myths
By William Hopper
Caroling-Wassailing
Wassailing, or caroling, is Celtic in origin. Originally, wassail was a cup used for beverages made of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, nuts, eggs, and spices. The word comes from the [...]
A ‘Hail Mary’ Pass: Vatican Welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church
There is something coming that scares the Hell out of the fire-and-brimstone crowd: Competition.
Church Threatening To Make Sins Public
Christian idiocy at its best.
Religions breed a sense of power and entitlement. Case in point: In Florida, a Jacksonville Christian church has threatened to go public with their knowledge of a sexual relationship between one of their parishioners and her new boyfriend. (link)
The woman is not married, so she’s not screwing around on anyone. She’s [...]
Vatican to join with repressive Islamic states to crush gay rights at UN
Forget the Vatican’s hatred of Mohamed. Forget the Inquisitions and the Crusades. Islam and the Vatican can now finally step up and be good friends after all these centuries. So long as they have someone else to religiously persecute and kill, they can now be good friends at the UN…
Proposed UN declaration may provoke Muslim [...]
The Names of God
The following is an excerpt from The Heathen’s Guide to World Religions, (P. 17&18), explaining where the names of God came from. The dialogue here begins just after Moses was tossed out of Egypt, when he was stuck tending sheep for Jethro…
Moses and the Sheep
Living well is the best revenge.
~George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum
Moses does [...]
The Theft of “Good”: How Christianity Stole Decency
Every time Christianity finds a human trait or action that is beneficial to society (say, giving food to starving children) they decide that they own the concept. From that time on, the action becomes a “Christian act”, and the non-religious are left out of it. Their logic works like this: Giving food to starving children is a Christian act. Atheists are not Christians. Therefore, Atheists do not give food to starving children.
Virgin Births (an excerpt from The Heathen’s Guide to Christmas)
The Nativity
‘I wanted to give birth as opposed to being delivered.‘ ~ Ricki Lake
Let’s start with a little game of Virgin Birth. Here’s the way it works: find someone who’s pro-Christian/pro-Christmas. After assuring them that you’re not going to offend them with a bit of historical fact (lie) read the following bits [...]
The Myth of Good and Evil: From Hitler to Mother Teresa
These days, the archetypes of good and evil in our society are Mother Teresa and Hitler, respectively. If you start with these two as the paradigms, it becomes pretty easy to figure out what “Good” and Evil” are really all about.
I admit that I have never met Adolf Hitler. Fortunately for this blog [...]
How the Christian Right are paving the way for Militant Islam
You see it on bumper stickers every day: “Jesus is Lord”. “King of Kings”. “Lord of All.” Were people voting with their bumpers, Jesus would win by a landslide.
But when the American right speaks of religion in politics, they are referring to Christianity. When they fight for more religion in the [...]
