Poor sad consumerist infidels
I have this obstinate cold that is being very slow about going away. While it’s packing its things and checking its passport, it sometimes wakes me up in the night by making me cough so hard that it murders sleep. It did that last night at 2 a.m., so I got up and had some lemon zinger tea and listened to the World Service for an hour and then went back to sleep. This means I had the thrill of hearing a program called ‘Heart and Soul’ which on this occasion was about God and football. It was mind-bogglingly stupid.
There was some vicar doing most of the talking, and he sounded like an adult and everything, but he talked the most ridiculous childish nonsense as if it were perfectly normal and reasonable. He simply assumed that believing in something called ‘God’ is unremarkable and entirely sensible. He and everyone else had the most inane ideas about what this ‘God’ adds to football.
Apparently they find it thrilling and exciting to think that when a player does something remarkable, it is God making the player do it. Why? Why would that make it more thrilling rather than much less thrilling? There was a passage on a goal-keeper who did something called a scorpion kick, and they were all excited about saying that was God. But when a human does something extraordinarily agile or graceful or beautiful or difficult or all those – why isn’t it exciting that the human did it? Why would it be more exciting to say a hidden magician caused the human to do it? Why do they think ‘God’ adds something? It’s beyond me.
There was also lots of patronizing stuff about how believers can see that football has multiple facets and secular people can’t, and about how in the absence of ‘God’ there is only consumerism. Stupid, untrue, shallow, calumnious shit like that. It made me cross.
I still went back to sleep though. Can’t complain.
You were able to go back to sleep after that crap passed through your brain? You’re a better sleeper than I, ma’am.
This whole thing explains pretty well why I do not find any sports interesting in the least. It’s my evil secular ways.
In a related story, last night I woke up around 3:50AM to make a cartoon version of myself as one of the Mad Men. I think that probably only lends credence to the consumerist psalms of the Jesusball preacher though.
I remember that scorpion kick. The goalie was just showing off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF3_tLbs06s&NR=1
But on the bright side, the world governing body seems to have the right approach:
But FIFA would rather religion stayed out of football, and have warned they will not tolerate any expressions of religion, such as those professed by Kaka, on the pitch during this year’s African Cup of Nations and World Cup.
It argues football’s power to unite could be threatened if it does not remain secular.
…and lo! it came to pass that God made Vinnie Jones in his image, and Vinnie Jones did go forth unto the stadium that was known as Plough Lane, where he did grasp mightily the gentlemen’s vegetables of the great Geordie blubberer and martyr to drink, St. Paul of Gascoigne.
And God saw that it was good.
Whereupon the angels chorused “You’re worse than Crystal Palace”, “The referee’s a w*nk*r”, and “You’re going home in a f*ck*ing ambulance”.
From thenceforth did the smiting of the opposition supporters begin, and they did wax wroth, but there was little they could do about it, for God thought it great sport, and heeded not unto their pleas for forgiveness…
oh..you don’t think that’s what he meant, then?
:-)
And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Paul hath scored his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
Biblical prophecy fulfilled, Andy.
OB: It reminds me of the time we were staying at the Princess Zoe Hotel in Istanbul, which is right next door to a mosque. It was during Ramadan, and the imam started up his call to prayer way before sunrise. He made a hell of a racket over his well-worn tannoy system.
That inspired me to go down to the flea market the next day, buy a loud hailer, and set up in opposition to him the next night. I though a vigorous rendition of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ would be appropriate. Straight out the window and over the city.
Though a subsequent check at the Grand Bazaar showed the supply of loud hailers to be zero, it was the thought that counted. It eventually got me back to sleep despite the unholy racket.
Fifa are about a big a bunch of corrupt cheating bent bastards as the vatican so no wonder some witless happy clappies think in the year of an African cup as well as the world cup its worth tagging some of their meaningless god bothering verbiage to it. I mean it’s not as if the BBC have actually got any world news capabilitiy left.
