REJECTED by Cobourg Daily Star, May 15/08

The Bible is a collection of “primitive legends” that are “pretty childish.” Furthermore, “the Jewish religion, like all others, is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”

So saith world renown scientist, Albert Einstein, in a recently revealed letter dated January 3, 1954. What wonderfully, necessary blasphemous remarks; these should be part and parcel of the curriculum in our schools, including faith-based schools.

The Cobourg Daily Star opined last fall that The Golden Compass, a work of fantasy allegedly containing arguments against religion from fictional characters, should be included as part of the curriculum in Catholic schools. The Cobourg Daily Star proselytized that “an alternate viewpoint could be presented simultaneously with the author's message so that students could weigh the arguments . . . against those of their teachers or religious leaders. Today, society must furnish answers to young people, not just prohibitions.”

Albert Einstein is not a fictional character, so his remarks should have far more substance as an “alternative viewpoint” for students to weigh. If society must furnish answers rather than prohibitions, then newspapers should raise questions, instead of just providing regular pulpitganda columns to local clergy to bamboozle readers with talk of faith, mystery, belief, and other loopholes in reality.

How can anyone take seriously the so-called sacred texts with their wacko stories about parting a sea, sashaying on the surface of water, or late night sessions in the desert with angel-ine Gabriel.

Oh yes, I am expected to be sensitive to the feelings of believers as if they were an endangered species. Let’s get real here. Non-believers (infidels) are the minority and it is they who are being silenced with medieval blasphemy laws, and suffer the constant threat of death by, get a load of this, believers.

Let’s get it politically correct here, it is infidels who are the victims, not those enthralled with The Mystery and armed to the hole-in-their-head with fatwas, who would have the world believe otherwise.

Infidels are regularly denied forums in newspapers, whereas the proselytizers of piety wearing silly hats inside tax-free structures, are provided regular columns. Such is the power of the social prohibition of blasphemy. Are the beliefs of the faithful so fragile that they are unable to withstand criticism, satire, mockery, jokes, etc?

It is not infidels who are dragging their fellow-citizens through the Star Chamber tribunals of human rights commissions, but believers, whose purpose is not to enforce their particular religion of choice, but to shut down criticism/satire of their particular supremacist beliefs.

Finally, why is it that the founders of religions are largely a bunch of unshaven men? Throughout history, the leaders of theological totalitarianism have been misogynists intent on the perverted oppression of the sexual power of women with chastity belts, genital mutilation, veils, burqas and hijabs, none of which, have any rooting in the sacred scripts of religion.

I prefer the Goddesses of Greek/Roman mythology; Aphrodite/Venus. They are worthy of celebration by poets, artists and other creative types. They were life-affirming and love-affirming Goddesses, enthralled with beauty, love and desire, each enjoying several lovers, and birthing the planet with cupids.

It was during the reign of the Sisterhood of Sensuality that the Greeks enriched the world with the Olympics, offering the spectacle of young, virile naked men competitively displaying the beauty of their strength and agility. They hung out with Muses, Charities, and manly Gods endowed with the poetency of imagination. Now that’s religion!

-- Wally Keeler