It’s no surprise that 20 to 30 somethings in America are beginning to get fed up with the political climate at hand.  For nearly their entire lives politicians and special interest groups alike have all but ignored their existence on just about every level. In fact, the only thing society has seemed to focus on when considering the importance of “Generation Y” (or the Millennials as they are also called) is their pocketbooks. Seen mostly as hedonistic and highly apathetic “consumers”, who’s idea of planning for the future was at best a bachelors degree in whatever Arts or Humanities field happened to catch their attention freshman year; this generation as a whole has struggled to emerge from behind the harsh stereotypes that it willfully inflicted upon itself.

Much of this struggle is placed on the shoulders of tens of thousands of unemployed or underemployed college graduates. Each with mounds of student loans they will never be able to pay off, no health insurance and a job that, if they’re lucky, pays enough for them to “get by”.  This job is probably the one they secured to help pay their way through college in the first place, sticking them with relatively little real-world experience outside of that field. This wouldn’t have been the case had they chose to participate in any number of internships while in college, but lets face it, who can afford to work for free when you’ve got to worry about paying rent and keeping the electricity turned on?

In many ways this is our own fault.  We should have known what we were getting into beforehand. As 18 year old kids we should have had the foresight to better plan for our own future.  We should have noticed that many of our parents didn’t go to college simply because they couldn’t afford it. We should have realized that if we didn’t want to struggle throughout our twenties and probably well into our thirties, we would need to start our “careers” straight out of high-school, just as our parents had.  We should have realized this and taken the safe road. But we didn’t.

For some reason we thought attending college was important. Maybe it was because every teacher and authority figure we had ever come across reiterated this fact seamlessly and without hesitation. Maybe it was the plethora of after school specials and post He-Man “morals of the story” that told us that we really didn’t have a choice.  Either way, we all knew that if we wanted to make anything of our lives, college was the most important step.

For some reason we also refused to work jobs that we genuinely hated and spent much more time focusing on ourselves, than we spent worrying about the world around us.  This realization would be un-excusable if not for the fact that we did so in our youth. We did so un-apologetically and for the most part un-intentially, but did so as kids. This is important because that focus on self (which includes a strong connection with our direct peers) largely shaped the culture of our generation. We care deeply about our own happiness, but realize that much of that is dependent on the happiness of those around us. It made us who we are collectively and I think paved the way for the voice that our generation would eventually develop.

You don’t have to look far to realize the political climate is changing within our generation.  The Occupy movement that swept the nation almost exactly three months ago is a perfect example.  Starting initially on message boards and in closed chat rooms, the idea of speaking out against government corruption and the flow of money into and out of the political process, unexpectedly united millions of American youth in a common cause. A cause that eventually lead them to the streets in protest in over 100 cities across the nation, for weeks on end.

For the first time in my life kids all across America were standing together crying foul. Finally calling out the very leaders and institutions that had previously ignored them for over two decades.

Although it is unclear what the Occupy movement has accomplished politically at this point, one thing that cannot be denied is the passion and the ingenuity it’s participants have shown. An entire generation of kids raised on the internet with unparalleled social networking expertise, graphic design skills and an untapped potential for activism (not to mention plenty of time on their hands to utilize it). These kids can mobilize in an instant and can do so with unsurpassed charisma.

Another example of youth activism was in the news a few days ago. SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) was being voted on in Congress. The bill is highly backed by corporations who feel that their bottom lines are being effected by sites like mega-upload and others.  The bill would essentially give corporations and government agencies the unchecked power to censor what is on the internet by shutting down any sites that they feel are infringing on copyrighted material.  It faced strong criticism from experts representing companies like google and facebook who say that it could essentially kill the internet as we know it.

This sparked an internet campaign from thousands of concerned youth across the globe, causing a standstill in congress and successfully postponing the vote on the bill.  Although the battle is not completely won, there is one thing that can’t be denied.  A few thousand kids, armed only with the internet, literally halted legislature in congress in just a matter of days.

This is encouraging news if like me, you’ve been anticipating a collective voice to emerge among our generation. After-all, we have plenty of common causes to get behind. We have student loans owned by banks that received billions of dollars in bail-outs, yet congress fought tooth-and-nail to stop a loan consolidation program that would lower our interest rates. We have the highest unemployment rates of any age group and the highest number of uninsured.  We care deeply about issues like the environment, yet don’t care at all if our homosexual friends want to get married. We want science and technology to again be a mainstay of American education, but we also want our children to be able to enter those fields without going into debt for the rest of their lives at the same time.  Most of all, we want elected officials to represent our views and to do so without having to be paid off in the process.

So, what are we doing to make these things known?

On the National level you have candidates like Ron Paul, who’s base is primarily college aged kids who are fed up with bipartisan bickering and idolize his no-nonsense approach to politics. You also have a slew of disenfranchised youth who backed the Obama campaign in ’08 and are dis-satisfied with his actions thus far, many of whom have made that point well known.  All of this with a Presidential election less than a year away and at a time when the public knows that American youth are willing and able to take to the streets in support of their cause.

But aren’t there more pressing issues, issues that are closer to home that we should be focusing on as well?

At the state level (in Oklahoma) we have a highly conservative congress that has put things like the “Sharia-Law bill”, “health-care opt-out bill”, “voter registration bill”, multiple anti-abortion bills and countless other frivolous and inappropriate pieces of legislation at the very top of their agenda. They do so with complete disregard to the legality or the over-all effectiveness of these bills, simply because they can. Simply because no-one has the power or political will to stop them.

On the local level (in Tulsa) we have a City Council and Mayor who can’t seem to collaborate on anything.  We have a highly progressive downtown culture that can’t get funding for bike lanes or mass transit, but can somehow give tax incentives and “vision 2025″ handouts numbering in the millions, to property owners who continue to sit on some of the largest and most economically viable buildings in the city. Many of which have surprisingly been “under construction” for close to a decade. We have business owners in positions of political power that need to be checked and rechecked daily to ensure the best is being done for those who actually live in the neighborhoods these people were elected to represent. Each of these things very important and right under our noses.

I touch on them only to show that most of us, most of the 20 to 30 somethings in this city, probably don’t agree with the way our elected officials are representing us on many levels.  Up until now they have had no reason to listen to us, essentially because none of us were talking. But that has to change.  It’s time to start talking.

Last week I wrote about Senator Inhofe as did many others across the state. He currently holds the First Congressional Districts Federal Senate seat and will be up for re-election in 2014.  He may or may not choose to run (he’ll be 79), but either way that election will be an opportunity that we cannot pass up.

As a U.S. Senator he holds one of the most powerful positions in our government. That means replacing him with someone who is willing to listen to the voice of American youth could be a great opportunity for our generation to make a difference on a national level.

It just so happens that we have a couple of young representatives in our State-House that may be perfect for the job.

Eric Proctor, a Democrat from Oklahoma’s 77th House district is one of the youngest State Representatives to ever be elected. He was actually a high-school class-mate of mine and is an all around great person. He’s always been active in the community and was a history teacher before getting elected. Although I stand behind most of his policies, he may be a bit too young for a Federal Senate seat.

Seneca Scott may be a much more viable candidate for us to consider. He is also a young Democratic State Representative from Tulsa, who has been representing the 72nd district since 2008. He’s a graduate from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in History and a background in Native American Studies. If you’ve ever met him, you know he is an articulate speaker and genuinely nice guy. More importantly, he is a young progressive who loves Tulsa as much as we do. I think with the right support he could be exactly what we need at the Federal level.

I understand that the U.S. Senate may be a lofty goal, but we have 3 years to work on it. In the meantime we have a Presidential election, City Council meetings, School Board elections and any number of other civic duties available to hone our skills and develop our voice.

These issues may seem complicated and my views a bit too idealistic, but in the end my reason for writing this is simple.

