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Feb. 27th, 2004 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosReligion is a crock.
No, wait. I need to rephrase, because religion's pretty cool.
Organized religion is a crock.
I say this as someone who spent her formative years being forced to go to catechism class once a week after school. Most of the kids in my school went to catechism class -- my hometown was once in the Guinness Book for having the most churches per square mile. (It also once made it in for most bars per square mile ... apparently, you come to Forest City to either get religion or cirrhosis.)
I hated every damn minute of it.
Maybe it was just that I might always have had the mind of a writer, but I always kind of saw it as being fed a fantasy story meant to teach us kids how to be good people. Nothing wrong with that at all, because to me, that's what most religions come down to in the end -- a story with some basis in fact intended to teach you to love and respect your fellow man. As long as that's what you get out of religion in the end, you're going about it the right way.
So, yeah. Me and Catholicism. I think I might have to preface this bit by pointing out that I started reading when I was about three. And by that, I mean that I started reading when I was three and haven't stopped since. When I was a kid, I read anything that sat still long enough ... I can clearly remember being entranced by the ingredients on cereal boxes while eating breakfast in the morning because there was nothing else at the kitchen table. Having said that, it didn't take me long to understand the difference between fact, fiction, and somewhere in between.
Which is why, when I was about seven or eight, I asked my mother if I could stop going to catechism class, and church in general.
First, I got the argument that I had to go to church or I was going to hell. Then, when she knew she wasn't even buying that line of BS, she told me that it would upset my grandparents if I gave up on church.
Finally we negotiated to my giving up right after confirmation.
So I slogged through another six or seven years of listening to nuns trying to impress upon me that if I said "Oh, my God" at something or skipped church or something, I was going to have apologize to them. Why, I still have no idea. Why the hell did I have to tell them I was sorry? "Because it's like telling God." Well, then I'll just tell God. "You have to come to church to do that." But you've been showing me pictures for years telling me he lives in the clouds! "Well, he does, but this is his house --" What, like his summer house? He never comes here, damn it! I'm going to go take a walk in the park and apologize to him there, all right?
Clearly, I was not meant to be a Catholic. (You can tell, what with me not capitalizing his pronouns and all.)
So confirmation came and went and so did I, never going into our local churches again unless I had to, like for funerals or weddings or just to take hits off the incense. Did that stop me from being a bad person anymore? Well, you tell me. I don't drink all that much, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I'm still a virgin, I don't hate anyone when you get right down to it (although I violently dislike some people, but we're talking about people like Pat Robertson and Dubya and Fred Phelps who'd piss my God off), I'm kind to animals and children, I give money to every charity and Salvation Army person I pass, I love my family to pieces (even if they do piss me off sometimes) ...
... and yet, someone somewhere thinks I'm going to Hell because I don't go to church.
See, that'd sound like a threat if I actually believed in Hell. But I don't. I don't believe in Hell, and I don't believe in Satan, and the only angel I believe in dresses in tights and fights for the X-Men. I believe that after I die, I'm not going to Heaven, but I do think that if I ask really nice, I can go to the imaginary world of my choice. For example, slipping into Sunnydale during Season One of Buffy and being able to join the Scoobies with all knowledge of what's going to happen in the future ... yes, that would be my idea of a quality afterlife. Sue me.
As for God, I do believe in a higher power, but my God is best represented by "Joan of Arcadia". I kind of like the idea of a God who has ulterior motives to everything he does and is constantly amused by our antics, yet loves us at the same time. I always figured that he feels the same way about us that I feel about the characters I write. (I started writing a script once where God is a writer, and every writer here is a god in their world they've created, and so on, and you just had to find the right doorway to get to that dimension where you're the Almighty. Jeez, do I have to finish that script.)
The thing that I like about the way I've always thought of God is that he's not an oversensitive type of deity. He doesn't think that nudity is offensive, and he doesn't think you should think so, either, because he made Janet Jackson's breasts with his own two hands, and he's really proud of them, damn it. And he doesn't think marriage of any kind is evil, because if he hooked you up with a lifemate and you actually managed to find one another, he's really happy you two crazy kids want to make it permanent. He hates war, because it messes up his planet and kills off his people -- all of them, regardless of their religion of choice -- and quite frankly, he gets incredibly pissed at people who attack other countries in his name. If you can remember the lecture you got from your parents when you stole some pocket change from their dresser, imagine the talking-to you get from God when you invade Iraq or crash planes into buildings and then tell people he told you to do it.
