Wednesday 19 December 2012

The Christmas Conundrum

      You've heard the phrase, perhaps seen it on a lawn sign: Christmas is about CHRIST.

      You've heard your friends/family/coworkers going on about how they're "not racist, but if they don't like our traditions they can go back to their own country!" Because there's nothing Third Reich about that.

      And now we're dealing with this argument that rears up every Decemeber: "Merry Christmas" VS "Happy Holidays." It's not much of an argument, in fact, I don't know one single person who defends saying "Happy Holidays" in preference to "Merry Christmas," but I know a lot of whiners who, for some reason they can't quite qualify, belligerently insist on their salutation. I have dubbed these folks who won't relent their tirade of "Merry Christmas" as "MCs" or, Masters of Crybabying.

      Recently in West end Windsor, a shop owner caught some real holy ghost and decorated their window thusly:


The window decor equivalent of crying over spilt milk. Very Jesus of you.


      So what's the beef with Christmas?

      Do atheists have problems with Christmas? Typically, no. But I can't speak for an un-unified group with almost nothing in common. I'm not some winter solstice celebrating goon, though. Perhaps you've noticed, winter doesn't really exist in Southwest Ontario anymore. I just like celebrating my family, with my family, because I have a great family, and I don't think the new year is especially important. As an atheist during the holidays, I'm easy. Greet me with whatever words you want, just don't talk smack about my mom.

      Who has the problem?

      Certainly companies who deal with the public don't want to isolate any potential customers, profitmongering honey badgers that they are. And I'm positive the media will spin any non-story upwards to avoid actually covering news. But a non-entity like a media company or a retail franchise can't really have a stance on this sort of thing anyway, let's be mature about it; people have opinions, not newspapers or banks. A company can not be an MC.

      So who has the problem?

      It's not the crazies.

      The crazies are easy. In fact, a lot of fundamentalist Christians understand that the symbols we associate with Christmas really boil down to idolatry, in a more literal sense. There are many Christian groups who don't celebrate Christmas at all, because they realize that, as it pertains to Jesus, the whole thing is a sham.Crazies aren't MCs, in fact the fundamentalists are usually the ones who know best just how wrong the MCs are.

      So who has the problem? Who are these MCs?

      I know who has the problem. It's the people who are afraid. I won't accuse these people of racism, because I truly do not think they are racist; they just enjoy certain things about their lives and don't realize that it is up to them to retain those things. Just as Christopher Hitchens proclaimed the current religious fervor in the U.S as its "death throes," so too is all this MC trumpeting completely reactionary.

      They are people who don't understand that just as the rights of those whose traditions you feel will infringe upon yours are protected, SO TOO ARE YOUR RIGHTS PROTECTED. This does not mean you have to be a prick about it. If you say "Merry Christmas" and someone says "I don't celebrate Christmas," first of all, they're probably a bit of a dweeb, second of all, they've probably already made the conversation longer than you planned on having with them, and third, who cares?! Have they impugned you at all? NO!

      Why can't the response to "I don't celebrate Christmas" be "Okay, have a great day?" Or "alright, 'bye now?" Or "oh, sorry, but how bout that weather?" Why does it have to be throwing a fit that someone is different from you?

      I was going to actually include this bit in a Retail Tales segment because, at work, we're encouraged not to say "Merry Christmas," and keep it "multicultural" with "Happy Holidays." You would not believe how often this causes customers to reveal themselves as MCs, demanding that they be wished a Merry Christmas, or throwing the gauntlet down entirely and saying they won't shop at our store anymore. But there is a legitimate complaint in regards to the public sector, like schools, where Merry Christmas is actually inappropriate for public services employees to say. And, believe it or not, so is Happy Holidays.

