Tag: religion
The Pious Pedant
So I went on a three year bender after the 2016 presidential election (if the other guy1 had won, it would have likely just been a two year bender), and the MrPikes blog went on hiatus. If you have a problem with that, talk to Vincent2. What do you want, a refund?
Part of what prodded me from my torpor was the Christmas season. Specifically, sanctimonious American Christians (hey, not all of ’em; it’s just the 95 percent making the other 5 look bad) who insist on asserting that there is a war on Christmas, before offering unsolicited reminders about “The reason for the season.” I wouldn’t normally be this irritated, but clubby and ignorant is a potent cocktail, and some of these people can’t get their own fucking mythology right.
The Immaculate Conception
This is not the same as the Virgin Birth. Let’s repeat that: The Immaculate Conception is not the same thing as the Virgin Birth. Lock eyes with yourself in a mirror and say it over and over again, slapping your face after each repetition. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception, and God’s intervention so that Mary was born without Original Sin3, thus making her a suitable vessel to bear Jesus Christ.
Calvary Versus Cavalry
Calvary, AKA Golgotha4, is a site outside Jerusalem where Jesus Christ, according to scripture, was crucified.
Cavalry, on the other hand, refers to horseback-mounted soldiers. In modern warfare, it can refer to soldiers in armored vehicles. Happily, there is an easy mnemonic for remembering this, especially for University of Virginia adherents with names like Skip and Bunny. “Cavalier” refers to a mounted soldier, or a gentleman trained in arms and horsemanship, and it is UVA’s mascot. So, unless you get confused and picture this guy nailed to a tree, you have a handy device for remembering the difference.
Take or leave, but I have tons more respect for believers who actually invest the effort to get their own stuff right. One of my favorite Bill Hicks stories is about him getting harassed by some guys after a show. They were pushing him around, saying, “Hey buddy we’re Christians and we don’t like what you said.” Hicks replied, “Then forgive me.”
Dick Dynasty
So today I learned that there is a wildly popular A&E reality television program called Duck Dynasty and that a principal member of its cast, Phil Robertson, was suspended indefinitely from the show for making bigoted comments about LGBT people in a GQ interview. One of the comments is that homosexual behavior is a gateway to bestiality.
As charming as that is, that’s not what this post is about.
What it is about is the insidious defense of these sorts of comments by the likes of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and former-something-yet-still-somehow-relevant Sarah Palin.
Bobby Jindal’s statement:
Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.
From Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:
Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.
I would really like to know how Ms. Palin characterizes the group she refers to as “us.” Probably, “You know, not ‘them’.”
Bobby Jindal attempts to put the vapid antics of Miley Cyrus on the same basis as hate speech because each is offensive to somebody (although the latter is often characterized not as hate speech but as “biblical views”), and both Jindal and Palin confuse freedom of speech with freedom from the consequences of that speech.
Defending Phil Robertson’s comments on the grounds of free speech appears to be part of a growing disingenuous and cynical agenda to place all statements of belief on an equal footing with respect to inclusion or tolerance. If you make “All people, regardless of sexual orientation, are entitled to equal protection under the law,” equivalent to “Homosexuality is a [sin|mental illness|abomination]. Oh, and everyone was happier before slavery was abolished,” then you can cry hypocrite when a person or organization reacts harshly to the latter while affirming the former.
The truth is that they are equivalent (in that they are both statements) and Americans citizens are completely free to say either, with as much amplification as they can muster.
So, Phil Robertson is free to utter whatever bigoted, ignorant, medieval hate beard thought comes into his head. A&E is also free to align itself with whatever set of values it chooses and to insist that those values are not contradicted by its employees in the public eye. If I write or state in a public venue that the managers of the company for whom I work are a bunch of unethical scumbags (which, guys, you’re tooootally not), my company is free and justified to fire me.
The First Amendment protects free speech from being abridged by the government. It does not protect me from being kicked in the balls after I advise my neighbor that his mother is a filthy whore (which she tooootally is).
National Motto
While I was yelling at the radio this morning, I heard a piece that NPR did on a non-binding resolution sponsored by House Representative Randy Forbes (Religion-VA), reaffirming “In God We Trust” as our national motto. Setting aside questions about this being the best use of the House’s time, this resolution is important because the last time that the motto was reaffirmed was in the Senate in 2006 (apparently mottos have low self-esteem and require frequent reaffirmation).
Forbes was quoted as stating:
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will have the same opportunity to reaffirm our national motto and directly confront a disturbing trend of inaccuracies and omissions, misunderstandings of church and state, rogue court challenges, and efforts to remove God from the public domain by unelected bureaucrats. As our nation faces challenging times, it is appropriate for Members of Congress and our nation – like our predecessors – to firmly declare our trust in God, believing that it will sustain us for generations to come.
