Jesus: “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Published by punkass marc May 14th, 2006 in Godbaggery, This Thing of OursIt kinda works that way, doesn’t it? Either you’re an unquestioning friend to the Don, in which case you get tons of perks, or you’re an enemy, at which point you find a horse head (your soul) in bed (aka eternal hellfire damnation). There’s definitely no middle ground; the Catholics won’t even tolerate limbo anymore.
I’ve cracked wise a few times this week about the Christians as the new mafia and McCain showing up at Falwell’s house to pledge undying loyalty to the godfather on this, the day of his students’ graduation. But the more I think about it, the less absurd the mafia/Christian comparison seems.
Whether it be a church or Cosa Nostra, you remain a member… or else.
I hear that you can only give two weeks’ notice in the mob when your doctor gives you two weeks to live. Apparently, there are a growing number of crazy churches with a similar intolerance for resignation. Try to leave and they’ll whack you excommunication-style:
After getting some coffee and making polite conversation “Bob” finally got to the point. “Thank you for seeing me, Pastor,” he began. “I have a serious theological question and I need your help.”
Well, his own pastor had somewhat of a reasonably good reputation on theological issues, so I asked, “Why me and not your own pastor?”
“He’s the problem. You see, I’ve been offered a promotion at work that will mean moving my family to another city. My pastor says that I am not allowed to take the promotion if it means leaving the church. He just warned me that if I do, I will be excommunicated for violating my covenant vows of church membership.”
Sadly, “Bob’s” situation is not as unusual as one might think.
The Catholics have always said that if you leave the church, you burn forever. Sounds like the Protestants are finally catching up.
That reminds me — even though they agree on the same general rules, both have several warring clans fighting for all the power. For further reference please see: Ireland, Northern. There are also no shortage of wackos like this guy:
There can be few people in the world who are more anti-Roman Catholic Church than I am. I believe the RCC to be a demonic cult that corrupts the Gospel and distorts the teachings of the Bible in order to lead the theologically immature to trust in manmade religiosity instead of the Word of God. Further, I believe there are no limits to the measures the RCC leadership and Magisterium will apply in their service to their master, the Prince of this Age.
Oh, and before I forget, the pastor who refused to let his parishioner go exposed that both extort their clients for artifical protection. You don’t want a molotov cocktail fastballed through your restaurant window, so you pay Tony Caps not to do it. You don’t want some supposed soul thing bodyslammed down to a dark pit of fire that isn’t there, so you give your church little envelopes of gratitude to see it doesn’t happen. Either way, the threat only exists because the protector made it up, but you still have to pay them for safety. Sweet gig if you can get it.
This also kinda reminds me of asking us to support imperialist occupations in the Middle East to prevent terrorism, too, except that this particular protection actually makes the threat real. But I digress.
For both Christians and Friends of Ours, there’s also no shortage of repressed man-love. Check out this interview with an obviously-closeted Christian who wrote a book about how the Sopranos are okey-doke with the Lord:
The characters in “The Sopranos” are in a closed, set-apart world. They have their own moral code as well. Does that raise more comparisons to the world of religion?
Yeah, I think it does. They exist in their own unique culture and have to figure out how to relate to one another. There is definitely some crossover there to people of faith. I think that’s one of the main attractions for people of faith, and for people in general. I think everybody wants to belong to something. And these people clearly belong to one another. Men write to me and say, “I want to be a part of a Christian Mafia.” What they’re really saying is “I want to be a part of a group of men that are so committed to each other that they would die for each other.” The men [in "The Sopranos"] are incredibly affectionate to one another. They kiss more than any other men you’ve ever seen, so there’s this deeply rooted love and trust that exists there. The challenge is when you violate that trust they’ll kill you. That sucks. But the glue that holds them together and the fact that they are so tightly bound is real attractive to people, myself included.
Finding people like that on the internets just makes my weekend.
Moving on, churchies and gangsters also have codes of silence once you get far enough up the ladder. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Fellowship Foundation, aka The Family, check out this Harper’s article:
Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.
Oh yeah, and they both have all the politicians and higher-ups in their pocket, too, but I figured that went without saying. Still, nice to know they’re praying in the Pentagon, huh? I think I’d rather see them rent it out for mob weddings.
Perhaps most importantly, though, such pocketed politicans are literally willing to execute people who stand in opposition to the Church, kinda like if they were soldiers in This Thing of Ours. I’d like to remind you of eager US Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) famous fightin’ words:
On the death penalty, he said: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life.”
