Religion is Fashionable Nonsense
Belief: Something it is taboo to challenge, question, reject, much less criticize or mock. When the adjective ‘cherished’ is added, this effect is doubled.
When we are afraid to criticize a religion’s attempt to oppress women, then we are a part of the problem.
It’s not okay for any religion to demand that a woman cover herself.
Got that?
If you agree and feel haughty for a moment, think about your own religion and the way it’s oppressed women and others throughout the years. It’s no goddamn better.
That’s right. *You* are no goddamn better.
You live your life by the Bible – the same book that defends child rape? You can’t think of any other book that’s more worthy?
I got a few. But it requires more brain cells than it takes to just sit there and mumble, “Amen.” So I’ll do the work for you.
One of my favorite parts of a recent documentary on the subject suggests that if you belonged to a group with the same history of racism, misogyny, and bigotry that your favorite religion is guilty of, you’d resign in protest.
Yet most of us kid ourselves by saying, “We’re better than that now.”
I know I tell myself that all the time.
“Modern Jews are better than their historical counterparts.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
If you are somewhere between amused and sickened by religious extremists of any kind – and fundamentalist Christians, Jews, and Muslims are equally batshit crazy – then here is a fun website “fighting fashionable nonsense.”
Learn how to argue with sheep.
Learn what fundamentalist talking heads really mean when they open their mouths.
Scare/Kid yourself by reading crazy quotes.
Check in regularly and fight fashionable nonsense yourself. We need all the help we can get.
4 Comments
Leave a Reply
Catherine Durkin Robinson
-
VOTE!
she’s crafty
Wow, someone got up on the wrong side of the ineffable question this morning.
There’s a movement on in the Friends community…well, several, actually, but one that sort of relates to this. Many years ago, Friends generally stopped maintaining plain dress, the same sort of dress that the Amish and some Mennonites still adhere to. However, as Friends struggle to understand what it means to be a Quaker in the current world, many are going back to such standards. The New Plain, it’s called, and it’s not a demand, but a calling. In a desire to live simply in all things, Friends are choosing to dress simply, thus further confusing us with the Amish.
I kid! We get to use buttons.
In any event…I bring it up because, while yes, there can be elements of oppression is religion, it can also be an honest expression of one’s faith. Is it still oppression in that case? Is a thing always a thing regardless of circumstance?
Alibhai-Brown certainly has a right to her opinion, but I have to say, reading her opinion piece, the fiery rhetoric she chose struck me as oddly familiar. She sounded just as extreme as those she was berating.
Sticky wicket, that. I like my faith, but I’ve never cared much about fundamentalists of any stripe. As the ineffable (does that mean you can’t have sex with ‘em?) Jimmy Buffett sang in Manana, “Don’t ever forget you just might end up being wrong”.
Insightful comment, superdave. Fundamentalism, be it Christian, New Age or “conservative” “free market” fundamentalism, is dangerous.
Thanks, Bob.