This should help to keep things straight.

A little simplistic, but accurate overall.

Two South Carolina politicians want to erect a monument honoring African Americans who fought for the Confederacy. Problem is there weren't any.

Bill Chumley and Mike Burns, two Republicans lawmakers who clearly slept right through history class.

Courtesy of The State:  

Two South Carolina lawmakers want to erect a monument on the State House grounds to African-Americans who served the state as Confederate soldiers. But records show the state never accepted nor recognized armed African-American soldiers during the Civil War. 

“In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy,” said Walter Edgar, who for 32 years was director of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies and is author of “South Carolina: A History.” 

“In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer because they didn’t want armed persons of color,” he said. 

Pension records gleaned from the S.C. Department of History and Archives show no black Confederate soldiers received payment for combat service. And of the more than 300 blacks who did receive pensions after they were allowed in 1923, all served as body servants or cooks, the records show.

Confederate law prohibited blacks from bearing arms in the war, records show, until that edict was repealed in 1865 at the very end of the conflict.

Did you just slap your forehead in disbelief at how ignorant these two individuals are? Because I certainly did.  

Yes I am sure the line was quite long for black folks anxious to join the army fighting to preserve slavery, because damn they loved them some slavery.

This is why education is so damn important.

It helps to prevent the creation of more ignorant Republicans.

Thanks to Trump's pal Alex Jones NASA needs to literally issue a statement debunking the idea that they have a colony of kidnapped child sex slaves on Mars.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

A report on Alex Jones’ InfoWars claiming child sex slaves have been kidnapped and shipped to Mars is untrue, NASA told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. 

There was a rumor going around last week that there weren’t. There are,” Guy Webster, a spokesperson for Mars exploration at NASA, told The Daily Beast. “But there are no humans.” 

On Thursday’s program, the InfoWars host welcomed guest Robert David Steele onto The Alex Jones Show, which airs on 118 radio stations nationwide, to talk about kidnapped children he said have been sent on a two-decade mission to space. 

“We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride,” said Steele. “So that once they get to Mars they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony.”

“Look, I know that 90 percent of the NASA missions are secret and I’ve been told by high level NASA engineers that you have no idea. There is so much stuff going on,” Jones said.

I know what you're thinking, "No way Gryph, that is even too crazy for Alex Jones."

But then there 's video.

 Thought I was fucking with you, didn't you?

Just in case you could not get all the way through that (And seriously who could blame you?), I should tell you that this Guy Webster dude also said this: 

Steele alleged the kidnapped children were not only being kidnapped for space labor, but also murdered for their blood and bone marrow. 

"Pedophilia does not stop with sodomizing children,” said Steele. “It goes straight into terrorizing them to adrenalize their blood and then murdering them. It also includes murdering them so that they can have their bone marrow harvested as well as body parts.”

“This is the original growth hormone,” said Jones.

I should point something that many of you may have already noticed, and that is that obviously if it takes 20 years to travel from here to Mars, on ships that we do not yet have the technology to build, that the humans landing there could hardly still be considered children, which kind of undermines this whole pedophilia harvesting their blood conspiracy theory.

Of course it goes without saying that it is certainly not the only illogical part of this bizarre claim.

And please keep in mind that Alex Jones is the man about whom Donald Trump once made the following statement: 

“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

And THAT is why NASA felt compelled to issue a statement about a batshit crazy conspiracy theory that nobody with two brain cells to rub together could ever possibly believe.

I should probably note that NASA does indeed have plans to one day send people to Mars, and is even running experiments right now to prepare for that eventuality.

However there is no talk of pedophilia, slavery, or Alex Jones connected to any of it.

That time when an actual sitting US president asked why the Civil War had to happen. update!

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book,
Don't know much about the french I took

Courtesy of The Hill:

President Trump during an interview that airs Monday questioned why the country had a Civil War and suggested former President Andrew Jackson could have prevented it had he served later. 

"I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart," Trump said during an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito. 

"He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this.'" 

Jackson, the nation's seventh president, died in 1845. The Civil War began in 1861. 

The president further questioned why the country could not have solved the Civil War. 

"People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?" Trump said during the edition of "Main Street Meets the Beltway" scheduled to air on SiriusXM. 

"People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?"

.......?

You ever read something that your mind refuses to accept that you just read?

And if you have, how often is it usually a quote from Donald Trump?

Fortunately while my mind was drawing a blank, Chelsea Clinton came up with an actual answer.

