Category Archives: atheism

Remembering Christopher Hitchens…..But!

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 17 Comments

Christopher Hitchens’ 62-year-old scotch and cigarette soaked body, which he wore as a badge of honor in the form of a physical protest against nanny states gone awry, gave way to esophageal cancer on Thursday evening. As Vanity Fair announced news of his passing, social media lit up with touching tributes to one of this generation’s most controversial and confrontational writers.

Typically I don’t grieve the death of people I’ve never been acquainted with, and similarly I find a certain sense of vulgarity in people who mourn celebrities in the same way as if they had lost the family dog. Having said that, I found myself spending a great deal of the past few days contemplating Hitchen’s life, his writings, and the influence they had on me. When I think of his genius, my immediate thought is I would never have had the testicular fortitude to seek a publisher for my first book, ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Sept 2009), were it not for his international bestseller ‘God Is Not Great’. A book that not only led an entire generation of atheists out of the closet, but also enlightened countless many religious folk to abandon superstition for reason. As such I acknowledged the profound effect his work had on me by dedicating my second title, ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’ (Oct 2010), to the legendary writer.

As a writer, the sooner you accept you will never ever  possess the faculties to write as well as Hitchens, the easier one’s life gets. Literally, there is no one who can imitate his extraordinary vernacular, nor his vast geo-political experiences. After all, it was iconic television personality David Frost who said of Hitchens, “He has met everybody who is anybody.” But outside of my jealousy for his use of words, and admiration for his verbally combative opposition to any person or entity that attempts to blur the line separating Church and State, there ends my man crush for Christopher Hitchens. Why? Well, he was a warmonger and an unabashed misogynist. He was a neo-Conservative masquerading as a Liberal. While he may have been drawn to liberal politics in the 60s as a result of his disgust for racism and the Vietnam War, he certainly abandoned that ideological position during the last decade of his life.

(Now, if you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of my atheist brethren setting my books on fire. But hear me out, you inglorious godless bastards. Firstly, the same folk, myself included, who praised Hitchens for his firebrand obituaries, namely those targeting Princess Diana, Jerry Falwell, and Mother Theresa – immediately following their respective deaths, will presumably hurl venom in my direction for speaking ill of Saint Christopher. Irony much?)

Now I won’t spend too much time on the misogynist charge as I did not know the man personally, but when you call the Dixie Chicks “fat fucking slags” and “sluts”, because they dared release a song denouncing George W. Bush’s march to war in Iraq, then there’s one clue. Another clue came in the form of a Vanity Fair article titled, ‘Why Women Still Aren’t Funny’, an article that opined numerous and vexing reasons as how women are not adequately skilled to make men laugh. Certainly, standing at the front of a long queue is Tina Fey, who among millions of others, is owed an apology she will now never get.

As far as his warmongering is concerned, it was always perplexing to hear Liberals champion him as a torch bearer for the progressive cause. As far as neo-Conservatism goes he was to the right of Paul Wolfowitz, Josh Bolton, Richard Pearle, and even Dick Cheney. Effectively, Hitchens was a Bush-ite! While he criticized Bush the Younger as an “inarticulate intellectual buffoon”, he was lock step with the policies of the Administration. Further, during the 2004 election said, “A John Kerry presidency would be a disaster for the United States.” Worst than eight years of Bush, really? Most genuine Liberals would’ve taken that chance!

Dennis Perrin, a friend and former protégée of Hitchens, described all the way back in 2003 how Hitchens’ virtues as a writer and thinker were fully swamped by his pulsating excitement over war and the Bush/Cheney imperial agenda:

“I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he’s now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war.

In several pieces, including an incredibly condescending blast against Nelson Mandela, Hitch went on and on about WMD, chided readers with “Just you wait!” and other taunts, fully confident that once the U.S. took control of Iraq, tons of bio/chem weapons and labs would be all over the cable news nets–with him dancing a victory jig in the foreground. Now he says WMD were never a real concern, and that he’d always said so. It’s amazing that he’d dare state this while his earlier pieces can be read at his website. But then, when you side with massive state power and the cynical fucks who serve it, you can say pretty much anything and the People Who Matter won’t care.”

The irony is Hitchens, a Brit native, detested British colonialism, while adoring the imperialism of his adopted nation, the U.S. More accurately, he was besotted with the projection of American military might. His statements endorsing bombing Muslim nations would make even the Muslim hating Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorums of the world blush. Shortly after 9/11, Hitchens stated, “My first reaction to the 9/11 attack was exhilaration because I knew it would unleash an exciting, sustained war against Islamofacism…..I realized that if the battle went on until the last day of my life, I would never get bored in prosecuting it to the utmost.”

