Skip to main content

Was That Sarcasm?

By Carl S ~

Anyone familiar with the TV series "The Big Bang Theory" will recognize this question as coming from its character, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the genius who has trouble relating with us "common" humans. Whether or not part of his problem is due to his being raised by an evangelical mother explains this, we may never know. But it's possible.

List of The Big Bang Theory episodes (season 1)
List of The Big Bang Theory episodes (season 1)
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Wizened Sage and I have noticed that ex-Christians have problems whenever I write sarcasm. In fact, he re-titled my recent submission, lest it be misinterpreted as completely serious, because of this problem. I remember when, years ago, I wrote "My personal relationship with God," which threw responders into ga-ga land. This piece was a takeoff on the oft-heard claim of believers that they do have such a personal relationship. I was making the point that, without actually seeing, hearing, touching, etc. a real person, the relationship is an unconfirmable and ridiculous "experience" - all in one’s head. (Of course, it didn't help that the piece featured a painting of a voluptuous woman.) This was not the first time readers failed to grasp the sarcasm. I think there's a good reason behind this that makes sense. Think about it.

We've probably all read the commentary that religious claims are so far out and ridiculous that you and I can make up our own and submit them as actual, and believers wouldn't know the difference. But we don’t really need to test this out; we can scan claims of the various religions and see how this works. (A good and fast source for this is Bill Maher's movie, "Religulous." Observe the reactions of believers when he points out facts to them.) As practicing believers, you yourself were absorbing nonsensical dogmas without thinking or questioning, leaving you open to not being able to tell crap from fact. Don’t feel alone; billions of believers live that way, every day. I've noticed once, when making my personal sarcastic comments to a believer about scriptural "truths," getting this response: "You're insulting my God." And I can see how he came to that conclusion; he thinks the words of scripture are the words of his god, no matter how contradictory or ridiculous they are. All sarcasm has a bite in its intent, as in, to quote Mark Twain, "Faith is believing what you know ain’t so." We on the outside of religions can and do imagine scriptural writers making their stuff up, knowing their listeners will be gullible enough to accept it without analyzing it. Being aware of when something is for real or if it's sarcasm is very important. Even more important is knowing how to tell the difference, because it means being able to separate fact from fiction. Being seriously religious means you’re seriously gullible.

While waiting for my wife after her church service, I had a discussion with one of her church members in the parking lot. In the course of this, she reminded me that she is "much older than you," implying her age conferred wisdom I had yet to acquire. (She is over 90. My sister was short of 90 when she died, and I’ve known others in their 80's and 90's who didn't learn, either.) Topics she brought up were Earth warming, climate change and weather. I noticed she did not know the difference between climate and weather. She also informed me that planes were flying over most nations, dumping mists into their atmospheres to "poison the brains" of their citizens. This Woman is a believer in and promoter of "alternative" medicine. Her attitude is to mistrust scientists. And strangely enough, as we ended up, although she said about our several topics, "We may never know," and I told her, "That's why we have scientists, so they can research and find the answers," she agreed! These examples show how a believer unthinkingly accepts all kinds of nonsense, not just religious nonsense. And I think this is typical. Whether this is part of the DNA of some people that attracts them to religious/irrational beliefs or vice versa, I'll leave you to ponder.

Just one more thing: While making notes for this topic, I sometimes looked up to see the program my wife was watching, "Deal or No Deal." She gets very involved with the choices contestants make, and angry at their determination to choose without thinking first. Sometimes, she'll even shout out, "Take it and leave!" It's obvious why people get so emotionally involved: the whole program takes place in a bottled-up, very psychologically intense atmosphere. It's a gambling casino for the masses watching, too. Contestants sometimes throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars in taking chances. My wife can’t comprehend how any thinking person could be so foolish. Well, during this game, I mentioned suicide bombers. (Once in a while, I'll do s**t like that.) Irritated, she asked, "What has that to do with this?" So I told her, "Suicide bombers gamble and blow away their lives to gain a paradise that doesn't exist. They'd be better off to walk away with the lives they have." I was being not sarcastic, but serious. Did she get the seriousness? I think she was too involved with the program, like too many people who are so involved with believing nonsense that they don't notice.

I write these words while inspired by the lipstick mark God made on the glass in front of me. Wait. Was that sarcasm? Don't insult my God!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro