Monday, February 20, 2012

All faiths lead to Batman.

Remember when tea-bagging didn't
have such a negative connotation?
Like when it referred to balls?
You know what? Screw this guy. Seriously. Look, as I've had to mention far too many times, I'm no scholar of theology, but who gave Rick Santorum the 'legitimate religion' stamp? Like, is he some kind of authority on doctrine? I mean who got nailed to what and left him in charge? (Too soon?) What the hell am I talking about? Well, in his most recent 'Vote for Me, I hate everyone you hate' plea to Tea-Baggers, Santorum complained that President Obama isn't the right kind of Christian. What the shit does that even mean? Since when is there a religious requirement for office in this country? Ok, if you said 'since always,' you'd be kind of be correct, but it's bullshit.

"Listen, I'm just trying to bring everyone together, you know,
in common hatred of womengays and people who don't
 agree with me. I don't see what your problem is."

-Rick Santorum
Can we please just take religion off the table? Not just when it comes to politics, but with everything. I think everyone from the most devout Pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Mel-Gibsonian to the douchiest of hard core everyone's-stupid-but-me-atheists can agree that anyone with a different belief system from their own is rabid-foam crazy to some degree.
Except for Raelians. They believe in cloning, nudity
and aliens so I'm pretty sure they're on to something.*
Oh, like this is any crazier
than 98% of the Bible.
For example, if you tell me that the Earth is 6000 years old and that any minute now, all the true believers are going to get raptured away leaving the rest of us to battle the anti-christ and monsters in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, I'm going to tell you that you're an idiot. Similarly, you'd probably say that I'm wasting my time waiting for aliens to land in their mothership. But does this really mean we can't be friends? Kirk and Spock, Riggs and Murtaugh, Mulder and Scully-it's our differences that make us stronger, so suck on that Rick Santorum.

Although I think it
should be fairly obvious.

Everyone's got a different take on the nature of the universe and that's cool. Subscribing to one system or another doesn't really make you better qualified to be president. All religions are equally provable in so far as you can't prove or disprove anything to anyone else about god or the afterlife or anything just by believing in it really hard and shouting down people who disagree. I know, it seems like fun at first, but wait until you die and discover that god is in fact a spaghetti monster or doesn't exist or something and that you've wasted your short time on this planet in an argument with as much relevance as which The Fast and the Furious movies was the least waste of your time. Embarrassing, right?


Religion is a lot like Batman, really. Over the last 70-odd years there's been like a ton of different versions, re-boots and re-imaginings of Batman. Behold:


"Ba-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-
na-na-na-na-na-na-na- Batman!"

-A traditional Batman hymn
Many faces, one Batman, yet they can all coexist peacefully side by side. Batman is still Batman whether he's kicking the shit out of the Riddler or solving haunted amusement park crime with Scooby-Doo. Trying to reconcile these different Bat-Universes would only drive us insane, so we don't. Choosing a Batman is a deeply personal decision that everyone must make for themselves. There is no right or wrong answer, we simply accept that all are a path to Batman.






*I swear to Xenu,** I'm not making fun of them. The Raelian worldview is no more or less crazy than anyone else's and has, to date, resulted in zero crusades.

**Ok, so I am making fun Scientologists, just a little.†

†But that doesn't mean they're not right. 

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