      Let's break it down:

 
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays
First part
“Merry” :
Joyous, jolly, jovial, high-spirited or otherwise happy.
“Happy”
Joyous, jolly, jovial, high-spirited or otherwise merry.
Second part
“Christ” :
Referring to Jesus of Nazareth, central divine figure in Christianity.
“Holi” :
From “Holy” or sacred, meaning that these “days” (see below) are made holy or religiously important by some divine figure.
Third part
“mas”:
Derived from “mass,” a time where people congregate or otherwise come together.
“days”:
days; a measure of time.


      Basically, saying Merry Christmas is a salutation wishing someone a pleasant experience at a certain time of year which is denoted by the celebration of a certain religious figure. And saying Happy Holidays differs greatly, in that it is a salutation wishing someone a pleasant experience at a certain time of year which is denoted by the celebration of a certain religious figure.

      For the average citizen of this county (or most counties in North America) Christmas isn't about "Christ" any more than Thursday is about Thor. The yule log, the Christmas tree, December 25th, halos on the figures in the nativity scene, these are all rip-offs from other religions.

     What's with the red and green theme? Does the red relate to the blood of Jesus and the green to the...colour of his eyes? (From the apocryphal Gospel of Fabulous Verse 1:23 "Verily I say unto you, no white after Labour Day.")

      I wonder how many of the "Christmas is about 'Christ'" people know that Christmas was not a tradition in the early church (among the people who maybe, possibly, could have known Jesus), that it was nearly banned in Victorian England (yes, by the Anglicans, the Nerf balls of world religion), and that we owe the structure of the holiday as we know it far more to Charles Dickens than Yeshua bar Yoseph.

      Oh sure, you may go to church. But why? Which Bible passage is it that tells you the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth? Please, prove to me it's not an import from Mithraism (that is, the worship of Mithra, which was made up before Christianity was made up).


No? Nothing? Grow up.



This is the design I was planning to use for my response lawn sign, but the idea came to me a bit late in the season to justify spending the $18. I do plan to use it next year though (layout is from Vistaprint.ca)! Thoughts?

Sunday 4 November 2012

The Top Ten Commandments

      A list! Don't we all love lists? They're brief, summative, and that surge of recognition from agreeing with a point is so much fun. And why is it that we never, ever agree with #1 on a countdown (even if it's our own list)? Oh, lists: blissful passtime of my lost late teen years.
 
      I think a lot can be said of our fascination with lists, especially those that are ranked and prioritized, and those can say a lot about us. But there is one (unranked, suprisingly) list that precedes them all (mostly): The Ten Commandments. By far the best known list we of Western culture possess, it is a favourite of fundamentalists and a document devoted its due even by many secular and/or non-theistic thinkers.
 
WHY?
 
      I'm not saying anything new here (I refuse to cite the millions before me who thought this) but the Ten Commandments are whacked. There are three reasons for my staunch disagreement with using this mess as any kind of basis:
  1. The Decalogue says a lot of really stupid (and unintentionally confessional) things.
  2. The few good bits are stupifyingly self-evident.
  3. The only reason we care is because it's in a list. No one would care about "The Bunch of Stuff We Should Do or Not Do." How many other commandments do you know from the Bible? One? None? Q.E.D.
      Before we begin: don't scroll any further. Don't open Google. Right now, can you name the Ten Commandments, either version (bonus points for the right order)?




      Got 'em?
 


Now... Let's examine*.

*Of course, we use that most horribly translated and well known King James Version from Exodus for our analysis (Christopher Hitchens said that modern English would expose to many true believers just how silly the Bible is. Indeed it's not quite so authoritative to say "don't draw pictures of me!").
 
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

      But, may I have some after?

      This is one of those unintentionally confessional bits: the tacit acknowledgement of the Hebrews of the time that there were other gods, because gods were/are a tribal thing. The subtext of this rule says not to bow down to "them," which of course assumes there are other gods. Call this one the original Freudian slip.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.   

  Catholics didn't get the memo.

