• Despite the good sense shown by the British Medical Association in lambasting homeopathy at their annual conference last month, the UK National Health Service has announced that it will still pay for water and sugar pills passed off as medicine.

• A court in Utah has thrown out the rape conviction of Mormon cult leader Warren Jeffs, due to a legal technicality, and ordered that the case be retried. Texas is still seeking to have him extradited to face similar charges, so it seems likely that he'll ultimately face justice.

• I was shocked to read of some ultra-Orthodox Israeli communities that are so extreme, they demand that their women wear burqas so as not to arouse the passions of men.

• A Liberty University graduate defends the separation of church and state.

• In more welcome news, the U.K. education secretary has said he's interested in proposals for atheist schools, after Richard Dawkins made such a proposal in response to a law allowing faith-based and community groups to open their own publicly funded schools. And why not? If every church in England has its own schools - the article mentions Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu - why shouldn't there be atheist schools that teach students rationality and critical thinking?

In the early chapters of Genesis, Yahweh makes a sweeping promise to Abraham, forefather of the Jewish people:

"In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates."

—Genesis 15:18

As I've mentioned in the past, this was no small matter: the land that God promised to Abraham would encompass most or all of the modern nations of Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. If the Jewish people had ever controlled this much territory, they would have had an empire to rival the mightiest powers of the Ancient Near East. But now I have an inconvenient question: Did the Jewish people ever control this much territory? Did they ever get what God promised they would have?

The archaeological evidence shows clearly that the answer is no. Although the monarchy of David - described by the Bible as the most glorious era of ancient Israel - apparently did exist, it was a relatively small and insignificant kingdom even by the standards of the day. It never controlled all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. We have abundant evidence of the great empires that did exist in this region, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian or Roman: the cities they built, the monuments they erected, the inscriptions they left behind. An Israelite empire would be equally easy to find in the archaeological record if it had ever existed, and the total lack of historical evidence can only imply that it never did.

And after David and Solomon's reign, even the Bible says that things went rapidly downhill. Solomon's son was an incompetent ruler who caused the kingdom to split apart, and the divided Israelite tribes were conquered by larger powers and scattered across the face of the earth. The modern state of Israel wasn't established until the 20th century, and it still comes nowhere close to controlling all the land that God promised to Abraham.

For almost four thousand years, then, God's land promise has been unfulfilled. Considering that the land he promised is now occupied by millions of other people with a decidedly hostile outlook toward the Jews, it seems unlikely that Israel will be able to control it any time soon. (The biblical solution - military invasion and genocide - doesn't seem to be a prospect today, due to several millennia of progress in humanity's moral sentiments.) And if you believe the evangelical Christians who insist that the Rapture is due to occur very soon and the end of the world shortly thereafter, the time when this prophecy could be fulfilled is rapidly dwindling. And even if Israel did come to own all this land through some bizarre chain of circumstances, would it really count as "fulfilling" a promise if that which was promised is withheld for hundreds of generations and thousands of years? Wouldn't it, in fact, be more accurate to say that this is a failed biblical promise?

The most common Christian apologist explanation for this prophetic failure is that God's covenant with Abraham was conditional, and when the Israelites disobeyed his laws, he took away the land he had promised them as punishment. Unfortunately for them, the Bible itself forecloses this explanation. It states clearly that even though the Israelites were wicked, God still intended to give them the land, in order to keep the promise he made to Abraham:

"Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

—Deuteronomy 9:5

The only rational conclusion is that God has not "performed the word which he swore", because there is no God who shows special favor to the Israelites. This land claim, allegedly a divinely given promise, was in reality just a piece of pious self-congratulation by ancient Israelite scribes who sought to write a self-fulfilling prophecy. They thought that if they could convince their countrymen that victory was guaranteed, that would give them the determination to turn that belief into reality. But their gambit didn't succeed, and millennia later, the Bible's failed land promise stands as proof of the very human and fallible origins of that book.

You get all kinds of weird and amusing religious literature on the New York subways, and here's the latest proof:

Click to enlarge. Also see interior and back cover.

If you've attended a college with a significant Jewish population, you're probably familiar with Chabad House, an organization that runs community centers and programs for observant Jews. What you may not know is who runs these centers - or one of this group's stranger and more curious offshoots, the subject of today's post.