The political process in this country has become diluted with lobby groups and partisan politics on a level that has made it almost completely ineffective.  Those who have retained power for the majority of our lifetime have done so with complete disregard to the issues that directly affect our generation as a whole. Education, health-care, inner city infrastructure and poverty, all have taken a back seat to various wars.  Wars on drugs and on countries. Wars between insurance lobbyists and pharmaceutical companies. Various wars that are paid for and fought by kids like you and I, yet are not in any of our best interests. It is time that we recognize this simple fact and take steps to prove that our generation has the numbers, the education and the leverage needed to become a viable political force. To prove that our generation has a collective voice…and that we are willing to use it.

By: Derek Dyson

Saturday evening marked yet another annual Holiday Parade of Lights in our fair city.  An event where local businesses and organizations strut their stuff through the packed corridors of downtown skyscrapers; sidewalks teaming with bundled up children and enthusiastic adults, each presumably waiting to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus or a fancy float or something.  I’m not quite sure. What I am sure about is that our esteemed Senator James Inhofe and his majestic steed were definitely not present at this soiree.  For the third year in a row he took a stand and refused to participate in the ancient art of parading, basically because someone changed one word to an almost identical word on his event calendar. One of the major sponsors of the parade, This Land Press, has written on this subject extensively so I won’t go into it here. What I will go into is how our Senator, a man who in ‘94 ran on the platform “god, gays and guns” and actually won (way to go Oklahoma voters!), uses his religion as a crutch to make decisions on behalf of our state on a daily basis, while throwing rational thought out the window in the process.

Let’s take this parade for instance. To Inhofe this is yet another secular “War on Christmas”.  A buzz-word that has been touted by every Fox News analyst and AM radio host in the business for the last 10 years.  Calling it a war is probably a little harsh, but if you’re trying to take Christ’s name out of a holiday that is based on the guys birthday maybe it’s warranted, right?  But more so than every other deity and god-man that just so happened to call December 25^th his birthday as well?  Especially considering that almost all of them did so long before Constantine and the Roman Empire decided to sign the day over to Christ in the 4th Century.

Lets start with the Greek god of wine, Dionysus. He was born on December 25^th and was well known for turning water into wine when he needed to impress party goers. Two-thousand years before him, the Egyptian god Osiris shared this popular birthday, on which he was born of a virgin and visited by 3 wise men.  During his mortal life, he ran around Egypt performing miracles and other magic tricks for the locals until they got mad and executed him. Not to worry, because 3 days later he rose from the dead and returned to Aaru (Egyptian heaven) to judge the masses for their sins.  There are many more, but I don’t want to bore you with a history lesson. Suffice it to say, December 25^th has been celebrated by our ancestors for millennia, not because of Christ, but simply because of an astrological occurrence.

Looking to the stars for guidance, primitive man tried to make sense of a world that seemed chaotic and unfair. In turn, they established elaborate myths around these stars to ease their minds. December 25^th is the center of many of these myths, simply because it falls around the shortest day of the year, or the Winter Solstice.  In most cultures it signified the “rebirth” of the crop cycle, an encouraging sign that Spring was on its way. It’s really that simple.

If it’s all that simple, why are so many pundits and political elites crying foul?  Why is Jim Inhofe boycotting a parade that, historically, should probably be called “The Pagan Solstice Extravaganza of Wine and Orgies” instead of “Christmas Parade”? Well, that’s simple too. Today in American politics religion is important. So important that 49% of American voters say they would not vote for an Atheist presidential candidate, no matter where that candidate stood on other issues. So important in fact, that guys like Inhofe have to go to extreme measures, more accurately the extreme right, to appease Christian conservative leaders if they want to secure the Evangelical vote.

Shortly after September 11^th Pat Robertson interviewed Jerry Falwell, instantly making newsreels because of the incendiary remarks that were made as to why they believed the attacks occurred.  In the interview Falwell boasts “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.” Not batting an eye, Robertson sits there and willfully agrees.

This is important for two reasons. First because Robertson at that time headed the Christian Coalition, a lobby and activist group that Mr. Inhofe and 41 out of 51 of his Republican peers voted in line with 100% of the time in 2004. Secondly, because six months after Falwells remarks, Inhofe mimicked his words on the Senate floor and took it a step further saying “One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America, is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them.”  A spiritual door?  So according to Inhofe, god let 9-11 happen because America won’t let Israel nuke its neighbors?  Are those the sentiments of an elected official that you want representing you at one of the highest levels of government?

Well, if you are an Evangelical Dispensationalist and believe that the State of Israel was handed over by god in 1948 in order to spawn the Anti-christ, a necessary step for bringing on the second coming of Jesus and eventually the Rapture, then you’re probably ok with it. As for me, mythological pandering should not be a deciding factor in the diplomatic process, especially concerning the State of Israel.

Inhofe has also attempted to push religiously themed bills through congress.  In 1998 he backed the “Religious Freedom Amendment”, which was an attempt to make things like prayer and religious symbols a staple in the public domain, mainly schools and courthouses.  When asked if he would be ok with providing vegetarian lunches for Buddhists or allowing Muslim students to pray to Mecca five times a day he invoked the ever-present “America was founded as a Christian Nation” response, showing yet another feat of intolerance and cognitive dissonance that is jaw dropping to say the least.

At this point I think it’s important to point out that Senator Inhofe is a ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and an avid climate change denier. In 2009 he compiled a list of roughly 700 “prominent scientists” who disputed claims that global warming was factual and influenced by human activities.  On this list were men like Chris Allen, who has no college education or formal training in climate science and is a major Creationism promoter for the Southern Baptist Church to boot.  Where did Mr. Inhofe get Chris Allens credentials as a prominent scientist? The same place he got many of the names?  From the Discovery Institute’s list of “prominent scientists” who refute Darwinian Evolution by natural selection of course.  It turns out the Discovery Institute is nothing more than a lobby group with deep pockets and a strong anti-science agenda. A group of people who have among other things, attempted to rewrite the textbooks in many public science classrooms and have a history of funding the all-too-real Creation museums situated throughout the Midwest. Each complete with such attractions as the famous picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur with a saddle and an in depth explanation of how Noah’s flood created the Grand Canyon in a matter of days.

This is where our Senator finds his scientific experts.  In “museums” that attempt to explain to our children that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that humans kept dinosaurs as pets.  All this work in an attempt to uphold their mythical Bronze-age explanations to some of the most pressing and important scientific questions in modern human history.

If these things don’t disturb you, look at it this way.  One of our most powerful elected officials is at least somewhat of a religious fanatic.  He resides on the foremost committee on environmental protection, yet is so anti-science that he refuses to side with the vast majority of international experts on that very issue. He sympathizes with the leaders of the Creationist movement and denies Darwinian Evolution. A basic biological fact that is noticed as so by 100% of the biologist in the National Academy of Sciences.  He does this outright and with no alternative explanation on either of these subjects. And all for one basic reason.  Because his faith and his Evangelical constituents demand it of him.

On the local level we’ve recently heard about Senator Inhofe because he refused to come to a parade.  This pales in comparison to why he’s known on  the national level.  Nationally he’s known for being one of the most conservative, controversial and anti-science members of Congress, where he sits as a ranking member on two key committees.  At the risk of sounding flippant, I propose that next year Tulsan’s get their priorities straight and instead of asking him to a parade, ask him (and fellow voters) if we should have put him in this position of power in the first place.

I’ve spent the last couple of days weathering the shit-storm by playing video games and drinking whiskey, with the occasional stint to soundpony and a pretty sweet delta spirit/mmj show last night, just to keep my mind off of wanting to reply to every detractor I’ve come across.  It turns out that writing an off-the-cuff retort to a pity local issue will spread like wildfire. On the other hand, amassing mounds of literature and spending days writing an article on an important political or philosophical subject will only be read by 50 people, all of whom you know personally.  The biggest difference between your friends reading the things you write and a few thousand people you don’t know reading the things you write is the anonymity involved in the dialogue that follows.

