Ashes in the Middle of Your Forehead
Doesn't this strike you as asinine? What if you were asked to put on a clown's nose for Clown's Nose Wednesday? Where does thinking come in if you allow yourself to sport something usually found in an ash tray right in the middle of your forehead?
What the hell is the matter with you? Take a look in the mirror for crissakes! Are you by any chance, the same person who thinks burkas are ridiculous?
Oh come to think of it, you ARE that person.
Doesn't this strike you as asinine? What if you were asked to put on a clown's nose for Clown's Nose Wednesday? Where does thinking come in if you allow yourself to sport something usually found in an ash tray right in the middle of your forehead?
What the hell is the matter with you? Take a look in the mirror for crissakes! Are you by any chance, the same person who thinks burkas are ridiculous?
Oh come to think of it, you ARE that person.
posted by mary bishop | 1:19 PM
17 Comments:
Hey Mary,, Thanks for visiting Erasmus and a King,, they are two awesome individuals. Just so you know I didn't know any other Mary Bishops but now I can say I sort of met one.
Thanks for stopping by Tara. You give me the chance to say: I am the Mary Bishop you know!
Well, I wouldn't say that every single person who puts ashes on his (or her) forehead is aginst burkas. Hey, if that's how they choose to express their religion, no problem with me... I don't know whether I'd do something like that, but then again, I'm not Christian and have my own customs which were once considered... horrible. That taught me a lesson about religious expression for sure!
Irina says: "Hey, if that's how they choose to express their religion, no problem with me"
Here is where we differ greatly.
I do care about how one expresses their religion: I don't like "vaginal circumcision" or any circumcision for that matter, or stoning "adulteresses" or any religion that abases women or starts wars or forces upon their members archaic myths as rules for modern day living.
Guess you could just call me a religion hater. I don't like any group that thrives by excluding people, that causes a person to do something odd or wear something odd to make sure that everyone will know that they are different and of course superior to others, which then leads to hating others and fighting wars with god always on everyone's side.
Firstly, I did not use the words "religion hater" anywhere in my response in relation to anyone. Secondly, I thought that it would appear obvious that customs hurting people are obviously not to be condoned. I was speaking only of such customs which do not hurt anyone at all. Putting ash on one's forehead doesn't hurt anyone. Wearing a burka doesn't hurt anyone. Making matzah doesn't hurt anyone, though some insisted Jews used blood of Christians in it. I'm cautioning against making misinformed decisions when judging a custom. And of course I believe that even if someone disagrees with the custom completely, it doesn't make him or her a religion hater. What I'm saying (and I apologize if I didn't make it clear) that if a cutsom doesn't hurt anyone and if its practitioners find it important, than others should respect the right of those people to do it even if they disagree with it. Obviously, it's different if the custom is harmful.
Irina, I said:
"Guess you could just call me a religion hater."
A cardinal error in good communication, I should have said guess "one" could call me a religion hater. Sorry that the "you" was confusing.
I dislike religious cutoms in general because *I* dislike religion in general.
This is an unusual stance I know and not mainstream. Most people believe in a god of one sort or the other but I do not.
I do adore ethnic and family customs; love holidays etc. but mine are celebrated without god attending.
My main opposition to religion and religious customs is how they exist to create a visible group that can then feel righteous and exclude other groups (or set themselves up to be hated and reviled by yet another group).
There are 22 major religions, give or take a few, and they all have a god. So whose god is the true god and whose religion is the true religion?
For me, this is not a debate in which I have to enter, thank god (joke)!
Buddhism is a religion that doesn't have a personal God. Besides, the purpose of religion is not to exclude anyone, but to provide moral order to one's community. Judaism, for example, is a religion that does NOT claim exclusive truth, and accepts anyone who wants to enter it. Moreover, the idea of righteousness is extended to everyone who abides by basic moral laws (fewer than the 10 commandments - 7), such as not murdering and not stealing, which I think makes. Religious fanaticism is an extreme form of religious practice, just like ethnocentrism is an extreme form of nationalism, communism and radicalism are extreme forms of left-wing ideology, and fascism - the extreme form of right-wing ideology. Anything can be distorted to exclude others, but I think the mainstream and the liberals of any given thought, ideology, or religion do not think in that fashion.