What do I think his reaction to "The Passion of the Christ" would be? Quite possibly, abject embarrassment. Did you know that on the IMDb, up until a few days ago, "God (based on a book by)" was actually listed as a writing credit? No, seriously. And then they took it off. If I were Mel Gibson and I found that out, I'd have to argue that one. Dude, commit. if you're going to say that God had a hand in helping you make this movie, then he gets a directing credit, he gets a writing credit, and if this movie did, in fact, make it to my personal church at the Kodak Auditorium next year, he should be seated next to Jack Nicholson and get as much time as he wants for his speech if he gets to the goshdarned podium.
Not only that, but would you want a movie depicting the intense beating of your only son to be used as a marketing tool? Especially if the beating is as bad as I hear it is, because I know he's supposed to have died for his sins, but damn, I don't remember doing anything that bad. Do you? So I'm supposed to go back to the church out of ... what? Pity? Guilt? Revulsion? Are those good reasons to do anything?
Okay, we're supposed to expect this movie to be him getting the shit kicked out of him. (Oh, and by the way, my God thinks the concept of "curse words" are ridiculous. And he thinks if you're offended by something on the radio or TV, you should turn it off, because he gave you the knowledge of how to turn it on so you know damn well where the off button is.) And yes, that happens in other, just-as-violent movies. But here's the thing. At the end of "Dawn of the Dead," I do not want to become a zombie or be eaten by one. At the end of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I do not want to be chased by Leatherface or join his sick, twisted family. And at no point during "Fight Club" did I think, "I really need to go join --" Uh, okay, that's a bad example.
But what am I supposed to get out of this movie when I go? "Turn to God, because if he did this to his kid, think of what he'll do to you!" Uh, no. Thanks, but I like my God. He's fun to hang out with, he pays for the Smirnoff, he knows more about movies than I do, and his jokes are hilaaaaaarious.
So why am I going to see "The Passion of the Christ" this weekend? Because I want to see someone get the shit beat of them. (That it's supposed to be Jesus has no more bearing on my opinion of the movie than it would if it also included drunken boxing with Buddha, kickboxing with Alestair Crowley, and lightly slapping L. Ron Hubbard across the face wth a frozen trout.)
If that means I'm going to Hell ... well, whatever.
If it makes it easier for anyone to commit my soul to everlasting torment, I'll buy a ticket for another movie and sneak into "The Passion of the Christ."
No, wait. I need to rephrase, because religion's pretty cool.
Organized religion is a crock.
I say this as someone who spent her formative years being forced to go to catechism class once a week after school. Most of the kids in my school went to catechism class -- my hometown was once in the Guinness Book for having the most churches per square mile. (It also once made it in for most bars per square mile ... apparently, you come to Forest City to either get religion or cirrhosis.)
I hated every damn minute of it.
Maybe it was just that I might always have had the mind of a writer, but I always kind of saw it as being fed a fantasy story meant to teach us kids how to be good people. Nothing wrong with that at all, because to me, that's what most religions come down to in the end -- a story with some basis in fact intended to teach you to love and respect your fellow man. As long as that's what you get out of religion in the end, you're going about it the right way.
So, yeah. Me and Catholicism. I think I might have to preface this bit by pointing out that I started reading when I was about three. And by that, I mean that I started reading when I was three and haven't stopped since. When I was a kid, I read anything that sat still long enough ... I can clearly remember being entranced by the ingredients on cereal boxes while eating breakfast in the morning because there was nothing else at the kitchen table. Having said that, it didn't take me long to understand the difference between fact, fiction, and somewhere in between.
Which is why, when I was about seven or eight, I asked my mother if I could stop going to catechism class, and church in general.
First, I got the argument that I had to go to church or I was going to hell. Then, when she knew she wasn't even buying that line of BS, she told me that it would upset my grandparents if I gave up on church.
Finally we negotiated to my giving up right after confirmation.
So I slogged through another six or seven years of listening to nuns trying to impress upon me that if I said "Oh, my God" at something or skipped church or something, I was going to have apologize to them. Why, I still have no idea. Why the hell did I have to tell them I was sorry? "Because it's like telling God." Well, then I'll just tell God. "You have to come to church to do that." But you've been showing me pictures for years telling me he lives in the clouds! "Well, he does, but this is his house --" What, like his summer house? He never comes here, damn it! I'm going to go take a walk in the park and apologize to him there, all right?
Clearly, I was not meant to be a Catholic. (You can tell, what with me not capitalizing his pronouns and all.)
