Jesus...cool guy
So with the exception of knocking people who want to discuss intelligent design in schools, I haven’t really talked much about religion, which is interesting since it’s one of my biggest interests. I don’t mean like I really enjoy going to church and praying and stuff, but I enjoy studying the various religions, and it’s a subject that I think about a lot. Of course there’s an obvious reason I haven’t posted something on religion yet: talking about religion with one’s friends is frowned upon, and I assume everyone who reads this is a friend of mine (if not, you should like introduce yourself or something and tell me what a fucking moron I am, I enjoy that). Which, when you come right down to it is kind of silly, because the reason you aren’t supposed to talk about it is because people actually CARE about religion, and God forbid friends discuss things they have deeply held beliefs about. All of society would collapse were we to say what we actually think about things.
Still in the interest of not making all my friends hate me, let me say that I’m not going to knock religion, because I’m not about that. That is not the way that I roll. While certain religious beliefs may seem illogical or even absurd to me, I realize they are no more absurd than a belief that democracy actually works, and I hold that one dearly, so there you go. I think when we come right down to it, we can all agree, no matter what faith or lack thereof we may call our own, upon one immutable and obvious truth: Scientology is fucking stupid.
Which leads me to my first comment, why is it okay to mock certain religions? I know why it’s okay to mock Scientology, because rich and famous people are members of it, and we all hate the rich and famous. Also it’s a cult. And (as I understand it) the movie Battlefield Earth has something to do with their religion, and that’s one of the worst movies of all time. You don’t see any religions based on Swimming Pool, but if you did I’d rip on them too.
But we also seem to feel it’s okay to make fun of Mormonism, which is the one I find interesting. It’s easy to mock some Eastern religion, because it’s far away, or Scientology because Tom Cruise is psychotic now, but how did the Mormons get singled out as the group it’s okay to ridicule? If a TV show made a joke about Presbyterians that wouldn’t be okay, but feel free to make all the Joe Smith jokes you like. I suppose it’s because it’s Christianity, but it still seems so foreign. What with the new bible they have about the Indians (Native Americans? I don’t know what’s proper in this context…Pagans, I suppose) (I was at a sleepover where we read once from the Book of Mormon…which is frankly weird regardless of what religious text you’re reading from “Okay kids, video game time is over, now let’s read from the Baghvada Gita” Strange is all I’m saying). Plus the whole bigamy thing and the lack of caffeine, and it’s just strange enough that it seems like it should be a totally separate religion, except they have that Jesus dude walking around the whole time.
In the vein of people discussing religion in strange places, I had the single most surreal experience of my life the other day. While taking a shit in the Union (not like in the lobby, I was in the bathroom), a couple construction guys came into the bathroom, discussing the Exodus. Now in general, I am opposed to bathroom discussions, but even when they occur they tend to be fairly “You see that thing?” “Ugh, yeah that thing… jeez” type of conversations. Meanwhile these guys were going on and on about the symbolism of the manna (one n? spellcheck says two…and spellcheck says spellcheck isn’t a word…bit of an identity crisis I feel…he thinks he has a hyphen or is separated…interesting…a lot of ellipses in this sentence). And the fact that I knew they were construction guys (there’s a site right next to the union, and it’s not like this takes Sherlock Holmes) just made it all the stranger. Then they got the Sabbath day wrong.
I find this strange as well. Why did the Christians change the Sabbath day? In the New Testament it has it correctly. Jesus gets crucified on Friday, the next day everyone goes home and does whatever it is Jews do on the Sabbath (answer: not much) and then on Sunday he rises. When the hell did we move church to Sundays? Is it because Jesus rose on a Sunday and we figured if we did church on Saturdays then come Easter we’d have to go twice in one weekend? Was it a Roman thing just to be pissy? Did we not want to compete in the Jewish time-slot? Better ad time on Sundays? I don’t understand.
I’ll end this particular post (although I think there’s a decent chance I will be posting on religion again, rather soon) with some interesting things that can be found in the Bible that you might not know were in there (I’m using the New American Standard Bible, so these should be fairly representative of most versions…and certainly nothing that should be taken as crackpot or highly unorthodox).
(1) There is reason to believe that Judaism began as a polytheistic religion, where the LORD was the highest of a number of gods. A number of the Psalms make reference to this:
Psalm 82: I said, "You are gods,/And all of you are sons of the Most High./Nevertheless you will die like men/And fall like any one of the princes”
Psalm 58: Do you indeed speak righteousness, O gods?
Psalm 86: There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,/Nor are there any works like Yours
Psalm 95: For the LORD is a great God/And a great King above all gods
You can cast it aside as a metaphorical way of speaking but the term “gods” shows up surprising number of times in the bible.
(2) Jesus had family.
