Comments are for Commenting

In a bid to get involved with my local community, I started reading the websites of a number of my local churches. They all seem to be doing some very good word, and providing very valuable services to the community, such as mother toddler groups, fundraisers and other events.


I found a blogspot account for one of the churches local to me, the St David's Uniting Church, which provides an account of the events that they put on in the church. In one post, here, seems to have been a talk which focused on 'sin'. I would say that this is largely understood as a religious concept, and as is so often the case though we have a general understanding of what 'sin' is, I realised I was unable to actually form a coherent definition that I feel people would agree to. After looking at a few dictionary definitions I found that at it's most basic it is an action which breaks a moral law.


If you click the link you can see the entire post, which isn't particularly controversial, but as I read it I felt that there were two conflicting accounts of what constituted 'sin'. I tried to comment on the post, since that is what the option is there for, but discovered that only the authors of the blog are allowed to comment there, so, having written out my comment, I felt slightly annoyed, and thought I'd post it here instead. Here it is:


*****


I'm not sure whether I'm misinterpreting what's been written here, but I think some of the thoughts on sin here are inconsistent.


In the third paragraph it says:


"Sin is not so much about moral misbehaviour as about lazy thinking - opting out of thinking for ourselves."


Which, it seems to me, would be advocating critical thinking, however in the next paragraph you say:


"It cannot be sinful to think as we have been taught, rather the sin is to refuse insights which are given to us, which would keep us honest."


Unless I am misunderstanding, you seem to be saying that you should both 'think for yourself' and also 'think as you were taught', which would seem to be contradictory.


I'm unclear if your sentence "think as we have been taught" refers to a method / way of thinking or whether it just means 'believe what you are told (presumably by someone in religious authority).


Apologies if I've simply misunderstood.


*****


I personally do believe it is very important to think for yourself, and to think critically. If the second point raised does imply that it is good to simply believe what you are told, I would vehemently disagree. They have phrased it very misleadingly if that is what they are suggesting, travelling an interesting linguistic route to justify simply believing as the church says. Unfortunately I was unable to ask them directly, so I may never know what they actually intended.

God of Whoa

Here's our re-telling of the creation myth.





I hope you enjoy.

Conversion Hypocrisy

The title of this post was the placeholder name for this here sketch, which is now called: A Silly Little Internet Video. This sketch is the one I'm most proud of all we've filmed so far. Specifically from a film/directorial point of view I think it's the most sophisticated in terms of cuts and angles. Hopefully it is more interesting to watch because of it.

Thanks for watching.

Greeting Cards

A friend and I have taken it upon ourselves to concoct a number of counter-greetings cards for the reason of comedy.  I am not hugely assured of my ability to assemble these subversive pieces, and as such I have decided to workshop ideas directly into a blog.  This foreword is more a warning that an introduction, it is to tell you that I am merely pumping out as many ideas as I can in the hope that a small number of them will stick.  They might be good, they might not be, let’s find out.

 

I’ll start by attempting some subversive, subversive Christmas ones.

 

On the front of the card there is a depiction of a snowy town, smoke puffing from chimneys like in the oldy-olden days, snow piled high on the houses, the gardens and the road.  Inside the card there is photograph looking into a car through the windscreen.  The windscreen is smashed and a woman lies splayed in the driver’s seat, with her face drenched in blood and badly mangled.  There could possibly be two little tykes in the back similarly disfigured, depending on how wrong you really want to make the card.  The text at the very top of the page would read: “White Christmases cause 1,000,000 RTAs.  Don’t bitch about the gritters.”

 

An alternative would be a card depicting a family living room, bedecked with christmas tree, stockings, trimmings, half eaten pie and sipped sherry, and excited children gleefully sprinting towards base of the tree, which is stuffed with toys, while sickeningly twee parents watch on from the doorway.  Inside the card read: “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  But we want presents, so screw the execrable oik.” (or maybe slightly stronger language, depending on the target audience).

 

A card depicting a green Santa shaking his fist and glaring out of the card.  The text inside reads: “I used to be green, before coca-cola got their filthy fucking mitts on my colour scheme.  Trust such an insidious corporation to engender themselves into the public consciousness in such a sinister manner.”

 

The front of another card depicts a near-naked Celt, with his hair spiking out madly, huge sickle in hand, ferocious grimace upon his face, charging at a turkey in order to tear it to pieces.  Text inside reads: “God isn’t real, Jesus isn’t a definite historical entity, christmas is a capitalist monster that eats away at your pocket.  But don’t worry because it’s all based on ancient pagan festivals anyway, so fuck it, go mad.” (I realise that Celts and Pagans may not wholly overlap, but I like the look of Celts so we’ll go with that.)

 

My final Christmas card has huge thick writing over the front.  It reads: “Important and Private for .  On the inside there is a picture of the child’s parents, and the text reads: “WE ARE SANTA”.

 

An idea for an anniversary card to a couple from a very religious background:  Picture depicts a family around a dinner table, all with sunken faces and dead eyes.  Text inside reads: Yes, your marriage has lasted a long time, religiously arranged marriages stereotypically do.  This is due to the repressive nature of your religious faith, and how it is reinforced in the wider religious community.  Does the length and endurance of your marriage make up for the fact that your soul has been destroyed due to the unfulfilling nature of your unhealthy relationship?  It is going to last forever and ever and ever and ever.  And ever”.

 

'Dear canvassing-religious-person, yes I have thought about god, at length in fact.  I have come to the conclusion that the idea of a god that is all-powerful and essentially good is a preposterous notion, given the inequality that is inherent in life on this planet.  There is no natural fairness, no natural justice, there is merely life, make of it what you can'.  Inside this particular card there would merely be the words ‘GROW UP’ printed in the very centre.

 

I am tempted to attempt a ‘sorry for your loss’ card to the relatives of a suicide bomber, although it would likely read ‘Congratulations’.  I won’t do that though.  Although I sort of just did.

 

Be my valentine, or else.

 

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

You don’t know me,

But I’m obsessed with you.

 

Your eyes are black,

Your eyes are blue,

The swelling around them,

Makes it hard for you to see,

That I love you.

 

I used to be a sailor,

So you’ll never untie those knots,

You just sit in my attic,

Peeing in my pots.

 

The roses are red,

Your face is a dull blue,

You sit there going off,

I’ll never go off you.

 

A card from a student to his/her parents.

 

“Yeah I passed, unfortunately due to the recession there are no jobs available and so I am going to have to sponge off’ve you until we escape this financial crisis.  Love you”.

 

Blasphemous, morbid, economic and ruinous to childhood, a bit of a hectic selection, I think that’s enough for a start.  I apologise if any offence was caused by any of my ideas.  If there was I guess my advice is: just pretend you didn’t read it.

The Church of Ceiling Cat

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