The Coalition of the Swilling

Church of Zero indeed - the null-sum, the divide-by-zero secular fixation.

There is a movement in this country now a days that sees enemies everywhere. It has its own view of the world and sees conspiracy in everything not in accord with its catechism. It demands that others believe and act as it judges in its best interests.

The christian right is beyond looney nowadays. There is nothing wrong with being christian, generally, but many christians now think they are under attack and see boogey monsters everywhere.

If you don't believe in the gospel of Judas, then don't. No one said you had to. If someone's faith is so weak that a newpaper article can threaten it, it's not much of a faith, is it?

This document is historically very interesting, I enjoy reading about the early history of christianity. It's shocking that so many christians still want to deny that there was ever politics or dissent among early christians.

That the gnostic "gospels" were discredited by the eventually dominating sects of early christians is a fact. That the Aryans were driven out of christianity, indeed even out of eastern Mediterrainean into Spain, is a fact. The reasons why had less to do with dogma than with politics. That is a fact.

But it's fascinating, in a scary way, to watch the apoplectic reactions of people still afraid of ideas that have been discredited for over 1500 years.

Yeah, it sells newspapers. Duh. That's hardly news that newspapers and television news puts relevency into its reporting of bits like this.

But the reactions against this and on so many other issues by christians who seemingly want to demand that others honor their god is disturbing. Worship your god, that's your right. Stop complaining that others don't.

whew! That felt good. :)

The Christian Left is also pretty dang loony, and they see themselves as being under attack from the Administration, however their chatechistic chant and demand is for Collectivism.

Yeah, I'm sorry I picked on the christian right. It's the whole country. Everything is just so danged polarized nowadays.

I don't see any complaining that others don't worship my god, Mike; you don't see any folks getting beheaded for not being christians. However, it is, to me, undeniable that a major point brought out in this article that folks feel free to take shots at christianity that they would never dare attempt to take at Islam, or scientology for that matter. I think any impartial review of the MSM will confirm this. Secondly, and to me this is an even bigger point, I believe the author is dead-on with his description of how this fits smoothly with the rise of treasonous/dishonorable behavior in our society. By attacking the beliefs of those who hold themselves to higher standards you attack the standards themselves, regardless of their intrinsic worth.

And that is a bad thing, in my opinion.

I'll look around and see if I can find an old bumpersticker I used to have; I was reminded of it by your opening paragraph: "Help! Help! The paranoids are after me!" It seems to me conspiracy theorists, including those from "DaVinci Code" enthusiasts to BDS sufferers, are more likely to be found outside of churches than within them.

The Usual Media Suspects constantly bang the drum of Rightwing Christianity as a big threat, and Religion in general as an peculiar, un-balanced Oddity - but whenever it's necessary they draw on their supporters in Leftwing Christianity and paint them as mainstream and fair-and-balanced. Meanwhile they're conveniently buried back in the fifth-section of the paper, to be ignored until needed.

But publishing the discovery and subsequent translation of a Gnostic gospel is hardly an attack. Calling it one is quite an over-reaction. Just because you don't call it one of your gospels doesn't mean that the gnostics didn't call it a gospel.

There are probably some neo-gnostics that are glad to adapt this as their own. Only if someone thinks they have the authority to tell others what to take as their gospel would this be an issue to them.

It's hyper-sensitivity by some christians. Yes, there are a lot of silly things done in the name of political correctness, but some christians have taken on a persecuted stance and object to the silliest things. This is one of them.