{"id":578,"date":"2013-12-17T20:03:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T20:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/?p=578"},"modified":"2014-03-02T18:06:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T18:06:48","slug":"we-want-a-retraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"We want a Retraction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bible\"<\/a>
\nLet’s start with Saul of Tarsus, or Paul as he is known to Xians. I cannot bring myself to call him “Saint<\/em>” anymore and you shouldn’t either, no-one should. Here’s a guy who pretty much is responsible for much of the homophobia and misogyny of Xianity. Romans 1<\/strong> and 1st Corinthians 6<\/strong> does it for the homos, they’re supposed to deserve death according to our good buddy Paul. Imagine how much less ammunition the conservative Xians among us who have jettisoned so much of the primitive ugliness of the OT: animal sacrifice, stoning adulterers, selling their daughters into slavery, leaving their concubines to be raped to death on their doorstep, having concubines and multiple wives, an eye for an eye etc., etc… would have against homosexuals if Paul had never written his own homophobic passages?
\nHe didn’t support most of the cruel and primitive practices of the OT and without New Testament support, look how quickly modern Xianity gave them up. Even Fred Phelps and the wackos of his Westboro Baptist Church dont call for the stoning of adulterers and the sacrificing of animals. <\/p>\n

Conservative Xians have tossed most of the barbaric practices of Leviticus off as primitive customs appropriate only for Biblical times, but not Leviticus 18:22<\/strong>, or 20:13<\/strong> some of the famous “clobber passages<\/em>” that keep gays either being “loved as sinners<\/em>” or hated as a full blown abominations. And they use confirmation from Paul as reinforcement from the NT. Imagine if Paul had said nothing. But no, his support of archaic attitudes toward homosexuals has made life miserable for countless millions through the ages, and been responsible for the torture and death of how many? Hate crimes still continue today, and they are largely religiously motivated.
\nKnow any “Secularists Against Fags<\/em>” groups? Me neither.
\n\"godhatesfags\"<\/a>
\nThanks Paul.<\/p>\n

And think about slavery; also supported in passages of Paul and elsewhere in the NT. Might slavery have been jettisoned along with the other OT ludicrous practices listed above a bit easier, a bit sooner if the Conservative Xian clergy that were the biggest roadblock to emancipation didn’t have Paul to back them up?
\nAnd who is this guy anyway, a follower of Jesus? A guy that knows the score? No. Never met JC. He had visions. He never met Jesus. He knows almost nothing of the sayings and deeds of Jesus, nothing of the Xmas story, nothing of the details of the resurrection, and is adamant that what he claims to know about JC, it surely wasn’t from allegedly meeting a couple of the Apostles, he received what he knows “from no man.<\/em>” We argue today over passages of a guy who had visions… or worse.<\/p>\n

Why in gods name (pun intended) should we listen to him? Think about it.<\/p>\n

But it gets better. But not for women, eh?
\nEphesians 5<\/strong>, Colossians 3<\/strong>, “Wives submit to your husbands<\/em>” O Joy. Thanks for that Paul. Liberal Xians of course drop these mostly degrading verses.
\nIsn’t it amazing what a “Good Book<\/em>” the Bible really is when the history of Xiansanity\u2122 is nothing but the discarding of one Biblical verse after another?
\nSo Paul set women’s rights back 2,000 years with those passages. Even if some liberal Xians interpret other passages of Paul as more egalitarian towards women, even if we grant them that, they are still stuck with reconciling their liberal interpretation of Paul with “submission<\/em>” however one tries to spin it.<\/p>\n

