This is very late but other stuff has been taking over.

A friend of mine tipped me off to a message that was sent out by the American Family Association about the Discovery Channel Special “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” This message was emailed to my friend from a Very Faithful sucker believer who emailed the message along to everyone that she knew, regardless of his or her faith or lack thereof. Already rude.

The press release went like this (I am posting the whole thing only because the AFA no longer has it on their website – not sure why they pulled it):

February 27, 2007

Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your entire email list of family and friends.

The Discovery Channel documentary slams Christianity

The documentary claims that the tombs of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and a supposed son of Jesus —Judah— have been found, thus making the Bible and two thousand years of history a lie.

Dear (Your Name Here),

According to the Discovery Channel’s documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” airing Sunday, March 4, the bones of Jesus– buried with His family — have been found. In addition, the documentary says that Mary Magdalene and Jesus might have had a son named Judah.

Here is what The Discovery Channel says about the program and the Christian faith: “All leading epigraphers agree about the inscriptions. All archaeologists confirm the nature of the find. It comes down to a matter of statistics. A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.”

Having watched how Hollywood portrays Christians and Christian values for the past 30 years, it is clear that Hollywood considers Christianity its greatest enemy. Because of our silence, Christianity is the only religion they feel free to attack!

Read ‘Lost Tomb of Jesus’ tries to turn ‘fiction into believability,’ minister warns

It is time for Christians to send a message to The Discovery Channel and Hollywood that enough is enough! Don’t stay silent while The Discovery Channel and Hollywood continually attack our faith and our values.

The documentary was produced by James Cameron, whose claim to fame is directing the movie “The Titanic.” Saying that Cameron is qualified to make a documentary on Jesus is like saying Hugh Hefner is qualified to make a documentary on abstinence before marriage!

For a critical review of this film by Probe Ministries President Kerby Anderson, click here.

Take Action (inactivated by me)

(…and lots more urging to pass the word along, blah, blah, blah, and Stop Hollywood blah, blah, blah…)

Ms. Very Faithful drove home the sentiment by saying in the email “..they could not have found the bones of Jesus, because when they returned to the tomb he was no longer there!” Can’t you just hear the sense of justification from here? The statement is a stupid one and makes no sense but it is representative of what the usual bible thumper conversation entails.

Boy but do I love those crazy zealots. Especially when they get all fired up. And they sure got pissed about The Lost Tomb of Jesus.

From the Discovery Channel:

One of these tombs was found to contain ten ossuaries. Six of the ossuaries in this tomb have inscriptions on them. As it turns out, every inscription in this particular tomb relates to the Gospels.

In the feature documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus a case is made that the 2,000-year-old “Tomb of the Ten Ossuaries” belonged to the family of Jesus of Nazareth.

What this discovery asserts is that Jesus may in fact have actually been a real human being with needs and desires, etc. Not some miraculous Magic Man. By finding an actual tomb of Jesus and his family, naming Mary Magdalene as his wife (you know, the whore), the entire idea of the death and resurrection of Christ is dashed. But to these people, believing in magic is much better than believing that a real human being existed who did some good stuff. (Also, no one wants to believe that Jesus had sex – with a prostitute, no less.)

I am no fan of organized religion because in order to buy into what they are selling a rational person has to hold a lot of faith in hocus-pocus and the irrational belief in miracles.

The whole idea of Jesus as Magic is really the basis of Christianity and without magic the whole thing is questionable.

• No Magic: No immaculate conception and no Son of God – Mary would have had to have some good old-fashioned fucking to get pregnant. Maybe she had some extra-marital sex and figured magic was good way to explain her growing belly.

• No Magic: No resurrection – I am no doctor but from what I gather about death, if you die one day and then a week later you come back to life, there are going to be some serious decomposition issues to contend with on Sunday. Unless of course you are Magic Man.

**NEW BUMPER STICKER**
No Magic: No Jesus
Know Magic: Know Jesus

HA HA! I just thought of that right now.