Like other neo-Cons, Hitchens rarely commented or examined the cause of the Islamic hatred of America i.e. U.S bases in the Holy Land; prejudiced treatment of the Palestinians; economic sanctions against Muslim countries; and support of tyrannical Arab dictators. Hitchens’ attitude towards the Middle East, however, was not too dissimilar to the maligned Ann Coulter, who once said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Except for the last strand in that sentence, their hawkish attitudes were shared. If you believe that’s a stretch, here’s what he had to say on the use of cluster bombs, a weapon 108 countries have ratified a comprehensive ban against using them:

“If you’re actually certain that you’re hitting only a concentration of enemy troops…then it’s pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they’re bearing a Koran over their heart, it’ll go straight through that, too. So they won’t be able to say, “Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.” No way, ’cause it’ll go straight through that as well. They’ll be dead, in other words.”

Admittedly, it’s impossible to make a complete judgment of a man based on a few pieces of commentary. The point being, however, it would be wrong to remember him as a person who was flawlessly enlightened. He, like the rest of us, wasn’t! He was a fighter against wrong doing, but that didn’t make him immune to endorsing the wrong doings of others, and for atheists and anti-theists to make a false idol of him, insofar as overlooking the numerous instances he was fundamentally and morally wrong, is something I doubt he would have even hoped for.

Regardless I will remember him for the positive and profound influence he had on my life, and I will leave you with my one my favorite passages from ‘God Is Not Great’”:

“Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’

www.cjwerleman.com

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Herman ‘Goering’ Cain : Banning Mosques

Posted on July 18, 2011 | 9 Comments

Admittedly, I’m as guilty as most when it comes to whipping out the Nazi trump card all too quickly when ridiculing far-right wing ideologues or politicos. I do it because it’s fun, but more often than not out of sheer laziness. After all, calling Ann Coulter a bowel baby of Hitler is easier than providing a lengthy diatribe on why her political compass points directly to the poetical prose of Mein Kampf. And by “poetical” I mean sociopathic ramblings. But as I mature and spend an increasing amount of my hard-earned on Just For Men hair coloring, I have refrained labeling anyone ‘Mein Fuhrer’ for a considerable period. Unfortunately, however, my personal Hitler metaphor moratorium was forced out of retirement yesterday while watching Fox News Sunday.

Appearing on the program, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain said that communities have a right to ban Islamic mosques. The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO said protests and legal challenges to a planned mosque in Tennessee are an example of local residents pushing back, as if this were an example of what President Reagan had in mind when he proclaimed his shining city upon a hill.

Cain said his view doesn’t amount to religious discrimination because he says Muslims are trying to inject Sharia law into the U.S. (Sharia is a set of core principles that most Muslims recognize and a series of rulings from religious scholars. It covers many areas of life and different sects have different versions and interpretations of the code.)

“Let’s go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying that they are objecting to,” Cain said. “They are objecting to the fact that Islam is both religion and (a) set of laws, Sharia law. That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes. The people in the community know best. And I happen to side with the people in the community.”

In America, this is the stupid shit politicians on the right say when they want to win votes from white Christian evangelicals, and this kind of stuff is red meat for those terrorists who spell terrorism with a capital Tea. Now we can wax lyrical about how his comments are unconstitutional and un-American until the cows come home, but there is something even more sinister lurking beneath his remarks. *Here comes my Hitler card* His comments echo the statements used to stoke the flames of the Jewish holocaust, and mirror the policies undertaken by the Nazis.

Herman Cain Goering would be well advised to refer to a history book, so as to learn what took place throughout Germany on the evening 8 November 1938. Here he will discover what happens when communities are allowed to take matters into their own hands when it comes to banning places of religious worship. Historically, we refer to this evening as the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ (Kristallnacht), whereby 1,668 synagogues were ransacked, and 267 set on fire.

As an atheist and a staunch protector of the separation between church and state, I’m not a big fan of any mosque, church, or synagogue. It’s where stupid happens. It’s where praying often leads to thinking about politics. Therefore, at least hypothetically, I could be persuaded to help shut down all religious houses of worship, but that’s happening on it’s own, anyway, as modernity continues to swallow the last generation of the superstitious throughout the Western hemisphere. But history has demonstrated in the clearest and most heinous terms what happens when you single out a minority faith for exclusive treatment. Metaphorically, it’s an ugly snowball rolled down the hill, which is brought to a halt with unimaginably horrific consequences.

As far as American Muslims wanting to implement Sharia law, well, that’s the boogey man card. There are less than 3 million Muslims living in the U.S today, representing less than 1% of the population, and current polling suggests that as many as 90% of American Muslims believe in the principles of separation of church and state. In fact, it’s the reason a majority of Muslims say they immigrated to the U.S in the first place i.e. to flee theocratic regimes such as Iran.

