When should be considered offensive to criticize God? Tough to say. Some people would say, always, God is perfect and holy and who the fuck are we? Some people would say never, The Big Guy probably doesn't exist anyway; criticism is giving God more credit than he even deserves.
Another related, but more seldomly asked question: When is it offensive to be offended by someone criticizing God? I am excited about Bill Maher's new documentary, Religulous, as it may raise some of these questions. Plus Bill Maher is hilarity.
In our politically correct day and age, it is generally assumed that one should air well on the side of not criticizing God, as such supposed blasphemy may offend people. Many will likely condemn Religulous to hell for taking what appears from the preview to be a critical or even downright mocking view of religion. I wonder though, what is more offensive, Religulous, or offense taken to Religulous?
I think two main factors will determine the answer. First: is Religulous mocking a personal God or a political God? If Religulous is simply mocking people for believing in God, calling people that like God crazy, or even jeering people who speak in tongues, whirling dervish, or other seemingly bizarre, but benevolent practices, then Religulous should be called out as offensive. Making religious people the but of a joke because their practices may seem odd to the outsider is nothing short of intolerant. On the other hand, if the beliefs that Maher lambasts are beliefs that implicate people besides the believer, then Bill gets free reign to say what he wants. In other words, if someone believes in a God that might put Bill Maher in hell, then Bill has a right to mock this God because its apparently Bill's God too whether Bill likes it or not. People don't get to have intolerant views cloaked in religious rhetoric and then scream 'religious intolerance' when someone punches back.
The bigger question: does Bill Maher believe in God? If Bill believes in God and he is criticizing his own God, as far as I'm concerned, he's off the hook. In one blog, I called God a 'strange motherfucker' because I jokingly believed God's grace made me drink Fresca. In my relationship with God, I can jokingly call God a motherfucker. You're offended? Tough shit. You're beliefs about God don't get to subsume my relationship with God. On the other hand, if Bill doesn't believe in God or doesn't believe in the God he is criticizing, then his criticism should be looked at more closely. Again, if Bill is just making fun of people, not cool. But if he's making fun of people because they're religious beliefs are fucking up the world, then Bill, go nuts.
I'm sick of people using 'religious tolerance' as a shield for religiously inspired intolerance, and I'm sick of people using 'satire' and 'humor' as an excuse for offensive cheap laughs. Which side of this line will the movie fall? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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'ziek once went to a fancy restaurant and resisted many yummy entrees in favor of the veggie plate, because it was Passover. He then proceeded to eat cheesecake (with a graham cracker crust) for dessert. Oops! He's vegetarian, so he wouldn't eat pork anyways.
Ginger is Episcopalian, so there pretty much aren't any rules for her to break. She's subtly trying to convert 'Zek (or so he thought when she tried to get him to love Kanye West's "Jesus Walks".) Since she is not Catholic, she has always been able to eat meat on Fridays. Juicy, steaky meat.
Conway is Catholic, so she doesn't eat red meat on Fridays, but is unsure if that includes pork. She also plays rugby and used to be a cop. So, the moral of that story is...don't F with her.
chand-tara is Muslim, so she never eats pork, which is sad because she's missing out on one of the best creations ever known to human kind - bacon. She did recently discover turkey sausage though, so she's on the right track. She also makes delicious country apple pie!
They study the law, but talk alot about religion.
Ginger is Episcopalian, so there pretty much aren't any rules for her to break. She's subtly trying to convert 'Zek (or so he thought when she tried to get him to love Kanye West's "Jesus Walks".) Since she is not Catholic, she has always been able to eat meat on Fridays. Juicy, steaky meat.
Conway is Catholic, so she doesn't eat red meat on Fridays, but is unsure if that includes pork. She also plays rugby and used to be a cop. So, the moral of that story is...don't F with her.
chand-tara is Muslim, so she never eats pork, which is sad because she's missing out on one of the best creations ever known to human kind - bacon. She did recently discover turkey sausage though, so she's on the right track. She also makes delicious country apple pie!
They study the law, but talk alot about religion.
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7 comments:
'zeik,
You say "Making religious people the butt of a joke because their practices may seem odd to the outsider is nothing short of intolerant" with a sense of finality.
I'm pretty weary of the liberal dogma that intolerance anywhere and everywhere should be persecuted.
Reasonable civically-minded people want to alienate movements of mass hysteria that threaten the workings of democracy (talking in tongues is scares me). If humor and poking fun is the tool so be it.
-FreeMealsInThePrytaneum
FreeMeals,
The point is that we can't be dogmatic about what we consider offensive because religious beliefs are often used to hurt society. But where the beliefs don't hurt society,we should be wary of mocking. I suppose this does operate under the assumption that religion itself is at least sometimes not a bad thing for society. But the counter argument that religion is never ok, which is an assumption your argument must operate under, is far more dogmatic.
