This strikes me as an appropriate opportunity to link to Isaac Bonewits's cult danger evaluation checklist.

Posted March 8, 2005 1:07 PM by Steve Eley

In my mind, it was always about secrecy - if things happen within the confines of the "church" that you are not allowed to mention to someone who is not a part of the faith (or even not a part of the ceremony in which said thing happened), then you belong to a cult.

Posted March 8, 2005 1:25 PM by Karen T.

Gee, in that case, Neo-Paganism isn't a cult, and hasn't been for at least 20 years, in my experience.

But, then, I'm the author of "The Charge of Ma Bell" (Also known as "The Charge of the Phone Goddess" after Ma Bell was broken up.) That was written in 1980, satirized the closest thing to sacred writing Pagans have, and has been well received ever since, to the best of my knowlege. Maybe some people think it's blasphemy, but no one gave me the message.

Posted March 8, 2005 1:37 PM by Magenta Griffith

Does "Anybody who doesn't believe exactly the same things we believe is going to burn in hell" denote a cult?

Posted March 8, 2005 1:49 PM by Laura Roberts

Karen T.:
In my mind, it was always about secrecy - if things happen within the confines of the "church" that you are not allowed to mention to someone who is not a part of the faith (or even not a part of the ceremony in which said thing happened), then you belong to a cult.

My company must be a cult, then. In a strict sense, any publicly traded company is required by law to be a cult.

My family's a cult too, by this definition. I know things about my family that I wouldn't tell other people. Likewise for most of my friendships.

Secrets? Everybody has secrets. It's easy to be pithy about this stuff, but I don't think there's one simple standard. Of complex standards, I think that Bonewits link presents a start (but only a start). It presents guidelines about control, honesty, and identity; however, it doesn't try to define whether something's a cult. It sort of assumes everything is. The question it tries to answer is: "Relative to other cults, how dangerous is this one?"

(Teresa's razor is in there too, BTW: line 16, "Grimness.")

Posted March 8, 2005 1:51 PM by Steve Eley

Hmmm...Do you actually have to be a member to make the jokes? By that, I mean, if I'm not a member of the church, can I still make jokes about it? What about the cult? If I'm not a member of the cult and make jokes about it which are met with disapproval, does that mean I'm a member of the cult?

This seems to exclude a whole group of people like myself, who belong to nothing.

Posted March 8, 2005 2:06 PM by Randy D Girdner

A church is a cult that's more than fifty years old.

Posted March 8, 2005 2:17 PM by theophylact

I think what are lovely hostess is saying is more about what you can and can't joke about. Not secrecy in the sense of privacy, but in the sense of taboo.

For example, I know lots of Lutherans (I live in Minnesota) who know many, many Lutheran jokes, some about Martin Luther himself. It's okay to poke fun at their denomination because they are secure that they are a "real" church". I don't know any Moonies, but from what I know about the group, I doubt they can make fun of Rev. Moon.

Some religions have particular secrets that only the members are supposed to know. If they can make jokes about everything else, but not about those particular things, I'd say that's not a cult. It's the difference between an initiatory tradition, like Witchcraft, like the Mormons, like Christianity was originally, and a non-inititory tradition, like most Protestant groups

Posted March 8, 2005 2:26 PM by Magenta Griffith

This seems like a good rule of thumb but there are always going to be people in any church or organization who can't stand to poke fun at themselves.

Posted March 8, 2005 2:47 PM by Tiellan

The Christians Brother's is an Australian play that's a bit of a minor classic. One man in religious habit teaches an imaginary class of boys, and becomes increasingly vioent, absurd and pathetic. It's very funny, alarming and in the end approaches tragic; any number of the leitmotifs of Irish–Australian Catholic lore of the 50s and 60s is put on irreverent display. One of the first reviews, clearly by a non-Catholic, described it as full of anti-Catholic jokes. The writer, director and actor were all Catholic; on a special preview night the theatre (a smallish one) was filled with Christian Brothers, whose lauighter by all accounts was more wholehearted than any subsequent audience's. I saw it with a friend who, like me, had been a member of the Marist Brothers, and we came out with aching ribs. None of us thought there was anything the slightest anti-Catholic in the play. I guess I'm trying to say that by Teresa's rule of thumb, the Catholic Church is a church.

Posted March 8, 2005 2:52 PM by Jonathan Shaw

Does "Anybody who doesn't believe exactly the same things we believe is going to burn in hell" denote a cult?

Nah, just a fundamentalist. ;)

Posted March 8, 2005 2:58 PM by Lisa Nichols

Tiellan: This seems like a good rule of thumb but there are always going to be people in any church or organization who can't stand to poke fun at themselves.

Of course. That's why the rule doesn't require that everyone in the group approve; only that the jokes don't meet with "stifling social disapproval."

Posted March 8, 2005 3:04 PM by Tracina

Every religion begins as a cult. Not every cult becomes a religion.

My understanding of the distinction (viz. theophylact's Half Century Rule) is that cults, by definition, can only grow through recruitment/conversion, while people can be born into a religion that their parents practice.

As to the Half Century Rule, there is some basis in historicolegal fact for that in the USA, based on the chronology of Mormon, Christian Science, and Scientology.