Ultimately, the cultural divide between  red state and blue state ideologues is wider than any time I can recall. Possibly, the 2008 election sandpapered over these chasms while the nation was stumbling punch drunk in the night after eight long years of Bush. But the far right of 2009-2011 is a far more vicious and xenophobic animal than its Karl Rove led brother of 2004. Social Conservative Christians are coming, make no mistake, and Herman Cain’s remarks, like those of Bachmann and Palin, show the animal is hungry.

CJ Werleman

Author ‘Koran Curious’ and ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’

www.cjwerleman.com

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Koran: Why I Was Wrong!

Posted on April 18, 2011 | 18 Comments

If the qualification for being a big person is the willingness to concede when one is wrong, then, generally speaking, I’m not a big person. But here’s a small step in moving towards that high-water mark. Ok, deep breath. I was wrong when it came to criticizing Islam in terms of using the words of the Koran, in isolation, against it.

Now I’m aware of double-edged hypocrisy, having used the Bible, in ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’, as evidence that Judaism and Christianity are based on principles of hatred and division i.e. misogyny, infanticide, homophobia, racism, guilt, slavery, and fear. But having now completed the research for my next book, which tackles the Koran, I have come to the realization that we’re unable to critique Islam by the same standard, and until recently I must concede I’ve been wrong in doing so, and atheist literary colleagues such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins should jump in the “we were wrong” raft with me.

You see, when it comes to understanding Judaism and Christianity, everything you need to know can be found in the one book, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. What I’m trying to say is we don’t have any external and independently verifiable accounts of the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, or even Jesus. More specifically, with the exclusion of Saint Paul, we don’t know who any of the biblical authors were. For example, we have no clue as to the respective identities of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They could’ve been bong-smoking Greeks from Mykonos, and we’d have no way telling otherwise. Same goes for whoever authored Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Kings, and on and on.

When it comes to Islam, however, we do know who authored the oral version of the scriptures, and that author was Muhammad. Now, Muhammad wasn’t a fictional character whose life is void of independently verifiable eyewitness accounts. He was a man of history, a man who shaped history with his own deeds, as opposed to Jesus, who shaped civilization via the things other people, who never met him or met the people who met him, claimed he said. Big difference! Therefore because Muhammad was a historical character, and the Koran was authored by him, one must judge the words of the Muslim Holy Book in a deeper analytical light. Not to do so, makes you equally guilty as Islamic extremists in taking the words out context.

For example, opponents of Islam (and I count myself as one because I am philosophically opposed to all religions equally) will cite passages to demonstrate the Koran promotes anti-Semitism, as demonstrated in Sam Harris’ End of Faith, whereby he quotes Koran 2:65, “And certainly you know of those who exceeded the limits of the Sabbath, so we said to them, “Be you apes, despised.” And then later adding his commentary, “On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despise non-believers.”

Well, yes, if you read the Koran in the same manner as you read the Bible, then absolutely Harris offers a fair judgment, and one I’ve been guilty of executing. However, when you study Muhammad’s life, you begin to understand why he said the things he said. In this particular instance, for example, Muhammad was referring specifically to ONE particular Jewish tribe in Medina, who he had exiled. After fleeing for his life to Medina, Muhammad looked forward to working with the Jews and Christian community there as he regarded them as equal “Peoples of the Book”, but the Jewish tribe of that city made a backdoor pact with the Meccans, who continued to attack the Muslims, agreeing they would join forces with the Quraysh should they lay siege on Medina. As per the rules of military engagement in Arabia at that time, Muhammad had every right to order the execution of the Jewish tribe, but instead sent them packing and on their way. Thus the words cited in the Koran demonstrate his disappointment with that one particular tribe and not the entire Jewish people. In fact, Arab anti-Semitism in the Middle East didn’t eventuate until Israel was given statehood in 1948 by the U.N.

While this doesn’t excuse all the troubling tenets of Islam that should cause our 21st century Western sensibilities due concern – such as apostasy, lack of reformation, an absence of a central authority, and reconciliation of sixth century tribal values with modern times – a deeper understanding of Muhammad’s biography, held side-by-side with the relevant passages of the Koran, will lessen the fear and mistrust we have of the Islamic faith and Muslims in general. After all, we don’t fear our Christian neighbors.

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ and ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’

www.cjwerleman.com

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Pope John Paul II: When Evil Becomes A Saint

Posted on January 17, 2011 | 6 Comments

Last week the Vatican set in motion the process to fast track the late Pope John Paul’s passage to sainthood, prompting me to enquire – have the Church run out of good people to beatify?

On January 14, Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized a miracle (defined as the suspension or breach of natural law i.e. walking on water) attributed to the late pontiff. If that isn’t sufficiently absurd for the reality minded, then possibly the application submission will tip your scales. The alleged miracle in question was a French nun’s recovery from Parkinson’s, not long after praying to John Paul. So wrap that in your confirmation bias and smoke it. Anyway, how and who they award their politically motivated carnival prizes to is their business, but let’s examine, as incredulous outsiders, their current candidate for the Church’s loftiest rank.