Ahem, what was I was saying? Oh yeah. Well, shit. There goes Easter. What the hell will we do with this damn bunny now?

Let’s not forget that it was a handy coincidence for the Christian patriarchy that Jesus just happened to die and was resurrected at the same time pagan religions (often matriarch based) were celebrating the rights of spring and rebirth.* It is nifty how all things come back to life in the spring. The trees, the flowers, the animals, the Jesus. That made it much easier to convince more people to join the fold. “See, we’re just like you, except we got this Magic Man. Even Better!”

As for the AFA refuting the validity of this discovery – well, I have yet to see anything from these folks that actually proves that this discovery is actually impossible. The only thing that they keep repeating is that lots of people were named Jesus and Marry. And the AFA is claiming that the Bible is acual history. Please people, the bible is a book. Not proof. The bible is a book that has been re-written and translated and re-written and re-translated and utterly massaged to suit the need of those reading it so many times that no one can really know what was truly meant when it was written. At one time it may have originally been a story told by people who had some really interesting life changing stuff happen to them and who also knew this really smart and nice guy named Jesus and his lady Mary. But then maybe some other guys who saw a really great opportunity to oppress people, mostly women, added some crazy magic shit and here we are. Or maybe the original people who wrote the book actually had a great sense humor and so they added all of that magic stuff to fuck with people. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? That is a story and a philosophy that I can get behind. But who the hell knows? At this point the Bible is NOT proof of anything except its own existence.

I am not going to dissect that whole message from the AFA because I would be here all day calling out paranoid silliness. I am just going to say that the AFA can probably rest assured that Hollywood doesn’t really consider “…Christianity its greatest enemy.” And yes, Hollywood does skewer other religions. Hollywood is an equal opportunity money maker. That is all. But whatever, zealots play the martyrs best. They certainly weren’t complaining when Mel Anti-Semite, “Sugar Tits” Gibson came out with that Killing Christ flick, which was essentially a snuff film. Hollywood was the friend of Christianity then. And up until recently, Mel was Hollywood’s darling, and he has always been an anti-Semite super orthodox anti-catholic catholic with his OWN church. Give him a couple of years and he will be Hollywood’s darling again.

And as for the AFA having issues with the Discovery Channel showing a documentary… well, they should get back because I am sure that there were a lot of people who sure as hell didn’t think anyone needed to see two hours of a man being killed but no one really tried to censure Mel. The AFA would have really been pissed if someone had. See, because Christian zealots are also hypocrites of the best kind.

And finally, I am no huge fan of James Cameron as a person but he does make a good film. That is what he does. That is his job. If he wants to make a documentary about the discovery of the very first whatever-the-blah-blah, and if the Discovery Channel wants to show it, then so be it. We still live a relatively free country. They have that right and so does he. The fact that the AFA and a bunch of other paranoid Christians, didn’t want this documentary to be seen just kind of confirms how tenuous their grasp is on the actual basis of who Jesus Christ probably was and effectively their own religiosity. Were they afraid that the flock might watch this show and then that flock would start Thinking and Having Views? Free Thought: Enemy of the wingnuttery.

Just a note on religion: I understand the need for religion. I don’t have a problem with the idea of a belief in something higher. Groups of people since the beginning of time have maintained a devotion to something more. I can appreciate that. What I have a problem with is the hypocrisy of organized religion. I feel a little queasy when anyone absolutely refuses to accept that any other path to enlightenment exists, when in fact the similarities between many religions are astounding. I want to scream when a member of the converted suggests, always smugly, that although I am a generally good person I am still going to (their version of) hell when I die because I haven’t accepted Magic Man as my lord and savior. I am just saying.

And because I kept saying Magic Man… I now have this stuck in my head.

*Also, the celebration of Christmas – the birth of Christ – just happens to fall at the same time as the winter solstice. Generally a time when ancient people would celebrate the end of winter and the returning of the sun, or the light.