1 word answer: Slavery. Longer: When Andrew Jackson died in 1845 (16 yrs before the Civil War began), he owned 150 men, women and children. https://t.co/Icg6puG2JZ

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) May 1, 2017

Yeah, that's essentially the answer.

Mother Jones found a real live historian to weigh in who suggested that perhaps Trump should step down from office until he can be educated past his current fourth grade elementary school level, and is brought up to speed on American history.

His final words were "God help us."

I am of course not a religious man, but I certainly understand the sentiment.

I swear that every day Donald Trump says something that becomes the new most shocking thing I have every heard come out of the mouth of a US president.

Update: It appears Trump is trying to do a little damage control.

President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

Continues to demonstrate a crippling lack of knowledge about American history.

New HUD Secretary, and apparent idiot savant, Ben Carson claims that slaves were really just immigrants who came here to "pursue prosperity and happiness."

Courtesy of CNN: 

Ben Carson appeared to liken slaves to immigrants who choose to come to the United States while addressing employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development Monday.

"There were other immigrants who came in the bottom of slave ships, who worked even longer, even harder, for less, but they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land," said Carson, who is black. 

"And do you know of all the nations in the world, this one, the United States of America, is the only one big enough and great enough to allow all those people to realize their dream. And this is our opportunity to enhance that dream," he added.

Yep those silly old African immigrants all chained together for safety who came to this country to pursue their dreams of not being whipped to death or raped by their white masters.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson responded quickly on Twitter.

OK!! Ben Carson....I can't! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!!#dickheadedtom

— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 6, 2017

Later Carson tried to walk his remarks back:

I’m proud of the courage and perseverance of Black Americans and their incomprehensible struggle from slavery to freedom. I’m proud that our ancestors overcame the evil and repression that we know as slavery. 

The slave narrative and immigrant narrative are two entirely different experiences. Slaves were ripped from their families and their homes and forced against their will after being sold into slavery by slave traders. 

The Immigrants made the choice to come to America. They saw this country as a land of opportunity. In contrast, slaves were forced here against their will and lost all their opportunities. We continue to live with that legacy. 

The two experiences should never be intertwined, nor forgotten, as we demand the necessary progress towards an America that's inclusive and provides access to equal opportunity for all. 

We should revel in the fact that although we got here through different routes, we have many things in common now that should unite us in our mission to have a land where there is liberty and justice for all. 

Dr. Ben Carson 
Secretary of HUD 

Nice try. However this is response cobbled together for damage control, while the initial statements were just off of the top of Carson's pointy head.

Which one do we think more accurately portrays his way of thinking?

Oh yeah, and there is also this.

Ben Carson is also the guy who once compared Obamacare to slavery. I'm starting to think he may not understand the word "slavery." https://t.co/82PJcUC7Vg

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) March 6, 2017

Carson also famously suggested that the Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain, so his understanding of history in general seems to be suspect.

And these are the people who are now in charge of our country.

Sarah Palin warns that Hillary Clinton's socialist policies will enslave us.

Courtesy of Professor Palin's Facebook page: 

Please read, especially, the many wise comments below this report on socialism's ramifications. 

Oh how I wish the Left would not deny that socialism is slavery. The uninformed would ignore history and even modern-day economic and cultural collapse of populations ruled under socialism - then totalitarianism - thus leading America to the same end. 

The media won't cover the path we are on back to the horrible days of some Americans being shackled while a "ruling elite" enslave and try to oppress our work ethic, our freedoms, and most significantly - our spirit. The path leads to a desperate population accepting globalism, requiring the dissolution of our entire foundation. 

So we must do the informing. 

This election can not be clearer in contrast: one party will restore freedom, the other will enslave you.

In case you could not figure it out on your own, the party that will "restore" freedom is the GOP led by Donald "Freedom means never paying your workers" Trump and the party that is going to enslave you is apparently the Democrats and their nominee Hillary "Oh god what am I being accused of now?" Clinton.

The post then links to some Right Wing blog's coverage of the rapidly disintegrating situation in Venezuela which Palin is attempting to use as an example of what will happen in America if the Democrats keep control of the White House.

Of course what Palin seems unable to understand is that the candidate with the more socialist agenda was Bernie Sanders, and he did not win the Democratic nomination.

Secondly when it comes to slavery, WE were the folks who used slaves, and we have always been a capitalist country. So the idea that socialism creates slaves, while capitalism does not, is factually inaccurate.  (What Palin is likely referring to is a new program in Venezuela that has Venezuelans working on uncultivated fields to grow organic foods for sixty days. The US media has claimed that the workers were forced to work and were unpaid, but the Latin America news outlets disagrees with that assessment saying the workers are volunteers and are paid their normal salary while working in the fields.)