For a majority of card carrying Catholics today, John Paul II remains the most revered and loved. His devotees live in a state of quasi cognitive dissonance in lauding him for his few better moments, while overlooking his ideological crimes against humanity. Too harsh? Well, let’s see.

Catholics laud his greatest accolade being his role in bringing Communism to an end in Eastern Europe, which is as exaggerated self-interested claim one could ever hope to find, and one that belittles the truth – that being Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness, which exposed a “system that treated its people like incompetent children”, and illuminated the freedoms of the West so enjoyed by their neighbors on the other side of the wall.

So what of his misguided ways, remembering the office of the Pope is appointed by God and serves as Jesus’ vicar on earth, and what of the ills he inflicted on mankind? Well, we could start with his declaration that condoms are paramount to murder. (Apparently, Jesus believes a latex sheaf is worst than AIDS) We could end with his complicity in the Rwandan genocide. And somewhere in the middle we could address his visit to the Grand Mosque in Damascus, where the Assad regime hailed him for sharing with them a common enemy – the Jews who had killed Jesus. (Mel Gibson being the third member of that club)

Moreover, it is the scandal that continues to thwart the Church today that should indelibly stain his sainthood, the institutionalization of child-rape, of which his grubby little hands are as equally culpable as that of his heir. Not only did John Paul II ensure his pedophile priests immunity from secular prosecution, where they later found fresh victims in other dioceses, but he specifically aided one escape from the U.S to seek sanctuary in the Vatican. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was scheduled to face trial for his part in child-rape that his diocese had been running, but the Pope, taking advantage of the Vatican’s sovereignty, provided him a home out of reach of American jurisprudence. In fact, Law was recently ordained as archpriest of the Rome Basilica of St. Mary Major.

If there is any merit to be handballed his way, however, it was his role as the ‘Great Apologizer’. In the end, he apologized for the Church’s silent indifference towards Jewish suffering during the Nazi Holocaust. He apologized for the ethnic cleansing of the Crusades; the massacres of the Balkans; and even the wrongful condemnation of Galileo. But these apologies only serve to remind us of the appalling moral track record of the respective Popes who proudly (supposedly) carry out Jesus’ direct communiqués to the rest of its lowly plebs.

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ & ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’

www.cjwerleman.com

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Sarah Palin Dishonors Pat Tillman.

Posted on October 18, 2010 | 3 Comments

Whether or not you’ve read Where Men Meet Glory or have seen The Tillman Story, released in U.S cinemas last week, it’s fair to assume most of us can recite a brief synopsis of the life and death of Corporal Pat Tillman.

It’s a story that deserves far greater attention than this article can muster, but for the benefit of brevity, a summary reads, more or less, like this: Eight months after the 9/11 attacks, Pat Tillman, a safety for the NFL team the Arizona Cardinals, and having just married his high school sweetheart, turned his back on a $3.6 million contract extension to enlist in the U.S Army as a ranger.

There are many elements of this man’s life that draws you in, but no least his humility. In a culture obsessed with celebrity, he believed his decision to be no nobler than fellow enlistees – and therefore he refused to speak publicly about his enlistment. Moreover, he executed a legal document instructing that there not be a military funeral should he be killed in action. He had even confided amongst close friends and family that he had concerns his life and possible military death would be wrongly used for propaganda purposes.

On April 26, 2004 news broke that Tillman had been killed while engaging the enemy in southeastern Afghanistan. Posthumously, Tillman would be awarded the Silver Star for bravery. The White House hawks went into spin overdrive in celebrating his legend so as to solicit public support for the war effort. It would be more than five weeks later, however, that evidence of a cover up would emerge. Tillman was, in fact, killed by friendly fire. And eyewitness accounts infer a chilling conspiracy.

What the movie and the book also show is Tillman’s strongly held atheistic views. According to family, he read everything he could get his hands on that called religious beliefs into question. His attitude towards religion was captured in his brother Richard’s eulogy. Speaking after religious epithets were given by Maria Shriver, and Arizona senator John McCain, he is captured on video as saying:

“He’d (Pat) would want me to say this. He’s not with God. He’s fucking dead. He’s not religious.  So thanks for your thoughts. But he’s fucking dead.”

On Bill Maher’s Real Time he’d add:  ”I found it (their eulogies) offensive. It’s like, I don’t go to a church and say, ‘This is bullshit,’ so don’t come to my brother’s service and tell me he’s with God. He’s simply not with fucking God.”