The Chabad Lubavitch movement was founded in the 18th century by Shneur Zalman, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, in Russia. Zalman was an adherent of Hasidism, the offshoot of Judaism that emphasizes ecstatic and mystical worship (i.e., Kabbalah), and is known for its followers' distinctive dress and use of the Yiddish language. Hasidic Jews are organized into dynastic communities each under the leadership of a single sage, a Rebbe, who's believed to enjoy God's special favor and, often, to possess miraculous powers and semi-divine insight into the workings of the world.

Including its founder, Shneur Zalman, the Chabad Lubavitch sect has had seven Rebbes. The seventh and most recent, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, took office in 1950. The Chabad Houses on college campuses and elsewhere were mainly his creation, the result of an outreach program intended to educate Americans about Hasidic Judaism and - more importantly - to urge all Jews to obey Orthodox religious law. (He also ran a secondary campaign to encourage non-Jews to obey the seven "Noahide Laws" for gentiles - probably the closest thing Judaism has ever had to explicit evangelism.)

Schneerson died in 1994 without naming a successor, and the Chabad movement has been without a Rebbe ever since. As you might have expected, this has led to fragmentation and power struggles, though the movement as a whole appears to be thriving - it has over 200,000 adherents, making it one of the single largest Hasidic groups. But it may be that the lack of clear earthly leadership has inspired some of its followers to start thinking in new directions. As you can see from my subway pamphlet, there's a small but vocal and growing faction of Lubavitchers who believe their last, deceased Rebbe was the Moshiach - i.e., the Messiah, the prophesied hero of the Bible who will unite and rule over the Jews and usher in God's kingdom on Earth.

As this article explains, when Schneerson was alive, Lubavitcher belief in his messianic status was fairly strong. Schneerson never explicitly proclaimed himself the messiah, but he never denied it either; he repeatedly made wink-and-nudge references to the imminence of the messianic age and did little to quell the growing messianic enthusiasm of his followers. In one video from later in his life, he accepts a petition signed by thousands of Lubavitchers declaring him the messiah; in another, he smiles as a group of his followers sing a song called the Yechi - the Yiddish lyrics of which translate to, "May our master, teacher and rabbi, the king messiah, live forever."

Being deceased would seem to be an obvious disqualifier for messianic status - and indeed, there are non-messianic Lubavitchers who consider their messianic brethren an embarrassment and try to squelch them. Yet Schneerson's devotees, commonly referred to as "mesichists", don't see this as an obstacle. Exactly how they deal with the fact of his death varies: some insist that he's not actually dead but is merely hidden, biding his time to return. Others claim that his messiahship persists in some spiritual realm beyond the physical world. Still others believe that he'll be resurrected when the time is right. All, however, share the belief that the Rebbe will return and the messianic age will arrive when a sufficient fraction of the world's population learns about him and is convinced of his messiahhood - hence, my pamphlet from the subway.

I looked on Chabad World, the website set up by Schneerson's followers, for an explanation of how they reconcile the fact of his death with their belief in him as Moshiach. I didn't find one - it's a subject the website tends to skate around, for example by repeatedly referring to Schneerson in the present tense ("the Rebbe teaches..."), such that someone who didn't already know he was dead probably wouldn't realize it. However, I did find lots of entertaining supplementary material, such as these miracle claims attributed to Schneerson, or this highly amusing page which argues not just for creationism, but apparently for geocentrism. Also not to be missed from that page is the comical explanation of how the Rebbe knew there is no intelligent life in the universe other than humans, which I can't possibly do justice to by trying to summarize it here.

Aside from the clear documentation of Schneerson's life, it's hard not to notice the similarities between Chabad-Lubavitch messianism and early Christianity. As time passes and the Rebbe fails to return, it's inevitable that historical memory of him will grow vaguer, the stories of his life and miracles will become further exaggerated, and his absence will almost certainly be worked into apologetic arguments which claim it was the plan all along for him to bide his time. Like Christianity, this new faith may flourish and grow; or like the teachings of Sabbatai Zevi, another would-be Jewish messiah, it may lose its ardor and fade away. There seems to be a perennial tendency in Judaism to latch onto some earthly figure as the messiah, which may be because the lack of a clearly defined afterlife has led them to continually look for this-worldly deliverance.

