Podsnappery
Our Mutual Friend, Book 1 Chapter 11: ‘Podsnappery’.
A certain institution in Mr Podsnap’s mind which he called ‘the young person’ may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of demarcation between the young person’s excessive innocence, and another person’s guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap’s word for it, and the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to this troublesome Bull of a young person.
Remind you of anything?
Here’s some non-Podsnappery for you, on cnn.com:
“The majority of the unaffiliated — 12 percent of the overall population — describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them. Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.”
The math on it is wonderful & not even a shimmer of a blush on the cheeks. No evidence of tongue in cheek either.
About 6% say faith’s somewhat important to them. Maybe because the church bells wake them up in the morning. Or mormons & jehovah’s witnesses were fighting for the first right to the door, so causing a wholly unintended coitus interruptus. Never mind, all 6% are categorized as a kind of believer.
But what about the 2% for whom religion is not even ‘somewhat important’? These are also merely unaffiliated – they can probably still be redeemed if admitting to not being concentrated enough on the occasion of getting the question asked.
So what remains is 4%, & a sorry lot we are! To an insult of being unaffiliated we add injury of ticking the box called “atheist or agnostic”. At least they allow us the mercy of not outright having to admit to being atheist.
No blush at all, no blush whatsoever.
Nobody apparently was asked whether she or he actually believes in the alleged sexless conception of Mary. Neither if they actually believe that Allah put us all in one day on the face of the earth (including the sorry lot of atheists we are).
Quoting Ophelia I’d say: “sigh!”