Thirdly since it has recently been revealed that Donald Trump often stiffs his workers, or pays them less than the agreed upon wage, and has top staffers who have yet to see a paycheck, does that not suggest that HE is the one who treats folks as unpaid slaves?

For the record there is no Democratic policy put forward that will enslave a single person in this country. And the only "freedom" that Donald Trump is interested in restoring is the freedom to be a giant orange asshole and never have anybody call him out for it.

Fox News hosts respond to Michelle Obama's speech by claiming that the slaves who built the White House were just "workers" who were "well fed."

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

On his show Tuesday, O'Reilly lauded Obama for "referring to the evolution of America in a positive way." But he then proceeded to fact-check her statement in a way that appeared to excuse the US government's use of slave labor. 

"Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802," he said. "However, the feds did not forbid subcontractors from using slave labor. So Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well. Got it?" 

And there you have it—the worst response to Michelle Obama's 2016 Democratic National Convention address.

Well I might quibble with that definition as the "worst response" since O'Reilly was not alone.

Courtesy of Fusion:

While the veracity of Obama’s historical reference has been widely confirmed and backed up by a number of historians, that did not stop Fox News Radio host John Gibson from penning a tone-deaf blog post bemoaning the fact that the First Lady did not mention the white laborers who also participated in the construction of the White House. 

“A couple relevant facts: it was 1792. The land for the District of Columbia was ceded to the federal government by two slave states. Slaves lived in the area and were employed in building much of the capitol,” Gibson wrote. “What, then, is the purpose of appropriating the construction of the White House to black slave workers, neglecting to mention other workers?” 

What Gibson, like so many other racist revisionists, fails to understand is that slaves cannot be “workers” in the sense that they signed up for a job with the expectation of financial compensation and fair treatment. To compare slave labor to the work done by free white laborers is to erase the fact that slaves were subjected to lives of disenfranchisement, horror, and systemic abuse.

Okay so Roger Ailes is out, so just when can we expect the hosts of Fox News to stop being such racist, misogynistic, assholes?

Never mind, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that question.

Ted Cruz and Judeo Christian values.

And you know that Ted Cruz is just the kind of Christian to not only defend these practices, but even suggest bringing some of them back.

Ben Carson does not believe that women should have ultimate control over their bodies, wants to overturn Roe vs Wade.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

“The mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby,” Carson opined to NBC host Chuck Todd. “We’ve allowed purveyors of division to think that baby is their enemy and they have a right to kill it. Can you see how perverted that line of thinking is?” 

When it came to the rights of women, Carson insisted that they should not have the legal choice to terminate unwanted pregnancies. 

“Think about this. During slavery — and I know that one of those words you’re not supposed to say — but I’m saying it,” Carson said. “During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said, ‘You know, I don’t believe in slavery, I think it’s wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do.’ Where would we be?” (So a fetus is a slave? I don't get this analogy at all.)

“Ultimately, I would love to see [Roe v. Wade] overturned,” the candidate insisted. “I’m a reasonable person,” Carson remarked. “And if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, [I’ll listen].”

Among the reasonable explanations for terminating an unwanted pregnancy that Carson felt were not "reasonable" included rape or incest.

Carson did concede that in the case of preserving the life of the mother, which he claimed was a very rare circumstance, there is "room to discuss that."

I watched this when it aired on Meet the Press today and I have to say that I got an incredibly creepy vibe from Carson. And instead of his soft spoken manner putting me at ease, it kind of reminded of Christoph Waltz playing the Nazi Colonel in the Quentin Tarantino movie "Inglorious Basterds."

And nothing about that character puts one at ease.

Remember, currently Ben Carson is either ahead of or right behind Donald Trump in the polls.

And here you thought the scariest thing about this October was the ghosts and ghouls associated with Halloween.

Texas textbook refers to slaves as "workers" in section on immigration in America. Mother posts about it on Facebook, outrage ensues, and publishing company promises to alter passages.

Yes the slaves were just over here on a work program.

A work program that included daily whippings and abuse if they did not work hard enough, and the opportunity to have their loved ones and children sold to other plantation owners so that they would never see them again.

This page was in the a textbook called World Geography published by McGraw-Hill. And it was publicized on Facebook by a Houston mother by the name of Roni Dean-Burren who made this video.