Other posts in this series:

• Strange and Curious Sects

I've written in the past about religion's harm to women, and the way modern sexism is aided and abetted by ancient religious prejudices that still survive today. Every major holy book has sexist verses, but some of the most misogynistic and the most virulent can be found in the books referred to by Christians as the Old Testament. Since this text is the foundation for religions that comprise over half the population of the world, it's small wonder that oppressive, sexist ideas still have so much power.

This ancient misogyny is on full display in this article about a group of pious Jewish women who want to pray at the Wailing Wall, the holiest site of Judaism. They're obviously seeking to perpetuate the faith, not rebel against it, and you might think that would earn them respect from their peers. But instead, they've faced insults, taunting, and even arrest, all from ultra-Orthodox men who demand that women be kept separate, silenced, and subordinate:

Men sporting the black coats and wheel-shaped fur hats that identify ultra-Orthodox Jews shouted at the women, calling them "Nazis," and telling them to "go to church".

...Their adversaries, including the rabbi of the wall, say that the women have no business wearing such religious garments as yarmulkes and prayer shawls, or carrying the Torah, the Jewish holy book.

Such things, the ultra-Orthodox Jews say, are reserved for men.

Whatever religious blindness has afflicted these men, I trust that we as atheists can agree that this kind of sexism is unacceptable. This kind of disgusting bigotry should be intolerable in an enlightened world. We, both men and women, have every reason to cooperate in stamping it out wherever it rears its head, and to work for its total eradication.

But one of the biggest mistakes we could make would be to assume that misogyny only manifests itself in obvious ways: as ultra-Orthodox men cursing and spitting at women on the streets, or Muslims committing honor killings against female relatives, or Roman Catholics arguing that abortion should be forbidden even to women with life-threatening ectopic pregnancies. Those are the most visible manifestations, but sexism can take on more subtle forms as well, more difficult to notice and therefore to oppose.

I bring this up because of an appalling editorial published on Comment is Free by Nancy Graham Holm, writing about the ax attack on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard by a Muslim fanatic. The title of her article was - no joke - "Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism", and its argument was that Danish writers and artists are to blame for any violence they suffer as a result of offending the religious sensibilities of Muslims, who demand the right to be exempt from criticism or satire.

This cowardly nonsense was capably dissected by Ophelia Benson, the author of Butterflies and Wheels (and also a columnist for Comment is Free). Holm's article also caught the attention of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, and there, too, most of the commenters on the site's forum responded with appropriate criticism. But there were a few who couldn't stop there - including one whose reaction was to attack Holm as a "stupid bitch".

Ophelia stopped by to point out the inappropriateness of this, and she was met by several commenters who insisted that this was a perfectly acceptable way to criticize a woman, that it wasn't at all sexist, and even if it was, women are just as sexist as men so it's hypocritical to complain about it. Here are a few shining examples:

If you really want to cast a gender in the role of servants or slaves, then a case could be made that MEN have been the servants...

One half of humanity [that would be the male half —Ebonmuse] does not get a say in whether language is sexist?

Ophelia needs to recognize not only that "words change" in general, but that these particular words -- slang terms like bitch -- have changed and acquired a non-sexist sense.

These commenters argued that the word "bitch" is defensible as long as it's being used only against one specific person and not a slur against all women, and if it wasn't meant as sexist by the person who said it, then it wasn't sexist.

While I don't think this kind of attitude poses a threat to the atheist movement as a whole, I do think it's extremely important to ensure that everyone feels welcome among us, regardless of race or gender. That's a goal that the atheist movement still needs to devote more effort to accomplishing, and comments like these don't help. (Several commenters referred to the "locker-room atmosphere" of the comments at the largely unmoderated RD.net forums - although to his credit, Richard Dawkins himself did step in to put a stop to the flame war.)