Keep in mind, most of my friends are cynical assholes who have no problem telling you what they think about you or anything you’ve done, so I’m no stranger to direct criticism.  What I am a bit new to is scouring various websites containing my words and learning that while many of my peers agreed with what I had to say, just as many definitely did not and are complete assholes about it just like I am.

The Tulsa Egotist and This Land both made mention of it in a favorable or at least neutral light, the latter sticking with the “Outsiders” theme and both with some good user comments on the issue. The Tulsa sub-reddit had a nice little thread going for a bit which I enjoyed mostly because kids on Reddit are always so damn clever.  Then there’s facebook.  Jeff Richardson, of Hardwork Records fame, had some great dialogue on his page, complete with a reply he petitioned from Blake as well as a nice piece by another blogger who replied from the “Ashleys” point of view.  Joshua Kline, a staff writer for This Land, probably had the most scathing replies I could find, residing at the top of his page. That my letter was “sophomoric” (maybe a little, but when is something that incites an internet war not?) and that I’m a “humorless dickhead” (which is not even remotely accurate) seem to be the ones that stand out most. Both seem funny considering the comments in and of themselves are basically sophomoric and dickhead-ish. I guess my pen isn’t dipped in gold, as his obviously is.

All in all, most of the replies I heard where made by the people I know personally and they universally praised the letter for it’s content and its humor, but I knew they would because we talk about these exact issues all of the time. Truthfully, those are the only people I had in mind while writing it (rallying the troops if you will).  The fact that so many other people stumbled upon my little website because of it was just an added bonus.

By the end of the day, the short attention spans held by the entirety our generation will have filed this away deep in the annuals of the internet.  Neatly placed with any number of low rent scandals and fly-by-night meme’s that are no longer relevant, it’ll have passed just as fast as it spread.  One thing that won’t pass I’m afraid is the cultural divide that spawned the whole ordeal in the first place and honestly I’m not so sure that we need to stop talking about that any time soon.  Outside of that, I like to think the one good thing that may come of this is maybe, just maybe, my districts city councilman will start to actually behave like an elected official instead of an ill humored and out of touch copy writer/money hungry republican. That, and I’d also like more people to read my blog when I’m writing about something that actually matters. We’ll see.

P.S. We might want to finally remove something from our lexicon.  I’ve read and heard the “H” word so many times over the last couple of days that I doubt it’ll ever leave my lips again without a slight gag-reflex quickly following.

This is an open letter to Blake Ewing from the downtown kids; the hipsters, the artists, the punks, the progressive youth, the bohemian college grads and the perpetual students. From the bike bashers, the indie kids, the audiophiles and the cynical assholes alike; we provide to you an explanation, not intended to be a marketing tool, but much more so a hypothetical truce between Tulsa’s modern day Greasers and Socs.

First, let me clear some things up. “Hipsters” and “people like them” (as you so eloquently put it) did not build The Max. Honestly, they didn’t even frequent it when it was all shiny and new. The truth is, the downtown kids of this city; the ones that packed out warehouse shows at Curly’s and braved gunshots protruding from the shady clubs surrounding Arnie’s a decade ago, have always been downtown and already have their homes, their jobs and their dives well established inside the IDL.  The fact that none of these havens fall within the doors of your establishments has little to do with elitism and more to do with authenticity and cultural awareness.

There is a reason that some people would rather buy a jacket from a thrift store than from a shopping mall. At thrift stores there is no marketing. Of course they’re trying to sell you stuff, but there are no chiseled models on the walls or meticulously staged mannequins in suggestive poses, undoubtedly thought up by teams of focus groups in Los Angeles to strip mindless drones of their parents money.  There are no perfectly scuffed surfboards on the walls or newly designed vintage fans blowing stripper perfume into the threads of their already distressed jeans and borderline racist t-shirts. Simply put, thrift stores are real. The things you get from them have character.  More accurately, you give those things your character and your style when you buy them.

Character is important. Especially important when your interior designer is piecing together a heavily bankrolled 80’s themed bar in the heart of an emerging downtown district. Complete with toys tracked down on ebay and tens of thousands of dollars in vintage arcade games, when it comes to true style you really can spare no expense.  Perfectly mimicking lucrative market trends that left the West Coast in ’04 and landed in Wicker Park in ’08, seem to be a fool proof plan thus far so just run with it.  Sure, with character this expensive you’ll have to sell a lot of PBR, but you’ll recoup most of that with the redbull and vodkas you pump out on Friday nights.

Character is even more important when paying design firms to make “local” apparel to hawk at your new t-shirt shop. This is essential if you want to cash in on the “big returns” being reaped at the artist driven retail space on the other side of the block. Luckily you’re getting in late in the game on that one, after someone else has established a good base of support and styling through years of struggle and hard work.  It takes a special type of character to imitate what local artists have put together in their living rooms and mass produce them on a grander scale.

Most of all, character is important when marketing to hipsters, in that if you have any character what-so-ever you won’t focus on marketing to fucking hipsters.  This, because hipsters above all else, are a social group that universally loathe any establishment trying to tell them what is cool, what to do or what to buy.

Ironically (and I say that ironically) you took the time to pen an open letter that could have been an apology for bussing in douche bags and bros on the weekends (a necessary evil we all know we’ll have to live with if downtown is going to flourish) and instead took that opportunity to start a Sunday through Thursday marketing campaign. An irrational last ditch effort to get the very people you openly scoffed (the hipster) to swarm in and help your bottom line.  As if we’ve all been mistaken this whole fucking time and it just so happens that your shitty bar is actually super-cool on the nights that you’re losing money.  You say you want people in your bars 7 days a week? I didn’t really study business in college and I’ve never run a pizza place with batting cages, but I’d probably start by not alienating the only people in this city who are actually downtown 7 days a week.  But that’s just me and I’m definitely no Don Draper.

Honestly, I think that what you’re failing to understand here is that you are not like us.  You’re a southey, a soc (yes, midtown is too far) and we can spot a fake from a mile away.  This means you’re never going to get our money or our support.  Don’t let this dissuade you.  You can bring your fellow Philistines downtown on the weekends to spend their money and fight each other in our streets, but we expect them to go home after-wards. This is our truce, our turf war in the park.  Our side of the tracks will keep the arts and culture alive downtown just like we always have.  All your side of the tracks has to do is bring tax revenue into our neighborhoods two days a week and maybe St. Patrick’s Day and then go home. It’s that easy.  Well, and you also have to stop being a dick.

By: Derek Dyson

In March of 2009, as promised, President Obama lifted an 8-year ban on embryonic stem cell research that had previously been imposed by the Bush Administration. This ban stopped labs from developing new cell lines for research and effectively put American scientists a decade behind the rest of the world. This is because they were now forced to derive stem cells from other sources (skin cells for instance), which proved to be an arduous and inefficient method to accomplish a task that had already been done effectively (through the use of embryos) for many years. In August of 2010 a federal court halted Obama’s executive order, citing the “Dickey-Wicker” rule that Federal Funds cannot be used in any research that will lead to the destruction of human embryonic cells. Finally, last July the case was dismissed and federal grant money was again made available to American Colleges and research institutions.

When President Obama originally signed the Executive Order in 2009 he also ordered the White House Office of Science and Technology to “Restore scientific integrity to government decision making”.  Why exactly do we need to “restore” the scientific integrity of a nation that put a man on the moon and developed the Internet?  It’s no secret that scientific literacy in America is on the decline.  After all, more people in this country believe in ghosts than believe in (or understand) the concept of evolution.  In a society that is so dependent on science and technology, how (or why) are so many Americans completely out of touch with even the most basic of scientific principles? Why do so many Americans with a rudimentary understanding of something like climate change, adamantly disagree with an international community of experts on the subject?  I would certainly say that education is a big part of it, but I think more at fault is cultural bias.  A persons Philosophy (political and religious) is a likely determinant of their stance on many scientific issues. The problem with this is that science, more importantly the scientific method, is inherently unbiased and fully dependent on verifiable evidence. It’s dependent on the facts. When a person denies these facts because it interferes with their personal worldview, there is a logical disconnect between their beliefs and reality that needs to be addressed.  Religious conservatives and their stance on stem cell research is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

Embryonic stem cells are basically builder cells found in human embryos at very early stages in development. The possibilities for these cells are limitless at this point, as many scientists predict major advancements in the cure of human diseases and other human insufficiencies as a direct response from the research in this field. Although close to 60% of Americans believe that this research is vital, many on the political and religious right have made attempts to stop advancements in the field altogether. This is because they believe the destruction of a human embryo is tantamount to murdering a human being.  In their minds, a human embryo is a life and presumably, among other things, contains a “soul”. On its outset this may seem like a valid and meaningful argument from their prospective.  As it turns out, it is anything but.