That video went viral, and now, according to Wonkette, McGraw-Hill posted this comment about their racial insensitivity:

We believe we can do better. To communicate these facts more clearly, we will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor. These changes will be reflected in the digital version of the program immediately and will be included in the program’s next print run. 

"We believe we can do better." Gee ya think? 

Anyhow I thought this was a good example of the power of social media, and a reminder that even though we might feel that nobody is listening to us, sometimes we can make positive change in this world.

Historian and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns explains what was behind the Civil War: "They do not mention states’ rights. They mention slavery, slavery, slavery."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

But Burns recommended that Americans read South Carolina’s Articles of Secession to get the real story on why the states went to war against each other. “[T]hey do not mention states’ rights. They mention slavery, slavery, slavery,” he pointed out. “And that we have to remember. It is much more complicated than that, but essentially the reason why we murdered each other — more than 2 percent of our population, 750,000 Americans died; that’s more than all the wars from the Revolution through Afghanistan combined — was over essentially the issue of slavery.” 

According to Burns, the racism running through the DNA of America was still present in modern day politics. 

“The main American theme, I think, is freedom,” he noted. “But we also notice that race is always there. Always there. When Thomas Jefferson says all men are created equal, he owns a couple hundred human beings and he doesn’t see the contradiction or the hypocrisy and doesn’t free anybody in his lifetime and sets in motion an American narrative that is bedeviled by a question of race.” 

“And we struggle with it. We try to ignore it. We pretend, with the election of Barack Obama, that we’re in some post-racial society,” he continued. “And what we have seen is a kind of reaction to this. The birther movement, of which Donald Trump is one of the authors of, is another politer way of saying the N word. It’s just more sophisticated and a little bit more clever. He’s ‘other,’ he’s different.” 

“What’s actually ‘other’ and different about him? It turns out it’s the same old thing. It’s the color of his skin.”

So now we have Burns joining Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in explaining to the mouth breathers that yes their ancestors took up arms against their own country for the sole purpose of hanging onto the right to continue owning human beings.

And that inherent racism is still a part of this country's DNA and continues to pop up here and there especially during speeches given by the living embodiments of their hatred like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.

This video is for the next time that your obnoxious Southern relatives try to convince you that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. Spoiler alert: Yes it was!

This is Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, so you know he has some understanding of the topic.

In a nutshell certain people in the Southern part of the country thought that owning people was a good idea, one that they felt the Bible supported by the way, and people in the North thought otherwise.

If you are a supporter of the Confederate flag you are a supporter of the types of abuse they inflicted on their fellow man, and the treasonous acts they perpetrated against their own government to protect those acts.

The reason for the Confederate flag in the words of its creator.

Courtesy of William Tappan Thompson's Wikipedia page: 

Thompson supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War. In 1863, as the editor of the Morning News he proposed a design that would ultimately become the Confederacy's second national flag, which would be come to known as the "Stainless Banner." 

In a series of editorials, Thompson wrote: 

"As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause… Such a flag…would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as the white mans flag… As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism."

And there you have it.

Any questions?

It's funny because it's true.

Courtesy of Reddit.

Sarah Palin accuses Liberals of rewriting history. Seriously?

I have actually already dealt with the above graphic last month using actual comments from Palin's own Facebook page.

Let's see what else she has.

Courtesy of Revisionist history poster girl Sarah Palin's Facebook page: 

Liberals are famous for conveniently rewriting their history. Just take a look at some of the photos below for a few of their most blatant examples, including the lie that they were always for gay marriage and against racism. 

Here Palin offers the graphic up above, as well as a purposeful misrepresentation of a Margaret Sanger quote, and one each showing that President Obama and Hillary Clinton's opinion on gay marriage has evolved.  Oooh, shocking!

The false history teaching that liberals opposed slavery, wanted women to vote, exclusively led the civil rights movements is all Orwellian talk (Orwellian talk?), for the truth is the opposite. It's been the party of Lincoln and Reagan on the side of justice in each of those issues. (Actually the Republican party of Lincoln, was vastly different than the Republican party of Ronald Reagan.) We led the fight against slavery and for women's suffrage, and with Martin Luther King, Jr. we fought against racism and for peace. (Well it looks like somebody needs a history lesson, and it sure as hell isn't the liberals.) Meanwhile the Left still celebrates their strange icons including KKK leader Sen. Robert Byrd, the anti-American terrorist bomber Bill Ayers, and the violently racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, plus others on the opposite side of righteous justice. 