Back in the 1960s I actually met with a lawyer over the notion of founding the First Computer Church, wherein interacting with a computer is an act of worship, and thus computers should be tax exempt for parishioners. The lawyer discussed it quite learnedly, and then asked if I wanted to be paying him for the rest of my life, which is what would likely come to pass, due to the IRS alone.

Somewhere I have my 1968 draft of the Binary Bible, beginning with the Book of Genesys...

But then Bender spake it better, including that great parable in which: "The Iron shall lie down with the Lamp."

Posted March 8, 2005 3:04 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Karen T: In my mind, it was always about secrecy - if things happen within the confines of the "church" that you are not allowed to mention to someone who is not a part of the faith (or even not a part of the ceremony in which said thing happened), then you belong to a cult.

I object to this. It may be true that "whoever doeth evil hateth the light," but it doesn't follow that whoever hateth the light doeth evil. By your formulation the early Christians in Rome were a cult - if you ratted out people as being Christians they could be killed, so they kept it secret.

In my tradition of Wicca we have a rule - in fact it's a clause of our oath - that coven confidentiality must not be broken. This is so you can't go ratting people out as Witches, and so that people who come to us for help, Wiccan or not, can do so with no fear that we'll embarrass or even endanger them by saying "Yeah, we did a spell for so-and-so."

In short, the "secrecy rule" assumes that the dominant culture or legal system (currently the Bush Administration and their lackeys) is automatically right, and that anything you don't want them to know about qualifies you as a cult.

Bad Idea, IMO. But then I'm a Cult Leader by your formulation.

I don't mean to be snippy. This is a hot button for me. No offense taken or meant; just want to point out the flaw in that particular test.

Posted March 8, 2005 3:23 PM by Xopher

Also,
Q: How many Witches does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. We don't change the light bulb, we heal the old one!

A: None. Witches aren't afraid of the dark!

A (Garnerians only): I'm sorry, that's a Third Degree Mystery.

Posted March 8, 2005 3:25 PM by Xopher

Argh. sb Gardnerians.

Posted March 8, 2005 3:26 PM by Xopher

This sign from the Saint Nazaire Basilica is peculiarly appropriate!

Posted March 8, 2005 3:29 PM by shana

As a general rule it seems that churches encourage you to go home after the service. Cults not so much.

Posted March 8, 2005 3:33 PM by M. Merriam

Jonathan Vos Post:My understanding of the distinction (viz. theophylact's Half Century Rule) is that cults, by definition, can only grow through recruitment/conversion, while people can be born into a religion that their parents practice.
Hmm....so cults turn into religions the same way pidgins turn into creoles?

Posted March 8, 2005 3:35 PM by JimT

I suppose this makes Judaism the chuchiest of churches. Rabbi Jeremiah being thrown out of the house of study, and all that.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:09 PM by BSD

The rule-of-thumb we were taught was that cults were run by individual charismatic leaders, sects were run by the a cabal of the close companions of the deceased charismatic leader, and denominations were run by committees.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:14 PM by Michael

I don't know where Witchcraft would be in that list - we're an anarchy!

I don't belong to an organized religion, I belong to a disorganized religion.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:20 PM by Magenta Griffith

Xopher -

How many Druids does it take to change a lightbulb? Seven, 1 to hold the bulb, and 6 to drink until the room spins.

How many Fam Trads does it take to change a light bulb? None, it was good enough for Granny so it's good enough for me.

How many Alexandrians does it take to change a light bulb? The same number as the Gardnerians.

And my favorite, how many Witches does it take to change a lightbulb? It depends on what you want it to change into.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:25 PM by Magenta Griffith

For me, the point of cult identification has always been the attempt to restrict members from interacting with non-members.

The Southern Baptist Convention distributed some rather blatant materials, aimed at the youth Sunday School classes, to that end in the early/mid-70s.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:28 PM by OG

This really throws a wrench in my plan to start up the First Reformed Church of the Humorless Prawn.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:38 PM by Christopher B. Wright

By the above rule, can certain congregations of a church be a cult? I've been to a couple of Catholic churches (using the word here to mean the building) the congregants of which would happily have beaten me senseless for making jokes about The Church (the institution). This is not the attitude held by the majority of Catholics I've known, but it was the dominant attitude in those churches.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:45 PM by Tracina

OG, the oddity of the SBC is that the Convention itself comes very close to being cultish while individual churches do not, not necessarily. Individual churches are wholly autonomous (not that you'd necessarily know). Course most of the non-cultish ones have dropped out of the convention at this point, but that's a minor detail.

A few for your enjoyment:

Ask a two Baptists the same question, you're likely to get three answers.

Why don't Baptists have premarital sex? It might lead to dancing.

What's the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist? The Methodist will say hello to you in the liquor store.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:53 PM by Christopher B. Wright

OG: For me, the point of cult identification has always been the attempt to restrict members from interacting with non-members. The Southern Baptist Convention distributed some rather blatant materials, aimed at the youth Sunday School classes, to that end in the early/mid-70s.

Back around that time, before my mother converted to Catholicism, she sent us kids to the Sunday School of some church that came around one afternoon and talked her into letting them pick us up in a bus. I still don't know what denomination it was, but remembering some of the lyrics to the songs they had us sing on the bus makes my hair on end. Anyway, the Sunday School teacher once asked the class, "Should you ever marry someone outside the faith?" and called on me to answer. I started to say, "Well, if you love someone, what does something like that matter?" I only got as far as "Well, if you love someone--" when she cut me off with, "Oh, you must never marry hoping they'll convert--because what if they don't?!"

