Speaking of fun, Dixie is staying with me this weekend! No kids, but her little sister might join us. The highlight of the weekend should be our trip on Friday to get our very first tattoos! We designed them together, and we'll get the same design, but in different places. I'm a little nervous, but mostly excited. The reason I bring it up here is that the absolute best tattoo parlor in the area is an outwardly Christian business. Clearly, if I'm going to get artwork put on my body for the rest of my life, and on Dixie's body for that matter, I want it to be pretty amazing, and these people ARE truly amazing. Now, they do pretty much any design, and they will be doing our completely secular designs. But when you walk in this place, it's like walking into a church - BIG cross on the wall, tons of their own religious artwork. I am going through with it, but with some admittedly mixed feelings. I question whether I should be supporting a business that it outwardly religious. I have said in the past, and still hold, that if I were to get a tattoo related to Atheism, it absolutely wouldn't happen there. It would somehow tarnish the meaning of it. But this tattoo is about Dixie and I, it has nothing to do with religion in one way or another, and I tend to fall back on some more Objectivist views here, I think. They really are the best, and I'm making my choice based on their product and talent and not their religious affiliations. Funny that I never thought of this when buying pies from the Amish...
As for school, by the way, my religious studies class on the history of Christianity is one of the most fascinating classes that I am taking! One day, when the professor (who knows that I am an Atheist from some class discussions) asked the class of about 150 how many people have actually ever read the book of Leviticus after people seemed to be lost when she began discussing it. I was one of five people to raise my hand. She laughed and said, "So the ATHEIST has read more of the bible than the majority of the class and most of you said you were Christians. What a comment on the state of religion nowadays." It really is a little disturbing that many people devote their life to an idea that they never even attempt to fully learn. Of course, the more you learn about the history of religion, the more ridiculous it appears to be, so maybe that's an unrealistic expectation. Wait until we get to Joshua... Will they be surprised to find the utter violence and gore reminiscent of Americans' worst impressions of the Koran? How many people realize that the story of Joshua in the bible is the first documented Holy War? How do Christians who do know their stories feel about these holy Christian actions of killing scores of men women, and even innocent children as a sacrifice to God? It will be interesting....
S.A.M.
An interesting thing about the Battles of Joshua is that in many places where it is said that "Joshua destroyed [insert city here]" though in a much more elaborate manner, many of those cities didn't exist at the time, or were destroyed much earlier, or destroyed much later. It seems much of the holy war in Joshua is fabricated. Still doesn't change the fact that it's one of the best example of the tyrant we know as Yahweh in action.
ReplyDeleteOh, and it's good to have you back =)
-KJ
Glad to see you're back. Glad also that you've got mixed feelings about the artwork on your body for life! What you think is amazing now may not be amazing for you later - but I am oldish and conservative and a wet blanket ... don't let me spoil your fun! (It may be truly amazing - and remain so...)
ReplyDeleteShreddakj: I REALLY will have to devote at LEAST a whole post to issues like you brought up about many things in the Bible being invented in an attempt to make their earlier history seem to correctly predict the current situation at the time of writing. If I were developing a bible class, I think I would read it right after reading and analyzing the Odyssey. I think that once a student is put in that frame of mind, reading the Old Testament as a piece of literature instead of "word of god" would really open some eyes.
ReplyDeleteMark: Yes, I can totally appreciate that opinion. Tattoos are definetely not something to jump into without a lot of consideration. But I think I have come to the conclusion (after considering one for about 15 years! haha) that this is kind of like a picture of the friendship I have with Dixie that I will always have with me. She and I have been making this wonderful photo album / scrap book since just after we met, and when I look at a lot of those pictures, some are grainy old digital photo print outs (from when digital cameras still weren't very good) and our clothes are out of date and our hair and makeup were not the way we wear it now, and yet the friendship in each shot make them the most precious photographs I have ever taken. I imagine that at some point, the tattoo might fade or seem dated and might not be exactly what I'd choose for myself 10 years from now, but it's a snapshot of our lives as they are now. It's a physical manifestation of a commitment that we are continually making to each other in the present and a love and friendship we have experienced up until now, and this memory is something we will share for the rest of our lives. So, while I want the best of what I can manage to imagine now, no worries that it won't be perfect for life. There's a quality to it that transcends the physical image, just like it does in the crazy pictures we took of each other "way back when." When I realized that, that's when I crossed the line and decided that I REALLY wanted one. :)
Hello. I think I would like your religious studies teacher. Sharing a secular perspective with you and Dr. English, I have to say I'm not surprised at how many Christians haven't read their own Bible. I think one function of religion is to help define social and political groups. It's about whose team you're on. You don't need to read the whole book to be on the team, just, I don't know, wear the right jersey. Or get the right tattoo.
ReplyDeleteRight after the movie Gladiator came out, I wanted to get a tattoo just like the one Russell Crowe cut off his own shoulder. It was going to say, "SPQR." That stands for "The Senate and People of Rome" in Latin. But then I thought about Russell Crowe cutting it off his own shoulder and gave up the idea.