BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'

Subject: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:32 PM

Some atheists and other like-minded groups have filed suit that "so help me God" be deleted from Obama's inauguration oath.

Curious to know Mudcatters' take on this.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:34 PM

It's HIS inauguration. Let the control freaks control their own lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:39 PM

Took the words right out of my mouth, Jeri. Well, not literally, but I woulda said the same thing....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:56 PM

They also don't want a prayer or anything by any minister, priest, rabbi, shaman, or medicine man.

I agree with the above.

It's Obama's day -- as long as he's legally sworn in who gives a rat's rectum?

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:12 PM

Obama is a Christian! I rather expect he'll say it as he pleases.

The problem would be if we ever elected a non-religious president who decided NOT to say it. (Don't hold your breath.)

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:17 PM

I can see the day coming, Bill. But it will require a crisis of magnitude, much as the economic blowup spurred Obama's election.

I can see the Bill day coming....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:21 PM

I see no point in having the phrase "so help me God" in the oath office. If you can't promise to do your utmost best for your country without decorating it with some kind of supernatural legitimacy, then to me your promise is meaningless. Leaving god out shows that the oathmaker is prepared to take full responsibilty for his actions and decisions.

But I don't agree with militant atheism, either. No better than any religious or political organisation that works to ram some kind of tenet down unwilling throats.

The mob is the untruth.

For me - the jury is still out on atheism. Religions can't prove God exists and atheism can't prove God doesn't exist. I tend to think that if God does exist in the religious context, then he is a cold, uninvolved bastard. This thought is based on ages of unchecked suffering (especially the children). And the feeling has only grown as I've aged and been exposed to more horror.

I will probably recant (just like so many others) in late age. When mortality threatens and I am trying to cover all angles. But that is another day.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:32 PM

"I can see the Bill day coming...."

funny...I can't. Not even with my bi-focals cleaned.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:36 PM

VTam.... well said.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:47 PM

Live and let live. Coexist! Die gendanken sind frei--so think what you will--and they will too!!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:48 PM

(personally, I am not comfortable with the idea of a god who gave one of his creations (us) the ability use logic and to reflect on our very existence, but punishes us for using it to doubt. My 'logic' tells me that if *I* had created a bunch of very fallible beings who couldn't be trusted to follow all the rules, I'd show up a lot more often and in VERY clear ways to remind them)


but...*shrug* since many are ok with the idea of just 'believing', I am not likely to change their minds...and if they intend to recite pleas for help in their duties, I can't prevent them from doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:51 PM

Each day, I give thanks to God for having made me an atheist.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 02:57 PM

Hahahahaa.... I like it, BWL. God is laughing at that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:17 PM

The problem is, with having it in there, when the presidency fails, all the swearee has to say is, "Oh well, god refused to help!"

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:29 PM

Federal employees are given the option of saying "I so affirm" instead of "so help me god." I have used the affirmation in any instance when called upon giving an oath. Oath taking seems stupid to me anyway, I'd rather no one have to do it at all. One boss who was very strict about these rules raised his eyebrows when I used that, quite startled to find a heathen in his flock. Tough.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:44 PM

I was the first or second to vote in the advanced poll in my polling station in the last three federal elections. Took Mum along. At the first of those, in a Baptist church, my mum noticed a Bible on the administer's desk. She asked and was told it was to swear upon if you didn't have the proper paperwork and wanted to vote.

That church was not a polling station in the subsequent elections, by Canadian Law. Ya don't mess with the law and ya don't mess with Mum.

Yes, SRS.... tough indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:58 PM

Hot damn... that is fantastic Gnu. I am a Recovering Baptist. And it was my church attending days made me think really hard and long about the whole absent God thing.

Wonder what the Southern Baptist organisation would make of the fact that it's dogma and practices made a near athiest of me.

Ha ha ha.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: number 6
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:00 PM

"Each day, I give thanks to God for having made me an atheist."

Luv it BWL !

And thank God we have the freedom to be atheists.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:12 PM

Everyone should get to make an oath exactly the way they want to...with or without mentioning God...Barack Obama included. And it's no one else's business what decision they make about that or whether or not they want to mention God.