This affected my view of Christianity for a long time.

Posted March 8, 2005 4:53 PM by Tracina

From "Craft Corner Deathmatch":

"In two days of open casting, more than 300 applicants showed up for the show's 26 spots, many of them, Ms. Honig said, were "these cool hipsters from the East Village and Williamsburg who are completely into knitting and craft things you'd never expect."

How odd. We don't know anyone like that. Nosirree.

Posted March 8, 2005 5:17 PM by Mark Wise

My Unitarian-Universalist jokes have always been heartily accepted at church, fortunately. So regardless of what various fundamentalist websites claim, UU is not a cult.

Some favorites:
UU Bible Study will be held after church today. Please bring your own Bible and a pair of scissors.

Q. What do UUs have in common with Dracula?
A. Both originated in Transylvania, and both shy away from the cross.

Q. Have you heard about the new UU evangelists?
A. They knock on your door and say, "Would you like to tell me about your religion?"

Q. What do you call the corpse at a Unitarian funeral?
A. All dressed up with no place to go.

Q. What happens when you get the UUs really mad at you?
A. They show up and burn a question mark on your lawn.

Q. Why do UUs make such lousy congregational singers?
A. Everyone is reading ahead to see whether they agree with the next line. (Note: this one is SO true that it hardly qualifies as a joke.)

You can tell you're in a UU church if the only time the minister says "Jesus Christ" is when she spills her coffee.

Posted March 8, 2005 5:25 PM by Rivka

Magenta, I forgot that last one. A couple of trad-specific ones:

How many Proteans...? Who knows? We never do it the same way twice!

How many Mycotans (my trad)...? None, we just sit in the dark and scream.

(We have a very intense Dark Moon ritual.)

Posted March 8, 2005 5:29 PM by Xopher

Roll call: another Protean in the hizzouse!!

(Um. That'd be me. *grin*)

Posted March 8, 2005 5:57 PM by Elizabeth Genco

A religion is just a cult that has enough influence and money to force non-members to respect it's dogmas.

Posted March 8, 2005 6:02 PM by Keith

Christopher:

I find it a source of endless amusement that the same jokes we used to tell about the Church of Christ, back when I was a SB, now fit the SB like a glove, while the Church of Christ has become *shudder* liberal. ;)

I also smile whenever I recall that my big schism with that church came when we received materials with a list of "cult identifiers" similar to the one by Bonewits, suitably altered to convince the readers that the LDS are a cult. I was old enough by then to know to keep my mouth shut when I started putting that list and that church's behaviors together.

And I find it very sad that I grew up among the SB, had family who worked for the Convention (yes, I'm from Nashville), and never heard the phrase "priesthood of believers" until two decades after I walked away.

Tracina:

I'd really like to know the songs you're thinking of. I've found that the one thing I can't seem to move past is the panic attacks associated with the music.

There was a definite undertone of "once saved always saved is a lie" in my childhood church, and there were always worries that someone who married outside the faith would be corrupted away and lose their salvation.

Posted March 8, 2005 6:03 PM by OG

OG:

It varies from church to church. The phrase "Priesthood of every believer" can be found in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message. "Preisthood of believers" is actually a new, watered-down phrase in the nasty 2000 revision.

Posted March 8, 2005 6:22 PM by Christopher B. Wright

(Heinlein in 'The Happy Days Ahead'):
'Cult vs. religion—I am indebted to L. Sprague de Camp for this definition of the difference. A "religion" is a faith one is born into; a "cult" is a faith an adult joins voluntarily.

Which rather reminds me of the distinction between a pidgin and a creole.

Posted March 8, 2005 6:38 PM by Kevin Marks

Elizabeth: I'm not actually Protean, but Proteus is our sister coven by adoption. We get along ideologically (like we got the no-force-no-tell-no-charge stuff from them originally) but our ritual styles are massively incompatible, alas. (We've had whole circles where no one talks at all, just as one example.)

Posted March 8, 2005 6:43 PM by Xopher

In my mind, it was always about secrecy - if things happen within the confines of the "church" that you are not allowed to mention to someone who is not a part of the faith (or even not a part of the ceremony in which said thing happened), then you belong to a cult.

One of my friends is basically having to go through cult-recovery therapy; she was in one, and she's trying to get herself fixed from where it broke her.

There were no secrets. The things that the organisation in question does are all pretty much public knowledge in our religious community. It is even known that there are a lot of ex-members with significant personal issues with the organisation. The organisation publically dismisses these ex-members as malcontents and rabble-rousers, as a general rule.

The feuding is all public. And was, in fact, stuff she knew about before she joined the organisation, though she acquired more specifics once there. This did not prevent her from having cult-indoctrination problems that she now recognises, or from taking the SAN damage she took.

Posted March 8, 2005 6:56 PM by Darkhawk

Whoa, the Church of Christ is the liberal one now? When did THAT happen? Somebody better tell my relatives, I don't think they got the memo. ;)

Posted March 8, 2005 7:11 PM by Lisa Nichols

OG: I'd really like to know the songs you're thinking of. I've found that the one thing I can't seem to move past is the panic attacks associated with the music.

