“If this article doesn’t blow open a few doors of perception, I don’t know what will,” Dorothy M. Murdock trumpeted on her Facebook page discussing her new article, “New Research Exposes Hidden Relationship Between Jesus and John the Baptist.” 

Ms. Murdock, who writes as D.M. Murdock or under the Hindu-inspired name “Acharya S,” gave her recent article a tantalizing headline.  Murdock unveiled that the hidden relationship between Jesus and John was a “solar alliance” similar to the Egyptian gods Osiris and Anubis – in that they are simply “presiding dignitaries of the solstices.”

Murdock has been working hard to destroy Christianity since 1999 when she published her first book, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold.  Her opinions have been featured in the movie Zeitgeist and Bill Maher’s Religulous.  She is a proponent of the Christ Myth theory, which is a faux scholarly term for saying “Jesus didn’t exist because [fill in the blank].”  Not leaving any faith unchallenged, Murdock gave the Jewish religion a good debunking in her book, Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver.  Lest anyone feel left out, she also authored Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled.  What I can’t get my head around is why someone would dedicate her life to debunking every religion in the world.  I can’t think of a more hurtful, cynical way to spend one’s time.

Posting a link to a YouTube video titled “Massive Decline in Religion Globally,” Murdock commented thus:

After decades of constant and hard work, in the face of an endless stream of abuse from believers and nonbelievers alike, I'd like to think that some of this "awakening" is attributable to my efforts.

The word “myth” appears in everything Murdock’s written because her goal seems to be to convince everyone of faith that they’ve been brainwashed into a belief that began thousands of years ago when patient zero molded his first golden phallus.  Like her friend Bill Maher, her one redeeming quality is her criticism of Islam.  I’m not sure how seriously I’m supposed to take either of them when they’ve both spent the better part of their creative processes assailing the “religionist insanity” of Christianity.  (Bill Maher mildly mocked Judaism in his movie “Religulous,” but he claims it is not “as dangerous as Christianity and Islam…the warlike religions.”)

What bothered me most about Murdock’s latest article concerning Jesus and John the Baptist was that it appeared on the main Yahoo page as if it were a real news story.  Granted, many of Yahoo’s news stories are celebrity gossip concerning Kate Middleton or the Kardashians, but they also aggregate news from all over the web with links to the Associated Press, ABC News, and Reuters.  In Murdock’s case, her headline on Yahoo appeared as a link to Examiner.com – a media company that distributes citizen journalism.  (In all fairness, the next day Yahoo had an Examiner link to an article written by a woman in Norfolk, VA titled, “The Second Coming of Christ; Are We Prepared?”)

In truth, the contents behind this news headline contained no scientific research to break to the world, no unearthed antiquities or barefoot shepherds stumbling across scrolls in a cave.  There was only Murdock having various epiphanies as she sifted through her classical studies textbooks. 

The idea that everything we hold dear is sprung from pagan roots is a drumbeat that has tirelessly pounded in our ears for far too long.  So here’s a message Murdock and her ideological contemporaries should take to heart: stop trying to destroy faith.  You believe that the greatest evils thrust upon mankind have come from religion, yet the godless ideology of Communism killed 100 million people, and that may be a conservative estimate.  This does not include rapes, torture, famines and countless other suffering inflicted during a total absence of “religionist insanity.”

Faith gives people hope, and without hope there is no reason for living, no impetus to go on.  If we want to pray for our sick, find comfort after a death, or grab God’s skyhook as our world spins insanely out of control…who are you to ridicule that?  Who are you to go on a personal crusade in an effort to destroy that?

In such hopeless thinking, one can argue that if life is indeed as meaningless and short as a mayfly, perhaps it would be better to spend your time inspiring people to hold on to a good and just and loving concept of the Divine.  A Gallup Poll showed that “very religious Americans live healthier lives,” even as a Harris Poll revealed that faith in America is declining.  So one could conclude – scientifically, as the freethinkers, atheists, and secular humanists would prefer -- that in addition to all the other problems assailing us, we will be living less happy, less healthy lives when we finally come to the realization that our God doesn’t exist.

The last time I looked, there were no freethinkers, atheists, secular humanists, or skeptic societies organizing free food and clothing giveaways for the poor in my city.  When I needed food, the Catholics sustained me.  When I needed a winter coat and boots, the Protestants kept me warm.  Every time I feel like life is too hard and I can’t go on, I fall to my knees, and God miraculously lifts me up again.

I can find no redeeming quality, kindness, or service to mankind in Murdock, and others like her, spending every waking minute trying to convince people that God is a fairy tale.  I can only find a disturbing contempt for mankind.

Susan D. Harris can be reached at http://susandharris.com.