# Is Cecil your master? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 27, 2006, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478 "2006-04-27T17:28:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Iris\_Rings](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d78d45/32.png) [@Iris\_Rings](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iris_Rings)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/21 "2006-04-27T21:25:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > As I thought, no debate. On the other hand, it really has not even gone the way of a poll, so off to **MPSIMS** it goes. > [/Moderating] I think **Sage Rat** made the right choice putting it in GD, but s/he was being serious. All the answers are jokey, but that’s not the OP’s fault. The serious question is: “Can you joke about some mortal being god-like without offending your own god?” Since I’m an atheist, the whole question is silly, but still part of the things that religious people seriously get trapped into debating. Like counting angels on a pinhead, any error that you take on faith leads to contradictions and seeming paradoxes. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/22 "2006-04-27T21:46:49Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > Personally I have to fight the urge to go with convention every time I need to link to a column by Cecil and to instead say something like “Cecil speaks.” This could result in people missing it as our eyes are attuned to the specific phrase, “The Master speaks.” > > But what about those of us for whom Cecil is not our master? Should we bow to the masses and pretend worship for this, admittedly, respectable fellow, or are we better to keep to our morals and refuse to accept His infallibility. Should we condemn Dopers who consider Cecil their master as pit-worthy sheep, and failing in the fight against ignorance? > > What say you? You come to this sacred place and speak such filth? You sir are BLASPHEMUOUS!! I’ll thank you kindly for leaving now. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/23 "2006-04-27T21:53:09Z")
I was under the impression that Cecil Adams was a real dude. Am I wrong or something??? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/24 "2006-04-27T23:46:40Z")
Joss Whedon is my master now. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/25 "2006-04-28T01:03:35Z")
> [@Iris Rings](#): > > The serious question is: “Can you joke about some mortal being god-like without offending your own god?” Some of us can; others cannot. Regarding the intentions of the OP: I am sympathetic, but I am not sure (given the number of times similar discussions have broken out on the SDMB), that the TM are capable of keeping it serious. Perhaps framed as a more general question with Cece as simply one example, we might carry on a serious discussion on the topic, but when one bases the whole thread on the reality and worship of Cecil, I am afraid that the topic is pretty thoroughly doomed as a Great Debate. (Check out the entire thread from the link I provided in my first post, here, for some _almost_ serious discussion of the topic. Do not, however, post to that thread restoring it to zombie status.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/26 "2006-04-28T01:08:52Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > With a capital ‘M’? Nicknames are always capitalized. Elvis was “The King”. Michael Brown was “Brownie”. Cecil is “The Master”. (In the context of this message board, at least … .) ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/27 "2006-04-28T01:27:49Z")
But of course he’s our master. Why else would anyone mount a campaign to name a [flower after him](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=367726)? GT ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/28 "2006-04-28T02:04:08Z")
A Perfect Master is a Hindu spiritual leader who has achieved enlightenment–maybe a god in human form–one walks the earth at any time. (This is my junk-spirituality western understanding of it.) I figger that if Cecil was going this route he’d be teaching yoga classes to movie stars and have rock bands burning substances in his honor–if he could restrain himself from insulting them long enough to cash in. He’d also have our credit card numbers.[sup]1[/sup] Me, I think Cecil is more along the line of Aristotle, “master of them who know.” That’s why Cecil is my Perfect Master and I am his, well, you know…[sup]2[/sup] [sub][sup]1[/sup]uhhh…[/sub] [sub][sup]2[/sup]What, you didn’t think I was _your’s_, didja?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/29 "2006-04-28T04:20:01Z")
> [@Iris Rings](#): > > I think **Sage Rat** made the right choice putting it in GD, but s/he was being serious. All the answers are jokey, but that’s not the OP’s fault. No, to some extent the intention was humor. More precisely my hope was for something like the “Should mutant registration be made into law?” thread, where the subject may be fictional and thus the whole thing humorous, but where an honest debate did occur on that point. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478/30 "2006-04-29T01:04:59Z")
> [@Iris Rings](#): > > The serious question is: “Can you joke about some mortal being god-like without offending your own god?” I know _I_ can. My God has a wicked sense of humor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cecil-your-master/354478.md?page=1)