So confirmation came and went and so did I, never going into our local churches again unless I had to, like for funerals or weddings or just to take hits off the incense. Did that stop me from being a bad person anymore? Well, you tell me. I don't drink all that much, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I'm still a virgin, I don't hate anyone when you get right down to it (although I violently dislike some people, but we're talking about people like Pat Robertson and Dubya and Fred Phelps who'd piss my God off), I'm kind to animals and children, I give money to every charity and Salvation Army person I pass, I love my family to pieces (even if they do piss me off sometimes) ...
... and yet, someone somewhere thinks I'm going to Hell because I don't go to church.
See, that'd sound like a threat if I actually believed in Hell. But I don't. I don't believe in Hell, and I don't believe in Satan, and the only angel I believe in dresses in tights and fights for the X-Men. I believe that after I die, I'm not going to Heaven, but I do think that if I ask really nice, I can go to the imaginary world of my choice. For example, slipping into Sunnydale during Season One of Buffy and being able to join the Scoobies with all knowledge of what's going to happen in the future ... yes, that would be my idea of a quality afterlife. Sue me.
As for God, I do believe in a higher power, but my God is best represented by "Joan of Arcadia". I kind of like the idea of a God who has ulterior motives to everything he does and is constantly amused by our antics, yet loves us at the same time. I always figured that he feels the same way about us that I feel about the characters I write. (I started writing a script once where God is a writer, and every writer here is a god in their world they've created, and so on, and you just had to find the right doorway to get to that dimension where you're the Almighty. Jeez, do I have to finish that script.)
The thing that I like about the way I've always thought of God is that he's not an oversensitive type of deity. He doesn't think that nudity is offensive, and he doesn't think you should think so, either, because he made Janet Jackson's breasts with his own two hands, and he's really proud of them, damn it. And he doesn't think marriage of any kind is evil, because if he hooked you up with a lifemate and you actually managed to find one another, he's really happy you two crazy kids want to make it permanent. He hates war, because it messes up his planet and kills off his people -- all of them, regardless of their religion of choice -- and quite frankly, he gets incredibly pissed at people who attack other countries in his name. If you can remember the lecture you got from your parents when you stole some pocket change from their dresser, imagine the talking-to you get from God when you invade Iraq or crash planes into buildings and then tell people he told you to do it.
What do I think his reaction to "The Passion of the Christ" would be? Quite possibly, abject embarrassment. Did you know that on the IMDb, up until a few days ago, "God (based on a book by)" was actually listed as a writing credit? No, seriously. And then they took it off. If I were Mel Gibson and I found that out, I'd have to argue that one. Dude, commit. if you're going to say that God had a hand in helping you make this movie, then he gets a directing credit, he gets a writing credit, and if this movie did, in fact, make it to my personal church at the Kodak Auditorium next year, he should be seated next to Jack Nicholson and get as much time as he wants for his speech if he gets to the goshdarned podium.
Not only that, but would you want a movie depicting the intense beating of your only son to be used as a marketing tool? Especially if the beating is as bad as I hear it is, because I know he's supposed to have died for his sins, but damn, I don't remember doing anything that bad. Do you? So I'm supposed to go back to the church out of ... what? Pity? Guilt? Revulsion? Are those good reasons to do anything?
Okay, we're supposed to expect this movie to be him getting the shit kicked out of him. (Oh, and by the way, my God thinks the concept of "curse words" are ridiculous. And he thinks if you're offended by something on the radio or TV, you should turn it off, because he gave you the knowledge of how to turn it on so you know damn well where the off button is.) And yes, that happens in other, just-as-violent movies. But here's the thing. At the end of "Dawn of the Dead," I do not want to become a zombie or be eaten by one. At the end of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I do not want to be chased by Leatherface or join his sick, twisted family. And at no point during "Fight Club" did I think, "I really need to go join --" Uh, okay, that's a bad example.
But what am I supposed to get out of this movie when I go? "Turn to God, because if he did this to his kid, think of what he'll do to you!" Uh, no. Thanks, but I like my God. He's fun to hang out with, he pays for the Smirnoff, he knows more about movies than I do, and his jokes are hilaaaaaarious.
So why am I going to see "The Passion of the Christ" this weekend? Because I want to see someone get the shit beat of them. (That it's supposed to be Jesus has no more bearing on my opinion of the movie than it would if it also included drunken boxing with Buddha, kickboxing with Alestair Crowley, and lightly slapping L. Ron Hubbard across the face wth a frozen trout.)
If that means I'm going to Hell ... well, whatever.
If it makes it easier for anyone to commit my soul to everlasting torment, I'll buy a ticket for another movie and sneak into "The Passion of the Christ."
