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One of the tent poles upon which the sniveling, school yard style political philosophy of the Christian right in America is erected, (and the right is de facto a Christian movement here, whether or not its members actually believe), is an invented war on Christianity. Never mind the fact that the vast majority of our legislators are essentially required to declare allegiance to the millenia old myths of a nomadic desert people, and that those moralistic poses creep their way into the actual law of the land, the fact that people sometimes say, for example, "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" when they're patronizing you with brush off pleasantries in line at a store is evidence of an systemic attack on everything this country was founded upon.
This has all been well-covered literally everywhere else, so I won't get to into here, but the reaction to Tim Tebow, the out of the closet, flaming Christian and vaguely quarterback-flavored humanoid, and his "miraculous" series of recent come back wins with the Denver Broncos, snatching defeat out of the fumbling paws of a series of inept football boneheads, and the delusional fever dream of the general public hoping to ascribe some sort of divine hand in guiding these games has framed the conversation in a context that people in this country actually give a shit about: how to get a ball from over here all the way over there, with a billion dollars at stake. Sports is, after all, the real religion here, so seeing it brush up against regular old religion has been fascinating.
Tebow, of course, lost to the Patriots yesterday, my team, the embodiment of everything venal in sports, with our fornicating quarterback, devious head coach, and the banality of our monotonous, evil winning ways. But something strange happened in the aftermath: almost every one I know turned into a schadenfreude-mad disbeliever, and seemed drunk on overflowing cups of atheist soup. "Where's your god now Tebow?" was a common refrain all across the inter-world last night. Your newsfeed was probably clogged with jokes to that effect as well, unless you've got me blocked, which is probably a wise move. The only thing we love more than expressing our delight in a media figure's misfortune is making really predictable jokes about it online, over and over again.
But the deluge of hacky faithlessness made me stop and rethink whether or not there isn't actually something to this anti-Christianity movement the cry-babies are always cry-babying about. Maybe they're right, we are waging a war on Christianity, as comments like this one on this Slate piece suggest: "your hatred and bigotry is showing. Teebo is an unabashed Christian, and you hate him for it. Very pathetic and small of you."
All of this is complicated by the recent death of one of our most famously outspoken atheists this week, Christopher Hitchens, who among other things, said religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."
Well, yeah, but only, you know, when it's working, so...
It feels this week like many of us have been forced to choose between the two extremes here, Hitchens on one side, and Tebow on the other. (Also, as a side note, worth pointing out, as the Slate piece mentions, that Hitchens was as dismissive of sports as he was of religion.)
I don't think that's exactly what's happening here though. I don't think what we're doing when we chuckle about Tebow's loss is delighting in an expression of spiritual nihilism, and pledging allegiance to the void that awaits us all after death, I think we're rather just looking for a way to distance ourselves from a system of bigotry, violence, and sanctimony that dominates our entire culture. No, not sports, (although same thing I guess) just the boring platitudinous bromides of Tebow-style Christianity. There's a big distinction, however, between finding that sort of rhetoric annoying, and wanting to eradicate it entirely, which is what your average overly sensitive Christian thinks is going on here when we all collectively get together to give the nerdy Tebow the biggest country-wide wedgie of his life.
No one is arguing that Tebow and his followers shouldn't have the right to believe in whatever they want, we're just asserting a very basic inalienable right of our own, which is being able to make fun of you when you act like a big giant goof. It's evidence that the real American spirit is still alive and well. Believe what you believe, just don't infringe on my right to think it's fucking stupid. That's my religion.
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22 comments:
Are religion jokes the new Nickelback joke, or the old Nickelback joke?
I think you could make that argument. But what if Nickelback were making shitty records for a couple thousand years?
"No one is arguing that Tebow and his followers shouldn't have the right to believe..."
While that is true (for me), it is also true that if there were a 'magic button' that I could press that would eliminate the concept of religion then I would do so. In fact, if the genie offered me the choice between pressing one of two buttons:
a) Eradicate religion
b) Eradicate cancer
I would push the 'Eradicate religion' button.
So, am I at war with Christianity? No - but only because I don't enter wars that I can't win.
WWJD?
Hoooooooof ^ The Nickelback (or is it the Nickelback joke?) of comments right there. Amen, bro.
I think we're rather just looking for a way to distance ourselves from a system of bigotry, violence, and sanctimony that dominates our entire culture
Oh yes. American culture is just dominated by not just the right, but the evil (bigoted and violent) CHRISTIAN right. That's why whenever I turn on the television I am smashed in the face with the relentlessly Christian agenda of reality shows and Louie and HBO and MTV and all of those crazy and intolerant Christ-worshipping Puritans in Hollywood and New York City. The film industry in Hollywood - or should I say CHRISTEYWOOD - is notoriously Christian and of course right wing to boot. Our papers of record - NY Times, Chicago Trib, LA Times, what have you - all of them rabidly, insanely Christian and conservative. Stroll some day through the Museum of Modern Art and it's clear that art itself is now dominated by the Pope and his Christ-happy weirdos. Worst of all is the radio. Why every time I turn one on all I hear is Niki Minaj and Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas and their neverending, holier-than-thou Christian moralizing.