Matthew 12:46 (because you’ll want to read it yourself):
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.
But it’s okay, there was no hanky-panky before Jesus. From Matthew 1:24-25
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus
Although afterwards there seems to have been quite a bit. From Matthew 13: 55-56
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?
I’ll put in more next time I post on religion, because there’s some neat stuff in there, that most people just glaze right over.
(originally written August 16th)
Still in the interest of not making all my friends hate me, let me say that I’m not going to knock religion, because I’m not about that. That is not the way that I roll. While certain religious beliefs may seem illogical or even absurd to me, I realize they are no more absurd than a belief that democracy actually works, and I hold that one dearly, so there you go. I think when we come right down to it, we can all agree, no matter what faith or lack thereof we may call our own, upon one immutable and obvious truth: Scientology is fucking stupid.
Which leads me to my first comment, why is it okay to mock certain religions? I know why it’s okay to mock Scientology, because rich and famous people are members of it, and we all hate the rich and famous. Also it’s a cult. And (as I understand it) the movie Battlefield Earth has something to do with their religion, and that’s one of the worst movies of all time. You don’t see any religions based on Swimming Pool, but if you did I’d rip on them too.
But we also seem to feel it’s okay to make fun of Mormonism, which is the one I find interesting. It’s easy to mock some Eastern religion, because it’s far away, or Scientology because Tom Cruise is psychotic now, but how did the Mormons get singled out as the group it’s okay to ridicule? If a TV show made a joke about Presbyterians that wouldn’t be okay, but feel free to make all the Joe Smith jokes you like. I suppose it’s because it’s Christianity, but it still seems so foreign. What with the new bible they have about the Indians (Native Americans? I don’t know what’s proper in this context…Pagans, I suppose) (I was at a sleepover where we read once from the Book of Mormon…which is frankly weird regardless of what religious text you’re reading from “Okay kids, video game time is over, now let’s read from the Baghvada Gita” Strange is all I’m saying). Plus the whole bigamy thing and the lack of caffeine, and it’s just strange enough that it seems like it should be a totally separate religion, except they have that Jesus dude walking around the whole time.
In the vein of people discussing religion in strange places, I had the single most surreal experience of my life the other day. While taking a shit in the Union (not like in the lobby, I was in the bathroom), a couple construction guys came into the bathroom, discussing the Exodus. Now in general, I am opposed to bathroom discussions, but even when they occur they tend to be fairly “You see that thing?” “Ugh, yeah that thing… jeez” type of conversations. Meanwhile these guys were going on and on about the symbolism of the manna (one n? spellcheck says two…and spellcheck says spellcheck isn’t a word…bit of an identity crisis I feel…he thinks he has a hyphen or is separated…interesting…a lot of ellipses in this sentence). And the fact that I knew they were construction guys (there’s a site right next to the union, and it’s not like this takes Sherlock Holmes) just made it all the stranger. Then they got the Sabbath day wrong.
I find this strange as well. Why did the Christians change the Sabbath day? In the New Testament it has it correctly. Jesus gets crucified on Friday, the next day everyone goes home and does whatever it is Jews do on the Sabbath (answer: not much) and then on Sunday he rises. When the hell did we move church to Sundays? Is it because Jesus rose on a Sunday and we figured if we did church on Saturdays then come Easter we’d have to go twice in one weekend? Was it a Roman thing just to be pissy? Did we not want to compete in the Jewish time-slot? Better ad time on Sundays? I don’t understand.
I’ll end this particular post (although I think there’s a decent chance I will be posting on religion again, rather soon) with some interesting things that can be found in the Bible that you might not know were in there (I’m using the New American Standard Bible, so these should be fairly representative of most versions…and certainly nothing that should be taken as crackpot or highly unorthodox).
(1) There is reason to believe that Judaism began as a polytheistic religion, where the LORD was the highest of a number of gods. A number of the Psalms make reference to this:
Psalm 82: I said, "You are gods,/And all of you are sons of the Most High./Nevertheless you will die like men/And fall like any one of the princes”
Psalm 58: Do you indeed speak righteousness, O gods?
Psalm 86: There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,/Nor are there any works like Yours
Psalm 95: For the LORD is a great God/And a great King above all gods
You can cast it aside as a metaphorical way of speaking but the term “gods” shows up surprising number of times in the bible.
(2) Jesus had family.
Matthew 12:46 (because you’ll want to read it yourself):
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.
But it’s okay, there was no hanky-panky before Jesus. From Matthew 1:24-25
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus
Although afterwards there seems to have been quite a bit. From Matthew 13: 55-56
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?
I’ll put in more next time I post on religion, because there’s some neat stuff in there, that most people just glaze right over.
(originally written August 16th)
posted by drs at 5:35 PM
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