atheists wage war on Easter

Kollyvas · Post by **Kollyvas** » Wed 12 April 2006 12:13 am

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=49678

TESTING THE FAITH
'War on Easter' waged
Atheists hiding DVD copies of anti-Jesus film in churches

Posted: April 11, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

A media company that produced a best-selling documentary asserting that Jesus Christ never existed today launches its "War on Easter," encouraging volunteer atheists to plant copies of the film "The God Who Wasn't There" in churches across the United States.

Dubbing the effort "Operation Easter Sanity," Brian Flemming, a self-described "former Christian fundamentalist" and president of Beyond Belief Media, hopes to covertly place 666 copies of the documentary in churches by Easter Sunday, April 16. The number 666 is the biblical mark of "The Beast," which also is the name of another film by Flemming set for a 06-06-06 release.

"People go to churches to hide from the truth," Flemming said in a statement. "At no time is this more apparent than Easter, when Christians get together to convince each other that a man died, stayed dead three days, rose from the dead and then flew into the air above the clouds.

"Our nonviolent campaign sends the message that nowhere in the country is safe from the truth. Wherever Christian leaders are indoctrinating children with 2,000-year-old fairy tales, the truth may just find its way there."

Continued the former Christian: "Our 'War on Easter' is of course completely without violence of any kind. Christians believe that beating a man to a pulp and nailing him to a cross somehow solves all the world's problems. Beyond Belief Media does not."

"The God Who Wasn't There" is currently No. 5 on Amazon.com's list of best-selling documentaries.

Fleming claims to have planted copies of the DVD at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles Sunday morning.

"I put the DVDs in my right inside jacket pocket," he explained on the War on Easter website. "It was a gorgeous Palm Sunday. The kind of day that makes you want to ride on a donkey and get hit with palm fronds. …

"As soon as the Mass was over, I got to work hiding DVDs and flyers in hymnals and the like."

Fleming posted a photo of Cardinal Roger Mahony and himself allegedly taken after the Mass.

Responded "Eric" on the site: "Why do you feel the need to spread hate? Just because you are miserable doesn’t give you the right to lash out. Listen, you need some professional help. You remind me of Hitler and what he was trying to do. Are you proud of that?"

Another poster encouraged Flemming: "That is just awesome. Someday people will wake up, and I hope your crusade helps to do just that."

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Kollyvas · Post by **Kollyvas** » Wed 12 April 2006 11:53 pm

$\/$ :ohvey: http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=7510

Media roll out debunkings of Christianity
First Things

Richard John Neuhaus writes:
When these holy days roll around, segments of the media, as reliably as clockwork, roll out the latest alleged debunkings of historically recognizable Christianity. There was, for instance, an item a few days ago about a climatologist who opined that back in the old days Galilee experienced cold snaps, so maybe Jesus didn’t walk on water but was standing on a block of ice. This, it is suggested, will force Christians to reconsider the foundations of their faith. It does raise a new question about why St. Peter stripped before jumping in to join his Lord on the ice.

But the big news this time around is the discovery of a fourth- or possibly fifth-century copy of what may be a second-century “Gospel of Judas.” Christians will be surprised, we are assured by the New York Times, that there are more than four gospels, and I suppose Christians who know little about the origins of Christianity will be surprised. The National Geographic Society disgraced itself by puffing this latest discovery. Elaine Pagels of Princeton, an advisor to NGS who has for years been touting sundry gnostic gospels, wrote an op-ed in the Times saying that the latest discovery will make her Easter ever so much more mysterious.

There is nothing at all mysterious about people who want a designer Christianity tailored to their own predilections. That’s how we got all those deviant Christianities in the first place. The apostles and their successors in episcopal office spent the first several centuries sorting through the various writings and teachings to establish what became orthodox faith and the canon of the New Testament.

According to Pagels and others, the apostolic community to which Jesus promised the guidance of the Holy Spirit was dominated by power-hungry masters of the patriarchy who were determined to deprive people of delicious variations by labeling them as heresies. As it happens, the Church’s task of sorting out continues to this day and will not end until Our Lord returns in glory. The propensity to come up with new Christianities conformed to human tastes and fantasies will always be with us. Witness the Da Vinci Code, to cite a current instance of a fabrication that has confused many of the uncatechized faithful.

The people over at Catholic World News have their own take on the latest flutter in the market of fakes. Here’s an excerpt:

New Gospel Discovered!!

Newark, Apr. 8 (CWNews.com) - Archeological researchers in Ridgewood, New Jersey, have discovered an ancient Christian document that offers a radically new account of the founding of the Catholic Church.

The newly discovered document, which scholars have named “The Gospel of Skip and Muffy,” was found in an abandoned rowhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which had formerly housed a Rutgers sorority.

Theologians and anthropologists agree that “The Gospel of Skip and Muffy” is likely to cause intense debate among Christians, forcing a complete re-examination of all Catholic teachings.

There is no possible debate, however, about the authenticity of the document. “It was typed on an IBM Selectric II,” reported Dr. Ernest Litewaite, an associate professor of Contemporary Archeology at Kutztown State. “Using a Courier 72 10-pitch element.” The document is believed to be a copy of an earlier statement, crafted by students at an East Coast private college sometime around 1970.