To begin, let me pose a question to anyone who thinks that "bitch" is an appropriate term to use in reference to any woman. If you strongly disagreed with an essay written by a gay person, would you write a critique calling them a faggot? If it was a black person, would you express your disapproval by calling them a nigger? If these slurs are unacceptable, as they obviously are, then why is it any different to criticize a woman with an epithet that implicitly demeans all members of her gender? The word, after all, has historically been used to insult any tough, confident or assertive woman by implying that she doesn't "know her place".

To assume that any word can be used in a vacuum, stripped of all its past connotations, simply by willing it to be so is ludicrous. A word's meaning is not wholly determined by context - individual speakers can use words in new and unique ways - but neither is it wholly determined by individual intent - else we wouldn't ever be able to communicate with each other. Even if you use that word with no sexist intent whatsoever - a highly dubious proposition, considering the way we're all influenced by culture - it's hardly reasonable to expect the recipient of your message to understand your pure heart. They're much more likely to see that word as coming with all the sexist and misogynist context that has always been attached to it, understandably so. And condescendingly telling a person that they should just ignore all that and let you decide for them when they should be offended is only going to make things worse.

There are plenty of bad ideas out there that deserve criticism. But when we criticize them, we shouldn't do it in a way that cedes the moral high ground, or that insults or alienates people whose sympathies were already with us. Nor should we tolerate others who do these things. Even the gentlest declaration of atheism is going to anger many irrational people, which is unavoidable and is no reason for us not to speak out. But we shouldn't compound that offense unnecessarily if we want atheism as a movement to flourish and succeed.

A couple of noteworthy articles from this week that I didn't have time to write more about:

• To begin with, there's this excellent and in-depth profile of the FFRF's Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, from a local alternative paper in Madison.

• Archaeologists have discovered a genuine burial shroud from the first century CE. Unlike the Shroud of Turin, its radiocarbon date fixes it to the correct time period; it also has a very different weave than the more famous Turin hoax.

• Churches in Malaysia are being attacked by Muslims, who are angry over a court ruling that struck down a government ban on the use of the word "Allah" by Christians. Perhaps we should get Nancy Graham Holm over there to explain to the Christians that it's their own fault they're getting firebombed, because they rudely persist in using a word of which Muslims are the rightful owners.

• A muckraking blogger named Failed Messiah exposes the scandals of the Orthodox Jewish world. (HT: New York Times).

• The Telegraph tells us that heroic behavior among animals is more common than previously thought. Who was it that said only human beings have a sense of morality?

• And finally, a story I may return to later: New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has invited atheists to the city's annual interfaith breakfast for the first time ever. Bravo, sir! It feels good to be taken seriously by politicians for once.

In the books of the Torah, Yahweh devotes entire chapters to explaining in exacting detail what kind of animal sacrifices he expects from his people. The one common thread, repeatedly emphasized, is that the animals to be slaughtered must be "without blemish":

"And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish." —Exodus 29:1

"And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil." —Leviticus 14:10

"This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke." —Numbers 19:1

"And ye shall offer a burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the Lord; one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year without blemish." —Numbers 29:2

"And he shall offer his offering unto the Lord, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings." —Numbers 6:14

Only animals that are perfect and flawless, without any physical defects, are acceptable as sacrifices to Yahweh. And this rule doesn't just apply to animals, either. The Old Testament makes it equally clear that people with physical defects are equally unacceptable as servants in the holy places.

"Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.... he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the Lord do sanctify them."

—Leviticus 21:17-23

(By the way, if you're curious about what the text means when it bars a man who has "his stones broken", the RSV gives a more explicit translation: "a man with crushed testicles"!)

This passage says explicitly that if a person or an animal with a physical defect touched the altar or entered the sanctuary, it would "profane" them. But how can this be? Doesn't God care about the state of a person's soul, not the condition of their body?

These verses should be very disturbing to modern-day Jews and Christians. They attribute to God a primitive, superstitious and ignorant view - one in which a person's worth is tied to their outward appearance, and people with defects are considered impure and unholy. Even people with flat noses are forbidden to come near the altar of God! (All those churches with wheelchair ramps are going against the word of God, if they but knew it!)

Granted, in the New Testament, Jesus abrogates this command. In its place, he expresses the much more sensible view that holiness (if that term has any meaning) consists not of outward appearances, but of attitudes and actions: "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man... Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:15,22-23).