He said he performed two abortions to save the lives of mothers who had congenital heart disease, but opposes the procedure in cases of rape.
“Under the mores we live under today, my lineage wouldn’t exist,” Coburn said, explaining that his great-grandmother was raped by a territorial sheriff.
Dr. Coburn wouldn’t exist. What a damn shame. We should definitely force raped women to give their lives to the result of their victimization just because _you specifically_ wouldn’t have been born. If that doesn’t illustrate the extreme self-absorbtion of your typical fundie, I don’t know what will. The mob’s kinda caught up in a bunch of self-important shit, too, don’t you think?
The churches and the mafia also like:
-men more than women
-not paying taxes to the government
-and talking about honor while using any dirty tactic they can.
Now if one of the lawyers in the audience would be kind enough to help me figure out how to prosecute the jesusfreaks under the RICO Act, we’ll be all set.
24 Responses to “Jesus: “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.””
- 1 Trackback on May 14th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
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This is awesome. Just awesome. You need to send this to PZ and submit it to the Carnival of the Godless. Let me find you the info. Shit, I’ll send it for you.
How touching. Mandy Marcotte from Pandagon and Myers from Pharyngula both love this little piece of derangement.
*Asks if any one is surprised, followed by the sound of crickets*
I’m not even going to bother with a point-by-point refutation. You’re not interested.
Save for this: The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone. It simply announces that a heretic has excommunicated himself. That’s all.
I ahve often thought that the “offer of salvation” of the Christian mythos amounts to little more than
“Dat’s a nice soul youse got dere. Be a shame if sumtin was to happ’n to it.”
First, invent the goods. Then, invent the threat. Then, invent the way to save the invented goods from the invented threat.
And they say Scientology is a scam…
Some Catholics may say that, but that’s not really Church doctrine. Unless, of course, by “leave the church” you mean “abandon Christianity”. The Catholic catechism says, “All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church” (818).
Although I have a copy of the catechism right here, which is a handy reference, I don’t happen to believe any of the stuff in it. But even some of us lapsed Catholics like to keep folks straight on what the Vatican actually teaches. And, of course, we’re going to hell.
When people claim that nonbelievers go to hell, it’s like their god comes with the Problem of Evil pre-attached. I mean, this would pretty clearly be an evil god, right?
Perfect timing. I was whining earlier on Pharyngula about how my family has decided to pray me back into the fold. And berate me. Etc…. This just makes it so much easier to see how things work. It was interesting. After I left my old church a few years ago people that I thought were good friends all of a sudden dropped out of my life like flies. There was no malice and it wasn’t even a split about religion. I had too much on my plate and just could not commit anymore. The road to disbelief was a long one that was a little unexpected. Lots of stuff changed- I saw the religious right becoming more and more powerful, I saw all religions used as ideological tools of terrible leaders and I saw personally how hypocritical people were in regards to how and why bad things happen. I realized that for years I had been excusing bad behaviour and bad shit for religious reasons. It was too much work.
Well thanks for an excellent blog entry!!
“Save for this: The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone. It simply announces that a heretic has excommunicated himself. That’s all.”
Since the church invented the rules, then they’re the ones who excommunicate people.
This is also true of the doctrine of salvation in general: Sinners don’t send themselves to hell, god does. God, having made the rules, could choose to let anybody into heaven, and yet he doesn’t.
I’m not even going to bother with a point-by-point refutation. You’re not interested.
Save for this: The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone. It simply announces that a heretic has excommunicated himself. That’s all.
Perfect! That makes it even more menacingly Mafiaesque! We’re not going to bump you off; you’ve just shortened your own life by trying to get out of the racket!
Don’t have much to say on the whole organized religious thing. Whatever port in a storm (unless you like storms, which is cool too). But this statement:
“both have several warring clans fighting for all the power. For further reference please see: Ireland, Northern.”
reflects conventional wisdom, and as usual that wisdom has the depth of a sidewalk puddle after a summer sun shower. Societies constructed to control the populace by pitting the ‘have a littles’ against the ‘have-nots’ have fuck-all to do with ‘fighting for all the power. They’re both being manipulated. See Apartheid/racism, Indian cast system, English class system, American corporatism, Soviet Communism, etc. etc.
Come to think of it, the manipulation angle works much better for the point you seem to be trying to make. Though it don’t know if it fits real well with the ranting style.