      But really though, what is a graven image? I can't find any definition of "graven" besides a. carved or b. on a grave. And so what if an image is either of those things? How is this at all a moral injunction? What is contributed to ethics? Have you ever considered this commandment in seriousness, or even attempted to follow it? 
     Conventional Jewish wisdom says no depictions of the human form, or especially the divine form, at all.  Conventional Islamic wisdom says similar.  Conventional Christian wisdom says something more like "ehhhh... fuggedaboutit." 
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain (for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.).
      This is kind of like your parents telling you "or else..." because there's no real threat here. And what's with the double negative? I'd have thought "or you're buggered" would've done nicely.

      How does one take a name in vain? I would think that, far from being any kind of insult, uttering the name of God (Jesus? Yahweh? Alphonse?) would be a sort of shout-out.

                   "Hey isn't this waterfall nice?"
                   "Oh my GOD yes!"
      Wouldn't we rather that than "siiiiick"?
     
      And who is to judge on the vanity of a statement? Proper obedience for this one would require someone of priestly stature following you around making calls all day. "Vain. Vain. Not vain. Debatable, send it upstairs. Vain. That's three 'vains' you'rrrrrrrre outta there."

4.  Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

      
Often contemporized as "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBAWWWWWWLLL?!", this commandment comes with a lot of baggage. Basically, just sit in one place and you'll be safe.
     
      Your average Christian fundamentalist is all down for a day off (and verily, why not?) but the issue they ignore is that the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday; because of the Laodicean Council (or Roman pagan tradition, really), Christians observe worship on Sundays. If Mosaic law was handed down directly by God, doesn't it take a bit of cheek to update that? Or was the early Christian church also hooked up directly? Which day is right? Overall, working on a weekend is rather risqué, and I think our modern secular society has done the right thing by just playing it safe and calling the "week-end" two days.

      I can't say there's anything wrong with mandating days off, I think it's a very good idea, but nobody does it. Whether it be yard work or house cleaning, or if your actual job takes place on the weekend, just about everybody violates this one (and yes, if you watch football, you're sanctioning a violation of the sabbath, so you burn too).

      It just goes to show how easily even the most true of believers still puts the dollar above their god; profit waits for no man. And that is idolatry; two commandments broken for the price of one!

5. Honour thy father and thy mother.   

      Are they honourable people? Probably the easiest knock-down on this whole list, this order stinks of that "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" kind of mentality, that is to say, somebody with some awful children wrote this one. They probably had those terrible child-leashes too.

       Being a parent does not mean one merits honour. There are plenty of horrible parents out there. Omniscient nothing, this was obviously a pre-Casey Anthony commandment.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

      The funny thing about this one is that it's completely morally relative, unless you plan on martyring yourself at every possible opportunity (wouldn't that be suicide, also wrong?). There is no self-defense clause here, nor is exception made for the enemies of the Hebrews in the lettering of this injunction, it just says don't kill anyone. Then God has the Hebrews go kill a bunch of people. Hm.

      Let's assume that this is a universal rule; that you could never, ever kill a person, and no one ever did. Nobody needs to be told so. There are many civilizations much older than tribal Judaism, and none of them allow for willy-nilly-killy. Without divine revelation, how is this possible? Oh, that's right, because it's common sense. Let's go so far as to look at the ancient Spartans, warriors in the utmost. Their ultimate definition of glory not only allowed for death, but demanded their own death in battle. One of the bloodthirstiest civilizations we know of, even they did not allow Spartans to kill Spartans liberally. Of course, this did not extend to non-Spartans, because their laws were essentially tribal. Just like this one.

      (The ex-minister) Pat Robertson is a great example of how Christians somehow talk around this commandment. This is a man with an audience of millions. He can claim to be a Christian (Southern Baptist specifically), and tout "Christian" virtues on his Christian television network, but he openly advocates bombing mosques. Seriously. I...I've got nothin'.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

      This one, actually, I essentially agree with insofar as if you've promised someone that you weren't going to mess around on them, you shouldn't mess around on them. The problem here is, as usual, our (or the church's) interpretation of the word "adultery." This can be something as simple as a committed couple enjoying each other's company au naturel outside of wedlock, with no ill will, and still be condemned for it. I guess if you buy into the religious monopoly of marriage you might like this one, but still, is this anything we really needed to be told?
8. Thou shalt not steal.    