Please add your own examples of leftwing hypocrisy in the comment section below and never hesitate holding the intolerant, judgmental types accountable for their hypocrisy. (Well we should all look forward to reading those poorly researched gems from her followers. However if the pattern holds from the last time there will actually be more comments that refute her point of view rather than add to it.) When you let them get away with ignoring facts and stomping out your voice you become nothing more than lemmings cowardly led over the cliff. America is better than that. Stiffen your spine, call them out, do not retreat. 

- Sarah Palin

Take that liberals!!!

Yes stiffen your spine and learn actual history, not the stuff that certain people, say in Texas for example, are trying to teach you in order to hide the truth.

I could not agree more.

As I mention above this is a retread of an older post, that Palin seems to have repurposed in order to have some content for her Facebook page.

Which of course has become much more important since it is now her sole method of getting attention from her supporters and the media.

Unfortunately for her this is an extraordinary weak attempt to attack liberals, and even a school child could poke holes in it without even breaking a sweat.

Texas to teach schoolchildren bad history to hide their racist past.

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also do not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws. 

And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education. 

Slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican board member, when the board adopted the standards in 2010. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”

You know they say that "History is written by the victors."  But in Texas it is clearly being written by the losers.

Historians acknowledge that disagreements over states’ rights played a role in the Civil War. But the states’ rights issue was inseparable from slavery, they say: The right that states in the South were seeking to protect, after all, was the right to buy and sell people.

Isn't that just like the conservatives? If the facts don't work for your version of reality, ignore them, and if history is not on your side, just rewrite it.

So much for the IQ's in Texas going up in the foreseeable future.

Sarah Palin is hoping everybody skipped history class.

So I saw this on Palin's Facebook page and I was rolling up my sleeves to write up how stupid this was because as EVERYBODY with half a brain knows the Republicans party that voted for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are in no way the same Republicans we see today.

However as I was getting ready to do this, I happened to look through the comments on the page and realized that folks were already beating me to it.

Take a look:

Emily Allen Most of these were back when the political ideologies of republican and democrats was switched. May I remind you for about 100 years, Texas was a democratic state. 

Robert Rebeck If you think this meme tells the whole story and is not misleading, then you are ignorant and uneducated. 

Tess Hoff Non comparison. A real history lesson would show how the two parties have completely changed positions since the first three examples. Back when these things were done, the Republican party was progressive. Now the Democratic party is progressive. Same kind of people that were Republican when these issues were current are the same kind of people that are Democrats now. 

Ken Green And since the 60's Civil Rights Act, enacted by Democrat Lyndon Johnson along with a Democratic congress, all those southern erstwhile democrats have jumped over the the GOP. They're all Republicans today - so trying to put on the mantle of Lincoln and claiming that the GOP IS enlightened and socially progressive just isn't going to fly... 

Drew Christiansen This was also the Republican party founded by Horace Greesly , a free-soilist and Marx-sympathizer. Different context, different time. Of course the right-wing meme creator behind this missed that wink emoticon. 

And these were just a sampling of the comments that had not yet been scrubbed by Palin's Facebook Oompa Loompas.

Of course to be fair there were few commenters just as ignorant as Palin in the mix.

Arlene Calabria The really sad part is, this is not in the history books and most African Americans are unaware of these facts. In a way keeping people on welfare for generations is just another form of slavery, it certainly is a loss of freedom.

I guess Palin can always count on a few poorly educated idiots to have her back, but it is becoming increasingly clear that her pool of supporters is drying up faster than a California reservoir.

Bill Maher mocks the Republicans for suggesting that President Obama "does not love America."

I swear this bit was worth watching simply for the picture they used to represent Rudy Giuliani.

Here is more from Raw Story.

I am sure it is just a coincidence.

If image does not enlarge, click here.

Sometimes like looking for gold coins in a septic tank.

I remember reading the Bible for the first time in my late teens, after my only previous exposure having been during Sunday school lessons and a few boring sermons.

At first it was a little like reading Shakespeare in that I had to adjust to the language before it started to flow. But once it did I was almost immediately horrified at the amount of rape, death, and destruction that poured from its blood soaked pages.

The god of the Old Testament was a tyrannical creature who relied on abject terror in order to control his subjects. And the New Testament god was not much better in that he killed without mercy and even sacrificed his own son in the most brutal way imaginable when he could have easily done away with original sin with a wave of his omniscient hand.

I came away wondering how the words in that book could have inspired even a small cult, much less the largest religion in the world.