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On Kathy Griffin and offending religious people
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I'd never even heard of her, tbqh.
I once heard SE++ described what would happen to /b/ if it grew up. I don't know exactly how accurate that is, really. It was humorous, truthful or not.
And let's talk about sin. You understand sin as a failure to obey God's commandments, right?
Well, God's commandments include killing people like me "without mercy" (Dt. 13:6). It also includes enslaving people (Dt. 20:10) and stoning brides who cannot prove their virginity to death on the doorstep of their father's house (Dt. 22:25).
While I understand that Catholicism does not hold the Bible as stictly as Protestantism, your religion is nonetheless based on the Bible; Catholic teaching is based on a tradition of Biblical exegesis which upholds God's law in the OT as the paragon of morality (Aquinas, Augustine).
Do you believe that you are sinning by not killing me?
I don't think Christians are inherently bad or stupid people either.
I think Christians are wrong about their belief in Christianity. And I believe that the teachings of Christianity are about as immoral as they come. Would I call a dominionist Christian who wanted to reinstate OT laws like stoning nonbelievers "immoral"? Probably, at least to the same extent I would call Taliban Muslims immoral for actually following their immoral religion to the letter.
But the funny thing is that Christians like yourself probably have the same moral values that I do, at least for the most part. We may disagree on abortion (which is found nowhere in the Bible) and some other superficial stuff, but I'm willing to bet that we agree that slavery is fundamentally wrong, genocide is fundamentally wrong, rapists should not get to marry their victims if they pay the girl's father a brideprice (Dt. 22:28). So I don't think I'm morally superior to you, so much as that I'm completely stumped as to why you even claim to believe that your religion informs your morals in any meaningful way.
The Bible is not a "thing of beauty." There is some poetry in it and a few forward-thinking ideas (such as the command to not kill children for the sins of their fathers, which was the norm in ancient Mesopotamia). But for the most part the Bible is backward and appalling even for its own time. The Babylonians did not have laws which commanded the stoning of homosexuals and unbelievers, nor did their gods order them to kill every single man, woman and child in the cities they conquered. Leviticus, with its detailed instructions about how Yahweh likes salt and seasonings on his burnt animal sacrifices and "don't forget to leave extra for the priests" is so obviously the work of a corrupt, selfish priesthood that it's small wonder no Christian seems to even glance at its pages. In Deuteronomy 28, God threatens anyone who fails to follow all the commandments with a laundry list of tortures, including such novel tortures as forcing parents to eat their own children and miscarraige afterbirths, with God claiming that he will "take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction."
The narrative portions of the Bible—the Genesis myths, for example—have a certain beauty to them but mostly are based on prevailing Babylonian myths. Other Biblical narratives, like the book of Joshua, are simply a bloodthirsty celebration of genocide after genocide after genocide.
The New Testament is poorly written and self-contradictory, Paul's rhetoric reminds me of Hitler in its demogogery, and the ethos of the Christ myth seems remarkably life-hating to me—to say nothing of the book of Revelation, which is so over-the-top and bloody as far as apocalypses go that I would call it juvenile.
Am I twisting your religious text to make it seem hateful and stupid? I'm sure you want to accuse me of that—but then have you actually read this book, Salvation?
Well, I respect you as a person in that I wouldn't ever advocate harming or imprisoning you for your beliefs. I guess it's the difference between respecting your rights as a person and respecting what you say.
Is it founded on what is basically a book with a load of shit?
Drez, sometimes I hate you.
But right now, I love you.
No, not really. I'm not going to defend the idiocy of religion, but some good things come out of it, even if it's not in the majority of things that religion spawns.
Edit: And this is going way OT.
Let's talk about unfunny redhead comedians.
But the mom and agent are real. At least they were tangible, measurable influences.
Buddha didn't help her?
Vishnu?
Zues?
Fucking Ahura Mazda, man.
Bigot.
Agreed. 'Pick and choose' Christians who know the basic Bible stories. We've all heard how the Spaniards from the 1500s would be horrified by how slack today's Christians have gotten. Those guys were hardcore back then.
