2008 Woodie Awards
Holy Crap
A Simple Grievence
Jarrod Moore
Issue date: 9/12/07 Section: Opinion
During a brief lecture on Moses the first week of class, my history professor paused the discussion right after the best part of the story, where Charlton Heston raised his hands dramatically and, by power of the Almighty, parted the Red Sea (much to the dismay of the few Hebrews who were smart enough to bring floaties and inflatable alligator rafts).
She stopped to ask how many of us believe this actually happened, and several hands shot up in the air. Somewhere around the key of B.S. minor, this struck a pretty loud chord with me. However, it would have been inappropriate to vocalize my opinion because it could have been seen as religious intolerance.
One day about 10 years ago, during a short stay in a hospital, I found myself sitting next to an elderly woman from the geriatric ward in the cafeteria for breakfast. I smiled to welcome her to the table as she sat to eat. She delivered a warm smile in return, right before casually informing me that one of her teeth had been knocked out, but she kept it because it sings to her. Come to find out, she was insane.
But how is believing that your dislodged tooth sings to you any different than disregarding scientific fact and substituting it with a story about a single dude building a huge boat and stocking on it a pair of every single animal on the planet, when measured in units of sanity?
I find it a bit unsettling knowing that if I came to class clad in a tutu and bomber jacket with a conical birthday hat strapped to my cranium while mumbling sweet nothings to myself, my sanity may come into question.
Yet, if I were to cite scripture from an ancient book that has been translated multiple times since its conception (during a period when the extent of science went as far to discover that a circle is round) and is centered around an elusive magical being of authority as the basis for why two homosexual men should not be allowed to engage in consensual sex, I'd be a role model.
This is the same book upon which we have to swear, so help us God, to ensure we don't lie in a court room. Nobody questions the rationality of thinking we have an ethereal buddy up in Heaven (which scientists are still trying to locate; it's so hard when you're dealing with things like facts) who'll reprimand a lie with a payload of locusts, despite social and biological sciences providing slightly more reliable methods of discerning truth from lies and possibly solving crime.
Isn't swearing on literature about a wrathful glorified warlock grounds enough for an insanity plea? I'd just as soon swear on "Gulliver's Travels."
But for some reason this is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, in a society that scoffs at the belief in leprechauns and unicorns, and generally views people who have level 60 mages on World of Warcraft or a large Magic collection as outcasts or nerds.
We all know evolution is still a theory. However, we're also well aware that Jonah spent three days and nights living in the belly of a whale.
The thing that angers me the most was being dragged to church as a child to worship my family's invisible friend and do everything he says. But if I were to develop my own invisible friend to hang out and maybe play chess with, I'd have wound up in that hospital for far different reasons.
She stopped to ask how many of us believe this actually happened, and several hands shot up in the air. Somewhere around the key of B.S. minor, this struck a pretty loud chord with me. However, it would have been inappropriate to vocalize my opinion because it could have been seen as religious intolerance.
One day about 10 years ago, during a short stay in a hospital, I found myself sitting next to an elderly woman from the geriatric ward in the cafeteria for breakfast. I smiled to welcome her to the table as she sat to eat. She delivered a warm smile in return, right before casually informing me that one of her teeth had been knocked out, but she kept it because it sings to her. Come to find out, she was insane.
But how is believing that your dislodged tooth sings to you any different than disregarding scientific fact and substituting it with a story about a single dude building a huge boat and stocking on it a pair of every single animal on the planet, when measured in units of sanity?
I find it a bit unsettling knowing that if I came to class clad in a tutu and bomber jacket with a conical birthday hat strapped to my cranium while mumbling sweet nothings to myself, my sanity may come into question.
Yet, if I were to cite scripture from an ancient book that has been translated multiple times since its conception (during a period when the extent of science went as far to discover that a circle is round) and is centered around an elusive magical being of authority as the basis for why two homosexual men should not be allowed to engage in consensual sex, I'd be a role model.
This is the same book upon which we have to swear, so help us God, to ensure we don't lie in a court room. Nobody questions the rationality of thinking we have an ethereal buddy up in Heaven (which scientists are still trying to locate; it's so hard when you're dealing with things like facts) who'll reprimand a lie with a payload of locusts, despite social and biological sciences providing slightly more reliable methods of discerning truth from lies and possibly solving crime.
Isn't swearing on literature about a wrathful glorified warlock grounds enough for an insanity plea? I'd just as soon swear on "Gulliver's Travels."
But for some reason this is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, in a society that scoffs at the belief in leprechauns and unicorns, and generally views people who have level 60 mages on World of Warcraft or a large Magic collection as outcasts or nerds.
We all know evolution is still a theory. However, we're also well aware that Jonah spent three days and nights living in the belly of a whale.
The thing that angers me the most was being dragged to church as a child to worship my family's invisible friend and do everything he says. But if I were to develop my own invisible friend to hang out and maybe play chess with, I'd have wound up in that hospital for far different reasons.
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