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an interesting entry as always
Date: 2004-02-27 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:53 am (UTC)I read little snippets out loud to my roommate. She's a religion major. She approves. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:16 am (UTC)All of these Puppet!Angel icons and I haven't seen one yet that didn't make me die laughing. I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it funny that this was probably the best episode of "Angel" ever and David wasn't even it in all that much.
OOO! Another Angel I believe in. What do you know? This response was on topic. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:56 am (UTC)I will now wait for lightning to strike.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 11:47 am (UTC)Fray
Date: 2004-02-27 01:39 pm (UTC)(Seriously, I've read a little and it's durned exciting)
Re: Fray
Date: 2004-02-27 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:55 am (UTC)Religion deals with the nature of existence, and in most cases, the dispensation of your "soul" for the rest of eternity, right? So you think it'd be pretty damn important to make sure you have FACTS to work on, I'd think. If a doctor said "I'm going to prescribe life-saving medicine for you, but I'm going to use a medical text that's been translated by fifteen different groups over two thousand years, and adapted from an oral tradition passed down for a few millenia before that. And I'm refusing to acknowledge any other doctor's opinions or successful treatments in the process. Now, take your medicine." - if that came from a doctor, only an idiot would have faith in them.
So why do people do it with a guy standing behind a pulpit who's working on outdated, badly-translated, and otherwise wildly inaccurate information?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:40 am (UTC)I've always had an odd mental image of the 'original authors' having an Anne Rice'esq fit over this 'fan fic' with it's OCs, a deity that they can't keep in character and 'creative interpretations' of the plot.
XP
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:35 am (UTC)Teri
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:46 am (UTC)*G* Mine has really cool tattoos. AND plays a mean tenor sax.
hugs,
T
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:49 am (UTC)He also likes to bug Jesus to get a haircut and get a real job. That joke never gets old.
oh my god . . .
Date: 2004-02-27 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 01:36 pm (UTC)I love you too, Teeny!
Teri
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:44 am (UTC)If you ever needed proof that I've left my Southern Baptist roots behind, there you have it.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:50 am (UTC)(One of my friends had a bad run-in with some scientologists, which is why I'd totally go for the trout-slapping of Ronniekins.)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 08:06 am (UTC)Think I'd like your God. =D
I dont think I'll be watching this movie at all, ever. Far to much blood, even in the trailers!
I was 'asked to leave' Religious Education class.
When school started I was so happy to be going to a class that did nothing but read books and stories to you that I didn't care about it being religious. We weren't at all religious and had never been to church, so when I started agueing logic with the instructor it wasn't from a religious point of view at all.
One story involved a roof that was flat and so filled up with sand, crushing those inside. I thought that she really may have not been able to understand roof construction and drainage, so I tried to explain.
They may have thought I was a bad influence on the other kids.
Hear, hear!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 08:13 am (UTC)(I started writing a script once where God is a writer, and every writer here is a god in their world they've created,
I was so disappointed when The Powers That Be on Angel turned out to be snotty blue teenagers. Joss Wheden should have appeared as TPTB, heaven knows it would have been in line with his ego. The scene could even have been shot in his office.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 08:44 am (UTC)Although, you know, that WOULD explain an awful lot.
For the record, I got thrown out of Sunday school at the age of three.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 01:35 pm (UTC)Dude, what?
Did I miss an episode?
The only snotty mystical teenagers I remembered got chopped into oblivion.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 04:31 pm (UTC)Now that I think of it, Eve has a similar snotty, lightweight vibe.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-28 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:05 am (UTC)I don't quite understand how people can believe in hell overall. Clearly there are *people* who would condemn their fellow man to an eternity of torture, but not everyone falls into this category. The mere idea that there are people more merciful than God is is just mind boggling. That's why I don't believe in hell :) God has to be tops at the whole mercy thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 11:47 am (UTC)(and this is from someone who spent the worst ten years of her life in Catholic school - oh yeah, i believe in hell. i was there.)
if you go to sunnydale in season 2, james marsters will be there.
*random person wandering through your LJ*
Date: 2004-02-27 01:23 pm (UTC)Also, the only angel I believe in dresses in tights and fights for the X-Men. *sporfle*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 01:31 pm (UTC)I love JoA's God, too. Crossing my fingers on that one.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 01:34 pm (UTC)Hi
Date: 2004-02-27 01:50 pm (UTC)Re: Hi
Date: 2004-02-27 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:50 pm (UTC)Give me that world dammit!
no subject
Date: 2004-03-02 07:29 am (UTC)I'm going to be Ed Norton when I die! ME!
*grin*