I have to breathe slowly and put my back against something when I think about those songs. I don't know any of the titles, and I don't know that I ever did. The one that sticks out most (probably because it creeped me out so much even then) is the one that went, in part, "No, you can't get to heaven in an electric chair/'Cause the Lord don't want no french fries there/All my sins are washed away/I've been redeemed/I've been redeemed in the blood of the Lamb/Safe from sin, and I know I am/All my sins are washed away/ I've been redeemed." All accompanied by cheerful hand clapping.

Posted March 8, 2005 7:17 PM by Tracina

It occurrs to me that I should probably say in advance that - in general - no offence is intended by anything I might say in this thread; if it sounds nasty, then I've worded it badly and I apologise.

Xopher: By your formulation the early Christians in Rome were a cult - if you ratted out people as being Christians they could be killed, so they kept it secret.

Sounds accurate to me. What's the problem? As long as you accept that some things can migrate from a cult to a church (and potentially back again), you're fine.

In my tradition of Wicca we have a rule - in fact it's a clause of our oath - that coven confidentiality must not be broken. This is so you can't go ratting people out as Witches

I hate to break it to you, but (these days at least) nobody actually cares whether you're a witch or not. ;-)

For what little it's worth, I would actually - personally - put Wicca somewhere in the cult category. But then I'd do that with pretty much all religion, so I'm probably not actually that discriminatory. (And I've been drinking. Probably not a good plan before posting to ML.)

Posted March 8, 2005 7:18 PM by Paul

No, you can't get to heaven in an electric chair/'Cause the Lord don't want no french fries there

O_O
____

I remember that one myself, but it was always "in a rocking chair/cause the rocking chair don't go nowhere."

Oy. No wonder you're traumatized.

Posted March 8, 2005 7:23 PM by Gluon

I hate to break it to you, but (these days at least) nobody actually cares whether you're a witch or not. ;-)

Would that it were so. That's not my experience, though.

Posted March 8, 2005 7:23 PM by Kimberly

Laura: Does "Anybody who doesn't believe exactly the same things we believe is going to burn in hell" denote a cult?

Either that, or you're at my mom's house.

I'm assuming here that you mean the statement as coming from the cult. The Catholic church and many denominations would be then included, of course, but certain evangelical churches I've hopped through back when I was often invited to them thought that Catholicism was indeed a Great Big Cult. I seem to recall books that were passed around to help us innocent teens understand that if we ran across a Mormon we were to turn tail and race home, then bury our faces in the King James.

Great. Now I'm having flashbacks.

Posted March 8, 2005 7:30 PM by Gluon

Paul said: I hate to break it to you, but (these days at least) nobody actually cares whether you're a witch or not. ;-)

Not entirely true. I have a dear friend in the 'burbs of Houston whose biggest fear is being outed. It depends on the community, some are more open-minded than others.

Posted March 8, 2005 7:31 PM by Tiellan

I always figure a religion is anything I find laughable, and a cult is anything I find laughable and dangerous. Neither term really applies to the stuff I believe in, since I only believe in common sense objective truths.

I've found that this is what people often MEAN when they start arguing whether a certain set of beliefs is a religion, a cult, or the truth-- so that as a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist student of language, I should go ahead and adopt the majority usage.

(Slightly) less cynically, the proposed rule of thumb founders on the "appropriate occasions" clause. When I organize my cult-- pardon me, "school of philosophy"-- there will be an appropriate time for members to trade jokes about it: as they're transferring the last of their funds to my bank account. There will be two jokes on the list: "Boy, it's too bad I don't have twice the money to give; I could be twice as saved!" and "Why did the chicken cross the road? To become a zombie in service of the Great One!" (Oh, sure, you don't think these count as "transgressively funny." But after what the initiates have to go through before they're considered worthy of the Final Enlightment, they'll laugh at any damn thing I tell them to. In fact, some won't be able to stop laughing-- since my school of philosophy will save those most at risk of damnnation through a combination of prayer and intracranial injections of the kuru prion.)

Posted March 8, 2005 7:48 PM by Stephan Zielinski

Okay, it would appear I'm wrong on the part about being a witch. I still don't get it, but I'll take your word for it.

Tiellan: why is your friend afraid of being revealed? Does she think the neighbours are going to burn her at the stake or something...?

Posted March 8, 2005 8:02 PM by Paul

Rivka: I'm not UU, myself, but the evangelist joke had me -howling-.

Meanwhile, I try to find some Buddhism jokes that are worth sharing...

Posted March 8, 2005 8:07 PM by Jason

Lisa Nichols & OG - The United Church of Christ (a/k/a Congregationalist) is the liberal one. As far as I know, the Church of Christ is still strongly evangelical, in the hellfire and brimstone kind of way. They may sound almost the same, but they are astoundingly different and pity the poor adherent who accidentally mistakes one for the other in a strange city!

By the way, as most people here know, The Unitarian-Universalist Association is not the same thing as Unification Church. I once told some friends of mine that I had started going to a Unitarian church and they launched into a full-scale panic. Then again, they're Jewish and have as much sense of the breadth of Chrisitan practices (not that the UUA is all that Christian) as most Christians do about the breadth of Jewish observance.

Nonetheless, Oy! What an experience that was.