A majority of the people who oppose embryonic stem cell research assume that a human embryo (this is a female egg at the point when a sperm cell penetrates the wall of the egg) is the full equivalent of an actual human being, solely because it has the necessary genetic makeup to “potentially” become a living, breathing person.  This outlook shows a complete lack of knowledge on the subject of human development and an obvious lack of critical thinking. If the potential to become a human is the determining factor, their argument has no validity. Take for instance a fertilized egg (an embryo) sitting in a Petri dish at a fertilization clinic. If this fertilized egg sits in a freezer for years waiting to be used, is it a human that whole time?  Now lets say that one of those embryos (or more likely a whole slew of them) is injected into the uterus of a prospective mother with fertility issues.  If any of those embryos fail to implant into the uterus of the host female, then those embryos have absolutely no potential to become a human being. They will simply be flushed down the toilet (literally). To take this one step further, unless an embryo implants into the uterus of a fertile and healthy female and then extends onto a journey that will entail a myriad of other decisive factors leading to child birth, then that embryo will never actually become a fully developed human being.  If you are concerned with the lives of these embryos, then you should be outraged at how many of them are being flushed at fertility clinics on daily basis. Transversely, the current statistics concerning fertility and modern medicine should also outrage you to the point of taking political action.

A study done by the Presidential council on biomedical ethics in 2004 puts this whole issue into perspective. They found that of all eggs fertilized by sexual intercourse, only 49% will actually implant into the uterus of the female host. This means that half of all human embryos (potential humans or souls) are naturally aborted within the first month of fertilization. Of those that do implant into the uterus, only 67% will actually give rise to a human being, so out of 100 fertilized eggs only 49 will implant and of those 49 only 33 will result in a birth.  If a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a human being, then nearly 70% of all humans are murdered while in their mother’s womb. Ironically, if you believe that these embryos are “lives”, then this would make God the single most successful abortionist in human history. Especially when considering the thousands of years prior to modern medical advancements that have curbed these numbers. With this in mind, one would assume that The Right would be just as outraged at the vast number of naturally “destroyed” embryos as they are with the ones lost to stem cell research and to things like Plan B and medical abortions. One would assume that they would also spend millions of dollars setting up interest groups and lobbying congress to fund research on increasing fertility rates. As we can tell by their actions, Conservatives are not actually concerned with the large number of lost embryos or the potential humans they pretend to represent. What they are concerned with is a political stance.  One that is an outright attack on not only the advancement of science and reason, but also on human sexuality and the reproductive rights of women among other things.

Another way to look at the flawed logic of a stem cell research opponent, is to discuss the problems faced at a biological level if one believes that a human embryo is equivalent to a human being and therefore (for the religious) has a soul. Let’s take for instance the occurrence of biological twins. When twins are produced in a mother’s womb, a single fertilized egg is present (one soul). After fertilization, this single embryo can split into two genetically identical embryos. If the original fertilized egg contained the soul of that potential human being and then that embryo was to split into two separate embryos, which twin would receive the soul and which would go without? Most believers would arbitrarily answer “well god would give them both their own soul” presumably ending the argument with the infusion of divine intervention, but the complications do not stop there. Let’s now look at the occurrence of human-human chimeras. This is when two separate embryos are present in the womb (un-identical twins) that eventually fuse together to make a single embryo, containing the genetic makeup of two un-identical embryos. This leads to a human being that has two separate blood types or cells that contain XX chromosomes and XY chromosomes (many would recognize these people as hermaphrodites). Under the their system of logic, they would be forced to admit that this single person would be in possession of 2 souls (if only we were all so lucky). This may seem silly, but it is an accurate example of how simple logic cannot co-exist with an irrational belief system.

The issue of stem cell research is but one example of how the Evangelical movement in America has used its vast resources and political influence to adversely affect the lives of other Americans, ad hoc. With a constant and well-funded war on science (paraphrasing Chris Mooney) they have proven that their strongest assets are their vast numbers, enforced ignorance and corporate alliances. They effectively duped the American public into believing that stem cell research was un-ethical and subsequently set the field of research back almost a decade in the process.  They consistently push a religious conservative viewpoint into public policy and even attempt to do so in our public schools. State by state they attempt to combat the biological fact of natural selection and Darwinian evolution, by pushing unsubstantiated ideas through school boards and into our science classrooms.  They consistently attempt to stifle women’s reproductive rights by pushing an issue that, as I pointed out earlier, completely overlooks the almost identical “problem” of biological infertility.  By adding global climate change, the Israel/Palestine conflict and the AIDS epidemic in Africa to the list, it is easy to see that Conservatives, religious and political alike, are making decisions that adversely effect this world as a whole. With that said, we as educated Americans must take a stand. A stand against religion in political discourse, against corporate greed and inequality, and against any and all anti-science rhetoric at a governmental level.  As cliche as it sounds, our future and the future of our children literally depend on it.

I can read Moby Dick once and get the gist of the story.  I can read it one hundred times and fully understand the words and phrases found between the first and the last page. But, if I wish to understand the full story of Moby Dick; its symbolic undercurrents and the thoughts of its author, would I not have to look deep into the life and times of Herman Melville?  Would I not need to understand heroic and romantic novels of the 19^th century? What about the makings of a fishing community and the type men who worked within them?  An understanding of the role that sea creatures, fables and heroes play in the oceans of which these men draw their livelihood would also come in handy. Without such insight, just simply reading the story would never truly afford me the luxuries held within great literature.  No matter how many times I read those same words over and over, without context and outside information, they could never express the kind of man the author was or even what thoughts he meant the story to invoke in the readers mind. I could read it one hundred times and never truly understand the story.

Would reading this story alone make me an expert on Moby Dick or literature in general? Would I be qualified to teach others on the passions of Herman Melville or the basics of American Romanticism, solely because I had read Moby Dick, even if it were multiple times? The answer to this question is obviously no. I would need to expand my knowledge far beyond that of this single book and into many other fields if I were truly passionate about the subject. In doing so, I would probably run across other authors and novels of this period that were equally as entertaining to read, which may lead me to the conclusion that there are better novels out there; books that may mean more to me than this epic tale ever could have.

There is an old saying in Catholic circles “the Seminary leads you to the cemetery”, implying that the study of religion will eventually kill your faith.  This belief is widely held throughout the Evangelical community as seen in its obvious disdain of Academia or the “Liberal” educational system.  This Anti-intellectualism is seen as a virtue of faith in that the less you know, the more faith you will have.

I find it interesting that even the most learned theologians, the men who have spent their entire lives studying their particular religion, hold beliefs that would be unnoticeable by most if not all of the fundamentalists of that same religion.  The men who know the most about the texts, the authors and their context, actually hold the most liberal views concerning the divinity of those texts and the stories held within them. Yet, the majority of the followers of these same texts know nothing of them, other than the words found within their first and last page. They can quote favorites from Genesis to Revelation, but they know nothing of the authors, the culture of which they lived or the context of which it was meant for its readers.  They know nothing of missing texts, deleted and/or misinterpreted phrases or the political influences that haphazardly combined these stories over the centuries, yet they are content. They read the same chapters over and over, hoping to find new meaning, but never look beyond these pages for any real insight.