Just a point of clarification. I think Maher's documentary is supposed to (at least this is what I read somewhere) take aim at what he sees as the pernicious influence of organized religion. To get some glimpse of his views on the God/religion issue, check out his response to an AV Club piece asking a bunch of celebrities whether there is a god or not:
"I think there is. We did a show last night about God and religion with Dave Foley, who I love, and we were arguing against this one woman who had a book called I Like Being Catholic. Someone said, "Oh, boy, a lot of atheists on this panel." I said, "I'm not an atheist. There's a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn't believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need. But I'm not an atheist, no." I believe there's some force. If you want to call it God... I don't believe God is a single parent who writes books. I think that the people who think God wrote a book called The Bible are just childish. Religion is so childish. What they're fighting about in the Middle East, it's so childish. These myths, these silly little stories that they believe in fundamentally, that they take over this little space in Jerusalem where one guy flew up to heaven—no, no, this guy performed a sacrifice here a thousand million years ago. It's like, "Who cares? What does that have to do with spirituality, where you're really trying to get, as a human being and as a soul moving in the universe?" But I do believe in a God, yes."
If you want some confirmation, and some rather amusing, occasionally interesting responses from a number of other celebs, you can find the whole AV Club piece here:
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24569
I think my favorite is Conan's, which is the also the first. "Yes. Wait, hold on. No."
'zeik,
To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if we have a genuine difference of opinion here.
A clarifying analogy is helpful here -- I know the KKK is protected under the first amendment, and I'm reluctantly glad that this is true. I think the KKK promotes undemocratic ideas, ideas that are bad for its members, and as an institution it hurts communities. Its OK for a private individual to be intolerant towards the KKK. Its not terrible for a person to be intolerant of the KKK or to try and laugh the KKK out of town.
I'm really tired of the oft repeated liberal trope that people have to be tolerant of everything. It is good to be concerned with what's going in your community. Laughing nutcase religious practices out of town seems like a pretty benevolent behavior.
I don't think its impossible to make distinctions among religious practices, I think people generally have a pretty good idea of when something is bad for their community. I definitely don't think I'm committed to hating every religion. Consider, this quote from Brandeis, C.J. "the highest Jewish ideals are essentially American." Some religions and their practices contribute to our nation and others are detrimental. A private individual expressing intolerance of something that he views as bad for his community seems virtuous not vindictive.
I don't want to belabor this since I think we basically agree, and jut got our wires a little crossed. Amirite?
Free Meals,
I'm pretty sure we're not saying the same thing, not in any meaningful way, anyway. I agree that one can attack religion if the religion harms society. Likewise, people can rally against the Klan because the Klan harm society. But I don't think its ok to mock people for doing things like speaking in tongues just because we may think its weird. Because we intuitively find something odd, does not mean that that thing is harmful to the community. Your citation to Brandeis is ironic, as a lot of communities find Jews pretty odd.
'Zeik
I still think we agree on a few nontrivial points: that religion at least sometimes contributes to the national landscape and sometimes can be a bad participant; in your words "religion itself is at least sometimes not a bad thing for society." Also, we seem to agree that people can rally against practices that harm society (like the Klan). I see some religious practice as harmful to society, thus OK to laugh at. If I understand you, you see religious practice as at worst odd, but harmless. I'm curious if you would be OK with mocking a religious practice that was not just odd, but more clearly harmful in the way the Klan is -- say for example, "female circumcision," polygamy, the burqa?
Is it your view that there is something unique about religion that demands deference even when the practice seems fairly horrid?
We're in agreement that mocking a practice for being odd (laughing at the weird kid) is not a morally good thing. I see practices like tongue-talking as harmful not because there's anything wrong with the practice of its own right, but the mentality that supports the practice strikes me as bad for democracy.
There is a genuine difference, and apologize for not seeing it before (as an aside, I think a really annoying tactic is pretending agreement where it does not exist -- I hope you'll take my word that I genuinely thought we agreed).
To me it does not matter that some people "find jews pretty odd" because they are wrong that jews are bad for their country. That's not the whole story--
I'll concede some ground here: if we see our discussion as talking about promoting / picking norms -- then what I'm saying is that I'm willing to promote a norm of community involvement / civic participation even if the price I have to pay is some intolerance. I don't make this lightly, but I make it because I believe that people are well-meaning in tending to their community interests and community is tremendously important and requires maintaining. It seems like (but correct me if I'm wrong) you'd rather promote a norm of tolerance even if it comes at the expense of some apathy towards our national and local communities.
If I'm right about the above, then I think we're at an impasse since we place different significance on different goods and harms.
-FreeMealsInThePrytaneum
Maher gets a pass from me on this one, regardless of his motivations for making his movie. Is it possibly offensive, childish, and unfair? Sure... but it is also his right to speak his mind in a manner that does not harm others. And to clarify, hurting someone's feelings via hearsay should not be considered harm. Maher is making a movie that people can chose to watch, ignore, or boycott. To those that are offended by the mere existence of his film: get over it. You have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... there is no mention of a right to freedom from the existence of opposing viewpoints (no matter how ridiculous they may be).
I do find it rather interesting that secular media is often the target of religious opposition while religious media is rarely opposed by secular groups... granted of course that the media in question is not being forced upon anyone.
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