I think the vicar had it wrong. What’s supposed to go with godlessness isn’t consumerism, but sex. I have this on good authority: One Sunday morning a couple years ago I was forced to spend some time in a hospital waiting room. There was just me and this TV set, with one of those televangelists on it. I can’t remember who, but it was one of the big names, like Pat Robertson or something. And his sermon was on atheism, so I couldn’t not listen. He told us that Bertrand Russell, who supposedly was this great philosopher who put atheism on a firm footing, was anything but: Bertrand Russell just wanted to have sex with women – the more the merrier – which he knew was wrong, so he invented this atheist philosophy to justify doing what he wanted to. So there. The televangelist was so well groomed he looked like he had been photoshopped – there is no way he could have been wrong about such a thing, is there?
Harald Hanche-Olsen:
It depends on the ideological leaning of the religious person:
Right wing theists state the evil of atheism is sex without inherent guilt (“rampant sexual immorality”), the bugbear of the right.
Left wing theists state the evil of atheism is commerce without inherent guilt (“consumerism”), the bugbear of the left.
And yes I realise this is an oversimplification. Not all right wingers think all sex is bad any more than all left wing people thing all commerce is bad.
So there’s only consumerism in the absence of God. And how much do these soccer stars earn?
Soccer may unite fans of the same team but I’m not sure about uniting opposing fans!
Did they mention the time God scored a goal for Argentina?
What exactly is this “consumerism” that I hear so much about? The word gets used a lot, but it is seldom defined. Accordingly, I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing or just a thing.
Russell: I see consumerism as that state of mind where you buy stuff that you don’t really need, or (worse) really can’t afford. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence that religion does not protect you against it. Neither does atheism, of course; I have way too many clothes myself. I have too many books too, but I refuse to feel guilty about that.
Love being lectured on consumerism by institutions whose prelates occupy multiple palaces and, in one case, a sovereign nation made of bling.
Ian – I’ve completely blanked on the time we were staying at the Princess Zoe Hotel in Istanbul – in fact I’ve completely forgotten ever meeting you, let alone staying in hotels.
Heeheehee.
I think the first time I noticed the ‘consumerism is the [only] alternative to theism’ trope was a few years ago in some pile of drivel from Madeleine Bunting. Did she invent it?
Anyway it seems to be way popular now. Theists wanting to feel morally superior just love it.
The Wiki definition seems right. “Consumerism is the idea that personal happiness can be obtained through consumption, the purchase of goods and services.”
Conspicuous consumption, or “keeping up with the Joneses”, is one of its typical features.
In popular apologetics, you often see the two different meanings of the word “materialism” used interchangeably. There’s metaphysical materialism, and consumer-driven materialism: they’re assumed to be the same thing. “You only believe in what you can hold in your hand.” Physical stuff.
Spirituality then is supposed to include all the emotion, all the values, and all the love and empathy for others. What’s left is cold, heartless people trying to fill the void with things — new cars, new clothes, new electronics. They’re “worldly.”
I don’t know if this sort of sloppy blurring of distinctions is a deliberate trick, or not. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
Ah yes – that’s enlightening, Sastra.
OB: Ah well. I’ll take that philosophicaly. You win some, you lose some.
Nice definitions of consumerism, folks.
The point, I suppose, is that if we define consumerism as buying more than you can afford or buying stuff you don’t really want for the sake of show, then it’s a good thing. But it doesn’t at all follow that naturalists must be consumerists in those senses. If it means leading a life style that doesn’t involve going to church/mosque and does involve buying stuff that it’s perfectly rational to want, like a nice car and a high-definition TV, then maybe that is something that naturalists are likely to do – but there’s nothing much wrong with it. The only possible criticism is that maybe you could have sent the money to Oxfam or somewhere.
As always, religionists (I don’t really like that slightly sneering word) make their points with slippery, equivocating terminology.
OB Try Ginger water. Boild root ginger for ten minutes in a liter of water . Use hot or cold-does not tolerate colds.
This seems to imply that theism may negatively affect the appreciation of cricket, given that this requires an intellectual acceptance of deep time and an uncaring universe.
Actually the only time my solid atheism has been rocked in the last couple of decades was when Wigan beat Chelsea 3 – 0.
Oops, meant 3 – 1. Sorry sports fans.
Wigan beat Chelsea – now there’s a resonant phrase even for someone who doesn’t even know at what.
Hi Chris! Good to see you!