Why is this?  Is it because knowledge leads to unbelief? Or because learning that your faith may have been unfounded is hard to accept? It could be because it is easier to believe what you are told than to look for yourself.  I would say that each of these scenerios ring true on some level for the vast majority of Christians in America.  So with this in mind, how does a person who believes the Holy Bible to be the direct and infallible word of god manage to go their entire life without actually looking into the validity of such a claim? Why is it that I am a non-believer, yet more often than not I know more about biblical history than the believer sitting across from me arguing his case?  All the while, men like Marvin Meyers, Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman, men who have dedicated their entire lives to the field of New Testament studies, are vilified by mainstream Evangelicals because of the liberal views they hold on these very texts.  If these men are the experts how could they possibly be wrong?  More importantly, if they are wrong (with their advanced degrees and years of studying in the finest theological seminaries this world has to offer) how could a sane person argue that their background as a dentist or high school football coach or a youth minister somehow establishes them as an authority that can trump the views of these scholars?

The experts say that Mark was the first gospel written. Each of the other gospels borrowed heavily from it as it was the first source. These gospels were written at least 30 years (and as late as 120 years) after the death of Christ by men who never lived within 100 miles of him and more than likely had never heard his name uttered while he was alive.  These are the facts upheld by every major new testament scholar for the last 100 years. Transversely, the Evangelical believes that the gospels (which are the ONLY source we have to learn about the life of Jesus) were written by the followers of Christ, disciples and otherwise, who were with him his entire life.  They believe this despite the fact that none of the disciples would have been literate (fisherman and peasants in ancient Judea didn’t exactly need to be able to read) and certainly none of them would have written in Greek because they would have spoken Aramaic. This is important because every single early copy of any gospel we have is written in Greek exclusively, in a writing style that didn’t exist during the life of Christ. This simply means that when you look at the facts, there are no first hand (or even second or third hand) accounts of the things Jesus had done. We only have parables and anecdotes written at least 60 years after they supposedly happened by men who speak a different language and live in a different culture than he lived.  Not exactly reliable sources, but if you stretch your faith out, you could still believe these accounts were accurate. Then of course you would have to ignore the fact that a large portion of New Testament Scholars don’t believe that, but if you are an Evangelical, you’ve already been doing this for years.

So, what I’m getting at is this: It would be foolish for me to read Moby Dick and say that it is the most meaningful work of literature in the world, divinly transcribed by Herman Melville in an attempt to give my life meaning.  It would seem even more foolish if it was the only book I had read and all of this time I thought it was purely about hunting for whales; ignorantly missing the literary metaphors pointing towards mans struggle for meaning. It too is foolish for a person to claim that there exists a flawless book written by god when all of the evidence points to the contrary. It would be infinitely more foolish for that person to make such a claim if they had never cared to seek out the facts to begin with.

There are no wars fought over the Big Bang,

And it has never given root to a suicide bomber.

It has never stifled women’s rights,

And it has never hated a homosexual.

The Big Bang has never caused genocide,

And it has never fueled a holocaust.

The Big Bang has never promoted slavery,

And it has never headed the Ku Klux Klan.

The Big Bang has never burned a witch at the stake,

And it would never have you murdered for working on a Sunday.

The Big Bang has never elected a President,

Nor has it assassinated a head of state.

The Big Bang has never spawned a mega-church,

Or a mega-church pastor.

It has never funded a “missions” trip to Belize,

Or a ski trip to Vail.

The Big Bang has never molested a young boy in Rome,

Or a young girl in Utah.

The Big Bang has never “fought” AIDS in Africa,

Using abstinence only rhetoric.

And it has never stopped stem cell research,

Through a campaign of ignorance.

The Big Bang has never banned a book,

Or claimed the pursuit of knowledge as heresy.

The Big Bang has never answered a prayer,

And it won’t ask you to pay for that service.

The Big Bang doesn’t demand your attention,

Like a two year old child.

And it won’t get upset if you talk of other theories.

The Big Bang is my God,

As is Music and Literature.

Intellect is my god,

As is the wet grass of Spring.

Art is my God,

As is a good espresso.

Life is my god,

Yet I need no god to say so.

I was recently sitting with friends, discussing life and love, and invariably the subject of religion came up.  This was not the usual “so, you don’t believe in god?” religion speak that I am so used to.  No, in this room were four educated people each in their own stages of non-belief (or at least very liberal belief by most standards) where my atheism would neither be a shock nor a reason of concern for anyone present.  Actually, I doubt religion would have come up at all if it weren’t for the fact that we were listening to Christmas music in a roomed decked for the holidays.  A discussion started on our love and/or disdain for these holiday jingles when someone jokingly said “well, Jesus is the reason for the season”.  That phrase really got me thinking. Is Jesus really the reason for the season?  In America Christmas is a large part of our culture.  It drives our retail economy and gives most of us a reason to see our extended family at least once a year.  It encourages giving and makes hot chocolate a romantic alternative to cheap beer on a blustery December night.  Things like these make me enjoy the holidays and I think that when it comes down to it, it’s what rings true for most Americans.  But Jesus? Really?

Technically, I would argue that the reason for the season is the Winter Solstice.  This is simply the shortest day of the year, where the sun is at its furthest possible point from the Earth.  It has been celebrated by civilizations across the globe from as early as the Neolithic period and tends to signify the renewal or rebirth of the crop cycle.  There is no doubt that the renewal of the crops would be a worthwhile reason for celebration to any agrarian society.  Later this celebration would be adopted by any number of Pagan cultures and elaborate myths would be created around it to give their particular gods and goddesses of choice an active role in the process.

In Egypt (around 2500 BCE) the birth of Osiris was celebrated during the Winter Solstice.  Osiris was the son of the god of Earth.  He was born of a mortal virgin, died at the brutal hands of the state and was resurrected three days after his death to judge all of mankind in the afterlife.  Osiris was one of the few “resurrected” Egyptian gods and many scholars believe that was added to the story to help re-edify the significance of the oncoming harvest.

In Greece (around 600 BCE) Dionysus was the winter solstice god of choice.  He was seen as the son of Zeus who miraculously died and was “born again”.  He was commonly known as the god of wine and was noted on multiple occasions for turning water into the magical substance making him a very special deity indeed. At this point I am assuming that most of you are noticing a pattern here.

The Persian god Mithras is quite possibly my favorite god born during the winter solstice mostly because he was present around 100BCE and was a major competitor to a new Jewish godman who stumbled onto the scene around the same time (some of you may be familiar with his work).  Mithras was very popular in the Roman Empire during the First Century CE, because of his Zoroastrian concepts on good and evil.  He too has a questionable birth that was prophesized by an unexplainable astrological event and was commonly celebrated by the drinking of wine to symbolize blood.

I use these examples only to argue that each of these gods should be recognized as at least part of the “reason for the season”.  I mean they have just as much to do with it as Jesus right?  Now assuming that most Christian apologists would read this and dismiss these “fake gods” just as easily as they would dismiss Islam and Scientology I am going to explain this from the only angle that will truly speak to their Christian sensibilities, through the use of scripture.

Believe it or not, the New Testament is basically the only “historical source” on earth that talks about Jesus. Sure there are a couple of early Roman historians that briefly mention things that could be construed to be talking about Jesus, but the validity of these writings are shoddy at best.  For this reason, if you wish to learn about Jesus you basically have to look at the 27 books in the New Testament, most notably Paul’s letters and the gospels, to come away with a coherent understanding of the most influential human ever to exist.  Since for this occasion we are talking about the “reason for the season” our list of references is going to be narrowed quite considerably.  We basically have the gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke to shape our entire understanding of the Christmas Story.  I find it quite interesting that Mark’s gospel would leave out the birth of Christ entirely, especially considering that it was the first gospel written, of which the other gospels borrow heavily from its contents.  If Mark didn’t know about it or didn’t think it was important enough to mention, how exactly do the writers of Matthew and Luke justify their points of view from decades later?  Either way, if we put the historicity issue aside, one could imagine that with two separate references that we have (assuming that they are both historically accurate) we should be able to come up with a pretty coherent understanding of the Christmas story.  Or can we?

