Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Transit Rag Proselytizing

Grumpy Rick is trying to convert his readers to The Lord in today's Metro column, holding up Hugh Laurie as an example of heathen failure and confusion:

What comes next is the sort of logical paradox that so many self-professed atheists admit to when they try to explain their attempts to cobble together their own Rube Goldberg machinery to explain guilt, pride and hubris on their newly leveled secular playing field:

"I don't believe in God," Laurie says, "but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he'd take it away ... So he'll be like: 'You think this is going pretty well?' Then he'll go and send down some big disaster."

Does the Rube Goldberg machinery of religion and ideology really give Rick license to write ridiculous things like that? Rick's not peeved by some "logical paradox"; Rick is peeved because someone who doesn't believe in god used a religious metaphor. He's mad because a comedian used a religious metaphor. But religion is a mix of culture and faith in the supernatural. Does Laurie have to cut himself off from the culture just because he doesn't buy the supernatural? Laurie was describing an impression about balance in a casual conversation and used the word, IF.

Rick seems to think so and recommends Laurie as a candidate for the Tom Cruise School of Depression Therapy:

So there's no God, but even in his absence, Laurie feels the capricious presence of some Old Testament version of Himself, scrutinizing everyone's life - or perhaps just Laurie's - and reserving the right to cast Laurie as Job and lay waste to his life. Superstitious is the right word for it, and frankly, there’s a chance that Laurie would be a little less depressed if, instead of living in fear of what he professes disbelief in, he had a deity to worship who could be a lightning rod for all that anxiety.

Of course, when Rick says "a diety" what he means is "MY diety". Rick would still pull Laurie over and give him a ticket if Laurie said the same things while professing a belief in Scruggles, The Omnipotent Cosmic Wonder Dog.

****

Mr Carlson: I had one of my disc jockeys, Dr Johnny Fever, give me the lyrics to a song. He wants to know if you'd let him play that song on the air.

Dr Bob [reading]: "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine no possessions? Imagine all the peple sharing all the world?" That sounds like communism to me, if there's no heaven, no religion and, I assume, no God.

Mr Carlson: There's not an obscene word in here.

Dr Bob: Not the way I see it.

Mr Carlson: Does it go on your list?

Dr Bob: Arthur, this is typical of the kind of secular, liberal humanist point of view that gluts our airwaves.

Mr Carlson: Yeah, but we're not talking obscenities here anymore, Bob, we're talking about ideas - political, philosophical ideas! First you censor a word, and then you censor the ideas.

Dr Bob: The idea is man-centered, not God-centered. Man is an animal. The Bible tells us to put our reliance in God, not in our fellow mortals. Arthur, this song says there's no heaven.

Mr Carlson: Ah. No, it says just imagine there's no heaven.

Dr Bob: That's blasphemy.

Mr Carlson: On the list or not?

Dr Bob: I have no choice but to say on.

Mr Carlson: That decision was made by one man.

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