By Richard S. Russell (RSRMadison@aol.com), Atheists and Agnostics of
Wisconsin:

The following is the January message on AAW's Atheist Hotline, 608+233-7239.

*** 3 Commentary on Issues - 1997 Jan. ***

This is Option 3: Commentary on issues of interest to atheists.

1st a brief commercial: The January 12 meeting will feature an address by
Dennis Coyier, who is running for the Monona Grove School Board on a platform
of strict church-state separation. Leave your name and phone number or e-mail
address if you'd like more info about it.

And now this month's message: "There's a Bad Moon A-Risin'".

Did you know that the word "lunacy" is based on the theory that the Moon
(whose Latin name is Luna) has an evil influence on people? We used to think
that this was just another superstition, but recently there's been a new
wrinkle.

The Madison daily papers of Thursday January 9 carried a huge 2-page ad
containing a message from Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The ad - which couldn't have
been cheap - was paid for by the Milwaukee branch of Moon's Unification
Church. It is full of even more bullshit than you usually hear from Xian
fanatics. We can't possibly respond to all the foolishness in the ad in this
short message, but we'll touch on the highlights.

Moon's words, we are told, "are not the concepts of one man's thinking.
Rather they are a direct revelation from Godx.". Oh, sure they are. Reminds
us of a quotation from psychologist Thomas Szasz: "If you talk to God, you
are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."

Moon says that every person is caused by something else and therefore is a
resultant being. Then, on the basis of this evidence - which, to repeat, is
that every being is caused by something else - he concludes that some being
is not caused by something else. Yes, he apparently says this with a straight
face. It's like observing that all crows are black, therefore some crow must
be white.

H. L. Mencken once observed that nobody was ever so obsessed with sex as the
Puritans. But they're going to have to move over. Moon goes on for column
after column about the sexual organs. He is so fixated on sex that you might
have expected him to go into the Catholic priesthood.

"Why do the sexual organs exist?" He asks. "For love", is his answer. Well,
no. They exist for procreation, which was going on for a billion years before
anyone ever thot of love.

You may think that your sexual organs are your own, Moon writes, but they
aren't. This mistaken concept that we each own our own bodies is why the
world is perishing, he thinks. It's not clear what he means by "perishing",
but at last count there were over 6 billion people as a result of using
sexual organs.

But sex isn't the only bodily function Moon obsesses about. Oh, no, he goes
on about sniffing farts and eating snot. Really! Read it for yourself. This
is the guy who claims he's Jesus Christ come 'round again.

Now, all these ideas undoubtedly sound pretty bizarre, but that's largely
because they're unfamiliar. In fact, the groundwork for Moon's particular
brand of lunacy has been laid by a bunch of people whose ideas are equally
ludicrous: mainstream Xians. Their ideas don't seem quite as whacko solely
because they're more familiar.

But come on! Life after death? Who's ever seen it? Nobody! Pure wishful
thinking.

Suppose your mechanic poured water into your crankcase and said "Don't worry,
it'll miraculously change to 10W/40 once it hits your pistons." You think
your minister is any less nutso when he claims that communion wine changes
into the blood of Christ? Yes, they say this, and they claim that they really
mean it.

Or the trinity: 3 *click* 3 *click* 3 deities in 1. Yeah, sure.

We hope you've got more sense than to waste your money on the Moonies. But,
if you stop and think about it, isn't it just as idiotic to throw it away on
any of the other religions?

Your chance to respond coming up after the following beep. Or press "4" to
hear our responses to callers from last month.
