You know, I understand people being religious, I really do. I have no problem with it either, as long as people realize that religion is an intensely personal issue, between an individual and his or her God(s) ( or lack thereof ), and should be kept that way ( yea, right, like that’ll ever happen ). What I don’t understand is the icons that people chose to surround themselves with. Like this. Or this. Or this ( For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to be a crappy T-shirt slogan?). Or this wallpaper for your computer that prompted this thread. Or any of dozens of other worse things I seen but don’t have links to at the moment.
Anyway, the purpose of this thread is twofold: #1. If anyone can actually explain why so many Christians (and other religions) seem to treat their faith like it’s a high school football team or People magazine, I’d like to hear it. This is your faith people, it’s supposed to be the template for your life on one hand and an actual relationship with God on the other. Why the constant urge to obsessively, relentlessly trivialize that?
#2. Since I doubt a good answer to #1 is possible, how about sharing any links to other Oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-they’re-serious religious icons and pop culture schlock? I need a good laugh.
I was going to answer, but am stymied by the sheer lack of taste that the first item shows. Jesus as cheerleader for kid’s sports?
Whatever of the kids who lose the contest/game/race?
<blanching at the thought there is actually a market out there for this shit>
And I thought the Serenity prayer afghans I saw in a truck stop out West several years ago were the last word in tacky… :eek:
We talked about this in a Philosophy of Religions course I took last summer. It’s called “popular religion” and it encompasses the ~90% of people who claim to be religious but never really study or examine their beliefs. I think when most people (at least myself) talk about the downsides of religious people, these are the people they’re referring to, as opposed to Historical (imagine if Diogenes believed) or Philosophical (Liberal, maybe Polycarp) religious people, who actually have legitimate reasons to believe.
These are the “christians” who are shocked to find out that I’ve read the entire bible, because they aren’t going to read that thing - it’s long!
As a Catholic and a jock, I can attempt to answer this both seriously and in the tongue-in-cheek manner in which I suppose it is intended.
The serious answer: I do pray before every race. I pray that neither I nor any of my competitors will be hurt, and that I will be able to perform to my potential. I thank God for the ability to row and for the opportunity to represent my club and my country, and I mention that the glory in all this is His.
The purpose of this, for me, is to express that I am grateful for being able to do this thing I love and to share it with others. Besides that (and I really don’t consider this all that much, except as a matter of “sports doctrine,” if you will), I suppose I’m representing what a person can do when he loves himself and respects his body (the whole “made in God’s image” thing).
None of this has to do with winning. I don’t think God favors me to win because I’m Catholic. On a serious note, praying for victory is like asking God to love you better than His other children.
On a non-serious note, if every team with a Bible-thumper on it got through to the Man Upstairs, there’d be a whole lot of ties in pro sports. Besides, even if I were racing Team Atheist, Team Heathen, and Team God Sucks Ass, I don’t believe in a God that would supernaturally give me an edge to win. I wouldn’t be representing Him very well if I didn’t train and just asked Him to bail me out on race day, now would I?
Just who is that baby kissing Jesus supposed to be, anyway? There’s some serious temporal-paradox issues going on if the Christ Child is kissing Suffering Jesus. And Mother Teresa looks for all the world like the peasant being burninated in the original Trogdor video.
Just to expand on this a little bit, I’ll give you a practical example. The Popular version of Hell is flames, screaming souls, little imp or goatlike man with a pitchfork, while the Popular version of Heaven is clouds, pearly gates, halos, harps, etc. If you think this sounds ridiculous, you’d be surprised at how many people believe this. We did some polling for the class, and I’ve done lots of polling on my own (insert joke here.)
These are not the Historical or Philosophical views of Heaven and Hell.
Well, the majority of art produced in the world is crap, and that unfortunately is true of religious art as well.
The same faith that inspired this crap, it must be pointed out, has given us the Sistine Chapel, da Vinci’s Last Supper, the Washington National Cathedral and the stained glass windows of the Heinz Chapel at the University of Pittsburgh.
I really don’t think there’s much more to it than that. I could be wrong, though.
See, now this is the kind of prayer I can get behind. Contrast it with the scene in the movie Diggstown, where the Bible-thumping fight manager prays for strength “to rip this man limb from limb.”
Sturgeon’s Law. When an oh-so-cultured literary critic commented to SF author Theodore Sturgeon that 90% of science fiction was crap, Sturgeon looked him in the eye and said, “90% of everything is crap!”
“Christian glurge” grosses out not only you folks and people like me, but sincere and devout fundamentalists and evangelicals as well. One of the more surreal moments in my life came when I was at the same time reading a thread here in which people were mocking those gawdawful statues of Jesus teaching kids various sports (with a hint of Jesus-as-Chester-the-Molester thrown in as well) and seeing the exact same points made by devout Christians in a thread over on Christian Forums.
That said, I’ve never seen the Heinz Chapel stained glass; is there a website depicting them, by any chance?
I really have no answer for part one. Good religious art I can understand. Having a piece (Cross, Menorah, I’m sorry I can’t think of any other items that would be associated with other major religions.) set in one’s home declaring one’s religion I can understand. But this other stuff? Ewww…
