FROM www.alwaysbeready.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=124&Itemid=107

Zeitgeist (a german phrase that means "the spirit of the age") is the name of an online movie that is making quite an unfortunate impact on thousands of undiscerning, history-starved young people around the world. This poorly done, historically inaccurate documentary (for lack of a better word to describe an often times blurry, pixelated film) produced by a man named "Peter J" seeks to persuade its viewers that the authors of the New Testament borrowed the idea of Jesus' virgin birth, disciples, miracles, crucifixion, and resurrection from ancient pagan mystery religions that were around long before the time of Christ. The video even goes so far as to claim that Jesus Himself never even existed.

Below are some helpful quotes, articles and books that offer a scholarly refutation of many of the errors in the first part of the movie (The second and third part of the movie deal with areas outside of the scope of this ministry).

RESURRECTION ACCOUNT STOLEN?

Charlie Campbell says, "Many of the charges put forth in Zeitgeist are based on outdated, disproved ideas that were in circulation at the beginning of the last century. Here is one example. Zeitgeist states that Attis (a Roman deity) was crucified, dead for three days and then resurrected. This is absolutely not true to the mythological account. In the mythological story, Attis was unfaithful to his goddess lover, and in a jealous rage she made him insane. In that insanity, Attis castrated himself and fled into the forest, where he bled to death. As J. Gresham Machen points out, "The myth contains no account of a resurrection; all that Cybele [the Great Mother goddess] is able to obtain is that the body of Attis should be preserved, that his hair should continue to grow, and that his little finger should move." Zeitgeist's claims that Attis was crucified and resurrected are not only inaccurate but very misleading. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The alleged resurrection of Attis isn't even mentioned until after 150 A.D., long after the time of Jesus."

Dr. Norman Geisler writes, "The first real parallel of a dying and rising god does not appear until A.D. 150, more than a hundred years after the origin of Christianity. So if there was any influence of one on the other, it was the influence of the historical event of the New Testament [resurrection] on mythology, not the reverse. The only known account of a god surviving death that predates Christianity is the Egyptian cult god Osiris. In this myth, Osiris is cut into fourteen pieces, scattered around Egypt, then reassembled and brought back to life by the goddess Isis. However, Osiris does not actually come back to physical life but becomes a member of a shadowy underworld...This is far different than Jesus' resurrection account where he was the gloriously risen Prince of life who was seen by others on earth before his ascension into heaven....even if there are myths about dying and rising gods prior to Christianity, that doesn't mean the New Testaments writers copied from them. The fictional TV show Star Trek preceded the U.S. Space Shuttle program, but that doesn't mean that newspaper reports of space shuttle missions are influenced by Star Trek episodes!" (I Don't Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist, 2004, p. 312).

Dr. Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, says, "Parallels between the pagan myths of dying and rising gods and the New Testament accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are now regarded as remote, to say the least...If anyone borrowed any ideas from anyone, it seems it was the gnostics who took up Christian ideas." (Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths, 1993, p. 121).

Charlie Campbell says, "Zeitgeist claims that Mithra, a mythological Persian deity, was dead for three days and then resurrected. I am no scholar on ancient Mithraism, but nowhere in any of the reading I've done on the topic has Mithra's death even been discussed, let alone Zeitgeist's story about three days in a grave and a resurrection. Edwin Yamauchi, a historian and author of the 578 page Persia and the Bible concurs. He says, 'We don't know anything about the death of Mithras' (The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 172)."

Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. J.P. Moreland write, "Not one clear case of any alleged resurrection teaching appears in any pagan text before the late second century A.D., almost one hundred years after the New Testament was written." (Cited by Dan Story in The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending your Faith: A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, 2007, p. 206).

Dr. William Lane Craig, says, "(W)e find almost no trace of cults of dying and rising gods in first century Palestine. Moreover, as Hans Grass observes, it would be "unthinkable" in any case that the original disciples would come sincerely to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead just because they had heard myths about Osiris!" (Dr. William Lane Craig, "Reply to Evan Fales: On the Empty Tomb of Jesus," 2001).

Dr. Ronald Nash, the author of many books including The Meaning of History and The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? writes, "Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis. Attempts to link the worship of Adonis to a resurrection are equally weak. Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger. After Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris's dismembered body, he became "Lord of the Underworld."....And of course no claim can be made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. French scholar Andre Boulanger concludes: "The conception that the god dies and is resurrected in order to lead his faithful to eternal life is represented in no Hellenistic mystery religion." (The Gospel and the Greeks: DId the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought?, p. 161-162)

H. Wayne House writes, "Various mystery religions did exist from early times in Greece; however, it only after the first century A.D. that we begin to have much data on them. It is more likely, therefore, that the mystery religions, observing the success of orthodox Christianity, began to mimic its beliefs and practices, rather than the other way around." (Cited by Dan Story in The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending your Faith: A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, 2007, p. 207).

THREE KINGS STORY STOLEN?

Charlie Campbell says, "The claim in the movie Zeitgeist that Christianity borrowed the idea of "three kings" for its nativity story from ancient religions is ludicrous. The Bible knows nothing of "three kings" showing up after Jesus' birth. Three kings is an idea that occasionally appears on some poorly researched Christmas cards, but not in the Bible. Matthew's gospel simply says, "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem" (Matt. 2:1). The magi were known as wise men, not kings. During the Middle Ages legend did develop that the magi were kings and that they were three in number, but this is purely legend, not something taught in the Scriptures. Zeitgeist's deceptive attack on the credibility of the Gospel accounts only reveals its lack of credibility when it comes to scholarly research."

JESUS NEVER EXISTED?

Charlie Campbell says, "To insist that Jesus Christ is a myth—that He never existed—as the Zeitgeist movie does, is foolish. Beside the twenty seven New Testament documents that verify He lived, there are thirty nine sources outside of the Bible, written within 150 years of Jesus life that mention Him. These sources include the Jewish Talmud, the Roman historian Tacitus, the Didache, Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, the Gnostic gospels (e.g., the gospel of Thomas), etc. These extrabiblical sources reveal to us more than 100 facts about His life, teaching, death and even resurrection. The Encyclopedia Britannica, fifteenth edition, devotes 20,000 words to the person of Jesus Christ and never once hints that He didn't exist. Don't be fooled by the Zeitgeist, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh" (2 John 7)."

DECEMBER 25 DATE STOLEN?

Charlie Campbell says, "Another pitiful criticism put forth in the movie Zeitgeist is that the authors of the New Testament borrowed the December 25th date for Jesus' birth from ancient pagan sources. This is ridiculous. Have the producers of Zeitgeist even read the New Testament? Where in the New Testament do we read of any date associated with the birth of Jesus? Nowhere! We have no idea when Jesus was born. The December 25 date originated long after the Gospels were written. Edwin Yamauchi, an author, professor, first rate historian and authority on the world of the first Christians, says that it was not until about 336 A.D. that the December 25 date became the official date to celebrate Jesus' birth. The sheer absence of any date in the New Testament documents is sufficient enough to overturn Zeigeist's claim; Yamauchi's word on the matter is another nail in the coffin."

VIRGIN BIRTH TEACHING STOLEN?

Daniel B. Wallace writes, "The virgin birth of the pagan god Dionysus is attested only in post-Christian sources...several centuries after Christ." (Reinventing Jesus, p. 242).

Edwin Yamauchi says"There's no evidence of a virgin birth for Dionysus. As the story goes, Zeus, disguised as a human, fell in love with the princess Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, and she became pregnant. Hera, who was Zeus's queen, arranged to have her burned to a crisp, but Zeus rescued the fetus and sewed him into his own thigh until Dionysus was born. So this is not a virgin birth in any sense." (The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 180).

Edwin Yamauchi says, "Despite the claims of obvious and profound parallels between Christianity and Mithraism, when one looks at the evidence an entirely different picture emerges. First, Mithra was not thought of as virgin born in the most ancient myths; rather, he arose spontaneously from a rock in a cave." (Cited in Reinventing Jesus, p. 242). Lee Strobel adds, "Unless the rock is considered a virgin, this parallel with Jesus evaporates." (The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 171).

Charlie Campbell says, "The virgin birth of the Messiah spoken about in Matthew and Luke was not lifted from pagan religions. It was the fulfillment of a prophecy given in the Old Testament book of Isaiah (7:14) six or seven hundred years before Jesus' birth. And many Bible commentators also believe Genesis 3:15 prophesies the virgin birth seeing that the Messiah would be born solely of the woman's seed."

Charlie Campbell says, "The Zeitgeist movie says that Krishna, a supposed incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, was born of a virgin. Edwin Yamauchi says, "That's not accurate. Krishna was born to a mother who already had seven previous sons, as even his folllowers concede." (Quoted by Lee Strobel in The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 182).

JESUS' LIFE STORY STOLEN FROM MITHRA?

Charlie Campbell writes, "Zeitgeist claims that the events surrounding Mithra's life were stolen by the New Testament authors. These claims are not credible. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica concedes that Mithraism (the religion associated with Mithra) could not have influenced the Gospel writers. It states, "There is little notice of the Persian god [Mithra] in the Roman world until the beginning of the 2nd century, but, from the year AD 136 onward, there are hundreds of dedicatory inscriptions to Mithra. This renewal of interest is not easily explained. The most plausible hypothesis seems to be that Roman Mithraism was practically a new creation, wrought by a religious genius who may have lived as late as c. AD 100 and who gave the old traditional Persian ceremonies a new Platonic interpretation that enabled Mithraism to become acceptable to the Roman world" (Article entry: Mithraism 2004 edition). The four Gospels were done well before the close of the first century. If Mithraism wasn't even known in the Roman world in the first century, as the Encyclopedia Britannica says, then it is misguided to suggest that teachings regarding Mithra influenced the Gospel writers."

The apostle Peter wrote, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain" (2 Peter 1:16-18).