       At least not outright anyway. You have to come up with a scheme, like indulgences, or simony. Then you can steal, 'cause it looks like you sort of earned it.

      This command comes from Big Daddy Yahweh just before he boldly turns around and says "take Canaan!" It only works out of context, and only in most cases. Of course that is not to say I think it's okay to steal, but don't we love our Robin Hood stories? And what constitutes theft? Surely punching a guy and taking his wallet isn't the same as underpaying labourers, but aren't they both a kind of theft? Why is only one of them punishable?

      As yet another case where a lot rides on interpretation, I think it's at least safe to say that anyone who claims this commandment as an ultimate law has never really been hungry. Devotion goes out the window on an empty stomach.

      But this bit gets even funnier when we re-immerse it into its context: Yahweh issues this command, then sends his people (after a bit of a stroll) to take land that an established community already exists on (and the Canaanites didn't do anything wrong!). Is it not stealing if you kill them all? I suppose there wouldn't be anyone left to own anything...I'll keep this in mind.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

      Usually transliterated as "don't lie," I'd say this is basically a good commandment (though God had no problem with Abraham lying to the Egyptian Pharaoh to save his own behind), especially if we include gossip, arguably one of the biggest poisons in human society. Still, not an iron-clad rule. If I have to choose between death and a lie, I'm probably going to fib. As the Christian priests said when Saladin was at the gates of Jerusalem, "convert now, repent later!"

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house/wife/ox/iPhone.

      The intrinsic wrongness here isn't the bit about not coveting (some say that coveting is what drives the economy; I'm inclined to agree), though again, this is not an order exclusive to Abrahamic religion. Buddhism considers desire the root of all suffering, and those tenets developed entirely separately from Judaism.

      The wrongness is how equal value is put on the house, the animals, and the wife. Obviously cows are much more valuable than houses.

      But for real, this commandment numbers the women of the family, that is to say, half the human population, among the chattel, the live property of the male head of household. Not coveting can be left out of the equation, because it's not the important part here. Don't kill or adulterize will stop anything from happening by it. You've listed the wife...with the oxen...as a belonging. The positively fantastic thing about this egregious offense to humanity is how long it went unnoticed. It's a good thing people don't really walk what they talk, or this would be some offensive noise. A society modeled on this kind of intrinsic mentality would be a terrible place indeed.

    So there it is.
  
      The reverence for this catalogue of crap is, of course, ridiculous in the literal sense; i.e we ought to all ridicule it. It is a perfect example of how we do things just because we always have. How many people do you know who can actually even name the whole list?
     
      Not only is it a goofy list, and not only is it mostly morally bad, but at points it doesn't even make sense. But it is a list! And therefore it is memorable and even more deserving of our attention. As if all the instructions for human experience can be coalesced into ten points. Go tell it to the relativists, or for that matter, a soldier, in any war, ever.

      So with all this silliness in mind, can we please admit that a lot of the power of this list is in the list form? (I will not have this turned into a chicken and egg argument!) People like things round and whole, with familiar numbers, or in the case of the ancients, sacred numbers. So while we could have, with a better editor at the job, ended up with the Seven Commandments, or even the Three Commandments, there would certainly have never been the Six or Eight, and especially not the Thirty-Four Commandments With Footnotes For Clarity.

      My intention is not to shake belief, but to encourage faith in humans. My whole point is that anything good to come out of our societies has come from within us. When we try to lay this down, we may fail, even with thousands of years of commentary on the creed, but there are still truths that come from within all of us, and simply, real recognizes real. The only reason the Terrible Ten has ever "worked" isn't because it's a divine list, it's because we know how to behave already. Sure, there's much to be said for guidance and education, and certainly experience, but these things are part of the condition of our very natural humanity.


