As some of you know by now, playing Mass on Sunday always leaves me with posting fodder.  Then I log in for a dose of sanity, and drop some of my rambling ruminations into a thread.  Take it or leave it, discuss it or not - - just THANK YOU for being here.

FAIRY TALES
As I drove to work, I heard an NPR interview of Michael Cunningham.  This is a brilliant author who has recently focused on re-writing fairy tales.  When you condense his statements about fairy tales in modern times, the meta-message was: we have outgrown them.  They no longer make sense to us, because they tend to be built on a very black and white dichotomy.  (You have the evil character, the hero, and the princess, in some combination, most of the time.)  So I went into the choir loft with "we have outgrown our fairy tales, and secular sources understand this".
  
PUTTING A POSITIVE SPIN ON A WICKED FAIRY TALE
Then I hear a reading from 1 Kings 17.  Elijah goes to a widow - she and her household are starving, she only has a handful of flour left to make a cake for herself and her son.  Elijah orders her to make HIM a cake first, and trust in the Lord.  Because she did so, her jars of flour and oil magically replenished themselves for a long time to come, and her family ate well.
     The believers in the pews accept this as a fabulous example of the poor having faith and being rewarded for it.  The atheist in the organ loft is saying "wtf???"  1) starving children.  But this total stranger usurper jerk had her feed HIM everything they had, taking food away from little ones who don't understand why the adult prophet is eating and they are not.  2) And so the book gives an example of god preventing a widow and her son from starving, because they believed.  There are believers starving everywhere - and god could prevent it everywhere, easily - IF the story is true.  If this story is true, it only makes god a bigger asshole.

AND A PSALM OF PRAISE, aka LIES, LIES, and more LIES
Psalm 146 (excerpts):  "the Lord gives food to the hungry; gives sight to the blind; the Lord loves the just, but the way of the wicked he thwarts"
       The believer in the pews sing this with gusto. They revel in the greatness of their god.  The atheist in the organ loft is saying that anybody over the age of 10, in any city on this planet, knows that these statements are lies.  The believers are not saved from starvation.  The blind stay blind.  The "just" are often persecuted.  And the wicked have the most money and power everywhere on the planet.  Nope.  I'm not buying it.  

As jenny1972 pointed out in vorlon's "Peter walking on water" thread, in John 14 Jesus is said to have made promises that anyone reading them should recognize as lies. And yet, apologists will jump through all sorts of ridiculous hoops to try to explain why they are not lies.  I understand why people deliberately put on these logic-blinders and embrace faith: their whole existence is built upon these lies.  But oh - from my perspective, it's painful to watch.

Thanks for letting me ramble, AF crew.  You guys are the best.

Rant away. Meh, its been so long and sk many bullshit thrown at me that I don't even give a fuck about fairytales.

The moral of the story is of course that service to internal integrity also serves outside influence, however your moral also informs - in the information age, we know how to behave. 

its interesting how strong the need to believe in christianity actually is for some people (many people) and the belief that the bible is perfect in every way and everything in it is absolutely true even when testing these claims they are proven to be not true the need for it to be true is so strong that they actually ignore reality , i have yet to hear from a christian about these obvious proven to be lies and how they explain them . Through faith a poor person does not get endless food in their cabinets , does not have the ability to walk on water , or get anything they ask for if they ask in jesus name . yet incredibly people believe this still and if it doesnt happen they convince themselves that they are somehow bad or do not have enough faith or failed somehow and the fellow christians around you are not going to discourage this belief if they believe in faith healing what other explanation can they give if prayers dont work but it being the prayers fault since the promise is there in the bible and that cannot possibly be wrong !

How horrible to believe that you are the reason your child died because your faith was not strong or pure enough . And how many people have been suckered into giving money to televangelists , "give us your money and God will multiply your donation 100 fold" and televangelists do it because it works ! people believe this because the bible says it regardless what reality proves (maybe they didnt give enough or have enough faith?) ugh! i think this has to be the worst religion ever .

Greedy-ass pastors just fucking love this story, I'd bet.

I'm glad ranting helps, and I'm always happy to read them

You really would have thought we would have outgrown fairy tales by now. Give it a few more generations, and I can see religion fading into irrelevancy. These "lessons" the bible teaches are actually harmful in a lot of ways, because they encourage stupid ways of handling situations.

I think the idea that we are outgrowing fairy tale is interesting.  Sorry if this derails your post (and I'm sorry you work in a church...:p).  Feel free to rant away though!

Humans seem to thrive on story telling, and that is a great thing.  I do notice that modern fairy tales are changing the narrative, and the whole way we view stories.  Stories with one dimensional villains are not as widely liked, and heroes with some major flaws have become more popular.  Black and white stories are not even fun for kids anymore.  

I read old stories with my daughter, like Jack and the Beanstalk, and I think, what IS the moral of the story?  Burgle and murder the guy who lives in a bigger house than you, and you will be rewarded?  That's not a god message.  Make deals with and have faith in shady strangers where-in they promise you a handful of "magic beans", if you just give them a valuable cow right now?  (Can anyone say Televangelist). That's not a good message either.

Almost no stories in the Bible have much moral value to us today.  I like how the new Noah tired to put a modern perspective on that old chestnut, and I think did pretty well.  I can't wait until it is more widely accepted AS a fairy tale, so more of the stories can get make-overs.

(November 8, 2015 at 2:46 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: The moral of the story is of course that service to internal integrity also serves outside influence, however your moral also informs - in the information age, we know how to behave. 

Um . . . whut?  Sorry, cantor, but you just went WAY over my head somehow.   Maybe I drop IQ points on the days I play for Mass.  (uh oh!)  Could you, maybe, rephrase that - - like you would explain it to a 12-year old, please?   It sounds pretty but I don't quite follow . . .

So, I guessing that noise cancelling headphones until it's time to play are not an option. Shit!

(November 8, 2015 at 8:15 pm)drfuzzy Wrote:

(November 8, 2015 at 2:46 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: The moral of the story is of course that service to internal integrity also serves outside influence, however your moral also informs - in the information age, we know how to behave. 

Um . . . whut?  Sorry, cantor, but you just went WAY over my head somehow.   Maybe I drop IQ points on the days I play for Mass.  (uh oh!)  Could you, maybe, rephrase that - - like you would explain it to a 12-year old, please?   It sounds pretty but I don't quite follow . . .

Sorry, it's a Gwynnie thing.

The thing about Elijah ain't about feeding a real person firstly so much as it is about feeding Spirit, in the sense that before material consequence can be addressed immaterial consequence must be considered. Like if we're in a rush to feed our starving children we might just knock the neighbor upside the head and take his bread. Of course, that's the prophet spin on the deal.

The message that a representative of the church should be valued over family is also included for the skeptic. 

All scripture, regardless of who spins it up, contains these inherent dualities.