Enter Sarah Palin the evangelical. Despite the conspiratorial circumstances of Tillman’s death, and regardless of his expressed wishes, Sarah Palin continues to use him as a propaganda tool.

Speaking in San Jose yesterday at a right wing fundraiser, Palin made the following comments:

“One of those heroes was from right here in San Jose, who gave up money and the glamour. And think what he sacrificed and his family sacrificed, giving up pro-football career to serve his country and he ultimately giving up his life for our freedom. Remember to thank God every day for Pat and for the thousands like him….”

Two problems: Tillman wanted no one thanking God for him and, secondly, he was not killed fighting for his country; he was, evidently, killed by his country. (I know that sounds unsympathetic to the grim realty that is the fog of war, but there’s something far too sinister to this story.)

Bryan O’Neal, the Ranger closest to Tillman at the time of the ambush, told that his fellow soldiers had in fact been firing on them repeatedly, even as their platoon shouted and waved their arms to indicate their status as “friendlies”. Tillman would die as a result of three bullet rounds to the head, all taken from very close range i.e. less than 10 yards.

On July 27, 2007 the Associated Press reported that military medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullets in Pat Tillman’s forehead, and tried without success to launch an investigation into whether his death amounted to a crime

Bill Maher asked Richard Tillman about the evidence suggesting that his brother was “deliberately attacked by his fellow troops.” Richard replied:

“I wish he would’ve just lit these fucking idiots up with his own gun. Cause he knew that they were shooting at him. I wish he didn’t have so much character, and would’ve shot his own guys.”

With many calling for a re-investigation as to whether or not his death was a criminal homicide, it’s simply beyond all reasonable standards of ethical conduct that Sarah Palin should continue to use his story for her own self-serving political and religious ideals.

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ and ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’

www.cjwerleman.com

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Why I Oppose a New Synagogue at Ground Zero

Posted on September 1, 2010 | 4 Comments

It’s quite remarkable how much debate and airwave consumption the proposed Islamic Cultural Centre (read Mosque with jungle gym) at Ground Zero has generated. It is an argument by which I am yet to meet an individual unwilling to express his or her opinion. It’s become of those genuine hot-button issues, designed to make us forget about the economy, stupid.

No doubt, you’ve heard all the arguments by now, the vitriol from the right, and uber political correctness from the left. As it stands today, however, 61% of Americans oppose the Park 51 project. (According to a new TIME poll)

My position, an opinion I’ve shared before, is that while I do not oppose Iman Feisal Rauf’s constitutional right to build a mosque there, I just don’t think it’s the right (whatever that means) thing to do, and I question the wisdom of wishing to do such a thing in the first place. And ok, I admit it. I don’t like Islam as far as I wish I could throw Christianity or Judaism. I’m an anti-theist. What more can I say?

Having said that, and for similar reasons, my sensibilities would be equally offended by the construction of a synagogue at Ground Zero. I just heard your jaw drop. But let me finish. My reasoning is simple, we have either forgotten the reason why we were attacked on September 11, 2001, or we’ve been duped into believing George W. Bush’s prognosis for why it is large parts of the Islamic world hates us so.

Nine days after the attacks, Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American people said, “They hate our freedoms – our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

What complete and utter self-serving manipulative bullshit. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The Muslim world hates us not because we enjoy the fruits of democracy, of which a majority of Muslims don’t even know what democracy is, nor is their homicidal rage fueled by images of American women in bikinis, or of frat guys doing tequila shots off an exotic dancer’s cosmetically enhanced breasts. They hate us because of our airbases in the Holy Land, Saudi Arabia, our sanctions against Iraq that killed tens of thousands of children, and thirdly – the big bad daddy of them all – our unconditional and uncritical support of Israel.

Here’s what Osama Bin Laden had to say in his November 2002 “Letter to America”, Bin Laden described the US support of Israel as the motivation:

“The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.”

Our timidity in speaking out against Israel should shame political leaders, documentarians, Hollywood, journalists, and all of us too. An artificially created nation, architected by diplomats in 1948, forced the displacement of 750,000 Arabs from their homes. Not content with the free land given, Israel has illegally occupied what little land the Arabs were allotted, continues to displace more Arab “settlements” in favor of illegally obtained new Jewish “neighborhoods”, and massacres hundreds to thousands of innocent civilians in so called “targeted killings”every year. 

In fact, our closest ally in the Middle East has been the subject of 138 UN resolutions in the years 1967 – 2000. Most of which called upon Israel to comply with basic principles of international law, and the Geneva Convention. Hello, war crimes! Moreover, the US vetoed a further 29 resolutions tabled against Israel in the years 1972 – 1990. You still think Muslims hate us because of our Budweiser beer commercials?

Further sickening to Arab nations, is the manner in which we belligerently rub their noses in the figurative Israeli excrement. For instance, George W. Bush referred to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a “man of peace”. This a war criminal, held directly responsible for the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinians in Beirut in 1982.