Posted March 8, 2005 8:09 PM by Larry Brennan

Hi. Thought I'd supply a Catholic joke, just to get the funny stuff outta the way ;-)

In a small, rural church, a cardinal comes to visit and is shocked to see that the priest and his house-maid are sleeping in the same bed, only separated by a narrow board of wood.
Cardinal: But what if carnal pleasures overcome you?!
Priest: Then we just remove the board.

Posted March 8, 2005 8:21 PM by M. Uli Kusterer

Jason wrote:

> Meanwhile, I try to find some Buddhism jokes that are worth sharing...

buddha/burger bar/"make me one with everything"?

Posted March 8, 2005 8:23 PM by Steve Taylor

Ah, yeah. I should've said "aside from the one pretty much everyone's likely to have heard before."

I just found this one, which had me laughing a lot:

Q: What do you call a schizophrenic Zen Buddhist?
A: A man who is at two with the universe.

I'm also a fan of the hypothetical conversation between Descartes and the Buddha:

Descarte said "I think, therefore I am."
The Buddha replied "Think again."

Posted March 8, 2005 8:33 PM by Jason

Re: that ancient Christianity was a cult because they had to hide: I think the definition should be that the secrecy is actually chosen by the members and not put upon them by society. Otherwise, you'd have any congregation that's been prosecuted in their "lifetime" pop in and out of cult status, making that distinction pretty pointless.

There are other, more valid reasons for seeing Christianity as a cult, IMHO.

Re: nobody caring about people being a witch
I have a gut feeling that is just a "communications knot". When people hear witch, they think of witches as in Grimm's fables or B-Movies, where they're set up to be evil antagonists. I guess that's why the term Wiccan is so much more popular these days. It makes it harder to mix up, and has more the image of someone in sync with nature (and other things, but that was the one that stayed with me as my main appreciation of them).

So, I'd say: Many people probably still care about *witches* simply because what that word exemplifies to them, but that doesn't extend to *Wiccans*, and thus not to any of the practicing people that care about it today.

The only people I've met who claimed they were witches seemed to be out more for shock value and attention than practicing a religion, while what few Wiccans I've met seemed pretty okay people. I'd doubt anybody would object to having them in the neighborhood.

Posted March 8, 2005 8:40 PM by M. Uli Kusterer

Is this a good moment for the Descartes joke?

"I think not." said Descartes and disappeared in a puff of logic.

Posted March 8, 2005 8:42 PM by M. Uli Kusterer

The phrase "Priesthood of every believer" can be found in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message. "Preisthood of believers" is actually a new, watered-down phrase in the nasty 2000 revision.

Hmm. I think that phrase, or something very like it, goes back at least to the English Civil War, and quite possibly back to the Protestant Reformation itself.

At least, I've recently read something which mentions factions in the English Civil War (radical Puritans?) who were saying something like that. Gotta see if I can dig that up.

Thinking about the whole humor/humorlessness thing, I think it could be boiled down to: humor about one's religion arises when the group has sufficient confidence to both give and take mockery. Humorlessness correlates strongly to feeling threatened. "Feeling threatened" can be tricky to measure, but I would suggest that radical fundamentalists of any major religion can feel threatened by the suggestion that their beliefs are in some way funny, and so too can members of a small cult feel threatened by that suggestion.

So I don't think humorlessness is useful in distinguishing church from cult. It's just a marker that whatever religious group it is, they are scared of looking silly.

Posted March 8, 2005 8:42 PM by Owlmirror

Stephen Z This only relates to the subject of this thread tangentially, but I've been wanting to tell you what an impact your book had on me. When my husband recently suggested we get some rest and recreation, and most importantly, sun, but running down to San Diego for a couple of days, my first thought was, "Oh, no. We can't do THAT!" I love San Diego and may never be able to go there again. You bastard.

Someone just told me a UU joke this weekend. It went: A UU dies and discovers that there IS a heaven. But as he approaches heaven the path suddenly forks and the sign says Heaven This Way and Discussion of Heaven That Way. Whereupon everyone else laughed and I objected that to a UU a Discussion about Heaven WOULD be Heaven.

This weekend Elise had a new necklace entitled "Sinner in the Hands of a Mildly Startled Buddha" It featured a lotus and and a spider.

MKK

Posted March 8, 2005 8:57 PM by Mary Kay

Paul,
You asked what my Wiccan friend is afraid of. Not a literal burning at the stake of course, but a social one. She's afraid that she would not be allowed to be a girl scout troop leader anymore, that her kids would be ostracized, that kind of thing.

Posted March 8, 2005 9:07 PM by Tiellan

Xopher: yep, I know a snidge about Mycotans and the group's relation to Proteus. I wasn't in Proteus' current round of students but the one before, and have since hived off to practice with Entelechy.

I don't have to much worry about the repercussions of being public, living in New York and all, but for other areas of the country, it's still a very big deal. I feel it when I go to certain parts of the US. Could be my invisible New York freak flag, though. Being a New Yorker is often as bad as being Wiccan, and is somehow more identifiable (though I haven't quite figured that one out).

Anyways. My New Yorker-ness is usually mitigated by my Maine-ness (I grew up there), when confronted with distrustful-of-NYC-ish folks.

Posted March 8, 2005 9:15 PM by Elizabeth Genco

Hmm. I think that phrase, or something very like it, goes back at least to the English Civil War, and quite possibly back to the Protestant Reformation itself.