This. I'm escalating to seriouses if this continues after this, your second in-thread warning. Some of you have enough points that it will result in a temp-ban. Don't say you weren't warned, you know perfectly well where the new topic button is.
If she'd done this, it would have gone over better, and nobody would've had any legitimate grounds to be offended. People would've been offended, of course, but they would've had no legitimate grounds. However, it would not have been edgy and generated controversy, which is why Griffin didn't go that route. She wanted to make a spectacle and piss people off.
Who's the dude with Kathy Griffin's god?
Well, it would have been an incredibly long-winded and roundabout attempt at a joke, too.
Let's not chalk up to maliciousness what can adequately be explained by "jokes work better when they're punchy"
More people need to stand up and tell the Christian Right where they can fucking shove it.
A statement that offends a large group of people: "suck it up", "shove it", etc.
Another statement that offends a large group of people: bigotry, racist, homophobe, etc.
It's not so much that as it is why they are offended. Also, power in numbers. It's like that who "We should have White Entertainment Television!" argument. White people have everything already, so they shouldn't be offended when a channel, as shitty as it is, panders to a smaller, more select audience based on culture and race.
Oh, but she was joking. That makes it okay.
I can't wait to start throwing around the n-word in jest, and having no reprocussions from it.
Yes, I suppose that if you interpret her words literally, then the whole "Suck it Jesus" part can be taken as offensive. But then it's a matter of offensive to who, and the whole definition of irony. I mean, I could imagine a hardcore Christian making the exact same joke, but as a satire against idolotry.
Humor is an art, norta science. There aren't any clear lines on what makes one thing X and one thing Y. There are, however, general principles. If you are unable to understand those principles, then perhaps you should work on your sense of humor?
Comedy tends to be about breaking new ground, and pushing new envelops. Kathy took a well established idea (Jesus is responsible for your award) and decided to challenge that underlying premise. She then went a few levels deeper to see just how far she could go with it. Hate speech has very little comedic value, because all you end up doing is marginalize and already marginalized group, for no real reason other than the fact that they are marginal. Not much room for surprise, there.
Really? And what exactly would the joke be? What's the observation you're trying to make? "I'm making a racial slur against black people! It's funny! Because it's a racial slur against black people!"
This reminds me of an episode of "Strangers with Candy," when Jeri gets caught spray painting ethnic slurs on the wall. When asks to explain herself, Jeri insists that she wasn't actually being a racist, she was trying to make a parable. A parable for the fact that Jeri really doesn't like black people.
Geez, it's like watching people with no art background and no concept of color and composition walking into an exhibit and insisting, "That's not art! I could do better than that by throwing a few buckets of paint at the wall!" (Here's a hint, you probably can't.).
I think this is pretty good reasoning.
Also, there's a big difference between subversive speech, which by definition attacks the established norms of society, and oppressive speech, which by definition attacks alternative and/or marginal groups in society. This is a country where the President, Vice-President, and 80% of the supreme legislative body - not to mention 78% of the total population* - is Christian. There's a fundamental difference between saying something is wrong with Christianity and saying something is wrong with Judaism, at least in the U.S.: One statement is subversive, the other is (at least potentially) oppressive.
That's my take on the OP's question, anyhow.
* source = CIA world factbook
It's fine if you're a minority yourself.
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I disagree with that.
This thread made me sad. Because most people were talking about religion and not about how stupid she is.
But I find this to be ridiculous/hilarious (from a FOX news article about the Kathy Griffin thing):
"...The organization may have another delicate issue to consider, this one involving an off-color fake music video that aired last December on "Saturday Night Live" and won a creative arts Emmy for best song.
Andy Samberg of "SNL" said Saturday that he had yet to be asked by the TV academy to perform the tune with Timberlake on the Fox broadcast, but he was willing. Timberlake, on a concert tour, is scheduled to be in Los Angeles next weekend.
The subject of their "(Blank) in a Box" video: wrapping a certain part of the male anatomy and presenting it to a loved one as a holiday present."
The academy has said that "show elements are in the process of being worked out."
Haha. It's my Blank in a Box!