I don’t think anyone disagrees with the fact Jewish people suffered more than anyone in the 20th century, with, perhaps, the exclusion of the Russians. But this does not give Israel carte blanche to belligerently occupy stolen land in the same manner the Nazis managed the Warsaw ghettos. If you believe that last sentence to be an example of me overreaching, then heed the words of a German Jew by the name of Victor Kemplerer, himself a victim of the Holocaust, wrote:

“To me, the Zionists, who want go back to the Jewish state of AD 70…..are just as offensive as the Nazis. With their nosing after blood, their ancient “cultural roots”, their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are altogether a match for the National Socialists….”

Award winning UK journalist and author Robert Fisk warns that Western media is guilty of lulling us into a false sense of good versus evil when it comes to critiquing Israel versus Palestine. Newspapers distort reality with clichéd headlines, such as “Arab terrorists threaten Israel” played against “Israel security chiefs warn Arafat”. Fisk says, “we ask can Arafat control his own people, when the Israelis ask the same question. Yet when a Jewish settler’s group killed two Palestinian civilian men and a baby, we did not ask if Sharon could control his own people.”

So if asked whether a synagogue has the right to be built at Ground Zero, my response will read: they are within their constitutional right, but I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I question the wisdom of wishing to do such a thing in the first place.

(*The author is expressing his concern for the policies of the Israeli government, and this should not be misconstrued as some kind of attack against Jewish peoples, for which it is most certainly not.)

CJ Werleman 

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Making Sense of the Bible)

www.GodHatesYou.net

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Turkey: This Article May Get Me Arrested

Posted on August 26, 2010 | 5 Comments

What I am about to write will most likely get me arrested. While this article won’t get me water-boarded in Egypt or Jordan, it will, by the end of this paragraph, make any visit I had planned for Turkey look more and more like a scene from Oliver Stone’s Midnight Express. A movie so harrowing, it inspired the premature retirement of many a part-time drug mule.

I hate suspense, so I’m going to jump straight into the legal fry pan. Here goes. In 1915, the Ottoman Muslim caliphate launched a state-planned genocide against Armenian Christians. In the months that followed, more than 1.5 million men, women, and children would be systematically slaughtered in the first holocaust of the twentieth century.

Well, if you’re wondering what is so contentious in regards to the above paragraph, it is this: we all know it, but they (the Turkish government) won’t admit it, and we (the West) let them get away with it. Hence why on April 1, 2005, the Turkish parliament ratified penal code Article 301, stating:

1. A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

2. A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.

3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country, the punishment shall be increased by one-third.

4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

In calling the religious state sponsored genocide anything other than the fallacious euphemism “Armenians died in a civil war”, I have brought myself into violation of this heinous law. As Orhan Pamuk unfortunately discovered, a Nobel Prize winning Turkish born author, who was brought forward to face charges under Article 301 for comments he made during an interview he gave to a Swiss newspaper in February 2005. In the interview, Pahmuk stated, “30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were murdered. Hardly anyone dares mention it, so I do. And that’s why I am hated.”

A study of modern Turkish political posturing could easily lead you to the conclusion the Armenian holocaust is little more than an old rumor or urban myth. What has become so unmentionable today, however, was no secret to Turkish leaders back in the day. On 19 October 1918, Ahmed Riza, an elected president of the Turkish senate, stated in his inauguration: “Lets face it, we Turks savagely killed off the Armenians.” Turkish Senator Reshid Akif Pasha testified on 19 October 1918: “The mission in the circular was: to attack the convoys and massacre the population.” It’s somewhat curiously ironic that politicians could speak freely of the genocide shortly after it occurred, but today one would be locked up on the charge of denouncing Turkey.

This denial continues to see Turkey’s entrance into the European Union thwarted, thanks to the moral courage of French president Sarkozy. (It’s not often I include French and courage in the same sentence, so run with it) A virtue lacking throughout a majority of the Muslim world, whereby of the 26 sovereign nations that officially recognize the Armenian genocide, only 2 are predominantly Muslim countries. With many sharing Turkey’s spun lie that states there was no will to exterminate Armenians and the 1915 massacres were purely the consequences of war.

This doesn’t vindicate the United States, however, as its leaders have repeatedly shown moral cowardice in forcing Turkey to acknowledge its wrongdoing.  And no one is more culpable than former President George W. Bush. In 2007, the US Congress was faced with a bill to formerly recognize the Armenian massacres as genocide. Turkey, a NATO member, rolled out its military brass. General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish armed forces, warned that if the resolution was passed by the lower house, then “our military relations with the US would never be as they were in the past….The US, in that respect, has shot itself in the foot.”