Whew, well that should put the matter to rest.
One disturbing example that Representative Forbes cited was a speech President Obama delivered at the University of Indonesia in which he stated that our national motto was E Pluribus Unum, which set some sphincters a’twitching on Capitol Hill.
What got me cackling was that NPR closed the piece by stating that the national motto may be offensive to those who do not, in fact, trust in God. I’ve got to use that line. “It’s not that I don’t believe in God, I just don’t trust the bastard.”
Divine Comedy
I, For One, Welcome Our New Five-Inch Alien Jesus Overlords
In honor of Easter Week, one of my loyal readers sent this to me and, wow. I…wow.
Last year I complained about religious action figures not coming with enough cool accessories and, while I am grateful to be heard, I never said anything about creepy, glow-in-the-dark hands.
With hands like that, I’ll bet Jesus could heal the lame by the simple expedient of scaring them shitless.
Jesus: Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Cripple: Aaaah! Okay, I’m up! I’m up! Get the fuck away!
The loaves, fishes and amphora (dude, just look it up) are pretty cool, but I would have maybe preferred the Spear of Destiny and a big honking boulder, or perhaps an accompanying action leper with removable sores.
Anyone listening?
On Flow
If you’ve read the book or seen the film “Pay It Forward,” then the concept of engaging in selfless acts to make the world a better place is not new to you. I do this myself in small, practical ways. Given any public situation – driving, grocery shopping, walking down a hallway – I look for opportunities to make things flow better. This could mean offering to take someone’s empty shopping cart when hu is on the way out and I’m on the way in, or making an effort to ensure that no one has to apply hus brakes in reaction to a move that I make on the highway. Typically these actions cost me very little, but they are executed with the mindset of flow – conscious acknowledgment that I am one among many people, each of us trying to get from one place to another, or accomplish tasks simultaneously. New Yorkers, incidentally, have got this down pat. On an average weekday, New York’s public transportation system accommodates 7.5 million trips. That’s about as many breaths as you’ve taken in the last year. If a New Yorker is ever rude to you, there is a decent chance that you did something to impede the overall flow. With their throughput, if too many people were to engage in non-flow-promoting behavior, the whole city would promptly shit itself and gridlock.
This conscious approach to coexistence has become so ingrained that I feel physically uncomfortable (cringey) when I see people thoughtlessly, or otherwise, impede flow (asshole drivers, meanderthals and the like). I am not a confrontational fellow (too much like proseletizing), but I have taken to catching such people’s eye and giving them a small, disappointed shake of my head, trying to convey with gesture, “The world can be a very hard place to live in – all kinds of random shit can wear you down, or take you out of it altogether – so why the fuck are you making it just that little bit harder for the rest of us to get along in it?”
Opening my kimono a bit wider than usual, the idea that deists/atheists are amoral saddens me. I consider myself to have a strong sense of morality, one that I came by honestly and practice in daily life. Playing straw man a bit, I could counter an assertion made by a devout member of one of God’s many franchises that being godless is akin to being a sociopath, merely by pointing out that my values system is not based on some scary, eternal salvation/damnation model but on a highly practical, fulfilling effort to do good works simply because everyone benefits.
Honestly, which sounds more genuine? “Be virtuous, or you’re doomed to an eternity of fire and poking,” or “We’re all on our own, so why not lighten each other’s load a little”?
I’ve felt awkward the entire time I’ve been writing this. I am not smug, and I have no agenda other than putting an idea out there that might make a random passerby pause and reflect. Please, go delight someone for no reason other than that the world could stand to be more delightful, or that someone might appreciate having a little time cut off of hus commute.
Sweet Twelve-Inch Talking Poseable Jesus!
A friend of mine was recently burning away a bit of her soul shopping at Wal-Mart when she came across this:
The product description over at Amazon comes on a little strong, as if responding to the imagined question, “Jesus? Who the hell is Jesus?”
Jesus was the most important person in history. Ever. He was born in a manger, raised as a carpenter, and crucified on a cross. He healed the sick. He raised the dead…
And He had realistic eyes. And many, many points of articulation.
It’s hard to read the text, but just below “I Talk Try Me!” the packaging advises, “I come to life with just the push of a button.” Wow, that would make Catholic Mass a whole lot shorter…
One 2 Believe also sells a talking Mary, Moses, David and Esther (Esther?). If these sell well, perhaps they will expand the product line to biblical figures that I’d like to buy, and, for the love of poseable Jesus, make with some accessories. Right off the top of my head – Judas (tree), Lazarus (stone), Lot’s Wife (before and after), Jezebel (pack of dogs), Job (various sores), and John the Baptist (removable head) – and I haven’t even had my first cup of coffee.
