A Fresh Start

I've been having a long and interesting discussion about religion with a distant cousin. I make no claims to have any of the answers, though I do spend damn near all my waking hours engaged in religious thinking in some capacity or another. What's KILLING me is his inability to reason, while all the time trying to convince me that he's too logical and I'm too emotional. Now, I am very emotional: I get passionate, yes, sir. But in my engagement with him I've been very even handed, perhaps too even. But his refusal to understand that in the world of religion X *and* Y need to be considered not incompatible Truths but simultaneous truths, has me coming off as emotional to him. It's not out of some namby-pamby love-fest that I say this. It's because after practicing and studying religions and spending time with people who believe differently than I do, to assume that only Jesus is THE God is to basically tell 4.5 billion other people to fuck off and die. It's not saying Jesus is MY God, but Jesus is THE God. I know the vast majority of Christians don't see it that way, but that's how it is.

I have spend considerable time in Jewish communities and developing friendships with both cultural and religious Jews (which doesn't make me an expert, merely informed to some degree), I have never ever had a Jew tell me that their God was THE God and boy I'd be a lot better off if I argreed. If I want to join their party, many would welcome me (many would not, since I'm not ethnically Jewish), but the Jewish people are content to worship their god and go on their merry way. They don't need to convince the rest of the world of their religious superiority. I would love to know if the Jewish world sees their God as THE God, or merely as THEIR God - that's a huge difference.

I'm really fed up with the mainstream idea that logic means there can only be one big-T Truth. I fear that modern Western schooling has ruined the brains of generations who were taught to find Right Answers - there can be only One! - rather than to develop arguments and think critically. Unless you are in the hard sciences, there is rarely One Answer. I think this is why academics are stereotyped as elitists: because it's very difficult to talk with people for whom there is only One Right Answer. If I had to talk with people like my cousin (who's a Nice Guy) regularly I think my head would explode. This is why people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin give America/politics/conservatives/Christianity such a bad name, because they don't reason. At all. Cuz reasoning and arguing is some Lefty Agenda out to confuse the Average Joe. Of course it confuses the Average Joe - because they went to school where there was only one right answer!! (Excuse me while I go stab out my eyes in the corner.)

I'm starting to wonder if there isn't some religious causation here. In the Protestant Christian world (which makes up the vast majority of America) there is one sacred text - the Bible. It is entirely correct. It is The Right Answer. Everything must be squared with it. There is One God. The Bible says X, so X it is. There is no tradition of critical engagement. No tradition of wrestling or questioning. No understanding that the Bible is a sacred text that grew up in certain times and places and is relevant to certain people. One billion Hindus grew up in a different time, place and culture with different sacred texts? Well, fuck them. They're Wrong. How mind-bogglingly ignorant and arrogant is it that?? Oh, says my cousin, truth is truth. Gahhhhh! Religion is not a hard science! The same rules do not apply as when we determine, say, that the earth rotates around sun.

I wonder too if perhaps (stereotypically) more Jews go into academia because of their tradition with engaging with texts. The Jewish tradition has a long and rich tradition of arguing and engaging with their sacred texts and teachers - Midrash and Talmud come immediately to mind. Perhaps there is less of a need for One Right Answer, and therefore the world of academia, where it's not about Right Answers but more about better and worse arguments, comes more naturally?*

I don't know. All I know right now is that mainstream reasoning seems to be dying a slow, disgraced death. Many people considered themselves religiously well educated if they made it through 5 years of Sunday school. It makes me want to hide under the bed and weep. Or just hole up with other people who can think, like the elitist I am.

*hraffntinna and msmidge please smack me upside the head if I'm full of shit.

I hate Twilight with every fiber of my being. I know there are several of you out there that love it. I have already posted in depth about my loathing of Twilight, so I won't go into it again. But Facebook is riddled with "squee" over the latest film. I have completely restrained myself and I have not commented on other people's posts. No need to acid rain on their parades.

But AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! I HATE TWILIGHT.


I am SO happy that there is no movie theatre here and no one is talking about. Except on Facebook.

My sister has in essence challenged me to read the book if I am going to be so outspoken against Twilight. She claims that the movie is worse than the book, and the book isn't as heinous as the movie in all the ways I loathe it.

Do I do it? Is it worth my time? It's some pretty awful writing. Will my brain melt? Those of you who have read the book and seen the movie, are they sufficiently different that my analysis might be tempered or in any way altered if I read the book?

(one handed typing here)

Go Fug Yourself summed it up like this:
So, after careful consideration of approximately three minutes, I've decided Twilight would work a lot better for me on ice. Think about it: Pairs figure skating, much like the book itself, is all about melodrama, separation and reunion, and invading each others' personal space in a sexually unsatisfying way. All of Edward's condescending yearning and stalking would be way more fun if he were doing it while flitting about the rink in puffy shirts and tight trousers, tossing off triple Axels of romantic angst and throwing Bella into the air before catching her with one hand (subtext: "You must not love me BUT I LOVE YOU but stay away BUT NOT TOO FAR AWAY let me stare at you NO I MUSTN'T but I will LET ME TOE-LOOP MY FEELINGS don't look at me EXCEPT DO I am dangerous TIME TO SPARKLE"). Meanwhile, boring Bella, who in the text generally just repeats herself ad nauseum about how Edward's face/chest/voice/muscles/eyes/lips/piano talent/strength/secret macrame projects are more beautiful and perfect than anything in the human realm, could spend the rest of the time enacting a metaphor for her inner monologue by spinning over and over again until Edward rescues her from herself. Throw in some multicolored spotlights and the whole thing is practically begging for an Olympic ice-skating duo to reinterpret it at the Vancouver 2010 games.


It all makes perfect sense now.

I can't stand those infant headbands for baby girls. Loathe loathe loathe.