Markos C. A. Moulitsas Zúñiga Denounced Religion, Believers and the Bible in College Essay

DailyKos poll shows that a vast majority of participants do not believe in God.

The following is the college essay, "Religion-It's Just Not for Me", that Markos C. A. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) published in his college newspaper, the Nothern Star, at Northern Illinois University, on Monday, October 4, 1993, in which he denounces religion, believers in religion, God and the Bible.

This article is important because it shows that if MAMZ were allowed to select candidates for the Democratic Party, he would select atheists, whom polls show are the least regarded group in America, reviled even more than communists and felons.  MAMZ has a right to his atheism, but it would be disastrous to allow him to impose it upon the Democratic Party, as the following essay by him clearly shows:

It seems like one doesn't have to look very far or wait too long here at NIU before he or she runs into a white Christian knight, self-righteously waving his or her bloodied sword of morality at us sinners.
Be it in the op-ed pages of the Star, the Letters to the Editor section of the paper or just a stroll through the MLK Commons, it seems there is no happier creature than religion's many mindless sheep, Bible in hand, decrying sin with blood-lust in their eyes... 

I really don't care if someone wants to waste their life away, content to live life wearing blinders and extracting guidance from a book which is mediocre fiction at best. That's his or her problem. I just don't want anything to do with it. 

Although it should amaze me how many people allow their lives to be molded by a book, it really doesn't. The Bible, in its inherent vagueness, happens to support just about any course of action one may be compelled to perform. Why do you think it's been used to justify almost every act of cruelty mankind has performed? (The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition just happen to pop into mind).
You happened to have participated in gang rape and feel guilty? Don't worry about it. Genesis 19:8 says it's okay. Lot, revered for his holiness, says to a mob outside his house, looking for two men he has sheltered, "I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please, but don't do anything to these men, for you know they have come under the shelter of my roof." 

How about justification for the mass murdering of children? See II Kings 2:23. In that little snippet, the Lord's priest Elisha was on his way to Bethel. On the way, some small boys came up to him and taunted him about his bald head. This I have to quote: "The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces." Good thing the guy in the Hair Club for Men commercials isn't a priest. (You know the one, he's not only the president of the company, but a customer, too.)
It shouldn't be too difficult to see why I can't place any seriousness in the book, but don't just take my word on the above two examples. Look them up. 

Inconsistencies in the Bible are so numerous I can't even begin to list them. For example, why is it that in the Old Testament, God is this uncompromising and spiteful God, turning whole villages to sand and such, while when you turn the page to the New Testament, he turns into this swell guy you'd want to invite home for dinner with Mom and Dad? 

Well, I suppose the older God gets, the more mellowed out and less demonstrative he tends to become. I can understand that. My grandfather is the same way. 

I can see how religion is utilized by many lacking guidance or purpose. I encounter those problems myself. Still, I have looked at religion and any kind of answers are conspicuously absent from it (and I'm not just talking Christianity, but all the major religions of the world). You may not agree with me on that point, but just think about the many times you've heard a question on a difficult religious matter answered, "Just have faith. It's all too big for us to understand." 

Sorry, but faith doesn't solve anything. I seek concrete answers to my very concrete problems and if religion can't answer them because of its inevitable limitations, then I don't need its excess baggage in my quest for purpose. 

Religion, being created by mankind, can't help but be imperfect. I don't pretend to have all the answers or even understand the problems, but the mistakes I make will be my own, and when all is over and done I will be sure in the fact that I created my own destiny, and didn't just play-act a part read out of a book.

Markos C.A. Moulitsas' Articles Opposing ALL Gays in Military and Denouncing the Bible are Relocated

[UPDATE]  As of June 21, 2014, Markos C. A. Moulitsas' 1993 college freshman campus newspaper article arguing against ALL gay participation in the military can be found at the following link: Military right". If the address of the article changes again, then you can use the search function at the Northeastern Illinois University (NIU) to discover where the article has been hidden, as well as to read all of the NIU college newspaper articles by and about Markos C. A. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ).

OK.  Markos Carlos Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) admits that he held "stupid ass" beliefs when he was a Republican.  Now, he need only admit that he "evolved" those beliefs during what he said was approximately two years of training at the CIA, during which he started DailyKos.

Saying the above MAMZ article was an example of a "Bad Attitude" on his part, Cheryl Anndel, also then a student at NIU, said:

I'd like to address this letter to Marcos C. Moulitsas. First, do not assume that former military service people share your views. Rest assured that this one does not. I resent the fact that you assume that just because I'm prior service, I share your opinion. 

Second, if a military unit is inefficient and morale is down, that is the entire unit's fault and not just one soldier's fault. As military personnel, we are trained to accomplish a mission. If you cannot accomplish that mission because you're worried about who's watching you while you change your underwear, it sounds like you don't have the right mental attitude.
CHERYL ANNDEL
Business
Senior 

Unfortunately, the NIU reorganization of its archives disconnected original articles from the comments about them.  So, you wouldn't know that there was a vehement counter-argument to MAMZ article above unless you diligently searched the archives for all articles mentioning e.g. "Moulitsas".

