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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Holy Week Weirdness pt 4

Ricky Gervais: Made to suck in his gut for our sins

 Today's theme is the popular ATHEIST RANT CLOSE TO A HOLY DAY.

I really, really like Ricky Gervais' comedy. He created "The Office" which is one of my favorite television shows and he and two of his friends weekly broadcast "The Ricky Gervais Show" on HBO which guarantees at least one out-loud-laugh from me each week.

But Ricky, like comedians before him, namely George Carlin, have gone the way of snarky atheist. And it's an atheism that is centered on poking the eye of Christianity, or a cartoon idealized version of it. Comedians rarely slap Islam or Hinduism which have far more outlandish ideas of "god" but that's perhaps for another post.

So this Easter, Ricky has sent us his own Easter greeting. Being this is a page for adults, I warn that the material is not suitable for children. Or the sensitive.

Gervais, humble atheist as he is, details in his post why he's a better Christian than Christians. He's followed the 10 Commandments. Good on him. Most people do. Seriously. I hear confessions all the time and most people are good with the decalogue.

Gervais' point is one you will doubtless hear over and over, Christians aren't good people. Atheists can be better than Christians because they want to be good for better reasons. And they can be so good, they follow the 10 Commandments without knowing what they are!

When you're an atheist, you can make fun of stuff without guilt. BONUS!
Being good is not the goal of Christianity. That's what we tell kids. Eat your veggies. Be nice to people. Don't stare at old people. Those sort of things. Good things.
What we have is a message of salvation that includes first and foremost, a sense of humility and awe before a God who loves us. This sense of humility is expressed in worship and obedience.
Worship. Obedience. Put those together and it spells "Catholic". Well, it spells worshipobedience but I was trying to be funny.
But I'm not a comedian, so what do I know about funny? And Gervais is not a religious leader, so why do people care what he thinks about God?
Why indeed....