No one else has a frikkin' clue what another person really means when they utter the word "God" anyway...they just have their customary facile assumptions about what they think God is or isn't or what they think someone else thinks God is or isn't...and their assumptions may be quite wrong in that regard...and that's one of the reasons they have no business trying to control whether someone else chooses to say or not say the word "God" when making an oath.

Control freaks of the world, control yourselves instead, as Jeri suggested.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: RangerSteve
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:22 PM

Thomas Jefferson, when asked his opinion of the Unitarian Church, said "It neither steals my purse nor breaks my leg". I wish people would use this philosophy more often. Obama can say "by Jupiter" for all I care. It won't change my life or have the slightest effect on it. Why not sue because he won't have your favorite musician perform at the inauguration? Maybe vegans can sue because meat will be served in the White House. You don't have to be a yuppie to exhibit yuppie-like behavior (the world must revolve around Me. Everyone must strive to please Me. It's all about Me. Me. Me.). I'm waiting for the revolution, when everyone showing yuppie-like behavior will be exiled to to a remote island and left to die.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 04:42 PM

I think it was VirginiaTam who said:

Religions can't prove God exists and atheism can't prove God doesn't exist.

You miss the point, VT. Atheists (such as me) don't need to prove that god doesn't exist. They merely make their own decision, "I believe no god exists," or perhaps the lesser statement, "I don't believe a god exists." To paraphrase Jefferson, that steals no-one's purse and breaks no-one's leg. (Thanks, RangerSteve)

If a person calling himself an atheist arrogates to himself the right to protest Obama's use of "So help me God" in the inaugural oath, that person is not acting as an atheist as such, but as a controlling busybody who happens to include in his belief system the tenet that there is (or maybe "should be") no god.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 05:11 PM

I think LH has the right idea, much as I hate to admit it. This is Mr. Obama's oath, and must be in the form that he sees as most binding upon himself. As a believing Christian, any oath that did not mention God would not be as meaningful to him as one which did. Whether or not someone else "affirms" or professes a lack of belief in God/god entirely or finds the inclusion of a/the deity in the oath of office repugnant isn't really relevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 05:29 PM

Swearing "so help me God" didn't help Nixon or many others. Swearing to tell the truth "so help me God" didn't keep a whole string of murderers from the hangman when the evidence clearly contradicted them.

I'd rather an honest atheist than a lyin' believer. (Of course, technically you can't be a Christian and a liar, but we all know better, don't we?)

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:04 PM

Uncle_DaveO... ummm, would it not be better for atheists, while they do not believe in "God", to also say they do not deny his/her existence?

Why tempt fate?

And, yes, I know the term "agnostic"... I just think it's spelt wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Midchuck
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:22 PM

UDO said:

Atheists (such as me) don't need to prove that god doesn't exist. They merely make their own decision, "I believe no god exists," or perhaps the lesser statement, "I don't believe a god exists."

Those are two VASTLY different statements. With regard to me, the second is true, but the first is a matter of insufficient data.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:23 PM

in one dictionary program I have, 'atheist' is defined specifically as "Someone who denies the existence of god"

I think the entomology of the word actually means 'denial'. In that sense, it merely represents an opinion.......which, as a matter of fact, is all 'believing' does.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:37 PM

Curious to know Mudcatters' take on this.

My take on it is that God helps when HE pleases, prayer or not.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:44 PM

My take is that God helps when We please, if we choose to accept God in our heart. Whatever God that might be.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Sorcha
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:46 PM

Well, doesn't the United States have some clause about separation of church and state????? EH???? That to me, seems to rule out 'so help me God'.

But, whatever

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 06:59 PM

I have always preferred a phrase along the lines of "I swear by all that I hold sacred" or "I swear by the gods my people swear by" or simply, "As best I possibly can."

When I was sworn in during a court session I was asked if I swore to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" and I said I would. No god in it, just a perjury charge.

(I wanted to respond, "Up to a point" and when the judge asked "What point is that?" I'd say, "The point where I start lyin'." But our lawyers wouldn't let me and that's probably just as well.)