How would Bush, the self proclaimed determiner of good versus evil, respond to a not to subtle threat to disallow the US use of Turkish airbases in the war with Iraq? Well, he offered this:

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915. But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror.”

What of the ‘Change We Can Believe In’ guy? Surely, Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama would revert Bush’s position? As senator and president candidate, Obama pledged “As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” But as president, he has never once used the ‘G’ word. In fact, on April 24 of this year, the date that commemorates the Turkish massacres, Obama had the opportunity to keep good his campaign promise but instead characterized the historical reality as “one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century” and “the terrible events of 1915.”

When we frame ‘evil’ as only those nations that do bad things and who can’t give us anything in return, we inadvertently encourage the following kind of rhetoric from the current Turkish Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the Islamist party, and proprietor of the holocaust denying business:

“In my country there are 170,000 Armenians. Seventy thousand of them are citizens. We tolerate 100,000 more. So, what am I going to do tomorrow? If necessary I will tell the 100,000: OK, time to go back to your country. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country.”

Your guess as to what he means by that thinly veiled threat is as good as mine, but we can only hope that he doesn’t mean a return to cutting the throats of Armenian babies, capsizing boats, death marches, and burning alive entire villages in a single barn. 

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back‘ and soon to be released ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’

www.GodHatesYou.net

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The ‘Hellbound’ Interview

Posted on August 24, 2010 | 3 Comments

Shortly after the release of my first book, the atheist blogging community were generous in their praise, review, and support of its message. As such, and at the risk of pushing the kumbaya campfire agenda for people who simply don’t believe in ancient mythology, there truly is an esprit de corps among online infidels and rebels of reason. Amen.

Well, I’d like to recommend a book that I’m certain ardent fans of philosophy and theology will embrace with tremendous enthusiasm. The title is Hellbound, and it’s written by first time novelist Tim Hawken. 

I have had the good fortune to review an advanced copy of the book, in prelude to its anticipated release  in October of this year. In the meantime, here is my interview with Hawken:

What is Hellbound about?

It’s kind of hard to put in a nutshell, without making it sound like a blurb. Essentially, it’s about a man who wakes up in Hell, face to face with Satan, with no memory of who he is or why he’s there. The book explores what Hell would be, if it were upgraded to suit a modern world of sin. Sex, gambling, torture, revenge…….with a bit of religion and philosophy thrown in the mix.

How does your version of Hell differ from the traditional vision we have already?

For starters it’s not eternal damnation, it’s more like purgatory. I figure if God loves us so much, then why not give us a second chance after we die to redeem ourselves? After all, we’re only human, and we didn’t have all the facts while we were alive! So, it’s more about having the final chance to make better choices, or doom yourself into becoming a demon of your ‘favourite’ sin. 

Also, Hell is presented as a city; with casinos, bars, brothels. Kind of like Vegas on steroids (yes I know, it sounds horrific). Since Hell isn’t a perfect place, and human ideas, ideals and morals have changed over time, then I believe if there is a Hell, it would have changed as well.

I tried to answer some pressing philosophical questions about Hell in the book. Like, can you die in Hell? How was Hell created? Is Satan really evil? You know, light stuff.

Have you used any reference material for inspiration?

I used the Bible to reference quite a bit. Astute readers will pick up a few passages hidden within the text. Paradise Lost, Faust, The Orestia, King Lear, Treasure Island to name a few others. A lot of the characters names are references to works that have inspired me.

A few people have said Hellbound is similar to the Screwtapes Letters by CS Lewis, but I haven’t read that yet. It’s on my wishlist at the moment.

What about the main character, Michael?

Michael is an anti-hero at times. One minute he’s doing good things, the next he’s doing despicable things. He’s more human than most people. His biggest saving grace is that he loves his wife more than anything else.

Satan is the other key figure in there, obviously. I wanted him to be fun, not so demonic with wrath and destruction. If there were to be a film made from the book, I’d love to see Johnny Depp play him, since he’s so adept at portraying incredibly eccentric characters, especially those that appear highly intelligent yet a little unhinged, which is my Satan. 

Where did you get the idea for Hellbound?

It’s originally inspired from a literature assignment I had at university to ‘create a contemporary Satan’. It was the best mark I ever received for anything. The paper sat in my draw for five years or more until I started writing the book. I dusted it off, it was a great starting point and the whole concept grew from a contemporary Satan, to a contemporary Hell with a love/revenge story to boot.

One of the questions I asked myself when starting Hellbound was: What would Hell be like if religion evolved, instead of remaining in the dark ages?And if God does/did exist, then I think this could actually be how he’d want things to be down there. 

Ok, the all important question: how do we get a copy?

It will be available via Amazon, Barnes and Noble online and all other ‘Ma and Pa’ retailers willing to take a punt on a new twist on the oldest of stories.