      Next time, I'll introduce the real Top Ten Commandments; the list that we ought to all know, the best ten that can be divined (heh) from the mess of assorted text we call the Bible. I invite comment, rebut, or rebuke!
    
     

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Retail Tales: Why the World is Falling Apart #1


     I work in a store that sells useless shit. Top selling items through most of the year include kids' party supplies (like themed paper tableware), adults' party supplies (like non-themed paper tableware) and balloons. The amount of money that I see people spend on a daily basis on things that contribute almost nothing to their lives is painful. So, here is the first in my retail-based diagnostic of society.

A couple of the interesting (and dire) conundrums for my customers through the last few months:

1. A lack of Jell-O shot cups:
       A noteworthy portion of the population of the city of Windsor, County Essex, Province of Ontario, Canada COULD NOT figure out how to get by without this -------------------------------------->

      The absence of the above has caused exasperated heaves, and the befuddled asses to ask me "well...what am I supposed to do?!"

      Who cares, you unimaginative twat? If you can't figure out a better way to get smashed than to dilute your booze into gelatin in 1.25 oz sweetened portions, perhaps you'd ought to find a better way to spend your evening. Why not make a Jell-O shooter slab in a cake pan? "Hey man, I'm sobering up, slice me off another piece of that good shit!"



2. A helium shortage.
       People have left the store in frustration because they've been unable to have their balloons filled. Primarily this gas is used to cool the magnets in MRIs, and I understand the military also has dibs on the supply before it trickles down to novelty uses like balloons.

      Look, I know you had a certain idea of how your decorations were going to look, but just ditch it. What kind of mentality is this? You are purchasing an item guaranteed not to last, in fact that's the whole point of it.
    
     Why not take those 18 dollars and buy some more munchies?Or just save them? I guarantee your gathering shan't suffer for it. In fact, a more relevant centerpiece might generate some interesting conversation, instead of ending in you popping your goddam lungs trying to sound like a chipmunk. Not that I'd be upset if you did, that's natural selection at its finest.
    
     The very surprising thing about this whole deal though, is that people can't fathom it ( Helium is an element. This means it can't be synthesized, which is our modern go-to for resource shortage, instead of finding a better way to do something.). No one can understand how our humble little establishment can be out of this gas that they know nothing about. There's been a corn shortage this year due to drought. Your wallet is probably often a bit short on money. So what do you mean, what do I mean, there's a helium shortage? I mean we don't have any, you daft git!

      Now, we are coming up to the biggest money-making event for our industry, which is Halloween. Nevermind the lead-in to the season, which is Thanksgiving, or as I call it, Lalalalalala-What-Natives-Never-Saw-Them-Day, this shit is about costumes.

      The outrageous amounts of money spent by parents on children, or young guys on masks to not have to be creative, or young ladies on...well, not much at all, is nuts. Halloween costumes tend to be used once, maybe twice, ever; total waste!

      Let's put aside the complete lack of creativity displayed in dressing up nowadays. Or the fact that so many girls who'd hate to be so called use this day to dress like night-ladies, as if every October 31st the Skank Fairy sprinkles some nasty fairy dust that causes them to not be judged for an evening. Or the fact that so many of their peer males are so quick to judge them, but only because their loins ache for them due to those costumes. I want to talk about how we, as it was put in "Food, Inc.," vote with our purchase; how we claim moral superiority, but we don't put our money where our mouths are.

      Every year we have a charitable initiative at the registers, hoping to divert a very tiny amount of what customers pour out on novelty to a somewhat better cause. And every year, I see people spend, without hesitation:




and have no problem handing over debit, credit or hard earned cash for these transactions, but when asked for an extra dollar, just a fraction further to spare, they
WON'T DONATE TO CHARITY.

      These people will spend 80 dollars to look like a slutty cop (What the hell is a slutty cop? Newsflash, a lady cop is infinitely more likely to whoop your ass than show you hers.) but won't donate to whichever our nominated charity is that year. True, there are plenty of problems with charities inasmuch as their management of donated funds, but isn't something better than nothing? Isn't 30 cents of your single donated dollar better than the several hundred clams you spent to impress your friends? No, forget the starving and the diseased, at home or abroad, forget all that, we need a shitty, uncomfortable thin plastic mask.