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:01 PM

Why not sue because he won't have your favorite musician perform at the inauguration? Maybe vegans can sue because meat will be served in the White House.

Why not stick to the subject?

The fact that I don't have a belief system that incorporates a god deity is my business. When someone else tries to push their personal deity on me, I push back and ask them to keep it to themselves. In the grocery store last week a particularly stubborn little old lady in line behind me just didn't get it and I had to simply ignore her as she kept preaching her gospel at me and offering "have a blessed day." I do resent it when people offer that little parting shot, because it is a manipulative way they have been taught of layering their ritual over my life. Do they think I don't get it? It's like Mormon's baptizing deceased Jews. They need to keep it to themselves.

What I REALLY resent are those religions that feel the need to co-opt everyone else's belief system. The christian's answer I have heard many times, when discussing the practice of other religions, that "it's all the same god." This is not only wrong, it's rude.

Here in the U.S. so many localities are trying to include school prayer and a "creation science" that, of course, favors the creation stories of the christian religion. It doesn't look at how the Choctaw believe they travelled from the Northwest transporting the bones of their deceased loved ones and guided by a tall pole indicating their direction of travel, or of the Southwestern tribes who climbed out of a hole in a log from under four layers inside the earth. It isn't really meant to teach ALL creation stories, just the one.

The legislation is as sly and lying about what is being taught as any you'll find on the books. Pretend it is science and a few folks might not realize it is really our religion, and we'll indoctrinate those kids young. To teach one religion in public schools to the dismissal of all others says this religion is more important or better, and it isn't, it is simply more widespread.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: MaineDog
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:03 PM

Swearing an oath by God means, basically, that you are accepting as fact that you will lose your Salvation and be damned to hell if you fail to do you best in your enterprise. The assumption is that the oath-taker is a Christian, and is therefore seriously influenced by taking this oath, and so, he can be trusted to fulfill his promise. In a society of believers, this carries a lot of weight.

How then, should an atheist attempt to convince the largely atheist public that he is really serious about his promise?

"I will forfeit my --- if I fail to do this!!!"

My ipod?
my unfaithful wife
my wine cellar?
my stock portfolio, (which is now worthless)
my dead Subaru?
my house on the sand (also worthless)
my reputation (already suspect)
In short, he can't convince me of anything.

So, if he is serious, he must swear by God, even if he doesn't actually believe.
sorry
MD

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:08 PM

Atheist or otherwise, the objection to "so help me God" is valid, as is an objection to any deviation from the exact oath of office specified in the U. S. Constitution.

U. S. Constitution

Article. II.

Section. 1.

Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."


Note that a precise, specific, and exact wording is prescribed, and there is no allowance for, no reason for, and no justification for, any deviation from the specified precise set of words there.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:19 PM

God is not the property of any church, Sorcha. ;-) (though they mostly seem like to imagine that they have an exclusive franchise on God...)

You can separate the state from churches, certainly. But how can you separate the state from a concept which is not under the control or grasp or jurisdiction of churches, no matter how much they try to control or grasp it? God (at least in one sense) is an idea. It is an idea of something unlimited and transcendent that underlies our existence and which determines the nature of existence itself. In many cultures it is the idea of something omnipresent and eternal. Such ideas exist and they always have in philosophy, but they cannot be separated from a state or a society as long as any of the people in that state or society have those ideas resonating in their consciousness.

To invoke God in an oath is NOT to bring any particular church into the government, it is simply to invoke the idea OF God itself, and that idea exists outside of churches as well as within them. It has always existed both in AND outside of churches.

I belong to NO church, yet I do have an idea about God...my own particular idea about it...which came from no church that I know of...and if I were part of a government and I expressed some of that idea in a ceremony I would not be bringing "the church" into "the state", because I do not subscribe to "the church" in the first place. The church plays no part in defining my concept of God.

Furthermore, if there is anything like a universal principle that is 100% real and woven into the nature of our existence, and that could be termed "God", then by definition it pre-existed ALL churches, and as I pointed out above...it is NOT their property now nor is it under their jurisdiction...nor can it possibly NOT be part of the state, because everything that exists arises out of it in the first place.