“The Gospel of Skip and Muffy” is an extended dialogue between two young theologians who take a startling new approach to the faith. The document suggests that young Christians of the 1970s generation did not accept Church teachings on some controversial moral issues.

B.F.D. Zeitgeist, a Professor of Serious Christianity at Dupont University, said that the Gospel of Skip and Muffy will force Christians to re-examine the nature of Church authority. He pointed to one key passage in the manuscript:

“The Church is–I mean–it’s just a bunch of, like, rules and stuff,” said Muffy.

“Yeah,” Skip replied. “I mean, really. Hey, don’t let that thing go out.”

Professor Litewaite said that he had found the manuscript of the Gospel of Skip and Muffy several months ago. “The significance of the discovery was immediately obvious,” he said. “But my publicist suggested that I should wait until Holy Week to make it public.”

Funny. Which is not to say that there are not serious matters engaged by the discussion of the “Gospel of Judas” and other imaginative reconstructions of Christianity from the apostolic era to the present. The gnostic pseudo-gospels and related texts purport to be for the “knowers” who are equipped to deal with the “secret sayings” of Jesus and other matters unfit for the great unwashed. In his book The American Religion, Harold Bloom contends that most Americans are gnostics at heart, believing that they possess a “divine spark” that is spiritually serviced by whatever “works for me.” There is more than a little to that. It results in religions, typically called Christian, ever so much less interesting than Christianity.

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Thu 13 April 2006 8:51 pm

Atheists hiding DVD copies of anti-Jesus film in churches

It's about time they struck back! Christians have been putting all manner of pamphlets and leaflets and whatnot (including that obnoxious Jack Chick type stuff) in bathrooms and merchandise for years. Just today I bought a book at Barnes and Noble on Atheism which had a Protestant "You can be saved if you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" type of text in it. I've even had a person give me a Christian pamphlet while I was working (I guess I didn't look Christian enough, lol).

Kollyvas · Post by **Kollyvas** » Fri 14 April 2006 9:52 pm

(SEE PICS.)

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=49753

ANIMAL KINGDOM
PETA stages 'crucifixion' at cathedral
Rights group raises ire of church, officials in Vienna

Posted: April 14, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern

PETA protesters in Vienna. Signs say "You should not kill." (Courtesy Kronen Zeitung, Vienna)

The edgy animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stirred controversy in Vienna on Good Friday with a protest to symbolically "crucify" three activists wearing animal masks outside the city's famous Catholic cathedral.

The blood-smeared activists each carried a cross as nearby protesters in the square outside St. Stephen's Cathedral held signs with messages such as "We suffer and die for your sins of nourishment."

Bruce Friedrich, spokesman for PETA in the U.S., told WorldNetDaily causing offense was not the goal, but if there are any objections they should be about suffering animals, not "street theater."

"Words and images aren't offensive to God," he said. "What is offensive to God is the satanic treatment of God's creature by factory farms and slaughterhouses."

PETA said it wanted to capture the attention of consumers who ignored the suffering of animals, but the local parliamentary representative condemned the protest.

A spokeswoman for Ursula Stenzel of the conservative People's Party called it a "mockery of a religious community on one of the most important days of the Christians."

"The action would be more blasphemy than animal protection," said Angelika Mayrhofer-Battlogg, according to the South African news service News24.com.
St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna

The Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna, News24 reported, called the action a "completely unacceptable falsification of the religious dimension of Good Friday."

The statement said that while PETA may have good intentions, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was not suited "to transport secondary messages."

Also, the square outside St. Stephen's, built in the 12th century, was a "sensitive" place.

Friedrich pointed out Pope Benedict spoke out against abuses in factory farming when he was a cardinal, but the PETA spokesman believes the church "could speak out more voiciferously" and should be on the "forefront" of protests.

But why pick on Christians and the Catholic Church with such a provocative demonstration?

"There's no intention to pick on anyone," Friedrich replied. "We attempt to raise anyone's awareness that eating meat is a violation of all religions, the spirit of compassion that infuses all religions."

Friedrich added that, "As a Roman Catholic myself, what I find offensive is that Christians would deny God's creatures their every desire and need and cause them to suffer."

Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia, a PETA billboard ad depicting a bloody, crucified lamb was refused space this Easter, The Australian newspaper reported.

PETA has been running an international campaign against sheep mulesing in Australia, the surgical removal of folds of skin from the backsides of sheep to prevent the painful and sometimes fatal condition of fly strike.

But PETA said the "lamb on a crucifix reminds us that these gentle animals are mutilated, tormented and killed every day in Australia for nothing more than very un-Christian greed."

"If Christ were here, he would show mercy to these lambs, so we're asking the Australian government to follow his compassionate example and bring an end to these two hideous abuses."

Last year a report on PETA found the group doesn't play religious favorites – it offends all major faiths with its advocacy techniques.

The report, "Holy Cows: How PETA Twists Religion to Push Animal 'Rights,'" according to its producer the Center for Consumer Freedom, documents how PETA "hijacks religious rituals and institutions in an attempt to impose its stated philosophy of 'total animal liberation.'"

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