(I, by the way, am relatively secular).
Irina says: "Judaism, for example, is a religion that does NOT claim exclusive truth, and accepts anyone who wants to enter it."
Not true: My friend cannot join, even though he is a Hebrew scholar, studying with a rabbi for the past 7 years.
He can't join the religion because his penis was never snipped.
Of course you have to follow the rules of the religion if you want to follow it... Besides your friend can become circumcized any time he wants. It's not necessary for it to be in childhood, though preferable. As for male circumcision, though it's a painful procedure, it doesn't lead to permanent damage and actually helps prevent cancer. Thus I don't look down on it the same way I look down on female circumsicion.
Oh Irina, your jejune attitude on circumcision is making me chuckle.
Maybe you think god made a mistake when he created man? Too much skin at the tip of his penis?
As you know *I* don't believe in god but I do believe babies' genitalia do not have to be surgically altered.
The comment on cancer is not true...
>In March of 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics revised its circumcision policy statement and concluded that there is not sufficient data to support the supposed potential health benefits of circumcision.
The organization no longer advocates routine neonatal circumcision.<
Asopposed to this news piece dated Feb. 9, 2005:
>The death of one infant boy from herpes and the infection of two others has focused attention on an ancient practice that is still used in some fervently Orthodox communities as they circumcise babies.
New York City health officials are investigating whether the mohel who operated on the three boys had infected them. The city's legal department has been granted a temporary restraining order against Rabbi Yitzhak Fischer until the investigation is complete.<
Okay, wait a minute. I know some religious men and some that are not so religious and not ONE of them would let someone take a knife to their pride and joy for a religion or anything else.
Can you imagine someone telling you that you can join the PTA but you must get your left earlobe removed because it offends?
Men and women were born perfect and whole. Any cult or "religion" that would like to cut something of yours off is archaic and out dated. If modern day religion wants to get with it, the arcane tenants must be abolished.
What I want to know is why can't we all just get along, and stay out of one another's business? I prefer to be like a willow in the wind, to bend but not break. We are all but dew drops on a blade of grass.
BTW: I have a baby with an uncircumcised penis. I had to fend off nurses and doctors that kept trying to nip his little bit when I wasn't looking. I ended up taking his chart and writing on the cover and every page therein, NO CIRCUMCISION.
In Australia there's a majority of men with natural penisesese. I got the answer to "medical problems" with the uncircumcised from there. I was told that any trouble that arises is from too much interference with the infants foreskin. No need to retract and clean it. It leads to damage because the foreskin is not fully retractable in infants. Scarring and improper healing will occur if you mess with it. Simple solution...leave it be. Baby Penis is actually pretty clean and self sufficient. The age when the child is able to bathe himself is precisely the time when he can retract and clean his own penis and body.
The perfect harmonious order of nature.
Circumcision: What's with the connection with religion anyway? Have you seen the works of Raffaello Santi - famous for his Madonna and Child paintings as well as the Bambini? All the boy babies are uncircumcised. The subjects were from a time where the main religion - Judaism was being challenged by Jesus in the form of Christianity.
If it was so darn important, why don't we see it in the art of the day? Just wondering....
W.D. DUNSMUIR and E.M. GORDON
Department of Urology, St George's Hospital NHS Trust, Tooting, London, UK say:
>If there is an inherent survival advantage to a group of humans who chose to maim their young, then this is presumably evidenced by their continued survival as a race<
I never had a son, but if I did, you can be sure he would not have been maimed at birth for any reason, rite or custom etc.
Well, each religion has its customs, and Judaism's custom is male circumcision. There are certain ways to wed, certain ways to eat (kashrut), certain ways to do just about anything. Organized religion prescribes specific rituals. Then again, there are religions such as Deism, which discard rituals, but center on a belief in God. Voltaire, famous for pocking fun of organized religion, was a Deist. Yet he remained a rationalist, who believed in the same freedoms secularists believe in.
Whispering,
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Have you read Hamlet's Dresser by Bob Smith? A wonderful book...
No, but I'll be sure to read it!
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