What people are objecting to here is a form of outward ceremonial that they don't happen to subscribe to themselves, and they're saying "I don't believe in that form of ceremonial (or the philosopy behind it), and therefore I don't want other people to do it either."

Well, tough! Other people in this world are always going to do a few things in a ceremonial or formal sense which you don't choose to do, and if you don't like them doing it, don't WATCH it. Go focus on something else you like instead and stop trying to force other people to be the same as you. That's not their choice.

And who made you or anyone else the arbiter of what someone else's choice should be? Barack Obama would, I believe, choose to invoke God in his oath of office, and that's just fine for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: MaineDog
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:24 PM

Oh, sorry, I did not show up for the gig because snow was threatened.
Yes, I affirmed that I would come, in writing, even, but with no threat of retribution, I really was not sufficiently committed to even try to get there. So, at the least difficulty, I gave up!
I know what the constitution says, but a person making a serious commitment needs to do something meaningful for those who are on the receiving end of the promise. The majority of Americans still are more influenced by an oath before God, than by an "affirmation".
I'm not trying to force religion on atheists, but to point out that there is a reason why some people can't trust them.
MD

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:34 PM

Well, there IS a really big thing waiting for anyone who doesn't keep their oath: perjury, impeachment, nonfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance....

Deep inside something says to me, "Keep your word, keep your promise, and you don't need an oath. It's what you should do anyway because it's the right thing TO do."

"...A promise made is a debt unpaid..." Service wrote. Unfortunately, too many people are worming their way out of their debts today.

Heck, if you want to swear on the Pentatuch, the Koran, the Bhagava-Gita, the Tao Te Chin, your sword, whatever -- I don't care. Just keep your word.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:43 PM

He was voted in presumably because enough people trust him to give it his best shot with integrity. So why make him say an oath! Even Jesus thought that saying yes or no should be good enough for anybody. It's quite entertaining to see how so many Americans see the constitution, as drawn up by a flawed bunch of old racists all those years ago, as immutable. Especially when they see something in it that lets them keep guns all over the place.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:47 PM

I keep my word, NOT out of fear but because it's the right thing to do. Something, I believe, that's true of most Christians.

You don't have to trust me. It's not my problem. I'm also not likely to trust anyone who needs fear of retribution to be decent. What sort of a person needs that motivation? I don't have a problem with people adding to their oaths so long as the required bits are in there. I'd have a problem if the 'so help me God' were required. Just a different sort of flag pin, I'd think. Just a show to appease the holier (or more patriotic) than thou assholes.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:54 PM

Maine Dog, you said: "Swearing an oath by God means, basically, that you are accepting as fact that you will lose your Salvation and be damned to hell if you fail to do you(r) best in your enterprise."

Bullfeathers. ;-) It means that only if you think it means that, and it doesn't mean it if you don't. I have a certain concept in my mind about "God", but it does not include the notion of a heavenly judge who damns people to hell. It does not include the notion that anyone would EVER be denied "Salvation". I don't even believe in hell or denial of salvation.

You are assuming that everyone who would swear an oath to God MUST believe exactly (and only?) the specific things about God that you think they must. You are right, no doubt, in certain cases...yet totally wrong in others. You have no business assuming that everyone who believes in "God" must therefore believe in a God as stupid, vicious, and unlikely as would please your basic assumptions about the matter. No, they are not all as you imagine them.

And that's why I bother responding to these pathetic threads at all. I'm irritated by the very deep chauvinism of people who assume that other people's ideas about God must be just as stupid as they think they would have to be. That is stereotyping people for your own ego enhancement ("Oh, I'm soooo much wiser and more realistic than they are...."), and it's as foolish as the kind of chauvinistic stereotyping of people that religious fundamentalists commonly engage in when they are attacking people who are different in belief from themselves.

It stinks, going both ways. Both sets of intolerant jerks (the atheistic intolerant and the religious fundamentalist intolerant) are forever patting themselves on the back because..."Oh, well, I'm not an idiot or a fool like those--------- people who don't believe as I do. If ONLY they knew what I know! If only! Tsk, tsk! (shaking his head in pity)"

You haven't got a clue what other people believe in or don't. You never bothered to really try finding out. All you have is your habitual prejudice toward them and your enjoyment of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 07:55 PM

If you can't keep your word in small things, I can't trust you with large.