CRUCIFIXION BORROWED?

Edwin Yamauchi says, "All of these myths are repetitive, symbolic representations of the death and rebirth of vegetation. These are not historical figures, and none of their deaths were intended to provide salvation. In the case of Jesus, even non-Christian authorities, like Josephus and Tacitus, report that he died under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. The reports of his resurrection are quite early and are rooted in eyewitness accounts. They have the ring of reality, not the ethereal qualities of myth." (Quoted by Lee Strobel in The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 178).

A SUMMARY OF SEVEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHRISTIAN DEPENDENCE ON MYSTERY RELIGIONS BY RON NASH:

(1) Arguments offered to "prove" a Christian dependence on the mysteries illustrate the logical fallacy of false cause. This fallacy is committed whenever someone reasons that just because two things exist side by side, one of them must have caused the other. As we all should know, mere coincidence does not prove causal connection. Nor does similarity prove dependence.

(2) Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in language they borrow from Christianity. The careless use of language could lead one to speak of a "Last Supper" in Mithraism or a "baptism" in the cult of Isis. It is inexcusable nonsense to take the word "savior" with all of its New Testament connotations and apply it to Osiris or Attis as though they were savior-gods in any similar sense.

(3) The chronology is all wrong. Almost all of our sources of information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers quoting from documents written 300 years later than Paul in efforts to produce ideas that allegedly influenced Paul. We must reject the assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it therefore had the same belief or practice in the first century.

(4) Paul would never have consciously borrowed from the pagan religions. All of our information about him makes it highly unlikely that he was in any sense influenced by pagan sources. He placed great emphasis on his early training in a strict form of Judaism (Phil. 3:5). He warned the Colossians against the very sort of influence that advocates of Christian syncretism have attributed to him, namely, letting their minds be captured by alien speculations (Col. 2:8).

(5) Early Christianity was an exclusivistic faith. As J. Machen explains, the mystery cults were nonexclusive. "A man could become initiated into the mysteries of Isis or Mithras without at all giving up his former beliefs; but if he were to be received into the Church, according to the preaching of Paul, he must forsake all other Saviors for the Lord Jesus Christ....Amid the prevailing syncretism of the Greco-Roman world, the religion of Paul, with the religion of Israel, stands absolutely alone."[21] This Christian exclusivism should be a starting point for all reflection about the possible relations between Christianity and its pagan competitors. Any hint of syncretism in the New Testament would have caused immediate controversy.

(6) Unlike the mysteries, the religion of Paul was grounded on events that actually happened in history. The mysticism of the mystery cults was essentially nonhistorical. Their myths were dramas, or pictures, of what the initiate went through, not real historical events, as Paul regarded Christ's death and resurrection to be. The Christian affirmation that the death and resurrection of Christ happened to a historical person at a particular time and place has absolutely no parallel in any pagan mystery religion.

(7) What few parallels may still remain may reflect a Christian influence on the pagan systems. As Bruce Metzger has argued, "It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction."[22] It should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the Roman emperor from A.D. 361 to 363. (Excerpted from his article "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions" that first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, Winter, 1994).

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS QUOTES:

Dr. Ronald Nash says, "It is not until we come to the third century A.D. that we find sufficient source material (i.e., information about the mystery religions from the writings of the time) to permit a relatively complete reconstruction of their content. Far too many writers use this late source material (after A.D. 200) to form reconstructions of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of the cults. This practice is exceptionally bad scholarship and should not be allowed to stand without challenge. Information about a cult that comes several hundred years after the close of the New Testament canon must not be read back into what is presumed to be the status of the cult during the first century A.D. The crucial question is not what possible influence the mysteries may have had on segments of Christendom after A.D. 400, but what effect the emerging mysteries may have had on the New Testament in the first century." (Article "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions")

Dr. Ronald Nash says, "Many Christian college students have encountered criticisms of Christianity based on claims that early Christianity and the New Testament borrowed important beliefs and practices from a number of pagan mystery religions. Since these claims undermine such central Christian doctrines as Christ's death and resurrection, the charges are serious. But the evidence for such claims, when it even exists, often lies in sources several centuries older than the New Testament. Moreover, the alleged parallels often result from liberal scholars uncritically describing pagan beliefs and practices in Christian language and then marveling at the striking parallels they think they've discovered." (Article "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions")

ARTICLES:

"Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions" by Ronald Nash

"Christianity, the Resurrection of Christ and the Mystery Religions" Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon

"Was Christianity Borrowed from Mithraism?" by Dr. Norman Geisler

"Paul and the Mystery Religions" by Don Closson

"A Summary Critique: The Mythological Jesus Mysteries" by H. Wayne House

"Ancient Non-Christian Sources for the Life of Christ" by Gary Habermas

AUDIO:

"I know what the risks are, and I know that putting myself in this situation is like putting a gun to my head," he says. Some of that mountain music that's so popular is playing, making the moment even more surreal as a Southern voice sings, "Keep on the sunny side of life" behind Carlos. "But I think it turns the other guy on to know that I'm negative and that they're bringing me into the brotherhood. That gets me off, too."

