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November 21, 2005

Little Religious Wars

This — from an NPR commentary by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) — is rich:

I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less.

Another way of figuratively using "two words that the FCC" dislikes comes to mind:

The skit, performed last week in Las Vegas, included Teller, dressed as Christ on a full-size cross, entering the room on a cart. According to the column, a midget dressed as an angel "performed a simulated sex act on the near-naked Teller." Penn, in a Roman gladiator costume, unveiled the scene by pulling away a "Shroud of Turin" that covered the cross.

So one side — presented always, in my experience, as a general representation of an unflappable caricature — insults by having confidence that its belief is correct. The other side, as Jonah Goldberg puts it, "actively enjoys mocking and condescending to people who believe in God."

In response to Goldberg, Andrew Stuttaford — who says of religion, "it's not a subject that worries me very much one way or the other" — asks, "Why does theological debate have to be muffled in cotton wool, euphemism and that feeble contemporary desire not to give 'offense'?" Not that wool and gloss ought to be items in every rhetorical toolbox, but I'd reply to Stuttaford that a prerequisite for "debate" is generally to avoid chasing the other side off with jeers.

For all Jillette's pleasant-sounding claims about wanting "to be more thoughtful" and "to treat people right the first time around," his disbelief in God apparently does not foster sufficient human sympathy of "I know you take this matter seriously." Instead, the sentiment is: "nothing you can say or do will be listened to."

Posted by Justin Katz at November 21, 2005 8:05 PM
Religion
Comments

I am always amazed when people (like Jillete) automatically define God as one who doesn't care and just allows suffering.

This shows a profound ignorance of faith. He says he learns things from different cultures and different people, but he admits, "I can keep learning where I'm wrong"

Well, he is wrong about God, but he refuses to even try to learn.

Posted by: Rightwingsparkle at November 22, 2005 9:36 PM

Actually, Jillette gets it even more wrong by asserting, essentially, that Christians believe that God causes suffering:

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

While I am sure there are some Christians out there who believe God causes suffering, there is by no means consensus on this point of belief in the Body of Christ overall and it is not part of the most ancient creeds. Further, disbelief in God does not necessarily mean you suffer less in the future, but what it does mean is that Jillette has effectively drained any suffering he or his family might experience from any meaning.

In Jillette's world view the cancerous lump, the murderer's bullet, the drunk driver coming head on or the stroke in the middle of the night effectively end the story and his life will mean nothing. Now, in my experience this is a hard-assed way of living and more power to him if he can really pull it off. But most self-proclaimed non-believers I have encountered really can't. They keep some sort of escape hatch in the back of their mind where they hide away some little allowance of agnosticism where they can privately admit that their might be a God and thus pull a little bit of comfort from the notion that the suffering they and their loved ones go through might really mean something after all.

Someone else described Jillette's commentary as passive-aggressive and I would agree, behind the performing funny man (whose humor has grown steadily darker over the years) there is one pinched, wandering and unhappy little soul who needs our prayers pretty desperately.

Posted by: David Morrison at November 26, 2005 4:35 PM

Great thoughts David. I know many people who fit your explanation of Gillette's steady decline into darker and darker realms of thought and being. I wonder if Gillette is wise enough to see how his current worldview is damaging his soul.

Those like Gillette must localize evil, in that they understand intuitively that there is evil the world, and instead of accepting suffering as it is, wish to point to the others as creators of evil and suffering. In Gillette's case, he points to God and Christians. What I actually believe is happening is that Gillette is externalizing his internal battle. He cannot accept his own suffering, and thereby cannot tolerate a God who allows his son, Jesus, to have suffered for our sins. We should all pray for him and others like him.

Posted by: Marc at November 27, 2005 11:19 AM