The first thing at issue here is that Matthew and Luke tell what should be the exact same story (if historically accurate) in very different ways and in some instances ways that directly contradict one another.  They both have the virgin birth happening in Bethlehem, but Mathew says it happened during Herod’s reign, while Luke contends that it happened while Quirinius was the governor of Syria.  We know this cannot be correct because all historical data from the period shows that these men ruled at least ten years apart from each other.  Logically speaking, both accounts cannot possibly be correct. It can be one or the other, but that makes at least one of them completely false.

Another slight discrepancy between these two accounts is where the three of them (Joseph, Mary and Jesus) go after Jesus’ birth.  In Mathew they flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, but in Luke they go directly to their family home in Nazareth to register for Caesar Augustus’ census.  Again, logically the two accounts cannot both be correct because they contradict one another entirely.  In all actuality this a moot point because historically there is absolutely no evidence to back up the claim that Herod was slaughtering babies or that Augustus ordered a census, but that doesn’t change the fact that the two accounts contradict each other, deeming at least one of them completely false.

So why exactly are a couple of slight discrepancies so damning to this whole Christmas story anyway?  Well, like I said earlier if Jesus has more of a right to be the “the reason for the season” than does Osiris or Dionysus, than he better have some concrete evidence to back it up.  If that evidence is solely relegated to the Christian Bible (which it is) and more importantly the validity of his story as told by Mathew and Luke, then showing that one or the other is completely false might actually be saying something significant.  If anything it proves that the supposed divine book is flawed logically as well as historically.  If nothing else Mathew and Luke’s accounts are irreconcilably different in at least a couple of ways, which should make any logical reader question either of them as an authority on the subject.

In short, I contend that the reason most people give for this season isn’t reasonable at all.  We in civilized society don’t tend to worship sun gods on New Years Eve or crop cycles during the solstice.  We don’t think that ancient Egyptian Gods are saving us from damnation or that the Greek God of Wine deserves even an hour of thought, let alone an entire season. The fact that so many people believe in the Christ story over the multitude of others lends no more credence to its validity.  Sure, it may have ended up being more significant to Western culture, but that fact alone does not make it any less of a myth.  So, if you still feel that Jesus is your reason to celebrate, you’ll at least have to acknowledge that history is not on your side.  As for me and my “reason for the season”….I’ll stick to food and drink with friends, decorating trees and kissing under mistletoe because those are the kind of Pagan traditions I can reasonably get behind.

Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has recently come under fire from a leading Evangelical leader because of his stance on Biblical texts and the role that he believes these texts should play in public affairs.  As reported by the Associated Press, James Dobson (Evangelical Leader and founder of the Christian conservative organization Focus on the Family) has publicly decried Obama’s understanding of the Christian Bible as “confused theology” and a “fruitcake interpretation”, implying that the Harvard Educated Lawyer and otherwise highly intelligent man we know as Barack Obama has somehow failed to truly understand the content of this ancient book.  What could Barack Obama possibly have so wrong that Mr. Dobson seemingly has so right?  More importantly, how does a Harvard Educated politician who was raised in a purely secular and some would say borderline Atheist home, pander to the skewed views of the religious community in order to win over their much needed Evangelical vote?

In 2006 Obama gave a speech to the liberal Christian group “Call to Renewal” where he explained that it would be foolish to solely delegate morality to a book that continuously promoted the institution of slavery, yet condemned the eating of shellfish.  For these presumably logical statements and others like them, Dobson has attacked Obama’s faith and has taken a stand against what he sees as a liberal interpretation of the bible.  For Dobson the bible is the infallible word of god and should be read and understood accordingly.  If the bible (or god) says jump, Dobson asks nothing more but how high? Transversely if god were to say something like jump into owning other human beings and then gives you instructions on how and when to beat them, Dobson would again say….well what exactly would he say?

Well, if you are James Dobson and you are confronted with a question about any number of biblical inadequacies found between Genesis and Revelation you simply blame it on the Old Testament (a common low blow to the Jewish text that has been dealt endlessly for the last 1500 years or so).  This is the basic deflection tactic employed by most if not all religious extremists and biblical literalists when confronted with damning evidence on the subjects of not just slavery but also scientific discovery, morality, intolerance and countless other issues that seem to contradict our post-enlightenment sensibilities. So, is this an adequate explanation as to why god could be so horribly flawed on his views toward so many vitally important subjects of humanity?

If we were to only look at the subject of slavery and then were confined to James Dobson’s reasoning behind gods views on this subject, we would have to make some considerable assumptions.  First, when “god” says things like Leviticus 25: “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves, it is important to understand that god only meant for this to ring true for the 198,000 years of modern human existence that predated the point where he changed his mind some 2,000 years ago.

After recognizing this much needed change of heart that god encountered (somewhat late in the game I might add), we must also assume that gods new book of morality and justice contains no passages that promote or even allow the institution of slavery.  So when versus like Luke 12: ….that servant, which knew his lord’s (masters) will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes, start popping up in the teachings of Jesus and the writings of his followers, teachings that obviously recognize the act of slavery and then fail to condemn it as morally deficient, we are forced to make yet another assumption.  Either god doesn’t mind if one human being owns another human being, or (on a somewhat lighter note) Abraham Lincoln was actually the second coming of Christ (for Americans only).  This would allow god to change his infallible mind once again and finally put him on the correct side of this important issue.  I added the second assumption only as a joke, but it would be somewhat ironic considering the Southern Baptists pro-slavery and eventual pro-segregation stance that was held throughout the civil rights movement.  Imagine, Southern Baptists so adamantly defying the will of Savior 2.0, unknowingly citing the manual from Savior 1.0 all the while.  Sadly, when you really think about it, this scenario wouldn’t be all that far fetched compared to some of the other things these people already believe.  So, either god told us in his divine book of morality that slavery has been and will always be an acceptable practice or possibly, just possibly, modern societies have overlooked the short comings of “gods laws” and have taken morality into their own hands essentially overwriting thousands of years of Bronze Age cruelty and human injustice.

This brings us to the final question.  If people of  faith are going to attack Barack Obama because he reads the Bible as he would any other book, objectively and reasonably, how could he possibly convince these same people (roughly half of the voting populace in the U.S.) to look beyond this  slight discrepancy and still vote for him despite the fact that he reads their moral textbook liberally?

In his most recent book the Audacity of Hope, Mr. Obama explains how he was raised in a secular home.  His mother, an anthropologist and avid humanist and to a lesser extent his father an outspoken atheist, had both played a role in his upbringing.  He remained secular throughout childhood and into college, not officially “finding god” until he took a job with a Chicago Church after graduating from Law School.  Straight out of Harvard Law and ready to make a difference, he took this job because it was the best opportunity to help the struggling black community that he was likely to find. He eventually placed his faith in this church, not because it was leading him to everlasting life, but because it afforded him the opportunity to make a difference in his community.  To most this would seem like a noble cause. To most, fulfilling a lifelong dream and helping out those who are less fortunate would be viewed as anything but a fault, after all isn’t this exactly what Christianity is supposed to be about? But, for some this is not the case.  In fact, many Conservative Christians will fault Obama for this fact alone (well, at least the ones who aren’t already leading the “Obama is a Muslim” campaign of fear and intolerance) either of  which seems to be a little contradictory to the whole followers of Jesus scenario, but I digress.

In the end Barack Obama is a progressive, liberal Christian who sees merit in many philosophies, not just in those espoused by a highly Western and Christian ideology.  This biblical and religious liberalism flies in the face of many of the religious extremists who make up the Evangelical Right and threatens to diminish the political stronghold that they have held on Washington for the last 25 years. If men like James Dobson can attack a highly intelligent and prominent figure in American culture for being too logical or too reasonable on a subject that when taken literally is anything but reasonable, what do we as American citizens have left?  We have nothing but the same dogmatic fervor, religious intolerance and enforced ignorance that has been upheld by the current administration for nearly a decade and will presumably be extended into another eight year period of war mongering and diplomatic ineptness, unless the minds and voices of the American public can be changed.

