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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
The Bully Cries Foul: Religion on the Ropes
The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) —This week the OIC won United Nations backing for a draft resolution that would outlaw “defamation of religion” throughout the world.
(Read the whole ridiculous article here)
For thousands of years, religions have been saying that Humanity is evil. Because of our evil, we are told that a just and [...]
A Heathen’s Take on Prostitution
Assume that some old guy gets horny and picks up a hooker. She then ejaculates, fellates, or otherwise sexually pleases him. For most young women, the prospect of drawing semen out of an old, wrinkly man (who probably smells like sweat and vodka) is revolting. Sure, some prostitutes deal with horny-but-attractive clients, [...]
masturbation
The bible does not talk about masturbation AT ALL. The only mention (often used by Christians and Jews to back up the prohibition of it) is from a story where El-Shaddai told Onan to get his sister-in-law pregnant after El-Shaddai had killed his brother, Ur.
Genesis 38: 7-10 “And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the [...]
The Bible
The bible is to history what Miami Vice is to police work. It covers very small, very selective parts of history and mixes them in with a lot of morality tales (Jonah, Job, etc.) that have nothing to do with the history of the human race. Notably, the bible omits the histories of most of [...]
Atheism and Abortion
I keep getting e-mails asking me what I, as a godless heathen, think about abortion. It’s one of those inflammatory topics that is guaranteed to get people angry, which I think is why I keep getting questions about it. So here we go… the godless response to the abortion issue:
Religious folks tend to frame the [...]