If I were with a banker or stockbroker and s/he didn't stop to pick up a penny from the ground I'd take my business elsewhere even if that person were the Pope, the Prophet, and the Messiah all rolled into one.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 08:03 PM

Hmm. Really? I sometimes stoop to pick up pennies on the ground. Usually, in fact. But occasionally I don't bother to.

Where does that place me, Rap? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 08:44 PM

"Usually" is different from "never." I've known financial types who couldn't be bothered "because it costs more in my time to pick it up than it's worth" and I'm not talking pennies here. To me that says that they wouldn't spend the time on small accounts that they would on big ones because the small accounts wouldn't be worth their time.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:34 PM

From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:34 PM

It's HIS inauguration. Let the control freaks control their own lives.

But it is OUR nation!! Next, you'll be wanting him to re-write our constitution, all the laws, and change our form of government....to continue the work Bush/Clinton/Bush worked on doing....

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:53 PM

Rewrite the Constitution? Leave that up to the exceedingly rich and powerful in high places who can afford clever lawyers who can concoct clever legal chicanery to simply outmaneuver the Constitution and violate it without every saying so or with most people even noticing...as has been done a great deal over the years by a long succession of American presidents.

For instance, you're not supposed to go to war without a formal declaration of war first being announced and passed in both houses of Congress...but you've been doing it ever since the Korean War which was described as "a police action" and right up to the present against other nations such as Vietnam, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. That's chicanery, and it's unconstitutional.

So is setting up illegal torture facilities offshore and locking people up without any legal charges or any normal legal representation.

So is importing illegal drugs stateside through government operatives (CIA) in order to finance their other covert operations.

Hell, it happens every day. They violate the Constitution and they break the law and nobody does a thing about it. This has been accomplished by the major financial and military-industrial power groups and the military intelligence agencies, not by someone who wants to utter the word "God" in an oath. It's been done for money and power, not for God.

They just enjoy manipulating a large sector of the public by pretending to honor God in some ceremony or statement...meanwhile dividing and conquering the public by keeping the pot continually boiling between atheists and fundamentalists, gays and straights, and any other dichotomies along that line. It's good business. Keep 'em at each other's throats and they will be far too confused and disunited to ever be able to deal with real problems, like the destruction of their democracy and Constitution from the top down.

This thread is just another sorry contribution to maintaining those angry divisions and collectively disempowering yourselves as a nation.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 11:30 PM

Yes uttering the word god is a very terrible thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 11:46 PM

It's not as bad as uttering the word "frglebsntchnarzl".

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 01:14 AM

...geeziz........I just read this thing and figured that no one had bothered to read the Constitution but then I came across John's post which he even did in MONSTER letters and yet still this goes on!

IF not the Constitution, then let me have the late George Carlin tell it better than I can do it myself. Its only 9 minutes but worth it......at least try the first 5.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 02:02 AM

How did those people who filed the suit know that his oath was going to include "so help me God"?

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 02:27 AM

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?

Subject: RE: BS: Atheists: No 'so help me God'
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 03:37 AM

The whole problem with identity is that as we are all something like 98% alike and refuse to admit it so we focus on the pissant 2% that is different. None of that makes the whole arbitrary bullshit thing any less important but rather adds an undeserved importance to it all.

BTW........The only saving grace to a tie is that I personally like where they point.........But when I was teaching it was requirement. They had a hundred reasons for them so I started wearing ties I had made from alternative materials, like paper clips. This of course casused a real stink which wasn't the reason I did it exactly, rather it was just something to do to pass the time. James Kunen once wrote out a personal classification I adopted for most things in life.......Mildly Amusing or Pain in the Ass.

To keep the world in Category One often requires elements of the "Counter-Ridiculous" or things spill out into a depressing Category Two. Sadly, too much is solidly entrenched in what I realized was a missing Category Three......Just Don't Give Rat's Ass.

This entire subject and most opinions about it are deep in the 3-Hole.

Spaw