I met Carlos in New York's Greenwich Village, the neighborhood where he usually hangs out. He is tall, with a large build, and plenty of gay men find him attractive. His longish, curly-wavy hair is jet-black with golden highlights, and his face is soft and just a bit feminine. He has a very appealing smile and laugh, and he's a funny guy sometimes. The conversation veers from the banal -- his fascination with the reality show The Amazing Race -- to his desire for HIV. Carlos' tone never changes when switching from one topic to the other.

When asked whether he is prepared to live with HIV after that "erotic" moment, Carlos dismisses living with HIV as a minor annoyance. Like most bug chasers, he has the impression that the virus just isn't such a big deal anymore: "It's like living with diabetes. You take a few pills and get on with your life." Carlos spends the afternoon continually calling a man named Richard, someone he met on the Internet. They met on barebackcity.com about a year ago, while Carlos was still with his boyfriend. That boyfriend left because Carlos was having sex with other men and because he was interested in barebacking -- the practice of having sex without a condom. Carlos and Richard are arranging a "date" for later that day.

Carlos is part of an intricate underground world that has sprouted, driven almost completely by the Internet, in which men who want to be infected with HIV get together with those who are willing to infect them. The men who want the virus are called "bug chasers," and the men who freely give the virus to them are called "gift givers." While the rest of the world fights the AIDS epidemic and most people fear HIV infection, this subculture celebrates the virus and eroticizes it. HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold. Carlos has been chasing the bug for more than a year in a topsy-turvy world in which every convention about HIV is turned upside down. The virus isn't horrible and fearsome, it's beautiful and sexy -- and delivered in the way that is most likely to result in infection. In this world, the men with HIV are the most desired, and the bug chasers will do anything to get the virus -- to "get knocked up," to be "bred" or "initiated into the brotherhood."

Like a lot of sexual fetishes and extreme behaviors, bug chasing could not exist without the Internet, or at least it couldn't thrive. Prior to the advent of Web surfing and e-mail, it would have been practically impossible for bug chasing to happen in any great numbers, because it's still not acceptable to walk up to a stranger and say you want the virus. But the Internet's anonymity and broad access make it possible to find someone with like interests, no matter how outlandish. Carlos surfs online about twenty hours a week looking for men to have sex with, usually frequenting sites such as bareback.com and barebackcity.com, plus a number of Internet discussion groups. Most of the Web sites use the pretense that they actually are about barebacking, which is in itself risky and controversial but still a long way from bug chasing. For the Web sites, that distinction is at best razor-thin and more often just an outright lie. "We got Poz4Poz, Neg4Neg and bug chasers looking to join the club," the welcome page to barebackcity.com, which claims 48,000 registered users, up from 28,000 about a year ago, recently said. "Be the first to seed a newbie and give him a pozitive attitude!"

Within this online community, bug chasers revel in their desires, using their own lingo about "poz" and "neg" men, "bug juice" and "conversion" from negative to positive. User profiles include names such as BugChaser21, Knockmeup, BugMeSoon, ConvertMeSir, PozCum4NegHole and GiftGiver. The posters are upfront about seeking HIV, even extremely enthusiastic, possibly because the Web sites are about the only place a bug seeker can really express his desires openly. Under turn-ons, a poster called PozMeChgo craves a "hot poz load deep in me. I really want to be converted!! Breed me/seed me!" Carlos' profile on one Web site lists his screen name as ConvertMe, and he says he wants a man "to fill me up with that poison seed." His AOL Instant Messenger name is Bug Juice Wanted.

It's not uncommon to see people post replies to the profiles encouraging the men to seek HIV. One such comment reads, "This guy knows what he wants!! I would love to plant my seeds :)) Come and join the club. The more we are, the stronger we are." A Yahoo! spokeswoman confirms that the company shuts down such sites when it receives notice that the subscribers are promoting HIV infection or any other kind of harm to one another, but the company doesn't go looking for bug chasers in its thousands of discussion groups, most established by subscribers themselves. Recently, it was easy to find two discussion groups on Yahoo! that promoted bug chasing, one called barebackover50 and one called gayextremebareback. The first discussion group was established in 1998 and had 1,439 members at the end of 2002. Yahoo! closed the group after Rolling Stone inquired about it.

Condoms and safe sex are openly ridiculed on bug-chasing Web sites, with many bug chasers rebelling against what they see as the dogma of safe-sex education; constantly thinking about a deadly disease takes all the fun out of sex, they say, and condoms suck. Carlos agrees and says getting HIV will make safe sex a moot point. "It's about freedom," he says. "What else can happen to us after this? You can fuck whoever you want, fuck as much as you want, and nothing worse can happen to you. Nothing bad can happen after you get HIV."