One customer review let me know that I am not alone in my amusement:
This does get 5 stars for durability though. I’ve accidentally scratched or poked some holes in my Jesus, and within a couple of days, the plastic seals right up again. I don’t know what they used to make this, but it’s great!
WTF?
Tyson Homosexual
The American Family Association is a fundamentalist Christian activist organization that is a convenient one-stop-shop for everything that I hate about religion. Their One News Now web site (yellow to the point of being jaundiced) has, or had, a filter that automagically replaced instances of the word “gay” with “homosexual” in stories reprinted from sources like the Associated Press.
This recently led to a clbuttic bit of self-pwnage with respect to an AP article about Tyson Gay winning the 100 meter semifinal in the Olympic trials:
Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.
One News Now since removed the filter, but not before People for the American Way got the screenshot.
By way of justification for the filter, Fred Jackson, the news director of One News Now, explained that:
[The word ‘gay’] has been co-opted by a particular group of people.
Not that the AFA hates fags or anything, as their FAQ makes quite clear:
The same Holy Bible that calls us to reject sin, calls us to love our neighbor. It is that love that motivates us to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture. AFA has sponsored several events reaching out to homosexuals and letting them know there is love and healing at the Cross of Christ.
So that’s good. It’s good to love. If the song That’s Amore has anything to teach us, it’s that:
Hearts will play tippy-tippy-tay, tippy-tippy-tay
Like a homosexual tarantella.
Why I Don’t Say The Pledge of Allegiance
In my last post I mentioned that whenever I’m at a venue where the Pledge of Allegiance is recited, I stand with my hands at my sides. I only mentioned it because when I wrote that post I was initially jotting down impressions and recollections while they were fresh. I included it as a detail. One of my gentle readers pointed out that without providing an explanation as to why, people would be left to fill in their own conclusions. Well, we mustn’t have that.
Why I Stand
This started in homeroom my Junior year of high school. Every morning before we went to our first class, we said the Pledge. For reasons that I’ll get to, I decided that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. When everyone else stood, I did not. The homeroom teacher was furious with me, and sent me to the office.
Neither the principal nor the vice-principal was in, but I was a regular and received assurances that one or the other would be in touch. I was on my way to get a smoke over at Chez Boys when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Ms. Henderson, the vice-principal.
Donna was an older, handsome blonde woman whom I had learned not to piss off. We were at present enjoying a shaky detente. She politely asked me what had occurred, and why I no longer wanted to say the Pledge. I explained it to her (I swear, I’ll get to it). She didn’t say anything for several moments and then – it was probably the first time someone addressed me as if I were an adult – said, “I understand. What I would ask for you to consider is that the Pledge is something that some people believe in very strongly. Out of respect for what they believe, maybe you could just stand?” A light went on as I learned that it was possible to be true to my own beliefs without being unnecessarily confrontational.
Thank you, Donna. You taught me something which still helps me to go my own way.
Why I Don’t Sing Along
It would be disrespectful for me to recite it.
Allegiance – The obligation of a subject or citizen to hus sovereign or government.
None for me, thank you. I consider my contract with the United States adequate in its current form. I pay my taxes fair and square and, in exchange, I enjoy access to infrastructure and public safety – no need to get all gushy with a bunch of talk about allegiance. I want government involved in my life as little as possible. I wouldn’t swear allegiance to my bank, so why on earth would I swear allegiance to my government?
If I were to put my hand over my heart and say the words, believing as I do, I would be showing disrespect to those who genuinely believe. It’s the same reason I don’t take communion on those occasions when I attend Catholic Mass. I do not believe in Transubstantiation, so I have absolutely no business taking communion. It would be rude.
It scares the shit out of me.
If you’re a believer, the next time the Pledge comes up, close your eyes and just mouth the words (it’s okay, the Flag will give you a pass) so you can hear what a room full of people reciting the Pledge sounds like. It sounds like a bunch of zombies saying grace before tucking into the buffet. “With liberty and *braaaiiiinnnnnnss* for all.” I’m not kidding, it freaks me out.
Deeds Not Words
Which is more important: That I recite a Pledge in which I do not believe, or that I engage (without irony) in civic-minded activities like being an election volunteer?
Origins of the Pledge
The Pledge is not the Declaration of Independence, is not the Constitution, is not the Bill of Rights. Our founders never heard of it. Wikipedia has a fascinating article on its origins. My favorite bit of history about the Pledge is the Bellamy Salute (pictured below):
Hooboy.
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in a group setting imbues the gathering with a solemnity and sense of occasion that works just fine for some. I cannot engage in this ritual honestly, so I simply pay respect and leave it at that.
You got a problem with that?