But this hardly solves the problem. If it was never a sin to be ugly or handicapped, why did God say precisely the opposite for the many centuries of the Old Testament? Why was that rule established in the first place, ensuring hundreds of years of discrimination, ridicule and hatred directed at society's outcasts, if God never really meant it? Or did he mean it originally, and if so, what made him change his mind? Did he see the error of his ways? (Apologist site the Christian Think Tank claims hopefully that this prohibition was "perhaps a practical matter of the process of animal slaughter". I'd just love to hear why people with flat noses or crushed testicles were unable to assist in this.)

The apologetic is also sometimes heard that the OT purity laws were a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice. For example:

The animals brought for the "bread of God" must be the best of their kind. They must be without physical blemish, because they were typical of him who had no blemish of sin.

The problem with this comparison is that the OT requires sacrifices and priests without physical blemish, while the NT claims that Jesus was without spiritual blemish. This is not a case of one foreshadowing the other - these are opposite concepts!

The shallow, appearance-obsessed, tribal deity of the Old Testament is just one of the many obscure corners of the Bible that modern-day believers would love to forget about. Atheists shouldn't give them the opportunity.

Religion inspires billions of people around the world today to live honest, decent, law-abiding lives. Faith-based charities of every religious tradition have brought comfort, hope, and healing to millions of people who would otherwise starve, lay homeless, and be left to fend for themselves. Religion gives comfort and consolation to so many who have faced adversity in their lives, whether it be suffering from illness, natural disaster, or the loss of someone whom they loved.

—http://www.altmuslim.com/a/a/a/2837/

The good that's done by religion, the peace and comfort it gives to millions of faithful, is often cited as a reason to be a believer despite the manifest harm that it does in the world. Often, paired with this argument, the charge is made that atheists don't understand the solace people find in religion - that we seek to tear down and destroy without truly knowing what we're attacking. I have a few words to say to both of these claims.

I understand why people are Roman Catholic. I understand the comfort of tradition and ritual, the deep sense of grounding that comes from being part of the world's largest and most ancient Christian faith. I understand the attraction of participating in the sacraments as they've been practiced for millennia, the sense of treading in the footsteps where the first Christians walked. I understand the intellectual depth and heft that comes of having nearly two thousand years of theological reflection and elaboration to draw on.

The former No. 2 official of the Catholic church in Chicago admitted that he knew 25 priests broke the law by sexually abusing children but did not report them, according to depositions made public Tuesday.

..."I knew the civil law considered it a crime," Goedert said in the deposition.

—"Bishop remained silent about 25 abusive priests." The Chicago Sun-Times, 22 July 2009.

I understand why people are Jewish. I understand the comfort of heritage, of identity, of continuity with the past that's been faithfully preserved in written text and living tradition. I understand the pull of cultural memory, of remembering the thread that runs unbroken through the generations and reenacting the sacred rituals as they've always been practiced. I understand the bittersweet joy and stubborn pride that comes with the knowledge that enemies have sought to eradicate your people for millennia, whether by law, by steel or by flame, and every time, your ancestors emerged from the ashes, battered but unbowed. I understand the appeal of having a true homeland, a place in the world that is finally yours and where you can dwell in peace and security.

Plastered across Israeli TV screens for the past week have been pictures of settler youths, some as young as 13, stoning and then trying to lynch a teenage Palestinian in a Gaza village.

...That thump is the sound of a rock thrown by a teenage Jewish settler hitting an unconscious Hilal Majaida in the head. The 16-year-old Palestinian was set upon by a mob of Jewish settler youth, who'd taken over a house in Hilal Majaida's village of Mouasi in Gaza.

—"Israeli settlers attempt to lynch Palestinian teenager." The World Today (Australia), 8 July 2005.

I understand why people are Muslim. I understand the comfort that comes from belonging to a worldwide community of fellow believers, one united by faith and creed without regard to race or nation. I understand the vigor and pride of the world's youngest monotheism, the heritage rich with scientific and artistic accomplishment. I understand the bracing certainty of possessing God's actual words exactly as he intended them to be read and following the last and truest prophet he sent to the world. And I understand the appeal of simplicity, the attractiveness of stripping away all corruptions and confusions and everything unnecessary, producing a faith as clean and pure and directed in purpose as the desert lands where it was born.

Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan have executed a school teacher in front of his pupils for refusing to comply with warnings to stop educating girls.

..."They dragged the teacher from the classroom and shot him at the school gate," said Abdul Rahman Sabir, Helmand's police chief.

"He had received many warning letters from the Taliban to stop teaching, but he continued to do so happily and honestly - he liked to teach boys and girls."

—"Taliban execute teacher in front of his pupils for educating girls." The Telegraph, 17 December 2005.

And I understand why people are evangelical Christians. I understand the ecstasy of being born again, the sense of being unconditionally forgiven and cleansed. I understand the excitement of being on a grand spiritual mission, the sense of being a foot soldier in a quest to save the world. I understand the appeal of answered prayer, the promise of miracles all around. I understand the belief that the material world is like a thin curtain over a far more important and unseen world, and the appeal of a book which claims to be the inerrant and infallible word of God to believers, a book which pulls back that curtain and unlocks all the secrets of the future and the world to come. I understand the appeal of a personal relationship with a loving savior who promises he will never abandon nor forsake those who love him, even to the end of the world.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket. 'We base our faith on the Bible, we are led by the holy spirit and we have a programme of exposing false religion and sorcery.... Parents don't come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say "what is that there? Not your child."'

—"Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt." The Observer, 9 December 2007.

I understand, but I do not believe. No matter how comforting these faiths may be to their followers, they are still based on supernatural claims for which I see no good evidence. Worse, most of them make assertions that are plainly based on the superstitious ideas of primitive people, and are flatly contradicted by everything we've learned about human history and the laws by which the cosmos works. I understand the appeal of culture and tradition, but these are not good enough reasons for belief when these religions make factual claims that are so plainly untrue.

If these factual falsehoods were all that was wrong with religion, one might still argue that it's worth believing for the sake of the comfort that belief brings. But religion has also wrought terrible evil in the world. And the unnecessary pain, suffering, and destruction that faith has caused is too high a price to pay for comfort. A total catalogue of these harms would be impossibly long, but I can list a few of the major ones: the terror of children who are taught they'll be tortured eternally if they stray; the monstrous crimes of predatory clergy that were long concealed and abetted by their superiors; the suffering and degradation of women whose faith teaches them that they are inferior; the bloody holy wars waged in the name of God; the violent censorship of free speech and free minds; morality based on fear and obedience rather than reason and conscience; the opposition to the advance of human rights; the opposition to science and knowledge; the propping up of kings and theocracies; and most grievous, the stifling of curiosity, teaching people to be satisfied with ignorance.

Whatever comfort religion brings, whatever solace it brings, it isn't worth it if this is the price we must pay. There are other, better ways to find comfort, ways that have just as much potential for good without so much potential for evil. There are countless philosophies that, like religion, accentuate the positive traits of humanity, but that, unlike religion, don't intensify the negative ones.

This week is the holiday of Passover, one of Judaism's high holy days which commemorates the ancient Israelites' deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Although the archaeological evidence for captivity and exodus is lacking, this story has become a fundamental part of Jewish cultural consciousness, as well as a symbol and an inspiration to others. In pre-Civil War America, for example, the Exodus mythology played a role in the abolitionist movement, as African slaves and their allies looked to these passages to craft a narrative opposing the pro-slavery Bible verses so often preached on by pious Southern slaveholders.

But for all its cultural resilience, the true moral of the Passover story is more disturbing than it is uplifting. To see why, let's consider what scripture says about the origins of the holiday.

Despite all the inspiring morals and ethical lessons that have been added on, what the Passover festival actually celebrates is the last and most terrible of the ten plagues: God's sparing the Israelites' children when he slaughtered the firstborn sons of Egypt. In fact, that's where the name comes from: the English name "Passover" derives from the Hebrew name, Pesach, which means "to pass over, to exempt, to spare". The reference is to chapter 12 of Exodus, where God instructs the Israelites to mark their houses with lamb's blood:

"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." (12:13)

That night, God strikes Egypt with the tenth and final plague - the death of the firstborn - and spares only the Israelite houses painted with the blood, slaying man and beast in all the others:

"And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead." (12:29-30)

As I wrote in "A Book of Blood":

The next morning in Egypt must have been a black dawn indeed. How many mothers and fathers were there, stumbling dead-eyed out of their homes? How many wails of grief and funeral songs could be heard? How many graves had to be dug? One can only imagine the horror, grief and despair that would ensue if anything comparable happened in a modern nation.