For some, the chase is a pragmatic move. They see HIV infection as inevitable because of their unsafe sex or needle sharing, so they decide to take control of the situation and infect themselves. It's empowering. They're no longer victims waiting to be infected; rather they are in charge of their own fates. For others, deliberately infecting themselves is the ultimate taboo, the most extreme sex act left on the planet, and that has a strong erotic appeal for some men who have tried everything else. Still others feel lost and without any community to embrace them, and they see those living with HIV as a cohesive group that welcomes its new members and receives vast support from the rest of the gay community, and from society as a whole. Bug chasers want to be a part of that club. Some want HIV because they think once they have it they can go on with a wild, uninhibited sex life without constant fears of the virus. Getting the bug opens the door to sexual nirvana, they say. Others can't stand the thought of being so unlike their HIV-positive lover.

For Carlos, bug chasing is mostly about the excitement of doing something that everyone else sees as crazy and wrong. Keeping this part of his life secret is part of the turn-on for Carlos, which is not his real name. That forbidden aspect makes HIV infection incredibly exciting for him, so much so that he now seeks out sex exclusively with HIV-positive men. "This is something that no one knows about me," Carlos says. "It's mine. It's my dirty little secret." He compares bug chasing to the thrill that you get by screwing your boyfriend in your parents' house, or having sex on your boss' desk. You're not supposed to do it, and that's exactly what makes it so much fun, he says, laughing.

Carlos carries another secret that he says heightens the thrill of pursuing HIV. Sometimes he volunteers in the offices of Gay Men's Health Crisis, the pre-eminent HIV-prevention and AIDS-activist organization in New York. And about once a month, he does outreach volunteering in which he goes to clubs to hand out condoms and educate men about safe sex.

Carlos should meet Doug Hitzel, but he probably never will. A year ago they might have been online buddies, both sharing a passion for HIV that few others understood. Now Hitzel understands all too clearly what bug chasing can do to a young man's life, but it's too late for him. After six months of bug chasing, Hitzel succeeded in getting the virus. He's now a twenty-one-year-old freshman at a Midwestern university, so wholesome-looking you'd think he just walked out of a cornfield.

Hitzel's experience started when he moved from his home in Nebraska to San Francisco with his boyfriend. When that relationship broke up, Hitzel was at the lowest point in his life, and alone. He sought relief in drugs and sex, as much of each as he could get. At first, he started out just not caring whether he got HIV or not, then he found the bug-chasing underground and embraced it. He was sure he'd get HIV soon anyway. He thought he would always feel exactly like he did then; he was certain that ten, twenty, thirty years later he'd still be partying every night. It lasted only six months -- then Hitzel got sick with awful flulike symptoms and lost a lot of weight. A doctor's visit cleared him of hepatitis and other possible problems, but the clinic sent him home with an HIV test he could do himself. Hitzel waited before doing the test and decided to go home to Nebraska, to give up the bug chasing and the rest of the life that was killing him. Once he got home, he did the test and found out he was positive. He now wakes up each day with a terrible frustration that's just below the surface of his once sunny demeanor. He hates the medication he has to take every day, and he realizes that HIV affects nearly every part of his life. While he was bug chasing, Hitzel couldn't imagine ever wanting to be in a relationship again. But now that he's getting his life back in order, he realizes that being HIV-positive can be a roadblock to new relationships.

"Whenever I have to deal with things like medication, days when I'm really down," Hitzel says, "I have to look myself in the mirror and say, 'You did this. Are you happy now?' That's the one line that goes through my head: 'Are you happy now?' " He says it with a snarl, full of anger. "Some days I feel really angry and guilty. I'm pretty much adjusted to the fact that this is my life, but about forty percent of the time I look at myself and say, 'Look what you've done. Happy now?' "

Looking back on it, Hitzel says he was committing suicide by chasing HIV, killing himself slowly because he didn't have the nerve to do it quickly. Hitzel is ashamed and embarrassed that he actually sought HIV, but he's willing to tell his story because he hopes to dissuade others who are on the same path. He gets angry when he hears bug chasers talking in the same ways he talked a year earlier. The mention of "bug chasing" and "gift giving" sets him off.

" 'Bug chasing' sounds like a group of kindergartners running around chasing grasshoppers and butterflies," Hitzel says, "a beautiful thing. And gift giving? What the hell is that? I just wish the terms would actually put some real context into what's going on. Why did I not want to say that I was deliberately infecting myself? Because saying the word infect sounds bad and gross and germy. I wanted it to be sexualized." He's particularly angered by the idea of HIV being erotic: "How about you follow me after I start new medications and you watch me throw up for a few weeks? Tell me how erotic that is."

Though he's older, Carlos lives a life that has a lot in common with Hitzel's in San Francisco. Carlos estimates that he has had several hundred sex partners throughout his life, and he routinely hooks up with three or four guys a week, all of them HIV-positive or at least uncertain about their status.

That's a common trait among bug chasers, says Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County and past president of both the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists. Cabaj (pronounced suh-bye) calls bug chasing "a real phenomenon." Some bug chasers are more likely to have a defeatist attitude, to think they'll eventually get HIV anyway, whereas others are more likely to add the element of eroticizing HIV, Cabaj says: "For kids who have had a really hard time fitting in or being accepted, this becomes like a fraternity."

