A friend once quipped about how stupid it is when medical doctorates think that just because they are experts in one thing, that they must be experts in other things. For example, being an expert surgeon doesn’t mean that one is an expert at running a business (as many office managers for the medical profession painfully understand). Doctors are obviously not alone in this delusion. I cringe every time I listen to some tech pundit go from talking about the newest version of Firefox to explaining the Bible. Chief TWiT, Leo Laporte has done this more than a few times with Merlin Mann on various TWiT podcasts. I understand that they get caught up in the moment, but really? So I’m watching my favorite online drinking buddies, Alex and Kevin, on a recent Diggnation and they get all Biblical on me. It was hilarious watching Alex try to explain to Kevin the sin of Onan without mentioning that the whole deal was about making sure that the bloodline of a dead brother doesn’t end because the brother died without a son to carry on his name. It just came across as some weird Biblical thing that if you are going to have sex with your brother’s wife than you cannot pull out. Right. The rest was pretty much over-shadowed by that one. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not everyone is entitled to punish us by sharing said opinion. Then Kevin goes on to say that he got bible lessons every Sunday growing up, but how could that be true and he not know about the sin of Onan, unless he pulled out when he was like nine. It’s just fucking embarrassing. And not really very funny…

Please, don’t do this again…. but that said, Kevin nailed it when he talked about the hypocrisy of people doing whatever the hell they want to do all week and then going to church on Sunday to “clean up” for all the shit they did the previous six days, and pretending like there’s nothing wrong with that. All the other bullshit aside about heaven being whatever you want it to be or about being Christina but “cool,” there was some real truth to Kevin’s observation. But then maybe this is only something that you can see when you are not living in it, that is, the unlivable cycle of holding to a belief about how one should live that no one CAN live. When our religion is reduced to a nostalgic Hallmark moment forwarded in an email by one’s older sister but has nothing to do with the conduct of one’s daily life, or one holds to an eating or drinking ritual but clearly ignores an awareness to the Holy in the here and now, what’s the point? How sad and confused to live a life that aspires to some belief or is said to be lived in honor of the One but there’s no trace of that belief in the conversation or actions one expresses to the world from moment to moment. Eleven things my ass, who cares if what you say you believe in is completely invisible by the conduct of your daily life? Out of the mouths of babes, or in this case, the clueless.

source:
article: 11 Things The Bible Bans, But You Do Anyway, http://digg.com/d1uYZz retrieved 8/7/2009
video: What Would Kevin And Alex Do? Diggnation/Revision3, http://revision3.com/diggnation/faith retrieved 8/7/2009