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Just in Time for Christmas - Canadian Broadcaster Floats Show on How Christ Didn't Really Exist

By Hilary White 

OTTAWA, November 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canada's government funded National Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has offered its annual Christmas season refutation of Christianity, this year in the form of a documentary entitled, "The Pagan Christ" based on the book of the same name by popular Canadian liberal "theologian" Tom Harpur.
                                                                                                                       
The CBC webpage for the documentary asks, "So, what if it could be proven that Jesus never existed? What if there was evidence that every word of the New Testament - the cornerstone of Christianity - is based on myth and metaphor?"
 
The idea was popularized by radical feminist and lesbian writers like the self-styled "witch" Miriam Simos, who goes by the nom de plume of "Starhawk", and is one of the foremost voices of ecofeminism. These writers were instrumental in founding a "goddess" worshipping neo-paganism in the 1970's and '80's that was zealously anti-Christian and particularly hostile to Catholicism and has grown in popularity in Canada and the US.   
 
Harpur continues this tradition in his book and the CBC takes up the cause in the documentary saying, "During his research, Harpur discovered that the New Testament is wholly based on Egyptian mythology, that Jesus Christ never lived, and that - indeed - the text was always meant to be read allegorically. It was the founders of the Church who duped the world into taking a literal approach to the scriptures."
 
Harpur asserts that it is Christianity's "blind faith in [Biblical] literalism" that accounts for the impending demise of Christianity. The promotional page for the book says, "What began as a universal belief system has become a ritualistic institution headed by ultraconservative literalists."
 
The taxpayer-funded CBC has made no secret of its institutionalized dislike of biblical Christianity and conservative Christians. While self-identified Christians continue to make up about 70 per cent of Canada's population, the CBC has for years produced annual attacks on Christian beliefs in the form of such documentaries as The Pagan Christ.
 
So obvious is the CBC's dislike of Catholicism that the National Post blasted "Mothercorp" for its blatant biases in its coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to Toronto for World Youth Day 2002. The Post cited the CBC's lengthy coverage of the "marginal story of anti-Catholic political activism as though it were of roughly equal scale and importance," as the visit of the spiritual leader of the world's billion Catholics.
 
The Post wrote, that the phenomenon of thousands of pilgrims responding to a papal invitation to deepen their spiritual lives, "does not compute in the mind of those middle aged bien pensants for whom the idea of moral certainty is alien and traditional institutional religion abhorrent."
 
In April 2005, on the day of the election to the papacy of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, CBC radio host Michael Enright hosted anti-Catholic "Catholic" New Times editor and Catholic school teacher Ted Schmidt to comment. Schmidt called Cardinal Ratzinger, the "great defect" of Pope John Paul II's papacy.
 
In May this year, CBC television offered a show depicting the Catholic Mass as a backdrop for drug and gang-related activities, including the use of the consecrated Host, that Catholics believe is literally the body and blood of Christ, as a vehicle for LSD.
 
Over the years, the CBC has promoted euthanasia, abortion, same-sex marriage, recreational adultery, embryonic stem cell research and has been particularly venomous towards the pro-life movement. In 1999 Campaign Life Coalition, Canada's leading pro-life organization, made a presentation to a Parliamentary committee citing the CBC's persistent anti-pro-life bias.
 
CLC told Parliamentarians that news coverage by the CBC "is biased against pro-life people of Canada". They asked that the government "examine the role the CBC plays in influencing Canadians with presentations which incorrectly portray the pro-life message and unfairly depict pro-life individuals".

The Pagan Christ will air Thursday December 6, 2007 at 9pm on CBC-TV repeating Saturday December 8, 2007 at 10pm ET on CBC Newsworld.
 
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Adultery Agency gets Regular Coverage from CBC on St. Valentine's Day
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06021708.html
 
CBC TV Offends Catholics with Show Mocking Sacraments in "The Altar Boy Gang"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07051601.html
 
CBC Radio Guest Disses New and Former Pope during Announcement of Benedict XVI
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041903.html
 
National Post Blasts CBC Anti-Catholic Bias
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jul/02072905.html
 
CBC Caught in Lie Trying to Squirm out of Charges of Anti-Catholic Bigotry
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07052802.html

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