As a public official, Cabaj is familiar with how the topic makes people uncomfortable. Most AIDS activists prefer to deny that the problem exists to any significant extent, he says: "They don't want to address that this is a real ongoing issue."

When I asked about bug chasing, leaders of groups such as Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Stop AIDS Project, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation weren't interested in providing much education or increasing public awareness. To the contrary, most were dismissive of the issue and some actively dissuaded me from writing the article at all. A spokeswoman for the Stop AIDS Project, Shana Krochmal, characterized bug chasing as "relatively minor acting-out" and aggressively encouraged me to drop the article idea altogether, saying the issue is "not big enough to warrant a trend story." Krochmal cautioned against focusing on "just a bunch of really vocal guys who want to continue this image of being reckless, hedonistic gay men who will do anything to get laid. I think that does a disservice to the community at large." The San Francisco AIDS Foundation labeled the issue "sensational" and would not provide further comment. GLAAD spokeswoman Cathy Renna was more helpful, saying she had heard enough about bug chasing to be concerned, emphasizing that her group's focus would be whether people use bug chasing as an easy way to disparage all gays and lesbians as sex-crazed and reckless. "The vast majority of the gay community would be just as surprised and appalled by this as anyone else," she says.

At GMHC, where Carlos is one of more than 7,000 volunteers, spokesman Marty Algaze calls bug chasing "one of those very underground subcultures or fetishes that seems to have sprung up in recent years." The assistant director of community education at GMHC, Daniel Castellanos, acknowledges that bug chasing exists but claims there's not much need to discuss it because it involves such a small population. But would he try to talk a bug chaser out of trying to get HIV? "If someone comes to me and says he wants to get HIV, I might work with him around why he wants to do it," he says. "But if in the end that's a decision he wants to make, there's a point where we have to respect people's decisions."

Cabaj, the San Francisco psychiatrist, says those arguments sound familiar. Then, without being asked, he adds, "But I don't know if it's an active cover-up." He pauses for a moment, then continues, "Yeah, it's an active cover-up, because they know about it. They're in denial of this issue. This is a difficult issue that dredges up some images about gay men that they don't want to have to deal with. They don't want to shine a light on this topic because they don't want people to even know that this behavior exists."

Public-health officials also tend to dismiss the bug-chasing phenomenon, he adds, assuming that it is just an aberration practiced by a few, nothing more than a curiosity. Cabaj adamantly disagrees, though he admits numbers are very hard to come by. Some men consciously seek the virus, openly declaring themselves bug chasers, he says, while many more are just as actively seeking HIV but are in denial and wouldn't call themselves bug chasers. Cabaj estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into that category.

With about 40,000 new infections in the United States per year, according to government reports, that would mean around 10,000 each year are attributable to that more liberal definition of bug chasing. Doug Hitzel says he fits that description. Though he now says he was a bug chaser for six months, he explains that he would not have admitted it to anyone outside the subculture, and he sometimes even lied to himself about what he was doing. Even if you consider only the number of self-proclaimed bug chasers and not the overall group of men seeking HIV, Cabaj still sees cause for concern because of the way one bug chaser's quest can spread the virus far beyond his own life. "It may be a small number of actual people, but they may be disproportionately involved in continuing the spread of HIV," he says. "That's a major issue when you're talking about how to control the spread of a virus. A small percentage could be responsible for continuing the infection. The clinical impact is profound, no matter how small the numbers."

The problem is not restricted to any one community. Cabaj's counterpart in Boston reports a similar experience with bug chasers. Dr. Marshall Forstein is medical director of mental health and addiction services at Fenway Community Health, an arm of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center that specializes in care for gay and lesbian patients. Forstein is on the medical-school faculty in psychiatry at Harvard University and chaired the American Psychiatric Association's Commission on AIDS for eleven years. He says bug chasers are seen regularly in the Fenway health system, and the phenomenon is growing. He adds that bug chasers can be found in any major city, though officials might be reluctant to discuss the issue either because it is unseemly or because it has escaped their notice. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Health confirms that bug chasers are known in its health system. Public-health officials in New York refused multiple requests for comment.

One standout in public-health circles is the Miami-Dade County Health Department in Florida, which is taking steps specifically to address bug chasing. Evelyn Ullah, director of its office of HIV/AIDS, readily admits that bug chasing is "a definite problem" in the Miami area, having become more common and more visible in the past few years. Miami health officials regularly monitor Internet sites for bug chasing in their community, and they keep track of "conversion parties," in which the goal is to have positive men infect negative men. The health department also is launching new outreach efforts that include going online to chat with bug chasers and others pursuing risky sex.