Oh, the phrase "Priesthood of believers" isn't new... I meant that it was new to the Baptist Faith and Message. The BF&M isn't a credal statement per se, it's more a collection of beliefs that Baptists agree they mostly agree on. But the phrase "Priesthood of Every Believer" was the way it was phrased in the 1963 (and I think the earlier) version of the document. It was changed to "Priesthood of believers" in 2000, which some of us saw as a cynical attempt by the SBC to de-emphasize the individual in the church.

The SBC isn't particularly Baptist in a historical sense these days.

Posted March 8, 2005 9:27 PM by Christopher B. Wright

Teresa, I think your distinction is close to the mark; at least it's a reliable way to distinguish an authoritarian organization from a fairly liberal one. I think Michael Foucault may have something to say about this, in a sideways way: Foucault said that the difference between a real science and a pseudoscience is that a real science is not afraid of its history; he points out that chemists are willing to discuss the emergence of chemistry from alchemy, but that he caused a perfect storm of controversy in analyzing the historical origins of psychiatry. It seems to me that this applies accurately to churches and cults, and perhaps individual members as well.

Perhaps history is god's joke on us.

Posted March 8, 2005 10:10 PM by Randolph Fritz

I guess that's why the term Wiccan is so much more popular these days. It makes it harder to mix up, and has more the image of someone in sync with nature (and other things, but that was the one that stayed with me as my main appreciation of them).

It's also worth noting that "witch" is not intrinsically a religious term -- there are many people who consider it a term for a particular type of craftsman, and also that Wicca is not the only religious witchcraft religion, just the best known.

Posted March 8, 2005 11:23 PM by Darkhawk

MMerriam: yah, no kidding. The non-cult religious leaders I know just want you to go away and think for yourself for awhile and let them read a book or drink a beer or whatever in peace. If you volunteered to live with them and do whatever they said, they would get an unlisted number.

Just another data point: the phrase "priesthood of all believers" is pretty important in my own traditions (Haugean, or in more organized and looser-on-my-part affiliation Lutheran). I also have been known to mutter "prophet, priest, and king" really fast when someone is being particularly Luther-y. (My equivalent for my Calvinist in-laws and out-laws is "filthy rags, filthy rags.")

Apparently there was a musical in the (Twin Cities) area last summer that contained the song, "Hotdish's one foundation is cream of mushroom sooooooup." It's to the tune of "The Church's One Foundation" and managed, I am told, to poke fun at both ethnic and religious idiosyncracies. I wish I knew the rest of the words, but the person who told me about it had only heard it once. Sigh.

Posted March 8, 2005 11:53 PM by Mris

Larry:

They may sound almost the same, but they are astoundingly different and pity the poor adherent who accidentally mistakes one for the other in a strange city!

No kidding. I think that slipped under my radar the same way the "United" on Methodist church signs does. It never occurred to me there might be two sects.

Paul:

People still lose jobs for being the "wrong" religion. I currently live in an area where the company chaplain is a benefit trumpeted from job fair booths.

Tracina:

That's more, um, dramatic than the songs I remember, but I can't say I'm surprised.

Christopher:

I'm still mildly surprised that I can't recall ever encountering the concept, if not the exact phrase, while I was an active member in the 70s. Then again, I discover ever more entertaining holes in my religious training all the time.

Posted March 9, 2005 3:06 AM by OG

Looks like I was remembering the sentiment of "Priesthood of every believer" rather than that phrase itself. The text says:

Voices rose from the army calling not only for political democracy but also for a kind of religious democracy as well. Sects emerged among the soldiers that rejected any authority beyond the individual. In January 1646, Presbyterian ministers traveled to the outskirts of Oxford to visit Cromwell's soldiers, where they got an unwelcome surprise. As they later reported, "The multitude of soldiers in a violent manner called upon us to prove our calling ... whether those that are called ministers had any more authority to preach in public than private Christians which were gifted."

Mris wrote:

I also have been known to mutter "prophet, priest, and king" really fast when someone is being particularly Luther-y.

It's interesting to see that. Did Luther in fact say that? Directly before the paragraph I quoted, Zimmer mentions the Levellers, and cites the following:

-- every man by nature being a king, priest and prophet in his own natural circuit and compass, whereof no second may partake but by deputation, commission, and free consent from him whose natural right and freedom it is.

I had greater luck discovering more about the Levellers, since Wikipedia has an article about them (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveller), which in turn points to this page about them:
http://www.constitution.org/lev/levellers.htm.

The quote is from the fifth article down, "Richard Overton, An arrow against all tyrants. 12 October 1646"

Posted March 9, 2005 3:09 AM by Owlmirror

I could well be confused here but I reckon the idea of a universal priesthood goes back to Exodus. Then again, like some people mentioned in the thread I'm a Jewish person who is fairly ignorant about the breadth of Christian practices.

Posted March 9, 2005 5:09 AM by Individ-ewe-al

Mary Kay wrote: I love San Diego and may never be able to go there again. You bastard.

Just don't do anything mind-expanding in the area and you'll be fine. Probably. But if you do see a zombie or anything else obviously occult, hotfoot it to San Francisco before anything truly dangerous notices you noticing. (Take I-5 and drive in shifts-- stay within sight of the freeway and don't sleep.)