This is the twisted and bloody moral of the Passover story - it's a holiday founded to commemorate a mass murder. Even if we take the Bible at its word, the Israelites' freedom was purchased by the deaths of thousands of innocent Egyptian children. Let us not forget, ancient Egypt was not a democracy! Regardless of their feelings on the matter, the Egyptian people had no say in whether the Israelites were set free. The only person who had the power to make that decision was the pharaoh. What purpose did it serve for God to torment and massacre his subjects? Truth, why not just kill the pharaoh and ensure that the next person to come to the throne was more sympathetic to the Israelites' plight?

The Passover story, like most of the Old Testament, dates back to an era where religion was a matter of savagery and bloodshed, not love and forgiveness. Its uplifting, modern message of freedom and redemption is a secondary derivation, created by carefully stepping around the unsavory parts of the tale. And therein lies an important lesson: For all that atheists are accused by apologists of taking the Bible out of context, it's actually theists who often fail to appreciate the importance of context. Not just Passover, but many biblical tales - Abraham and Isaac, Noah's flood, the crucifixion of Jesus - are treated as beautiful stories only by suppressing their ugly side.

The world's attention has been riveted these past few days by Israel's assault on Gaza, in an attempt to oust the Hamas-run government and put a stop to rocket attacks on southern Israel. Hundreds of Palestinians were reported killed in a wave of airstrikes, over a thousand wounded, and as of this writing, a ground invasion looms as a continuing possibility. Although the conflict began after a six-month ceasefire expired and Hamas refused to renew it, it's now Israel that's rejecting calls for a temporary truce to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The Israeli invasion has drawn a chorus of condemnation from around the world, except in the U.S., where politicians from both parties march in a virtual pro-Israel lockstep. (This despite the fact, as Glenn Greenwald notes, that opinions on the matter among the American public are far more similar to those elsewhere in the world.) The confluence of a hawkish, politically influential pro-Israel lobby and the influence of a major voting bloc of right-wing Christians probably has a lot to do with this.

The Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed is something I've never seen the sense of taking sides in. To all except mindless hyper-partisans, it should be obvious that neither Israel nor Palestine is wholly at fault, and as far as I'm concerned, there are plenty of good reasons for blame on both sides. Hamas is deliberately provoking Israel with attacks on civilians, counting on massive Israeli retaliation to cause death and destruction among the Palestinians so that they'll rise up in anger and rally to Hamas' banner - callously using the suffering of its own people to shore up its own support. Israel, for its part, is suffocating Gaza with military barricades - preventing even necessities like food and medicine from reaching innocent Palestinians - and using its much greater military power in overwhelming reprisals against defenseless targets, spilling far more blood among Palestinians than any terrorist attack ever did for Israelis. Neither side has made any serious, sustained effort to lower the tension level or restrain itself in the service of a lasting peace.

As in almost all of the world's lasting trouble spots, this conflict has its origins in religion. Both sides are poisoned by a toxic mixture of beliefs about "promised lands" and "chosen people", which inevitably inspire hatred and xenophobia against members of the out-group. Two thousand years and more of bloodshed have grown from that bitter seed.

On the Israeli side, these beliefs manifest in the hardcore settlers who believe that controlling the entire occupied territories is their God-given right. In one especially horrifying incident, a mob of settlers tried to lynch a Palestinian family (page has sound), whose lives were only saved by a group of journalists on the scene. These settlements need to be rolled back for there to be any lasting peace, but Israel lacks the political will.

On the Palestinian side and throughout the Muslim world, these beliefs manifest in rampant and vicious anti-Semitism, including teaching schoolchildren the ancient blood libels handed down from medieval Christianity. (See also articles 22 and 32 of the Hamas Covenant.)

