Like millions of others, I have been watching the reviews and previews of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ." I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet, but I fully intend to. I have heard Mel Gibson speak about the film and respond to the charges that the film is anti-Semitic and may create or exacerbate the rift between Christians and Jews. The core issue is, of course, what was the role of the Jews in the death of Jesus and what are the consequences. I am going to try to be ...
Every man, woman and child, every people, race and religion, all humans will face times of adversity. All of us will have to overcome the forces that hold us down, that keep us from finding our own Promised Lands. These are our own, personal "times of bondage in Egypt" if you will. Tonight, on the first night of Pesach or Passover, I want to express what I see as the universality of the struggle to be free. The Passover Holiday is one that belongs to us all. It is often thought of as a "Je...
"Render unto Caesar....." In 325 AD, a council of bishops was convened at Nicea, in Turkey. The decisions of that council would effect the future of religion in the West for centuries to come. Constantine had become Emperor in 323 AD, after defeating the Emperor Licinius in battle. Constantine would end the persecutions against the Christians and would, on his deathbed in 337, accept conversion to Christianity becoming the first Christian Roman Emperor. But in 323, he was still a paga...
"These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin (Didymos) Judas Thomas wrote down (recorded.)" These are the opening words of the Gospel of Thomas, first discovered in the 1890's and also included in the documents that comprise the collection known as the Gnostic Gospels. It begins in the desert. It always begins in the desert. The year is 1945. An Arab named Muhammed Ali al-Samman and his brothers had gone to collect sabakh , a soft soil used to fert...
We have seen how Christianity emerged from Judaism. But how similiar are the two religions? Here is a quick comparison: Judaism Tribal religion, believing that the Jewish people are “Chosen” by God. Before 70 AD, Judaism was centered around Jerusalem and the Temple. Although there are some conversions, Judaism is passed on as birthright Long history, stretching back to Abraham. The God of the Jews meted out punishments to the enemies of the Jews. Christianity
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In Part I, I discussed how Judaism is a tribal religion. That is to say that it elevates one people above all others. It was an effective force in uniting twelve tribes into one people, distinguishing them from others by circumcision and the Ten Commandments and by the laws of kashruth or kosher eating, by establishing common tradition and more. It enabled the Jewish people to carve out a kingdom in middle of hostile neighbors. It established the need for a single leader, from Moses to the Ki...
My headline is a bit of hyperbole, but not too far off target. In an outdoor Mass before 250,000 in Munich, Germany, His Holiness said that science and rational thought weakens our ability to accept the religious message. "Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God, there are too many frequencies filling our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited for our age.” “People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the sam...
It is amazing to me the amount of debate that there has been regarding the Dan Brown book and movie, when the real conspiracy by the Catholic Church goes seemingly unnoticed. The Catholic Church should be grateful for the Da Vinci Code books and movie because the furor surrounding those fictional events serves as a distraction from the true pattern of sexual abuse and concealment. In 2004, the Catholic Church in the United States received an internal report placing the substantiated alle...
Anyone who reads my blog with regularity knows that I teach Sunday school at the Jewish Cultural School, a Jewish secular humanist school and congregation. I teach the 7th Grade, the last year of education before the kids have their B'not Mitzvahs. As an important part of this education, we study how religion in general, and Judaism in particular, are practiced in other congregations. I take the class on trips to other congregations for first-hand experience. We always begin by observing S...
Every religion has to deal with the issue of Sin (upper-case letter intentional) and Repentance, the recovery, if you will, from Sin to a State of Grace. How each religion deals with it effects how that religion will be received and the degree to which it will be accepted. To me, that is marketing. Every religion has it's "Do's and Don't's." Do go to church on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Don't kill your neighbor (at least not if he happens to be of the same religion as you, anyway.) If you fai...
In the Pope's latest book, he refers to gay marriage as part of "a new ideology of evil." In this time of ever-increasing revelations of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church, I stand in wonder of just how misplaced priorities can be. The book Memory and Identity is based on transcribed conversations between the Pontiff and his circle of friends. The conversations occurred in 1993, before the extent of the sexual abuse of children by priests was widely known or acknowledged. But I ...
"Mighty Rome is fallen...." When last we left this history, the Roman Empire under Constantine had adopted Christianity as the state religion, the Gnostics had been driven underground and the Jews were suffering from intermittent persecutions within the Empire. We should perhaps look at the Roman Empire. At the height of the Empire, Roman power spanned to the North and South, to the East and West of the Mediterranean Sea. A map of Rome at the height of it's glory can be found at http://...
We have seen how, after Nicea, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. But what about the Jews? In 70 AD, after a bitter rebellion, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. The rebellion lasted from 66 AD to 73 AD. According to both Tacitus and Josephus 1.1 million Jews died and 97,000 were sold into slavery. (Personally, I think this figure is over-stated and that Tacitus accepted Josephus as his source. But regardless of the exact numbers, there was a tremendo...
This is the first of a series of articles that are largely intended for the JCS (Jewish Cultural Society) 7th Grade Class and is an overview. The general orientation is secular, that is that I espouse a "real world" view focusing on recorded events rather than traditional comparisons of belief systems. I feel that it is important to give this disclaimer at the beginning, but let me also differentiate between secularism and atheism of agnosticism. I believe that every individual must find ...
Last night I went to the Jewish Cultural Society (JCS) of Ann Arbor for Rosh Hoshanah celebration. We are a Jewish, Secularist, humanistic society, but as I have said many times in the past, our celebrations resemble religous ones to a greater degree than many might suppose. It was a wonderful celebration welcoming the New Year and, as you would also find at a religous observance we reflected on our short-comings and affirmed our committment to do better in the coming year. One of my former s...