I’ll be updating with exact release dates and other info at http://www.hellboundthebook.com 

Alternatively, people can follow me at www.Twitter.com/Tim_Hawken

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Letter to the Pope re: Membership Woes

Posted on August 16, 2010 | 13 Comments

Dear Pope,

Congratulations, it’s now official: your pope-hood seems almost certain to be remembered as the last papacy the world actually gives a flying frankfurter about. The rotten stench of child rape has become so overpowering that your flock are abandoning your clutches in droves.

They say a fish rots from the head first, and while I’m never truly sure who ‘they’ are, I can tell you they are spot on. Your decision to harbor known pedophiles during the period you were the Archbishop of Munich, and your clumsy memo to Church leaders throughout the US endorsing that child rapists within the clergy be treated as an “internal matter”, rather than be reported to secular authorities, has foreseeably fast tracked Christianity’s trajectory towards irrelevancy, at least in the western hemisphere.

Don’t believe me? Well, Benny, some fresh data just in.

Let’s start with Austria, a country that has traditionally been a giddy supporter of the Holy See, whereby more than two-thirds of the nation’s 8 million citizens describes themselves as Roman Catholic. Well, a Reuters article (citing local state authorities) claims “57,000 have quit the Church in the first half of 2010.”  Moreover, an Austrian newspaper, Der Standard, forecasts the number of walkouts to exceed more than 100,000 by years’ end.

It gets worst! According to an extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the woes of your pedophile protection racquet are not confined to the home of the Sound of Music. The Landscape Survey reports that Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses of religious affiliation within the United States. Further, one-third of the survey respondents who say they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic. This means that roughly 10% (30,000,000) of all Americans have rescind their membership card to your celestial enterprise.

Benny, while there are many of your faithful, people who believe you are Christ’s vicar on earth, calling for your resignation, (regardless of the fact that only baby Jesus can fire your ass), I am not one of them. For me, the above-cited numbers confirm you are doing a stellar job, at least for secularists. In fact, I am so giddy – I could hug you……with my pants on, that is.  Someone that shares my excitement is Richard Dawkins, who wrote:

“”Should the pope resign?” No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly – ideally – qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.”

It would appear the only way in which you may resurrect the relevancy of the Church, albeit temporarily, would be to offer a better selection of wines. Modernity is a bitch!

Lots of kisses.

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Making Sense of the Bible)

www.GodHatesYou.net

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Creationism in Queensland Classrooms

Posted on August 3, 2010 | 14 Comments

 

While I’ve always been suspicious of patriotism, I’m proud to be an Australian. Especially so when we beat the English in cricket, or the American 100metres men’s relay team in the pool at the Olympics. Having said that, there are equally as many things that make me cringe wearing the Southern Cross on my sleeve, namely the former government’s unwillingness to apologize to the stolen generation of indigenous Australians, the success of Australia’s Sarah Palin equivalent Pauline Hanson in the 1988 federal election, and the mindless, idiotic and unimaginative chant of “Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi” at any international sporting event.

Well, now I can add another to my cringe worthy list: the Queensland Education Department’s decision to support the teaching of Religious Instruction (RI) in the primary school system. Today, 80 percent of children, ages 8 – 12, attend a one-half hour of RI class every week. Oh. My. God!

While the title RI seems fairly innocuous on the surface, it’s a cynical campaign by Christian fundamentalists to indoctrinate Queensland children with biblical creationism. Effectively, primary school students are being taught that dinosaurs walked the earth alongside man, and that Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark.

The above should alarm any rational person, but more concerning is the fact that new research shows that as many as 3 in 10 Australians believe dinosaurs and man did exist at the same time. I just cringed again!

President of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Studies, Dr. Cathy Foley, says:

“The results underscore the need for students to be exposed to science and mathematics through a well resourced education system, rather than learning about science through Jurassic Park.”

Now here’s where it becomes really comical: A majority of the adults teaching RI in Queensland are not even qualified teachers. They’re merely volunteers from various church groups. In some instances, the RI teachers have had to be supervised by real teachers to ensure the kiddies aren’t terrified with the promise of eternal damnation and Jesus on a stick talk.

One particular RI teacher, from the Set Free Christian Church, Tim Mckenzie replied when asked by a student why dinosaur fossils carbon dated earlier than man:

“The great flood must have skewed the data!”

Cringe again. I’m now huddled in the fetal position.

I imagine his rebuttal to evolution to be little more than, “if man came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” Naturally, it’s because DNA wasn’t invented yet! (I’m kidding by the way! Promise.)

My favorite comedian of all time, Lewis Black, wrote about creationists:

“These people watch the Flintstones as if it were a documentary.”

CJ Werleman

Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Making Sense of the Bible)

www.GodHatesYou.net

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