Posted March 9, 2005 6:14 AM by Stephan Zielinski

Steve wrote:
Jason wrote:
>> Meanwhile, I try to find some Buddhism jokes that are worth sharing...
>buddha/burger bar/"make me one with everything"?

Buddha: "Hey, I gave you a twenty. Where's my change?"
Cashier: "Change must come from within."

Posted March 9, 2005 7:05 AM by Bill Blum

M. Uli Kustever: The only people I've met who claimed they were witches seemed to be out more for shock value and attention than practicing a religion, while what few Wiccans I've met seemed pretty okay people. I'd doubt anybody would object to having them in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, lots and lots of people don't care about the distinction. Witch or Wiccan, you're going to hell, and/or are brainwashed, and/or are dangerous, and Something Should Be Done. Sigh.

Posted March 9, 2005 7:58 AM by Tracina

Here is West Michigan, there are a lot of Christian fundamentalists, many of the Dutch Reformed variety. Judging by local controversies over things like Harry Potter books in school libraries, Halloween, etc., I would not think it prudent to be publicly identified as a witch or Wiccan hereabouts.

Heck, in certain neighborhoods around here, it's a bad idea to mow your lawn on Sunday, let alone join a coven.

What amazes me is how many of these people are true believers in magic and withchraft. They don't approve of it, but they most certainly beleive it is real, just as much as the people of 17th Century Salem. Watch out when they start muttering darkly about how "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live . . ."

Posted March 9, 2005 8:51 AM by rea

Doesn't work for the church I was born into. The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is definitely not a cult, but I never heard its members (as distinct from their variously disgruntled offspring) tell jokes about it.

So why am I sure it's not a cult? I don't know.

Posted March 9, 2005 9:03 AM by Ken MacLeod

There's the Buddhist who refuses Novocaine because he's trying to transcend dental medication....

ducking and covering

Posted March 9, 2005 9:12 AM by Sarah S

An acquaintance of mine has been fighting an ongoing child-custody battle precisely because she is Wiccan (or, at least, non-denominational Pagan). It doesn't seem to help her case that she owns a successful small business which she runs from out of her home, or that her ex-husband has actually hurt the child. All the judge seems to care about "Get the witch away from the kid!"

Some people do care far too much about whether you're the wrong religion.

On a lighter note, the way I always heard it was,

Q: How many Gardnerians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Shut up! That's a craft secret!

Q: How many Alexandrians...?
A: Dunno. Let me look that up in the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

Posted March 9, 2005 9:13 AM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

What amazes me is how many of these people are true believers in magic and withchraft. They don't approve of it, but they most certainly beleive it is real, just as much as the people of 17th Century Salem. Watch out when they start muttering darkly about how "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live . . ."

Indeed. A similar tribe: the folks who will lambast me for my study/use of Tarot cards, then, once they're done raving about the devil, will turn right around and ask for a reading.

I just don't get it.

Posted March 9, 2005 10:15 AM by Elizabeth Genco

Oh, and! Nicole, where's that case located?

(No problem if you don't want to answer that, of course; I was just curious. That's whack, needless to say...)

Posted March 9, 2005 10:18 AM by Elizabeth Genco

Many people probably still care about *witches* simply because what that word exemplifies to them, but that doesn't extend to *Wiccans*, and thus not to any of the practicing people that care about it today.

...I'd doubt anybody would object to having them in the neighborhood.

In my experience, many people DO still object to having wiccans or witches or whatever in their neighborhoods. Granted, I live in the Bible belt (in Texas, but not Houston) which is a major shift from, say, NYC where I used to live. Down here we still have people who shun others because they don't attend the right church. Not because they aren't Christian or even not good Christians, but because they don't go to the right church. Pagans are right out.

There isn't much danger of being burned at the stake, of course, but there is always the chance that you'll get a lot of nasty notes on your door/car (as we did once, but not for being Pagan), or of being ostracized by neighbors, or people telling their children not to play with your child, or even having mud, eggs, or other more solid things thrown at your house. This all depends on how out you are, how vehement your neighbors are, and other factors. However, none of these things is out of the realm of possibility.

This isn't just a southern thing, either. I wouldn't necessarily out myself as pagan to my neighbors if I lived in my hometown of Cincinnati (or anywhere else in Ohio) and certainly not to any of my family. The latter wouldn't be dangerous, necessarily, but would not result in pleasentness.

This kind of reminds me of the conversation I always end up having with people who seem to think racism isn't prevelant in America anymore.

Posted March 9, 2005 10:24 AM by Tempest

Indeed. A similar tribe: the folks who will lambast me for my study/use of Tarot cards, then, once they're done raving about the devil, will turn right around and ask for a reading.

I just don't get it.

Well there is a long tradition of that kind of silliness, going back to the Old Testament. King Saul consulted a seer to contact the spirit of Samuel in order to predict the outcome of a battle against the Philistines... despite the fact that Mosaic law sort of expressly forbids such things.

(Samuel eventually appears to Saul in a dream and says "nice job dimwit, your next battle is going to go very badly." Which it does: Saul's sons are killed and he commits suicide to avoid capture.)

So there's a long history of folks who are ostensibly *opposed* to such things being eager to dabble in them at the same time. It's not very different from the "Jimmy Swaggart Syndrome" -- folks who rant and rail against the same sexual practices they secretly indulge in when they think no-one is looking...

