Typical standup comedy, Spaw. Carlin handily points out something most of us know (or should know)...that our religious ceremonials are arbitrary stuff that somebody made up.

Fine.

So are our clothing styles. Why does anyone wear a tie? Why does it have to be tied a certain way? How much sillier can something possibly get than wearing a tie? Why shouldn't the president-elect refuse to wear a fuckin' tie??? Or why shouldn't he refuse to tie it with the special knot and just drape it around his neck casually? Or why not tie it rakishly around his forehead like Peter Sellers in that old Pink Panther movie? Who says he can't do that????

And why do suits have to be so dull and predictable? Why shouldn't the president-elect wear a bright yellow suit with no sleeves and red polka dots on it? Why not?

And why do so many women wear bras? What the fuck is that about??? They don't need them. They would be less constricted without them and they might not get as much breast cancer if they weren't constricting those soft tissues!

It's all arbitrary shit and no one knows why anyone does it, but everybody does it because somebody thought it up and because it's "the thing to do".

Why do so many men shave? I shave! Why? It isn't necessary or natural to shave the hair off your face or other parts of your body. And why do women feel that they should shave their armpits and their bikini line and why do cartoonists draw only females with eyelashes and the males get no eyelashes when we all know that EVERYBODY has eyelashes??????

Huh?

And why the hell does Daisy Duck have to wear a top, but she gets away with wearing no pants??? What's that about?

And why do car wheels have to be made out of black rubber? And why do people eat turkey for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Because of some pilgrims way back then? I don't think so. No one really gives a shit about Pilgrims now and I don't believe those old stories anyway. Half of that stuff was probably made up by somebody too.

So about 90% of everything we do is arbitrary shit, and nobody really knows why they do it or why people have BEEN doing it for a long, long time, but here's the problem....

You listening?

The problem is that we all want a sense of our identity. Right? One of the things we get that from is all of our cultural nonsense, most of which is arbitrary stuff that somebody made up. But if we didn't have all our cultural nonsense as a basis for who we are then we wouldn't know who we are, and that would be quite a problem.

Why is it you Americans don't give a tiddly about the Canadian Constitution or even know diddly about it?

Because it's not part of YOUR culture! Okay? So that's fine, we all have our own culture and that's fine.

Now it just so happens that one of the silly essentially arbitrary things that has come down through your culture and mine is to swear in a certain fashion with one's hand on a Bible during certain ceremonies. No one knows why, but people have been doing it for a long time, and that's why we're doing it now.

George Carlin should be smart enough to know that, and I'm sure he is, but what the hell...he was going for laughs, right? And he had a nice receptive audience there for those kind of laughs. Organized religion is a dead easy target for a George Carlin audience to chuckle over.

But George Carlin does a lot of silly and arbitrary stuff too, every day. We all do. Why? Because we automatically obey the many arbitrary dictates of the culture we were born in.

Now, the people who are pissing and moaning about someone swearing on a Bible are not doing it because swearing on a Bible is any more silly and arbitrary a notion than hundreds of other things they do every day...or any more important either.

No. They're pissing and moaning about it because they are personally quite hostive to one specific aspect of culture, namely the religious aspect.

So, as I said some time ago, they're enjoying exercising their favorite prejudice, that's all. Beating on the old hobby horse one more time.

Well, if you can do that, then I can complain about Obama wearing a tie. I hate ties! They are stupid and uncomfortable and they restrict the throat. They don't even look good. Fuck ties! I DEMAND that Barack Obama NOT wear a tie at the inauguration or ever again because it is insulting to common sense and it offends people who prefer to go tie-less. So there!!!

Yup, I can be downright silly and prejudiced and demanding too. Just like the rest of you. ;-) I can try to save YOU from the horrible fate of not thinking the way I do about ties!!!   

Tit for tat, right?