Christianity also plays a major, if indirect, role in this conflict. Mostly this is due to right-wing evangelicals, who see the Jews as pawns that need to be moved into place so that they can play their part in the apocalypse by being sacrificed. (This view was most infamously expounded by Pat Robertson when he said that Ariel Sharon's stroke was because God struck him down as punishment for trying to trade land for peace.) Not only have these groups prevented the American government from applying any significant political pressure to Israel, they themselves have inflamed the conflict by actively encouraging further Israeli settlement in the occupied territories, even getting churches to "adopt" particular settlements.

It's often stated, as if it were greatly ironic, that the so-called Holy Land is the site of the most enduring and deeply felt hatred on earth. But in truth, that's exactly what we should expect. The whole point of a "holy land" is that said land is valued irrationally highly, much higher than any material concern would ever justify. Such belief is bound to clash violently with the lives and well-being of humans; that is what always happens when things are valued more highly than people. And the danger is far greater in this case since it's not just one, but all the world's major monotheistic faiths that place this insane importance on a tiny and inconsequential strip of ground.

When fanatics of opposing sects go to battle, with each side convinced of its own righteousness and inevitable victory, the only possible outcome is never-ending bloodshed and chaos. In truth, I see only one way out of the destruction that holy-land mythology has wrought on humanity, and that's for all sides to hear the call of reason and turn away from their suicidal mutual destruction. But with the combatants blinded by self-righteousness and zealotry, I see little prospect of that happening any time in the near future. The fertile crescent that birthed destructive fundamentalism may well be the one place on Earth where it survives the longest.

For the sake of the holidays, here's a bit of nostalgia:

My parents came from two different religious traditions - Roman Catholicism on my father's side, liberal Judaism on my mother's side - although neither of them were practicing. Growing up, I had no exposure at all to Christianity, and the extent of my exposure to Judaism was that we lit candles on a menorah and got presents and chocolate coins from my grandmother at Hanukkah. I don't recall anyone ever telling me the religious origins of the holiday: it was just there, like Christmas, something we celebrated purely for the sake of tradition. I don't consider myself Jewish any more than I consider myself Christian, but looking back, I still regard it with fondness. (Eight days of getting presents will do that to a young boy!)

Years later, it's easier for me to take a broader perspective. As far as the Jewish calendar goes, Hanukkah is actually a fairly minor religious festival. The mythological events that inspired it aren't even in the Bible proper, but in the apocryphal books of Maccabees. I had always assumed that the only reason it's given such prominence by retailers is that its date falls conveniently close to Christmas, making it easy to advertise to two demographic groups at the same time. In this respect, Hanukkah is just collateral damage in the "war on Christmas", another casualty of the religious right's incredibly ironic campaign to demand that retailers use their most sacred holiday to sell things.

This is true as far as it goes. But until recently, I didn't know the whole story: Hanukkah's prominence as a celebration of commercialism was an idea that was invented by Jews, who were trying to raise it up as an alternative to Christmas.

Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History gives a longer version of the story:

In one of the few acts of the early Reforms that created rather than negated ritual, Rabbi Michael Silberstein in 1871 helped lead the progressive Jews to take up the festival of Hanukkah, which became the great holiday of secular Judaism...

His reason for championing the holiday was to stop Jews from celebrating Christmas: "It is a known fact that unfortunately a misuse has arisen in Jewish families, namely, the observance of the Christmas holy day as a day of Jewish sanctity." He told his fellow rabbis to make Hanukkah popular not only in synagogue but "also in the schools," and to "point out to the parents that the festival of Hanukkah should be turned into a family celebration." (p.379)

What a picture this paints: Christmas was proving too alluring for secularized Jewish families, so the rabbis of the Reform movement played up Hanukkah with the intent of creating a holiday of their own to compete! (Whether they succeeded is debatable. As Jon Stewart once said, "To those with kids, let me tell you - Christmas blows the doors off Hanukkah.")

This is nothing new, of course. The Christians did the same thing originally: scheduling the birth of their savior to compete with pagan solstice celebrations. And they've had more success with this strategy than Judaism has - perhaps because Christianity permitted the best parts of the popular pagan festivals to become part of its holiday. It's a lesson in inclusiveness that the religion in its modern form could definitely stand to relearn.