Cabaj and Forstein stress that more should be done, particularly on a national level. For starters, federal health officials will have to familiarize themselves with the problem. Dr. Robert Janssen, director of the division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, says he has never seen the Web sites that promote bug chasing and does not know of any organized efforts to spread the virus. There is virtually no research on people who intentionally seek HIV, he says, but he notes that several studies have shown a growing complacency among gay men and the population in general about the risk of HIV and a misconception that HIV infection is completely manageable. Ongoing outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea (which Carlos recently had) in large cities indicate a tendency to forgo condom use, he says. Recent data from the CDC show that syphilis rates among men in the United States rose 15.4 percent between 2000 and 2001, which the researchers attribute to outbreaks among gay and bisexual men in several U.S. cities. Janssen says the CDC has not addressed bug chasing in any way but might if researchers determine that it is a significant method of spreading the virus. "I'm interested that you're saying there's that much out there on the Web and that it's easy to find," Janssen says. "If we can confirm that it's happening to any real degree beyond just an anecdote here and there, we may need to address it."

What frustrates health-care professionals the most, Forstein says, is that "gay men who are doing this haven't a clue what they're doing," he says. "They're incredibly selfish and self-absorbed. They don't have any idea what's going on with the epidemic in terms of the world or society or what impact their actions might have. The sense of being my brother's keeper is never discussed in the gay community because we've gone to the extreme of saying gay men with HIV can do no wrong. They're poor victims, and we can't ever criticize them."

Furthering the epidemic doesn't bother Carlos. Bug chasing requires a great deal of self-delusion, and he easily acknowledges the contradictions in what he's doing. He notes that while he seeks HIV, he doesn't eat junk food or smoke, and that he drinks only socially. "I take care of myself," he says proudly. He also notes the hypocrisy in his doing volunteer work at GMHC, in which he tells other men to use condoms and practice safe sex, while he's hunting for partners for his secret hobby. The conflict doesn't bother him in the least.

Forstein says that attitude is disastrous for gay men. "We're killing each other," he says. "It's no longer just the Matthew Shepards that are dying at the hands of others. We're killing each other. We have to take responsibility for this as a community."

After several phone calls to work out a time, Carlos is ready to go see Richard. He's had sex with Richard about thirty times in the past year. "Knowing he's positive just makes it more fun for me," he says. "It's erotic that someone is breeding me." Richard is in the entertainment business, in his mid- to late forties.

"Lots of guys want to know who breeds them," Carlos continues. "When I have sex, I like to always make it special, a really good time, something nice and memorable in case that is the one that gives it to me."

Carlos offers, not for the first time, to have me come along and watch him and Richard have sex, but I decline. In the taxi to Richard's place, the conversation falls silent. He hasn't been tested in a couple of years, and he's reluctant to get a test now. He might very well be positive already. But as long as he doesn't know for sure, he can always hope that tonight is the night he gets the virus. Every date is potentially The One. Stepping out of the cab into the rain, I ask what he will do if he finds out one day that he has succeeded in being infected -- ending the fun of being a bug chaser. He stops, then says he might move on to being a gift giver: "If I know that he's negative and I'm fucking him, it sort of gets me off. I'm murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that's sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me."

Ron Paul has long worked with the Libertarian Party, and spoke at it's 2004 national convention, and he has never repudiated that party, even though the Libertarian Party is:
Pro-legalized abortion
Pro-legalized euthanasia (killing of handicapped and sick people, etc.)
Pro-legalized homosexuality
Pro-legalized pornography
Pro-legalizing drugs
Pro-legalizing suicide
Pro-legalizing prostitution
Etc.

Libertarians are immoral, godless quasi-conservatives who therefore have no compass for righteousness in law.

And the above list is far more of a threat to America than is al Qaeda, for this platform is a prescription for how to destroy us from within. Yet Ron Paul does not understand these simple matters of right and wrong and governance.

The October 26 "Friday Five" Citizen interview with Eduardo Verastegui included his brush with abortion and his save:

Q: You visited an abortion clinic as part of your research for your part in Bella. Tell me about that.

A: This is the biggest, hardest role I've done in my life, and on top of that I was producing as well.

I ended up going to an abortion clinic because I wanted to do research - to understand my character and understand the pain she was going through so I could help her. I thought it would be very simple and easy - just get in there, stop the first young lady and ask her a few questions. Of course, I was very naive and I didn't know what was going to happen.

When I got there, I was in shock because I saw all young ladies - 16, 17 years old - going in, and I forgot about the film and I didn't know what to say.

I see a group of people outside trying to convince a lady not to do it. A lady in that group pointed me to a couple who didn't speak English, only Spanish. The couple recognizes me from the soap operas, and we start talking for like 45 minutes and became friends. We talked about life and faith and Mexico and her dreams. And she missed her appointment.

I called her the next day and said, "Listen, I don't believe in coincidences; I was there for a reason." So we built a friendship through the phone.

Months later I receive a call from a man who was there that day and he tells me he has great news: his baby was born yesterday, and he wanted to ask me permission to name him Eduardo.

I couldn't even talk. I just started crying.

I didn't plan to do that, but I was used by the grace of God as an instrument to save this beautiful baby. Even if Bella doesn't sell one ticket, I rejoice in the Lord for little Eduardo.