In another MAMZ NIU college article, entitled "Religion-It's Just Not for Me", MAMZ proclaims early on that the Bible is "mediocre fiction at best" and says, "Sorry, religion doesn't solve anything...I don't need its excess baggage..."  The entire article is as follows, in case NII once again reformats its archives and effectively hides this article from the public:

It seems like one doesn't have to look very far or wait too long here at NIU before he or she runs into a white Christian knight, self-righteously waving his or her bloodied sword of morality at us sinners. 

Be it in the op-ed pages of the Star, the Letters to the Editor section of the paper or just a stroll through the MLK Commons, it seems there is no happier creature than religion's many mindless sheep, Bible in hand, decrying sin with blood-lust in their eyes... 

I really don't care if someone wants to waste their life away, content to live life wearing blinders and extracting guidance from a book which is mediocre fiction at best. That's his or her problem. I just don't want anything to do with it. 

Although it should amaze me how many people allow their lives to be molded by a book, it really doesn't. The Bible, in its inherent vagueness, happens to support just about any course of action one may be compelled to perform. Why do you think it's been used to justify almost every act of cruelty mankind has performed? (The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition just happen to pop into mind). 

You happened to have participated in gang rape and feel guilty? Don't worry about it. Genesis 19:8 says it's okay. Lot, revered for his holiness, says to a mob outside his house, looking for two men he has sheltered, "I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please, but don't do anything to these men, for you know they have come under the shelter of my roof." 

How about justification for the mass murdering of children? See II Kings 2:23. In that little snippet, the Lord's priest Elisha was on his way to Bethel. On the way, some small boys came up to him and taunted him about his bald head. This I have to quote: "The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces." Good thing the guy in the Hair Club for Men commercials isn't a priest. (You know the one, he's not only the president of the company, but a customer, too.) 

It shouldn't be too difficult to see why I can't place any seriousness in the book, but don't just take my word on the above two examples. Look them up. 

Inconsistencies in the Bible are so numerous I can't even begin to list them. For example, why is it that in the Old Testament, God is this uncompromising and spiteful God, turning whole villages to sand and such, while when you turn the page to the New Testament, he turns into this swell guy you'd want to invite home for dinner with Mom and Dad? 

Well, I suppose the older God gets, the more mellowed out and less demonstrative he tends to become. I can understand that. My grandfather is the same way. 

I can see how religion is utilized by many lacking guidance or purpose. I encounter those problems myself. Still, I have looked at religion and any kind of answers are conspicuously absent from it (and I'm not just talking Christianity, but all the major religions of the world). You may not agree with me on that point, but just think about the many times you've heard a question on a difficult religious matter answered, "Just have faith. It's all too big for us to understand." 

Sorry, but faith doesn't solve anything. I seek concrete answers to my very concrete problems and if religion can't answer them because of its inevitable limitations, then I don't need its excess baggage in my quest for purpose. 

Religion, being created by mankind, can't help but be imperfect. I don't pretend to have all the answers or even understand the problems, but the mistakes I make will be my own, and when all is over and done I will be sure in the fact that I created my own destiny, and didn't just play-act a part read out of a book.

MAMZ did not believe in the Bible or God, as is his right.  However, polls show that the least respected group of Americans is atheists, beneath even communists and felons.  So, anyone who hopes to make strides in American politics and who accepts guidance from MAMZ about their messaging concerning religion is unlikely to get far.

Likewise, MAMZ opinions about who should be candidates is colored by his view that religion is nonsense. If MAMZ were allowed to select candidates for the Democratic Party, he would select atheists like himself, and then the Party would find it impossible to win elections.  The anger at DailyKos against politicians who express religious belief (like both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) show how outside-the-mainstream MAMZ and DailyKos are on this issue.

Once again, there was a vigorous contemporaneous response to MAMZ's declaration of atheism in the NIU student newspaper that was disconnected from the original article when the NIU archives were reorgaized: "Column Retort".

MAMZ's approximately 37 college newspaper articles and the responses to them provide an important window into his thinking, self-image and aspirations.  They show that he was an extremely homophobic young man and a virulent atheist, and he meanwhile considered color-aroused antagonism on campus to be unworthy of his attention as a writer for the school newspaper, demeaning the experiences of color-aroused antagonism that were recounted to him by students after he finished a four-part series on color-aroused antagonism on campus, to which he was involuntarily assigned, which is quoted here in part but worth reading in full, because it shows that MAMZ conceives of himself as a privileged white man and not a Latino:

I was terribly happy to escape the ugliness of a racist world for the safety of my every day-to-day life. Sure, I could always talk against racism, fight ignorance and prejudice wherever I ran into it, yet I would always be looking in from another room and I could always close the door. My life, in my world, in my own detached selfishness.

And as I left the ugly reality of racism behind, it struck me that what was such an easy and trivial exercise for me would be impossible for anyone whose skin color or religious persuassion (sic) made them the target of bigotry and discrimination. They would never be able to escape who they were.

It is no wonder, then, that you are more likely to find Blacks and Latinos participating in the Republican Party than you are to find them participating at DailyKos.