And now it gets downright ugly, ludicrous in the extreme:
\nConsider Timothy 1, 2<\/strong> and Titus: the Pastoral Epistles<\/strong> as they are called. And Ephesians<\/strong>.
\nMost Modern Scholars Agree These Were Not Written By Paul!<\/em>
\nCome again? Not written by Paul.”Pseduographic<\/em>” is the technical term, a common practice in Classical times; if you are a nobody you write something in someone else’s name who is to get your stuff read.
\nIn everyday parlance we call that forgery.
\nEven the Catholic Bibles acknowledge it right up front in the little informative section before each chapter that yep, “Paul didn’t write ’em<\/em>.”
\nTHEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY STILL IN THERE FOR???<\/strong> <\/p>\n

I and many others (and we’re growing) of course think the whole Bible should be on the shelf labeled “Hebrew Mythology<\/em>” and it is my fervent hope and life’s work to see how close I can get it there, but in the meantime, if Xians must insist on reading that nasty little book: Why in Hell are we agonizing over known forgeries??
\nFor another chilling example 1 Timothy<\/strong> has been the subject of so much hand wringing over what a woman can and cant do, and did he mean just in the church or in general… “submit, be silent, do not teach, have no authority over men, was deceived and became a sinner…<\/em>”
\nAND WE DO NOT KNOW WHO WROTE IT!! <\/strong>
\nEvery Christian should know this stuff. If your pastor went to a Bible college he may not, but if your minister went to seminary he surely knows and all Catholic priests know.
\nAnd it gets even more ridiculous: Of the 13 Epistles of Paul, only 7<\/em> are fer sure written by him. Besides the 4 forgeries mentioned above, 2 more: Colossians<\/strong> and 2 Thessalonians<\/strong> are under dispute by scholars if Paul wrote them or not.<\/p>\n

Isn’t that just special? The two key passages that tell women to “submit<\/em>” to their husbands are either in an Epistle that is an outright forgery, authored by someone we have no clue about or are in an Epistle that is suspected of being another forgery. And there are another ten forgeries; epistles and texts claiming to be written by Paul that never made it into the NT that scholars know weren’t written by Paul, so forgeries of Paul were almost a cottage industry.
\nIs it beyond belief (no pun intended) that in the 21st century we give any credence to Xiansanity\u2122 as defined by the writings and non-writings of Paul??
\nSO.<\/strong>
\nWe want a retraction.
\n\"rippingbookpages\"<\/a>
\nAny self respecting newspaper, book, magazine, journal, would issue one, and an apology. Hell, even Oprah had to come clean when she found out stuff she plugged in her book club was fake. So the Xian Bible publishers, ALL of them: the Catholic Church, the mainstream Protestants, the Evangelicals, the dozens of independent Bible publishers all need to issue a retraction and an apology: TO EVERY WOMAN ON EARTH<\/strong>.
\n“We were wrong to keep printing this stuff, we know these 4 are not written by Paul and these 2 are highly suspect, therefore we are removing them from all further editions of the Bible. Please disregard them if you find them in previous editions of the Bible, they are forgeries.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

Most of the homophobia and misogyny of the world is promulgated by the religions, and Xiansanity\u2122 certainly has its share. They could right much of this wrong and right now, by admitting Paul when it is him and especially when it isn’t<\/em>, is just echoing the repressions of the OT and describing the primitive barbarism of the 1st century and by retracting the known and suspected forgeries that really promote the continuation of this ignorant tribal thinking.
\nIt would be a start. Throwing the whole book away would be better.<\/p>\n

Every Xian should know this stuff. They should realize how preposterous and horrible the whole enterprise of believing in these texts (and ruining peoples lives because of them<\/em>) truly is.
\nIt always cracks me up how liberal Xians defend the Bible saying “No, no, Jesus changed all that, the NT changed all the hatred and repression of the old primitive tribal customs as approved or commanded by Yahweh of the OT<\/em>“… not according to Paul or whoever else forged stuff in his name.<\/p>\n

(913)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s start with Saul of Tarsus, or Paul as he is known to Xians. I cannot bring myself to call him “Saint” anymore and you shouldn’t either, no-one should. Here’s Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,4,2],"tags":[69,175,160,174,173,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}