Religion and Society

Tim's Favorite Blogs

Eschew Obfuscation
IM Earthling
Silk Road
The Huffington Post
Media Matters
American Progress
Citizens For Ethics
Crooks And Liars
Common Cause

Media Matters

Blog Directories

Tuesday, December 8. 2009

2012 and Sin

This is really getting embarrassing. This should be a confession. “Bless me Father for I have sinned …”

Man, have I sinned. Sinning is what I do best! There are a few sins I just don’t care to involve myself with, like lying and … I know there’s a couple others. Cursing! That’s one! But, I still tend to curse like a drunken Marine. No matter. Everything in life seems to be a sin! Except killing. We glorify killing and violence in this country so maybe God and Moses were wrong when they brought those tablets down from the mountaintop.
 Does anyone remember the name of the mountain? He-he-he! I love watching the Jay Leno segment, “Jaywalking.” Of course, if you’re reading this you can go Google it and get the answer and not look ignorant.
 Don’t lie! You know you have and will again ‘cause I’ve done it too!

“Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Well, that’s quaint, but killing makes for great entertainment and we gotta justify war and capital punishment. Sorry God, you lose.

You know, the sin people seem to be most concerned with are those involving the flesh — SEX! Whether you’re having it with another or yourself. Having it with yourself seems to be especially deviant. “Pleasuring yourself? No, no, no my son. You will spend an eternity in Hell for touching yourself in a knowing way.”

Well, I once tried touching myself in an unknowing way and well, I gotta tell ya Fadder, I just wasn’t able to get a boner, ya know what I mean?

Looking at pictures and video of nude women is a sin. Looking at adult material (porn) is a sin. Hell, hiring a prostitute is a sin. Having sex outside of marriage in general is a sin, although we tend to let that one slide. “Good Christians” — and I would bet “Good Jews” and “Good Muslims” — let that one slide as well. Even Abraham, the father of all three of those religions, had sex with one of his slaves to produce a son: Ishmael.

Ishmael, as you may recall, if you’ve read your holy literature at all, was cast out with his mother Hagar because Sarah, Abraham’s wife and the mother of Isaac, didn’t want the slave’s child to inherit an equal share of Abraham’s wealth.

When you read further into Genesis and Deuteronomy, you’ll know that God promised Ishmael and his mother He would build up a “great nation” for the one that was cast out — Islam.

Anyway, that’s getting a little far a field of this screed, which is about sinning!
 And then there’s Tiger Woods! What a sinner he’s turned out to be lately!

Ah, sinning in a prurient manner! Don’t we all love it! Yes we do and you know you do to, even if you get down on your knees and pray to the God of Abraham. Or any of the other recognized Higher Powers recognized by the various other religions.

The religions of Abraham all condemn prurient sinning and in old times — and even modern times — those who sin as such were put to death, most especially women. For men, sex outside of marriage is a sin, but we can be excused with a few acts of contrition — unless of course you’re a homosexual in which case you’re dead meat. Women: stoned and/or beheaded, straight or gay, doesn’t matter.
 Girl with Girl ... man, my mind is on one track at the moment.

Now, in the past 30-plus years, the Christian religionists have aligned themselves with the women’s movement when it comes to porn and nudity. Yes they have! If you remember the Meese Commission, set up by the religionists during the Reagan Administration, incorporated the beliefs and allied themselves with the leaders of the women’s movement who condemned porn and nudity. It objectified and dehumanized women.

Really. They actually had “scientific” evidence to prove it, although real social scientists, who were not invited to participate in the commission, debunked every finding of that commission. You see, the commission had its conclusion before it was even an official commission so any dissent was not to be tolerated.

Religion, by its very design, dehumanizes women. Read any holy literature of any religion and women are second-class citizens at best. If you read the Old Testament, women are but possessions, no better or greater than a man’s cattle.

Men can have sex outside of marriage and get by with a few acts of contrition. Women are executed. It’s all bullshit. Because of these stupid religious beliefs, women are denied medical care and make less then men for doing the same jobs.
 Interesting tangent: In the current health care debate Republicans and some “conservative” Democrats wanted to ban health insurance companies involved with any government program from providing coverage to women who wanted to get abortions. But, and this is funny, they wanted to make sure a man’s prescription to Viagra (and other male boner meds) was covered.
 And then they wanted to make a woman’s health records open to the public if she got an abortion.
 No double standard there!

Years and years ago, teaching and nursing, both jobs requiring a higher education, were mostly populated by women and therefore were paid accordingly. That is, the advanced education the women got didn’t insure they would get paid as well as men who got equally advanced educations.

We can call it progress, I guess. At least in most parts of Christianity and Judaism, women are no longer mere possessions; they’ve advanced to being full-fledged second-class citizens.

Religion dehumanizes men by that very process of dehumanizing women. “We” tend to believe a woman’s central, most important role in life is to please men. Now, on the surface that may contradict my prurient desires to view images of nude women and hire prostitutes for sex. But, right now I can’t really afford to hire anyone for anything, let alone sex, and the women who I might view in these images are willing participants, often enthusiastically. They make a pretty healthy living doing what they do. I’m envious.

Well, not often envious, mostly I’m lustful. Yeah, lust. I guess lust can be a deadly sin if it drives one to force sex on another, but other than that extreme circumstance, lust is part of human nature. It’s how we mate and procreate. Personally, I’d like to mate and skip the procreation. Do we really need a clan of little me’s in this world?

In the past I’ve met many of these women who shed their clothes for my lustful entertainment and for the most part, they are very nice people. It would be a great surprise to me if any of them said they didn’t realize I was daydreaming about having sex with them as we were talking.

Well, maybe not Roxanne Dawn. Roxanne … sigh … I’m in love … Sometimes, when you’re in love, lust is replaced by other desires, like companionship. But she still fills me with lust!

This was supposed to end, the ending was supposed to start 400 words ago, with a little review of the movie 2012. John and I saw it Sunday and my thought was, “Every religion has a scenario for the coming apocalypse.” The Mayans, on whose calendar this movie is based, said the world would end on December 12, 2012. That’s just three years away.

There was going to be a comparison of sins, but mainly I was too lazy to look up the sins as proscribed by the Mayan religion. I would bet they are fairly similar to those set forth by Moses.

The real sin though might be the movie itself. Some great actors — including Amanda Peet — but it really wasn’t all that good.

I’d like to go on (and on and on) about how we seem to have exhausted the avenues of entertainment when it comes to Christianity and the fight between Jesus and Satan, so now we’re going into ancient religions (Let’s not forget The Mummy franchise) but, we’re out of room. Maybe next time. I gotta stop spending so much time sinning. That’s the embarrassment. My writing has suffered as of late … that’s my confession.

Bless me Father for I have sinned. My last confession was … err … geez … I’m pretty sure it was during the Nixon Administration. Like I care.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Religion and Society at 11:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

(Page 1 of 22, totaling 22 entries) » next page