By: Derek Dyson

In 1958, Mary Vonderscher was coming to her wits end. She had been diagnosed with spinal cancer years before and had been continuously undergoing medical treatment in attempt to cure her ailment. Although she had been seeing signs of improvement through her therapy and medication, it was not happening as quickly as she had wanted. After hearing of the miraculous faith healings performed by the traveling televangelist Oral Roberts, Mary decided to seek out a higher power to cure her cancer. Meeting the Roberts congregation late in the year, Mary made her donation to the cause and was then afforded the anointed touch of Oral himself. Mary used the customary Pentecostal screeching and uncontrollable body movements to bring on the healing as Oral tapped her on the forehead yelling “Through the Power of Christ!” as she fell into the expecting arms of the “catchers”. Mary went home that day feeling alive with the Holy Spirit and thought she had been completely healed of her ailment. She continually wrote to the Roberts organization sending money and telling them how thankful she was. When they returned to her home town nearly one month later they invited her to come and give a testimonial. In the tape Mary appears happy and energetic explaining how god had touched her through Oral and how magnificent it was. Less than 12 hours after leaving the taping, Mary lay dead in her home in Burbank, her body no longer able to fight the cancer alone. One can only wonder how much longer she could have lived if she had continued to take her medication and visit her doctor.

Much like this story, there are at least 4 other cases where Oral “healed” diabetic patients who then stopped taking insulin and subsequently died within days of their supposed healing. There are multiple incidents where terminally ill patients were brought in by ambulance for dramatic effect, who would then die on the set because their bodies were not able to cope with the traumatic situations that would arise. With Orals many supposed “resurrections” one must wonder why he never raised these people from the dead on national television. It’s not too difficult to see the dangers of such superstition. What could possibly drive someone to believe that they can heal the sick with a single touch, or speak medically of a condition that they have absolutely no classical training in? Lets first look at Oral Roberts as a person and then you can come to your own conclusions as to why he would do such a thing.

In the early 1940′s Granville Oral Roberts started preaching the good word to all that would listen in a sort of traveling tent revival that would move up and down the Mid-West performing miraculous faith “healings” and bringing people to Christ. By the 1970′s Oral had amassed a $500 million empire that had been centered around the newest and most productive means of marketing, the television. Oral used this means of communication to reach the pocketbooks of millions of viewers across the globe. This furthered his empire, eventually leading to the construction the “city of faith” right here in Tulsa, OK. This multi-million dollar piece of real-estate was comprised of an Evangelical College, and a now defunct 30 story hospital and 20 story medical research center. With the failure of Orals hospital in the near future, he saw the need for additional funding. It would appear that with all of the miraculous faith healing being done, he must have diminished the market of paying sick patients that would need real medical attention, causing his hospital to go under. Another humorous explaination could be that he recieved some bad financial advice from God in one of his many one on one conversations. We may never know which it was, but what we do know is that Oral had yet to diffuse his greatest asset, leading to an appeal for money that could not be ignored.

On January 4th, 1987 Oral appeared to his vast TV audience, eyes already shrink wrapped in tears, proclaiming that if he were unable to raise the sum of $8 million by the 1st of March, god himself was going to take Oral from this earth prematurely. Oral then started a mass mailing campaign and televangical tyrant that eventually caught the eyes of the National Press. In a 1987 issue of Time magazine, an article on Roberts is headlined “Your money or his life”, with the author pointing out the various absurdities in Orals antics. Oral eventually got the money he had asked for and was not murdered by god.

What is it about these men that drive them to the faith healing business? Well considering that Oral needed merely $8 million in 1987 to be spared gods wrath, one should wonder why he didn’t simply sell of some of his personal real-estate to meet the financial needs of the empire. Oral surely could have raised most of the funds by selling some of his various homes in Beverly Hills, Palm Springs and Tulsa, or possibly putting some of his prize cattle up for sale. The two winter homes in California alone could have raised a whopping $1.2 million if the city of faith really needed the money. All in all, Oral didn’t need to spend his own money (although every cent he had ever made was coming from his faith-healing marketing campaign) because he had millions of god-fearing believers out there willing to empty their pockets to ensure their seat next to the almighty.

It should be said that of all the supposed “healings” performed by Oral over the last 50 years, not a single one of these instances have ever been verified by medical science. Oral continuously drew attention to himself by proclaiming such absurdities as “raising the dead” or witnessing a 900 foot tall Jesus lift “the city of faith” into the Tulsa skyline proclaiming “see how easy it is for me to lift it Oral?”. This drew many skeptics to the great state of Oklahoma, many of which followed him across the nation to witness his trickery. They would then follow up on the patients that he had “healed” to track their progress. Allen Spraggett, a journalist that followed Orals crusade of healing throughout the eighties reported that although the Roberts officials had publicly claimed hundreds of healings to their television audience while he was with them, there had not been one cure administered in that time. Journalists and scientists spent countless hours on the subject and still could not come up with a single verifiable case of a miraculous healing. Who needs evidence when you have faith?

It is absurd to believe that a man such as Oral Roberts is anything more than a charlatan. He used the same gimmicks and tricks that any supposed psychic would use to appeal to his audience and then packaged his “miracles” in a neatly marketed bundle that could be shipped all across the nation. This man amassed millions of dollars pretending to heal the sick, which in many cases would lead to their death when they decided to forfiet medical attention in light of their supposed healing. This is but one example of what a “man of god” can truly accomplish when given the right resources and the ability to devoid his own conscience.

The history of faith healing is a very interesting subject and if you wish to delve into it at a much deeper level, you can find the book The Faith Healers, By James Randi. This book cites many of the historical aspects of faith healing and tricks used by its proponents

Earth and the natural order of the world around us has been a constant source of wonderment and awe throughout human existence.  From our earliest ancestors 5 million years ago to the rise of our species some 200,000 years ago, the extraordinary mental capacity of early hominids such as Australopithecus and even more so with our species homo-sapiens-sapiens has given us, above all other inhabitants of Earth,  the capability to explain the world around us. Throughout history this has been done in one of two ways. Either through mythology and other unfounded belief or through deductive reasoning and the scientific method, we have attempted to make sense of our existence and the inner workings of this universe.  While the mythological approach was sufficient to our ancient ancestors, humanity has developed the skills, through science and technology, to move beyond unfounded belief and into a reason driven culture.

            As little as 100,000 years ago, the skeletal system of our direct ancestors looked identical to our own.  Although identical in appearance, their lives would have been dramatically different.  With no real means of communication, the mental capacity of the human brain was somewhat bleak.  After thousands of years of social cohesion, we finally began to develop traits that would be similar to those held by you and I.  Around 50,000 years ago our species began to develop complex communication skills which lead to the development of a more complex social order.  Around this same time modern humans began to migrate out of North Eastern Africa and started to inhabit other continents.  Their adaptation to natural surroundings such as climate and food resources lead to the evolution of the different races found on earth today.

            It wasn’t until some 15,000 years ago that our ancestors emerged from the last ice age, moving beyond the hunter gatherer existence that we had known for almost 200,000 years and into the Neolithic Period around 8,000 years ago. This is when we started to use pottery and complex tools, allowing us to develop permanent settlements where we could grow and irrigate crops as well as domesticate animals. This period lays claim to the first cave writings and the beginning of the religious myths of ancient Egypt and early Greek (Minoan) Mythology. These myths were created in an attempt to explain the aspects of this world that were not understood by our early ancestors. 

