Oh, the irony.
After close to 2,000 years (give or take, no one really knows) of trying to cram Christianity down the throats of millions around the world imbued with common sense, the hordes of faithful have now spoken:
Comedy Central should just leave religion alone.
That was the general public reaction (y’know, the ol’ comment thang) to word that the network — famous for wussing out and censoring images of Mohamed — is considering a cartoon in which a resurrected Jesus Christ is portrayed as a slacker youth in New York, who doesn’t get along with his perpetually distracted father, who in turn is addicted to video games.
I kid you not. Sounds pretty damn funny to me!
In fact, I’m wondering if Trey Parker and Matt Stone are kicking themselves. They’ve been using JC as a character for years, and a spinoff was just sitting there, begging to be done.
Anyway, the general reactions ranged from hurt to bemused to disgusted. But that’s religion for you. The fact that multiple sects of evangelical Christianity spend much of their time trying to convert people doesn’t strike any of these people as ironic.
Selling religion is fine, you see, because — delusional and irrational or not — lots of people have it. Deriding it, on the other hand.
Well hell, that could lead to dancing.
Issues like this make me wish the average American knew more about the founding fathers, more specifically Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson loathed organizaed religion — he even rewrote the lessons of the New Testament into a reinterpreted Bible, taking out all of the mysticism and magical silliness.’
He would’ve loved the idea of a show that could make fun of religion. When asked about his support for Deism and Unitarianism — constructs allowing the practice of spiritual communalism without subscribing to a religious ethos — he remarked, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
The modern translation of that is “any God who could’ve created as screwed up and complex a race as man would have appreciated it if we wondered if he was even there sometimes.”
But that would be rational. Whining about Comedy Central, for some, is just comforting.
Slightly More Upright 