      Sometimes, I just have to laugh in their faces, because the alternative is screaming at them. If any of you, dear patrons, should stumble across my humble commentary, this is what you look like to me:



Wanking tossing wastes of air. I say this sort of heinous mess of priorities constitutes our failure as a society and our inability to judge anyone, ever. My entreaty: please stop spending money on this garbage.

Sunday 26 February 2012

Go blow it out your ass, 'cause it's not coming out your vagina!

     Yesterday, I drove by a woman outside the hospital near my house as she was standing on the sidewalk holding a sign that said "Help End Abortion." I wasn't sure which abortion she was talking about, so I just assumed it reached its successful conclusion and carried on. She looked something like this:

      Besides the fact that most of the assholes who have the sac to protest this procedure are usually good examples in favour of abortion, this has got to be one of the most pointless debates in human history. I am totally in favour of dissent at any and all times, but the  anti-abortion league has overstepped themselves. I'm not hating on freedom of speech; march around with your signs all you like, just please know that you're wrong. But who are you trying to reach with this? Politicians? Police? McDonald's executives? It doesn't matter, because once you've enacted every Draconian legislation you can possibly conjure up, a woman can still throw herself down a flight of steps and hope for the best.

     I think one of the funniest things about the abortion issue (and make no mistake, the fact that the whole to-do is allowed to be an issue is hilarious) is that the opposition is almost always from the right wing. The conservative, read-yer-bible, get-yer-guv'ment-hands-outta-muh-pockets crowd, which loves to preach minimal legislation (I'm not saying that's what happens, that's just what they say) actually feels that they can tell people what to do with their bodies.
  1. In the words of Bill Hicks, if you're such a good Christian, do the Christian thing - forgive them.
  2. This is so far from hands-off government that it's ridiculous. This is actually asking lawmakers to reach inside women (or prevent someone else from doing so). Instead of de-centralized government, you have intrauterine government. This is the ultimate in control of women, and it's downright sick to presume that kind of authority.
     If it's a religious thing, it's dated. If it's a humanist thing, it's distorted. If it's your innate instinct, then you need to re-evaluate your priorities and read up on (over)population crises, because we really could use a few more abortions to get us down to par.

     When debating anti-abortionists, my girlfriend is quick to pull out the rape or incest (or incestuous rape) cards on this subject, which are immediate trumps - I haven't heard a good counterpoint to them yet. However my point is even simpler, and it's something of a motto for me - "Who the fuck are you?" 
  • Who the fuck are you to tell a woman what to do with her body? Unless you're the father, shut the fuck up. Even then, your opinion doesn't matter that much.
  • Who the fuck are you to presume to know someone's life and circumstances enough to tell them what to do? Unless you're going to pay their bills, shut the fuck up.
  • Who the fuck are you to tell someone about right and wrong? Ever made a mistake? Shut the fuck up.
     So you're a tax payer. Well, abortions are a surgery, one of many that our imperfect-but-preferable-to the-U.S health care system takes care of for us. Besides, are you advocating for the removal of  public health care in general? No, you just don't want to pay for someone's abortion because you see it as paying for their mistake. But that's a far better cause than say, tax exemptions for religions (because I don't think that's quiiite what Jesus was getting at when he flipped the moneylenders' tables). After all, I don't want my tax dollars going towards your delusion.


This is a picture I found by Google searching "average anti-abortionist."     

      My stance on abortion? It's personal. It's about as personal as decisions get. I feel the technology and training should be available so that it is done safely, so that when someone makes an extremely difficult decision for the betterment of their own life, they don't have to visit a back-alley clinic and risk disease, infection, or mutilation. Ditto for related counselling services (I think the back-alley version of counselling is just called crack).

     I would happily see my tax dollars go to that (the first part, not crack).