Miscellanea: The Seven Deadly Sins of Religion
The Catholic church made up a new version of the seven deadly sins last week -- I guess the old ones weren't good enough anymore. Here's my own list: Miscellanea: The Seven Deadly Sins of Religion.
posted by Grey | 6:23:00 AM
7 Comments:
Grey,
As a scientist, I've enjoyed your work in the past, and as a Catholic I've never had too much of a reason to be offended. Until now.
First of all, these "new sins" are not being added to any formal church doctrine. They don't replace the old ones. They were originally given in a newspaper interview by -- not the pope, not even a cardinal -- an archbishop, in what I assume is an admittedly shallow attempt to show the modern relevance of the church. It was more or less a puff piece.
But the mainstream media (particularly the Daily Telegraph) fabricated a sensation out of it, and since just about every major internet forum site has a good share of religion-haters who so want to believe that the church can and does change its doctrines on a whim, we now have this huge misconception.
Anyway.
I'm more offended by the comic itself -- not just from the standpoint that my faith is being insulted, not the fact that the situations depicted are so grossly exaggerated that I don't recognize my own experience in any of them, but mostly by the simple fact that frankly, it's not up to your standard.
Check the comments of just about any article, link, thread, or blog entry on the internet that mentions the word "Catholic" -- you'll find all of these points iterated ad nauseum. Unlike the majority of Miscellania, I found nothing original about this comic. It makes you look like just as much of a knee-jerk about religion as those that you parody with the sin of Ignorance.
While I understand that there's been quite a misunderstanding here, I think you've missed something yourself, good sir Derek, in criticising Grey's comic.
From what I can tell, this is satire. Satire is bold, it's harsh, it's brazenly offensive. It doesn't resemble reality, but reality taken to extremes.
The comic is highlighting the height of religious hypocrisy and folly—there are real, actual, living people who think and behave in ways very much like those here depicted. They are not all Catholic, nor has Grey made any claims that they are. They are everyone and everything and they are broken.
With all due respect, I'm saying your reaction was the knee-jerk kind too. Introspect. <3
I get that it's satire. It may even have been good satire at some point in the past. It's just that I've seen the same types of comments so many times that I'm surprised Grey would bother rehashing them in what is normally a unique and insightful comic.
*shrug*
Derek: If you look closely at the title of the comic, it says "The seven deadly sins of religion.
Although the article that inspired it was about catholicism, the comic itself was pointing out the flaws in most religions especially those based around the Judaic-Christian belief.
If you look into it a bit further, you'll find that most other non-Christian religions including Islam, when taken in the original context are far more tolerant of 'sin' than most Christian sects.
I guess what I'm saying is go stand over there with Isaac Hayes and you can both be offended about someone knocking your beliefs together.
This doesn't seem particularly thoughtful to me. One of the requirements of claiming moral and intellectual superiority to an authority is that you demonstrate that superiority. If you want to take on religion, how about taking on the smartest and best that religion has to offer rather than trawling through the slums of religious culture and then attacking the worst you find there as material?
"compromise" in the bottom-left panel is spelled long, though you might have meant that from the "ignorance" section
Satire is supposed to be clever, which this 'comic' sadly isn't.. Instead it is simply one clichè after another, some of them very offensive.
Not one of the 'sins' is supportable by any proven fact.
Debbie
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