I’m an atheist who absolutely loves Christmas and every year I look forward to listening to some of my most favorite holiday hits. O’ Christmas Tree, O’ Holy Night, Silent Night, Jingle Bells, etc. I have no problem with the mention of Jesus or other religious statements because that’s just the nature of the beasts.
There is a version of Silent Night I’ve heard on the radio that consist of instrumentals with a voice over that I find in incredibly poor taste. The voice over is suppose to be God.
The song is depressing as hell and just isn’t something I want to hear between O’ Holy Night and Jingle Bells. I also can’t help but think “So you were there to hold his finger steady while he dialed the fucking phone but you weren’t available to nudge that plane controls a little bit? Were you on smoke break or something?”
Holy shit God was there! I can only imagine that he was also overpowered and was disabled by the terrorist on all four planes. Well at least that explains why he wasn’t able to prevent the catastrophe.
I realize this is a pretty lame rant and I already change the dial whenever this song comes on. I still hate it though.
All I can think when I read this is that, of all the people on those planes, the only ones I know for a fact had strong religious convictions… were the terrorists. Good thing God was there comforting them with every prayer, I guess.
Anyway, this song makes me say my own little prayer: “Thank God I don’t listen to radio.”
What a pathetic piece of shit. Makes me wish I was an atheiest!
If I had lost a loved one on 9/11, I would be furious that someone was trying to make a cheap, sleazy buck off of it.
PS- Marc, I’m glad that you can see this “holiday” for what it is and just kick back and enjoy the chaos! Christmas is what I do in church, with my family and my God. Xmas is the secular insanity that has totally taken over! I can do both!
Lousy, lousy song. I have no doubt that some of the dead turned to prayer and it may have consoled them a bit, but I bet each and every one of those nineteen bastards died yelling the name of the same God. Best not to go there at all.
Believe it or not, I intended to pit this very song. It’s the most crass and exploitative and just generally tasteless buck to be made off an American tragedy since the commemorative 9-11 plates I saw issued.
In terms of maudlin glurge factor it reminds me of the John Michael Montgomery song The Little Girl. In that song, a little girl recognizes a picture of Jesus as the man who held her when her atheist father killed her atheist mother (never mind that
1- Jesus probably looked nothing like his Sunday School representations and
2- If he could beam down to hold a traumatized child in the midst of lethal domestic violence then why couldn’t he give a Vulcan nerve pinch that would take down Daddy, save him & Mommy and spare the little girl being traumatized and orphaned?
(I don’t mind hearing it, but it’s one of those songs where I have to listen in the privacy of my own home. I’d rather not burst out crying in the middle of public transit thanks…)
One of the many, many reasons I despise the holiday season. “Let’s see if there’s anything in this world that we haven’t cheapened and exploited yet! Ooh, look, a terrorist attack!”
Anyone who doesn’t see something terribly wrong with that song can bite me.
[spoiler]*I headed out feeling feeling Christmas in my heart and in my soul
then remembered in the parking lot I’d forgot to get my can of Skoal
so I turned around and went back, my eyes still bright and moist
and as I passed the Service Desk I heard a familiar little voice.
“Hey woman!” said the little boy "Hey buffalo, I mean youse!
Yeah over here, shug, open up and give me the cash back for these ****ing shoes!
And while you’re doing that point me in the inclination
of the place in this dump you call a store where you sell the new Play Station!
I followed the kid from the service desk and kicked him in his little nads
Turns out his mom’s a gynecologist and he has a lawyer for a dad*
Still I admired his gumption and his acting and his wit,
but even so I smiled and laughed as I knocked from him the shit.*[/spoiler]
I don’t know if this makes me want to carry around a Louisville Slugger to smash the hell out of every radio I come across, or gouge out both my ears with a screwdriver just in case there’s a radio I can’t get to.
Then again, I’d still have to live in a society where this passes as both genuine entertainment and worthwhile sentiment, and where it is downright blasphemous to ask the obvious question of “So if you were there, God, couldn’t you have saved us a whole lot of shit with just a minimum of smiting?”
I need to start looking into either a shack in the woods or a decent opium den.
Not lame at all. This is really disgusting. There have been any number of nauseating exploitations of September 11th, but even for glurge this is putrid.
Having said that, I’d like to point out - this sort of reasoning always annoys me whenever I hear it. Free will is a vital part of human existence, and that means that human actions will occur that don’t always measure up to the standard of moral or good behavior. In my opinion, once free will is allowed for, it seems that there are two options available: either God allows actions to have consequences, no matter how vile the action might be; or God acts to negate all evil actions, which seems to me would negate the whole purpose (whatever it might be) for allowing free will in the first place.
I’m not trying to troll, here. Or convert anyone. I’m just sick of that particular non-argument for why a good and loving God can’t possibly exist.
Christian here (NOT fundie) and I hate that song too. Damn depressing, and really stupid representation of God and what his actual actions would be (as has been mentioned).