            Mythology is an attempt to explain the world around us, so where best to start, but in the beginning.  In the Greek creation myth, Pandora (the first female created by the gods) is given a jar or a box and is told never to open it.  Disobeying the gods, Pandora opens the box and releases all evils of mankind onto the earth, leaving only hope behind, which is meant to symbolize man’s free will.  This myth attempted to explain how we got here as well as given reason to why the gods would allow bad things to happen to their most prized creation.  In the eyes of our ancestors, all human life had sprung from the womb of the female. If the first female created had disobeyed the gods, it could be easily understood why disasters such as famine, drought, death and war would be allowed by the very gods who were supposed to look after us. Essentially, we had brought it upon ourselves.

            Another Greek myth was that of Hades, also known as Hel. Hades was the god of the underworld who split his power with Zeus (the king of the gods) and Poseidon (the god of the Sea), dividing their power by 3rds, which was often used to symbolize the natural balance of the world. Being the god of the underworld, Hades was a greedy and vindictive god who would not allow any of his subjects to leave the gates of his domain, which were guarded by a three headed beast.  Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Zeus, decides to seduce Hades to spite her father, eventually leaving earth to stay with him in the underworld. Because Persephone is not allowed to leave the underworld, her mother Demeter (the goddess of the Harvest) becomes upset and stops allowing crops to grow on earth. To solve this problem, Zeus pleads with Hades to make a compromise on behalf of humanity.  Hades decides that Persephone can visit Earth only if she promises to return to the underworld for three months of every year.  This myth was devised to explain why crops would not grow during the winter, a problem that would have surely plagued an agrarian society.

            It is easy to look at these Greek myths and laugh at their ignorance, but what of current mythological ignorance?  Today we understand the concepts of photosynthesis and how the earth’s climate can interfere with the growth of vegetation, but for the ancient Greeks, it took the elaborate story of Persephone. Today we can recognize the seasons as the cyclical movement of our earth around the sun, but as little as 400 years ago the Catholic Church threatened the lives of Copernicus and Galileo for saying so.  We understand the orbits of subatomic particles as well as the orbits of planets far beyond our Solar system.  We understand how much of this world works and we do so only by the means of scientific inquiry and the dismissal of mythological dogma. 

            Today the evolution of man is no longer based on a creation myth riddled in inconsistency. We can easily realize that the story of Pandora, or her much later Jewish equivalent Eve, is not a historical account of the creation of man, but a mythological attempt to explain our existence by an intellectually inferior people of our ancient past.  Through the modern tools of science such as the mapping of the Human Genome, Radio-carbon dating of archeological evidence, Archeological dating through sediment stratification and the development of biological sciences, we can fully understand beginnings of our species without referring to the gods and goddesses for help.

            The Age of the Renaissance pulled humanity out of the Dark Ages by way of free thinkers such as Copernicus, Galileo and Isaac Newton, all of whom were in danger of persecution by the Catholic church  because they attempted to explain the world around them by way of reason instead of church doctrine and ancient mythology.  What if these men were silenced completely by the church? Would we still find ourselves in the Dark Ages?   Today we see the same type of persecution against the scientific community, especially in the fields of biology, where 99.9% of the most educated men and women in their field know and understand the concepts of evolution and 98% of them believe that Darwinian Natural Selection is the only known mechanism that could lead to this process.  Although there is complete cohesion on this subject in the intellectual community, many people in the world today still attempt to cling to a mythological explanation, rather than the natural or scientific explanation that was developed through scientific inquiry and reason.

            As the human race advances, we will continuously explain more and more of the world around us. As this happens, where will you be? Will you be like the ancient Greeks looking towards Persephone to explain the seasons?  Will you be the Catholic Church denying that the earth revolves around the sun? Will you too cling to the ancient myths of our ancestors and teach your children (or even attempt to force the children of others) to beleive that “creationism ” or its equivalent “intelligent design” dispell the existence of Evolution?  If so, what will the future inhabitants of this earth say about your mythological beliefs?

By: Derek Dyson

Last night in President Bush’s State of the Union Address, he laid out his plans for the upcoming year. On the President’s to-do list were two public initiatives that I wish to look into with more detail, not as separate issues but as two very distinct issues that must coincide with one another to reach a common goal. These issues are public education and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. On the outset, one could easily see the correlation between the two subjects, but what I wish to bring to your attention is the blatant misuse of funds by the federal and state governments that not only deny proper education on the subject domestically, but also where it is needed most, on the continent of Africa. I will show how the stigma held by religious conservatives on subjects such as sexual intercourse coupled with the archaic views on contraception held by the Catholic Church have lead our government, through lobby groups and special interests, to all but ignore the problems of sexually transmitted disease as well as teen pregnancy. Knowing that this subject is very complex, I will attempt to keep this essay short enough to keep your attention while hopefully broadening your prospective on the subject.

Today in America at least 30% of our public schools rely on abstinence only approaches to sexual education, while close to 40% rely on an “abstinence plus” approach. Although abstinence is the only sure fire measure against sexually transmitted disease and teen pregnancy, it is by no means a viable option to sexual education. Our children need an unbiased approach to sexual intercourse that is free from the religious morality imposed by the Christian community. It may be alarming to some, but of our 50 states, all requiring sexual education in our publicly funded schools, 12 of these states mandate abstinence only approaches, denying funding for anything but. An abstinence only approach leaves no room for education on condom use or other safe alternatives to sexual intercourse. This approach is only backed by 15% of the American population based on a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, yet the Evangelical hold on our public policy has once again extended far beyond their populative constituency.

The stance held by religious conservatives on sexual education is irresponsible to say the least. This is very apparent in the small community of Owasso Oklahoma where I grew up. It is widely known that the local Baptist Church has a major influence on local initiatives, which along with an already highly conservative population, has all but ignored a fairly obvious teen pregnancy crisis. Although I was unable to obtain any official statistics on the subject, due mostly to the local high schools unwillingness to cooperate with me on the subject, the problem is well known throughout the community. I use this example only to illustrate this problem at a local level so I can then show its significance at the International level.

In 2004 the Bush administration appropriated close to 4 billion dollars towards the AIDS epidemic in Africa and then gave more than 200 million dollars of that funding to a small number of Catholic Charities to spend on humanitarian relief. This is ironic considering that the Catholic Church condemns the use of condoms, which are considered the most realistic and effective barrier for combating the spread of HIV by the International AIDS Alliance, and instead teaches (or preaches) their abstinence only demagogue under a guise of humanitarian relief. Do we as Americans believe that the Catholic Church should use our tax dollars to explain to the tribal people of Africa, who have been genetically programmed for the last 200,000 years to preserve their species and tribal heritage through reproduction, that they should no longer have sex because god doesn’t want them to? It’s fairly obvious that if the Bush administration were even remotely concerned with saving the lives of the millions of AIDS stricken natives of Africa, they wouldn’t waste the American tax payer’s money by sending to Africa a religious organization that refuses to acknowledge the use of contraception, then replacing it with the mid-evil and intolerant religious views of Thomas Aquinas, expounding that sexual conduct is immoral and full abstinence is gods true virtue. Teaching abstinence to tribal African cultures is like explaining to a two year old that chocolate is going to make him fat. He will hear you and probably understand you, but he won’t really care. Why is this? It’s because being fat isn’t a social concern of a two year old, just like adhering to the religious views of some fundamentalist Christian from America isn’t going to be a social concern of a twenty year old Kenyan man who will rely on his offspring to harvest next seasons coffee crop.  This is not rocket science, it is common sense, a virtue that seems to have left the minds of those who expound these beliefs.

Many on the religious right condemn Islam for its intollerance and injustice towards humanity, but religious fanaticism, textual literalism and intolerance are not issues that stop with the Muslim community. The Christian religious conservatives of this nation are hindering our personal freedoms, stifling important advancements in scientific and medical research, and imposing their belief system on the whole of the American public in ways that cannot be overlooked. If we as Americans continue to ignore this problem, controversies such as stem cell research, abortion or sexual education will no longer be of our concern.  This will instead be replaced with the concern of nuclear holocaust and a global war of religions.