It's just amazing how "our" "entire" "culture" is "dominated" by Christianity. Can barely escape it. Stop being so Christian, American-culture-industry-headquarted-in-NY-and-Hollywood!
This is a good piece Luke (even though I didn't really read the whole thing, just the first few sentences but I assume the rest is good too).
When I was working for Sony Music I had to fail or pass masters of contemporary Christian compilation albums. Every song is this vapid "Praise Him" bs that digs no deeper than that. And I mean every song. If you ever asked "but why?" you'd never get an answer. Blindly follow. That is the message. Nothing Christ-like about any of it.
Of course it's a great way to make money. So look out for my contemporary Christian album.
And I'm not saying many of these people aren't decent well meaning folks.
You're basically making my point for me MINT. What people like you and your buddy Bill O'Really are whining about aren't that you can't be Christian anymore, but that the cool kids in Hollywood etc are making fun of you for being so.
Charlie Pierce on the topic:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7369021/fair-game
Despite MINTY's rebuttal, I have to agree with Mr O'Neil's quoted argument. (I also agree with Mr. O'Neil's assessment of the rebuttal, but that's beside the point) Judeo-christian philosophy underpins the plot of most blockbuster Hollywood films, even if Christ himself is not explicitly shown or mentioned. If the team of six white (and perhaps one black) soldiers infiltrate and destroy the terrorist cell (the black guy dies, the terrorist look swarthy and Middle Eastern), a set of values is therefore metaphorically victorious. The notions of individual exceptionalism, romantic love, and heroic personal sacrifice tend to surface in these types of films too. They're decidedly Western Christian themes.
As a non-American who has spent a lot of time in the USA and around Americans I can only say that the only thing worse than American Christians are American Atheists. Dumb vs. Dumber. (At least that movie was great).
Luke, I'm a dyed-in-the wool Strong Atheist and don't think there's a fucking chance in hell that Jesus is God (or that there's a God at all), but I'm gonna throw this one your way because it's an argument I hear from god-bots all the time:
"America was founded on Christian traditions and values, so who are you to try and change it now?"
What's YOUR take on that (flimsy) argument?
I think that sort of thing has been written about a lot already. Just did a quick search to try to find something that aligns with what I think, and this is a pretty good start:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html
"There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites" - Thomas "Tommy" Jefferson.
and this
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26169/Top-5-myths-about-america
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…willbe classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - TJ
No surprise there, Luke. I know that many of the founding fathers weren't christian - or in Tommy J's case, they were as close to Atheist as it was possible to be back then - but that doesn't detract from the claim that "America was founded as a Christian nation". In God We Trust wasn't even on our money until the 1950s. But since when have Christians ever been concerned with the facts? I guess that sums up the problem right there, don't it?
speaking of Hitch, this was a favorite of his to trot out
“The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.”
― Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens was your typical English private school faggot who was a fashionable Trotskyite turned slavish Imperialist who not only supported the War in Iraq but the one in the Falklands as well.
He was a tolerable "contrarian", never holding any seriously controversial thoughts, upholding the new orthodoxy of liberal democracy/human rights and opposing the new favourite target: Christianity.
The only thing he ever got right is that women aren't funny.
He's simply the flipside of clowns like Rick Perry or Sarah Palin; a predictable, cartoonish figure who's only saving grace was the occasional decent literary critique found in The Atlantic Monthly.
Here's a leftist take from Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch - http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/farewell-to-c-h/
Don Johnson wrote a good summation here - http://www.saloforum.com/index.php?threads/on-christopher-hitchens.1716/
I'm simply amazed by the proliferation of binary thinking amongst Americans that I encounter and their incredible lack of critical thinking and weak philosophical grounding. It's what makes them either easy marks for Evangelical Christian bullshit like Joel Osteen or the gay-friendly churches now proliferating, or for charlatans like Hitchens or Dawkins.
I am in no way a Hitchens acolyte, I would like to point out. I found him despicable more often than not.
Reading the Counterpunch piece, pretty interesting so far, but had to stop to point out this line by Cockburn regarding Hithcen's obituary attack on Said:
"Here he decided both to bask in his former friend’s fame, recalling the little moments that made it clear he was intimate with the man, and to put himself at the center of the spotlight by taking his old friend down a few notches."
Funny, that's exactly what Cockburn is doing here regarding his old chum Hitchens.
I think the phrase "one good turn deserves another" applies to Hitchens as he was usually the first out of the gate to denounce any recently dead public figure whose actions/opinions he didn't like much at all.
I only look at the pictures. The 13 year old Mom and the daughter are going to cap Dad, brother, the mailman or the neighbors with their shitty trigger discipline.
"OK honey bring it in. Pose those assault rifles goddammit! You know how much those fucking things cost? Don't slobber on them. They're meant to kill minorities for fu BLAM!!!
"Roy? ROOOOOYYYYYYYY!!!!! Oh God no. Nonononono!"
guy who only looks at the pictures character seems like it could have legs.
You like it? It's yours. Consider it a Christmas gift from me. Karma works sometimes old buddy.
that pic is halarious!
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