5.19.2011
In the past, I have been chastised for making fun of religion in general and Christianity in particular. But now that some fringe Christian group has declared that the apocalypse will occur on Saturday, it is suddenly acceptable to make fun of religious beliefs. Either it is acceptable to make fun of religious beliefs, or it is not. Your beliefs are perfectly reasonable and must be taken seriously. Their beliefs are stupid and can be mocked. Give me a fucking break. You don't get to make fun of Scientologists cleansing their thetans and then turn around and whine about people pointing out the inconsistencies in your own beliefs.
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4 comments:
In the past, I used to chastise. But the more I think about things (the organized crime that is Catholicism and its support of molestation, the fact that Christians can't stand religious/non-religious plurality in the nation, women's rights, etc), the more pissed off I become. I wouldn't care about people believing their crazy (I like fantasy stories and believe in a world wherein women will be treated as equals...which some think is crazy), but it seems like an inherent part of their belief system is telling other people what to do. So I've sort of denounced the whole thing...though I actually avoid mocking Scientology (though it's crazy), Paganism, etc, if only because its nice to have variety--and not just one ring to rule them all.
I think the sticky part is blanket mocking and criticism. To say, "All members of Group X believe or do Y" is just not accurate. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism -- for most major traditions, there are a million different interpretations, and practically nothing holds true across the board.
The inaccuracy bothers me a lot of the time, but when the comments are specific and on-point, I'm not terribly bothered. The South Park Mormon episode? Comic gold...because it's all true.
I guess the other thing that bothers me is when it's done with the specific intent to hurt people. I don't get that, either. If someone is making a humorous observation, or asking a question, or truly trying to understand how other people can believe in things that seem absurd, then I'm not bothered. When comments are made with the specific intent to hurt someone else -- not genuine dialogue, but genuine maliciousness -- then I'm bothered.
The South Park episode, for example, isn't malicious. It's a way to say, "I get it but I don't get it." It's light-hearted, and I don't think its sole intent is to hurt Mormons. In my book, that's different. Maybe it shouldn't be, but for me, it is.
I think that if you make fun of somebody's beliefs it is always going to be at least a little mean. Maybe not malicious exactly, but it definitely isn't considered nice. A lot of Mormons were pretty unhappy about that South Park episode. After all, it all boils down to "Haha, your deeply-held beliefs are stupid!" I should make it clear that I don't actually give a shit if people make fun of religion. It is not my intention to chastise anybody.
Also, your point about generalizations is a little silly. Every time we meet a new person we file them away into one or more categories - hipster, dudebro, nerd, blue-collar, etc. If we couldn't generalize we couldn't even really think or talk about things. Besides, generalizations work. I realize everybody wants to think they are a special snowflake, but the reality is that we do fit neatly into groups of like-minded people with similar habits. If there is a statistical correlation between being a fundamentalist Christian and being Republican, it's fair to say that fundamentalist Christians are Republicans. Yes, it would be inaccurate to say that every single fundamentalist Christian is a Republican. But guess what? Nobody says that. Furthermore, it would be extremely tedious to have to make the same disclaimers about how we realize not every single person believes every single tidbit of dogma so please don't get offended if we say X group has Y belief yadda yadda over and over every time you want to talk about religion.
I'm with Erica on this. Either it's all okay or none of it's okay. Whining about someone picking on your religious views loses all credibility when you turn around and mock someone else's. Hypocrisy doesn't get an iota of respect over here.
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