I hear the baby Jesus cried
To hear His name so oft denied—
The cross (for which we all give thanks)
Is merely “intersecting planks”;
The sacred scene, nativity?
“A plastic Jewish family”
That baby, in the manger’s hay?
Without a nametag, who could say?
La Jolla’s cross, so bright and tall?
It’s not religious—not at all!
“In God We Trust”? The phrase is phony,
Ruled to be mere ceremony!
Each mention of our mighty Lord
Is no big deal, and best ignored…
Denying Jesus, through and through—
I wonder, What Would Peter Do?
Looking through the mental and legal contortions intended to preserve Christian privilege, I’ve noticed a trend: The nominally Christian arguers are the ones denying Christ. The latest (on Fox, in Palin’s book, and in comment sections everywhere) is the “plastic Jewish family” that atheists are so unreasonably offended by. It’s not at all that this scene actually means anything–this family (let’s call them the Goldbergs) are just plastic people, so we can put them up in the town square. And now, Ed reports on the even more shocking twist that, without an actual name tag, how can anyone be expected to know that this babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger, is anything other than little Max Goldberg? Wait, what? Jesus? Nah, Jesus would have a name tag saying so.
The “intersecting planks” is nice, too–in Palin’s book she describes a cross as “a horizontal plank intersecting a vertical plank”. It’s just two pieces of wood–why on earth would anyone object to that on public property? Sacred? Nope, nothing religious about it at all.
It’s funny, really–the people who claim to love Jesus the most are the very ones trivializing their sacred symbols.
There’s precedent… but Peter only denied Jesus three times. Lightweight.
If they ask us atheists why we should take it seriously, maybe we should ask them why they should take it seriously.
If the cross is just “intersecting planks” then it doesn’t matter which end points up, right? And the babe in the manger could legitimately be black.
Without a nametag, who could know?
Just remember, Santa is and always has been white.
At your favorite manger scene, it’s always fun to leave one of those “It’s a Girl!” balloons.
The Christians are just giving themselves a vicarious thrill; pretending that their faith has put them in terrible danger and forced them to speak in code lest they be assaulted by the demonic unbelievers. They know it’s all bullshit, but gee whiz, it’s an exciting story all the same.
If those are just planks of wood, can we carve our initials in it? Paint it any color(s) we want? Use the planks to build something useful?! Those plastic people usually look lonely. How about adding some lawn gnomes to the scene? Or a deer; a donkey pulling a cart; a lady with a large butt bending over?
With the nametag one, I thought they were going for “they’re not really an atheist” or “see, it’s so important even you know what it is”. So not that they were claiming disingenuously that nobody would think of it s a Christian symbol, but the fact that everyone knew it was a Christian symbol was some kind of “gotcha” that since the person complaining knows what it is, that means it IS important, and therefore worthy of being in the public sqaure. Or something.
Spew, you’ve won the internet for a perfect idea :)
wish I had the skills to set all of the denials of these TrueChristians to a chorus of chickens clucking and cocks crowing. It just goes to show that religion is simply based on lies.
They’ve stolen their ideas from the ID crowd – remove all the labels and no-one can claim it’s religious.
I hope you-all will have a very happy, happy, happy New Year!