PeaceBang
The manic mind of the minister -- Auntie Mame Meets Cotton Mather. Blogging about Unitarian Universalism, UU Christian spiritual practice, occasional cultural and political ravings, and the inner life of ministry. PeaceBang is the alter ego of a small town pastor serving an historic New England Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Bad Theology, Part I
January 11, 2006 on 3:05 am | In Uncategorized |Somehow I doubt that the one survivor of the Sago mining disaster has got a private, sound-proofed room in the hospital. So this ostensibly heart-warming story isn’t so charming when you think about the fact that he’s probably in ICU where other people are lying in extremis with their own distressed families keeping vigil:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/national/07survivor.html
I’m sorry, but this kind of thing exemplifies the incivility of our society. You can’t blame the man’s wife for thinking like this: she’s in grief and doing whatever she can. It’s the hospital administration’s responsibility to say, “We’re so sorry, ma’am, but there are other people and their suffering families in this facility and they’ll be greatly disturbed by this racket. How about headphones?”
I cannot under any circumstances imagine “blasting” any kind of music for a loved one, even if their life hangs in the balance. Not when others are struggling for their own lives nearby. I hope the story is inaccurate. It hurts me to think of someone trying to recover from surgery or some other medical trauma to the sound of a thrash band. I even get upset in the ICU when nurses and doctors talk in loud, insensitive voices about their fun weekend when some one is struggling to die three feet away.
Meanwhile, Pat Robertson has decided that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a lightning bolt from the Big Guy:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/05/robertson.sharon/
Explain this to me, Pat. You people like to talk about the one surving miner as a “miracle” case. You remain silent about God’s purpose for the 12 miners who died. But you’re real confident that it was God’s wrath that caused Ariel Sharon’s current condition. How does this work? Really harsh stuffjust randomly goes down for some people, like –*whoops!* — while the harsh stuff that goes down for others is the wrath of God? And you just magically know which is which?
If the 13th miner dies, will it be because his family didn’t pray hard enough, or because God hates Metallica? Or will it just be random really bad luck or fate?
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Oh Peacebang*, God really does hate Metallica.
*I can’t call you PB because PB will always mean Peanut Butter to me.
Comment by LaReinaCobre — January 11, 2006 #
God is hardly an inconsistent Mutha as you put it. It is sincerely ignorant and conscientiously stupid human beings like Pat Robertson, and a whole lot of the U*Us that I know who are stunningly inconsistent in their professed religious beliefs, principles, and ideals and their other well-documented words, practices and actions. . .
Here is just one glaring example -
What U*Us say
What U*Us do
There is a whole lot more genuinely shameful U*U inconsistency where that came from. . . About the only thing that most of the U*Us that I know are remarkably consistent in is their outrageous hypocrisy and complete and utter shamelessness. . .
Comment by Robin Edgar — January 11, 2006 #
Actually I have sonme reason to believe that God just might love Metallica. . .
Metallica are hereby invited to perform a few prophetic songs at World Day of Conscience.
Comment by Robin Edgar — January 12, 2006 #
Robin, once again: this isn’t a forum for you to take every single one of my entries and turn it into an opportunity to rant about UU hypocrisies. I’m trying to be patient. I know you can get this.
Your first statement was interesting and I would have liked to have heard more about the God of your understanding and experience. I think we all know what the UUs of your experience and understanding are all about.
Comment by PeaceBang — January 12, 2006 #
Dearest Peacebang,
There are all kinds of your *entries* that I don’t touch at all because they have no pertinence to U*U hypocrisy but when U*Us post about the hypocrisy, sincere ignorance, and even outright conscientious stupidy of non-U*U religious leaders I consider it to be part and parcel of my divinely inspired, if not divinely ordained. . . U*U prophetic mission to remind U*Us that there are no shortage of sincerely ignorant and even conscientiously stupid U*Us, including rather too many of the U*U religious leaders that I happen to have the misfortune to know. . .
There are of course some notable exceptions but U*Udom has more than its fair share of Pat Robertson mini-U*Us as far as I am *concerned*. . .
Allah prochaine,
The Dagger of Sweet Reason
PB2U*Us
Comment by The Emerson Avenger — January 13, 2006 #
Well, alright, if you feel divinely ordained to do so. But I’ll probably delete a lot of them because they’re long, they feel wildly off topic to everyone but you most of the time, and because I believe that it’s very likely that you a far more valuable theological contribution to make with your vision than to keep huffing about how hypocritical UUs are. IMHO, most of us are UUs because we KNOW that we, like all other religious people, are hypocritical and fallible,and we take refuge in UUism’s iconoclasm for just that reason.
I’m curious: if you let go of the anti-UU crusade, what would God be calling you to say and do and preach?
Comment by PeaceBang — January 13, 2006 #
Dear Peacebang,
Actually my so-called “crusade” (aka U*U Jihad) is a pro-UU principles and ideals crusade or jihad, and thus it is an anti-UU injustices, abuses, and hypocrisy crusade aka jihad. . . N’est-ce pas?
In fact my U*U Jihad has everything to do with outrageously hypocritical U*Us actively or passively standing in the way of what God directly or indirectly called me to say and do and preach. To you
and other U*Us I simply say either lead, follow, or get out of the way. . .
Sincerely,
The Dagger of Sweet Reason
aka The Emerson Avenger
Comment by The Emerson Avenger — January 22, 2006 #