Time Magazine's recent cover story explains why they believe the bible should be taught in public schools.

And now I'm going to explain why this is a horrible, misguided idea!

I will admit here at the beginning that I have not yet read the article. I don't need to. The article's content is irrelevant. I know from the title of the article alone that what is being proposed in the article is completely wrong.

Here's why.

1. The education and raising of children is not a responsibility or function of the government
   
   
2. The public school system is rotten at its core and unfixable
   
   
3. The teachers in the public school system are largely NOT members of the Body of Christ and are not able to be trusted to accurately teach our children any subject, much less the subject of God's word
   

ABORTION INCREASES BREAST CANCER RISK

GET MUCH MORE DETAILED INFO AND RESULTS
OF DOZENS OF STUDIES ON THE ABC LINK HERE
 
WWW.ABORTIONBREASTCANCER.COM

Dr. Lanfranchi declared under oath in a California lawsuit that "Over the past three or four years, I have spoken with many authorities and people in a position to be well-informed. Some have been straightforward and said that they know it is a risk factor but felt it was 'too political' to speak about." She explained that she'd discussed the research with many physicians and encouraged them to get reproductive histories from their patients. Among those who have, they've "found as I did that ... cases of breast cancer in young women are associated with an abortion history." [[Agnes Bernardo, Pamela Colip, and Saundra Duffy-Hawkins v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties; Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Diego, August 15, 2001]

Thomas Stuttaford, M.D., an abortion supporter and a medical columnist for the London Times, authored an article entitled, "Fresh Line of Attack," on May 17, 2001 in which he wrote that: "Breast cancer is diagnosed in 33,000 women in the U.K. each year; of these, an unusually high proportion had an abortion before eventually starting a family. Such women are up to four times more likely to develop breast cancer." He added that, "A report by the Royal Statistical Society shows that a termination of pregnancy interrupts the cellular changes that occur in the breast during pregnancy. Once the woman has had children, the effect is less because the cellular changes have been completed...." (emphasis added)

Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., author of the book, Breast Cancer: Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill, wrote that,  

"A woman's breast is especially sensitive to carcinogenic (i.e., cancer producing) influences before she delivers her first child. When a woman becomes pregnant, a number of hormone levels increase dramatically in her body. Three especially notable ones are estradiol, progesterone (i.e. the female sexual hormones), and hCG (human Chorionic Gonadotropin). All of these hormones, especially the latter, serve to stimulate immature breast cells to mature into fully differentiated cells. If this process is artificially interrupted by way of an induced abortion, the hormone levels drop suddenly and dramatically, thereby suspending the natural process of maturation of many of the woman's breast cells. This is referred to as a 'hormonal blow' by researchers. These cells are now 'vulnerable' to carcinogens because they started the maturation process but were never able to complete it. (Cells that have fully matured are less vulnerable to carcinogens than cells that are in the process of maturation)." [One More Soul, Dayton, Ohio (2000) p. 21] 

Charles B. Simone, M.D., author of, Breast Health: What You Need to Know, is Clinical Director at the Simone Protective Cancer Institute in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He is a medical oncologist, radiation oncologist and immunologist. He wrote that: 

"When conception occurs, hormonal changes influence the breast. The milk duct network grows quickly to form other networks that will ultimately produce milk.  During this period of tremendous growth and development, breast cells are undergoing great change and are immature or 'undifferentiated'; hence, they are more susceptible to carcinogens. But when a first full term pregnancy is completed, hormonal changes occur that permanently alter the breast network to greatly reduce the risk of outside carcinogen influence. When a termination occurs in the first trimester, there are no protective effects, and many of the rapidly dividing cells of the breast are left in transitional states....It is in these transitional states of high proliferation and undifferentiation that these cells can undergo transformation to cancer cells." [Charles B. Simone, M.D., M.M.S., Breast Health: What You Need to Know, Avery Pub. Group, Garden City Park, N.Y.  1995 (p. 147) ISBN  0895296608] 

John R. Lee, M.D., David Zava, Ph.D. and Virginia Hopkins, authored the book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer. They reported that more and more studies are finding that abortion increases breast cancer risk and suggested that this is providing support for elevated risk independent of the effect of postponing a FFTP. He and his co-authors wrote the following statement about abortion as a risk factor for the disease: 

"As you've probably noticed throughout this book our message is that estrogen is the smoking gun when it comes to breast cancer.  Granted, it's not estrogen per se but rather unbalanced estrogens, synthetic forms of estrogen, and estrogens forced down harmful biochemical pathways that do the damage, but there is no doubt that it's the primary culprit in this disease." (page 216) 

"Only the first full-term pregnancy conveys (breast cancer) protection. Interrupted pregnancy (miscarriages and abortions) do not afford protection, and research is accumulating that they can actually increase the risk of breast cancer. This may be because the tissue begins to differentiate (mature into cancer-resistant cells) and then is stopped part way through the process."  (emphasis added) [Warner Books (2002) p. 30-31]