The Chris Moeller Archives

Ancient religions today

Female, African-American, Jewish, Muslim, or gay, there is no more underrepresented constituency in this country than atheists. Only one member of Congress, California Rep. Pete Stark, has said publicly that he doesn't believe in a supreme being, yet an estimated 30 million Americans, roughly 10 percent, describe themselves as nonbelievers. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll two years ago, 53% of Americans said they would not consider voting for a presidential candidate that was an atheist. Homosexuals, the oft-divorced, women, Jews, Mormons, and Catholics all fared better than that in the survey.

In Iowa this week, Governor Chet Culver, who claims the political support of many progressives in the state, is running publicly against atheism now in his bid for re-election next year. He saw the need today to comment on a decision by the head of advertising for the Des Moines city bus system to remove advertisements placed on buses by an organization called Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. The text of the ads read: "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Culver offered this statement to reporters: "I was disturbed, personally, by the advertisement and I can understand why other Iowans were also disturbed by the message it sent."

Someone's going to have to explain to me what makes this ad so offensive or "disturbing." The message it's sending is clear: There's a support group out there for people who don't believe in God. You don't have to join a church to find emotional comfort and support in the company of others. That's a pretty dangerous idea in this country, I guess. I'd like to personally thank the transit authority's advertising director for having my tax dollars wasted on legal fees as the city will no doubt now be sued-- and rightly so-- for violating the free speech rights of this organization and its members.

If you're religious, pray tonight that your deity of choice protects us from his or her insecure followers, and that Governor Haircut grows a pair at some point during his political career, ceasing his inveterate pandering.

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The most interesting story online today concerning sacrificial virgins is this one from Salon about the ancient city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis. I had occasion six years ago to spend an afternoon exploring (in a very un-scientific capacity) a few of the roughly 80 burial mounds that still remain of this great civilization of the Mississippi Valley and the 12th Century. The residents of this long-ago time and place clearly engaged themselves in fantastic ritualistic killings and human sacrifice, maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes and the Gulf Coast, and boasted a solid baseball team starring Jamie Moyer. Its estimated population of 20,000 would not be matched again in North America until it was surpassed by Philadelphia more than 600 years later.

I'll leave it to author/archaeologist Timothy Pauketat and his Salon reviewer Andrew O'Hehir to give you the deeper details in the link above, except to reveal that my two favorite moments in Cahokia's history are when the ruling family ordered kingly (Michael Jackson-like?) burials to a set of twin brothers, who may have been thought to be supernatural because of their monozygotic properties; and then much later, in the 1960s, when a homeowner in a suburban tract housing development, according to O'Hehir's review, "dug an in-ground swimming pool into the ancient city's central ceremonial plaza."

Check out this book, "Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi," and if you're ever in St. Louis, head on out to this World Heritage Site located just off Route 40. It's the most fun you can have on six square miles of man-made earthen mounds.

posted by CM @ 10:30 AM