Y’all are way behind the times. JDR explained this years ago.
On the death penalty, he said: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life.”
Like state executioners?
Mafia comparisons aside, what if someone sold you a product and said you had to wait until after you were dead to find out whether or not it worked. Would you buy it? No. One of the great things about Christianity is that no-one is ever in a position to come back and sue for breach of contract. I’m with JBS Haldane on this: when asked by Theologians what his biological studies had told him about the nature of the Creator, Haldane replied: “An unusal findness for beetles.”
Just imagine all those faithful walking towards the light and finding…God is giant coleopteran.
‘The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone.’
What total bullshit.
‘All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church” ‘
This is a pretty inconsistent stance on their part. If they believe it’s by faith alone they sure do their part to build works/religiosity into it as a requirement.
Mafia comparisons aside, what if someone sold you a product and said you had to wait until after you were dead to find out whether or not it worked. Would you buy it? No.
What about life insurance?
I like this line from Compass: “Save for this: The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone. It simply announces that a heretic has excommunicated himself. That’s all.”
Sure sounds like the old “they were asking for it” line about rape victims. To go along with the mafia theme, it’s not the fault of the mob when the shopkeeper’s store is trashed - they just removed themselves from the mob’s protection, that’s all. It’s all about blaming the victim while shielding the perpetrator (re - lawyers for the Church going after those making sexual abuse cases against priests).
“Save for this: The Catholic Church doesn’t excommunicate anyone. It simply announces that a heretic has excommunicated himself. That’s all.”
Did anyone else get an image of Nelson Muntz bullying a heretic, after reading this hooey?: “Stop excommunicating yourself!” [Whap!] “Stop excommunicating yourself!” [Whap, whap!]
Excellent article; one complaint. I think it’s unwise to use Ireland, Northern as an offhand example of warring factions within Christianity as the conflict there had less to do with actual religious disagreements and more to do with warring political factions: those of Republicanism (of the Irish Republic)and Loyalism (to the Crown). It’s important to recognise that religion is used in such cases as a convenient excuse for such un-beatitudinal behaviour, rather than the cause of it. Still, political thuggery is no different from racketeering thuggery is no different from divine Thuggery. I’m rambling, however, and I’m sure you take my point. Excellent piece.
The excommunication thing is complicated…apparently you do just do it to yourself, they just carry on with you as a member of the club. There is some obscure ritual where you get the king of excommunication that gallileo got (if you piss them off enough) but mere mortals like me cannot get it. I have been trying for years, every time I get into a head 2 head with a catholic priest I beg him to excommunicate me but there is always some reason why I am not heretic enough to go on the list. They are of course always real condecending about how I’m going to come back into the fold …”on my deathbed if not before” and they;ll be praying for me.
By the way thew RCC in Ireland who have been famous in their slowness to act in the case of the many peadophiles they have harboured in their ranks over the years have moved with great speed to discipline some priests who had the temerity to share some hocus pocus ceremony with their neighbours from the protestant church. The priests who were widely lauded by their congergations for trying the two warring communities together capitulated in the face oof threats of being defrocked. I wonder if they might have been able to get excommunicated
heres a link to a news headlin on the story…I’m sure that there is much more detailed coverage somewhere but frankly who’s bothered
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0515/religion.html
“What about life insurance?”
What about it? Last time I checked, I didn’t have to be dead to find out if life insurance works. Someone whose policy benefits me does.
speaking of excommunication….
As a side note to Seamus Daly’s comment on the nature of the particular conflict in NI (though leaving out the British establishment’s contribution does leave you with a, not very useful, 2 legged stool) and strewelpeter story of the pressures exerted from ‘above’ on the rank and file clergy, I am reminded that historically it was standard practice for the Bishops of Ireland to threaten members of revolutionary forces in Ireland with excommunication (as requested by the British colonial ruling elite).
Homer: don’t have life insurance and have left the RCC for those very same reasons.
Excommunication: heretics (maybe) excommunicate themselves but don’t forget the ‘once a catholic, always a catholic’ argument, especially given a long-anticipated death and deathbed repentence. Can’t do any harm, can it? If it’s all balls (as I think it is) will the worms care? No.
The chrch excommnicates anyone who agrees with abortion, because abortion is murder. I haven’t heard of any threats to excommunicate a murderer, you know, someone who actually killed a breathing human being . Abortion bad; murder is`serios sin, but forgiveable. What bullshit!