Wouldn't be humanity without a liberal dose of hypocrisy thrown in the mix...

Posted March 9, 2005 10:33 AM by Christopher B. Wright

The most apt commentary on nasty Christian songs may be the Austin Lounge Lizard's "Jesus Loves Me (But He Can't Stand You)".

BTW, Buddhist doctrine sounds quite kindly, yet there must have been some repressive regimes of believers along the way. Can somebody offer this near-ignoramus about Oriental history a little info? (Not meaning to divert the thread.)

Posted March 9, 2005 10:38 AM by Faren Miller

Here's another proposed rule-of-thumb: a church will only accept you if you're good, but a cult will take anybody.

Oh, no, sorry, I'm thinking about publishing versus vanity publishing.

Posted March 9, 2005 11:09 AM by Alex Cohen

Hah!

Since most vanity publishers seem to lack a sense of humor, perhaps they qualify as a cult after all.

Posted March 9, 2005 11:20 AM by Christopher B. Wright

Copyediting notes: Names of religions should be capitalized. Wicca is the name of a religion. When Witchcraft is used as the name of a religion, or Witch as a practitioner of it, they should be capitalized as well. The women in Updike's reprehensible The Witches of Eastwick are witches; I am a Witch and a Wiccan.

(BTW I once wrote a detailed "notes for copyeditors" letter to Entertainment Weekly after one of their reviewers referred to that book as "John Updike's wiccan tome," which is inaccurate to the point of being insulting.)

There are many other kinds of witches (and even Witches) than Wiccans.

For those who claim that the capitalization is based on the proper noun quality (from the founder's name) of such examples as 'Christian', 'Lutheran', etc, I will reply with such examples as 'Presbyterian', 'Methodist', and 'Quaker', none of which are based on founder's names, but all of which are proper nouns based on being the names of religions.

On the topic of secrecy: There was a man in the Midwest somewhere not fifteen years ago who was found hanging in his garage a week before he was scheduled to give a talk on Wicca at the local library. The police quickly ruled it a suicide and ended their investigation despite the fact that he was found with his hands tied behind his back.

Another couple around the same time was fire-bombed out of their home. They weren't hurt, except that they lost everything they owned.

Margot Adler, whose voice you hear on NPR frequently, was up for a co-host position on All Things Considered some years ago. She didn't get it, and was told that the then-current climate (Jesse Helms was trying to deny bulk mailing permits to organizations that "promote witchcraft [sic]") made it impossible for NPR to give that position to someone who was openly Wiccan.

I myself have lost at least one job in part because I revealed that I was Wiccan.

So no, no burnings at the stake. That didn't even happen in Salem. But I don't want to be lynched or crushed to death with stones, either. I'm lucky enough to live where that's unlikely; many, many Wiccans have no such good fortune.

Posted March 9, 2005 11:27 AM by Xopher

Alex: I know you were making a vanity publishing joke, but the very best churches I know of do take anybody. They point out that the mission of the Church is, and must be, primarily to sinners; otherwise it's just standing around singing Kumbaya.

Wicca doesn't have that as a value. We don't take just anybody. This is because covens have to work together closely and intimately, and trust is critical. Also because anybody can get some books and start a coven, or practice alone. Wicca isn't for everybody; it isn't even for everybody who wants to join. Nobody goes to hell in Wicca, not even for not being Wiccan!

Posted March 9, 2005 11:31 AM by Xopher

Faren Miller (almost equal ignoramity, but ...) I remember seeing someone quoting some buddhist or historical piece where a battle was going to happen, and someone who was going to fight in it was asking his buddhist spiritual advisor how could he reconcile his faith with this.

The priest/advisor said, more or less, "well, they aren't [real] buddhists, so it's OK to kill them", thus sounding very much like a range of christian, islamic, hindu, etc, spiritual advisors down the centuries.

I can't remember whether the two sides were buddhist/non-buddhist (cf christian/animist; christian/muslim) or two slightly differing variants (cf protestant/catholic), hence the [real].

In fact, only within the last few years, I heard of a couple of groups of asian buddhist monks fighting each other, enough that some were killed. You might be able to [search engine] for news articles.

Posted March 9, 2005 11:45 AM by Epacris

One thing, Xopher: While your positive generalizations of Wiccan practices jibe pretty well with my own experiences, I think it's important to point out that you are generalizing. No single characterization of "Wiccan values" can be applied to all of its self-identified practitioners. It's just as flawed as trying to generalize all Christians under a single characterization.

Wiccans span the gamut from middle school kids who've read Cunningham's books and burn candles in their bedrooms at night to try to attract that boy who sits in front of them in math class, to small groups of friends who meet as close to the full moon as they can agree on so long as it's not a Friday night, to local initiatory hierarchies led by a strong personality or two, to full-blown elaborate traditions with international networks of leadership. Most Wiccans are pretty cool about differences with other Wiccans. Some are assholes. And yes, there are Wiccans who believe that they have the One True Way, and that everyone who disagrees with them is going -- well, not to Hell as far as I've heard it, but it wouldn't surprise me if somebody somewhere believed that.

Given its diversity in structure and values, and given exactly what you said -- that anybody can practice alone and call themselves a Wiccan -- it does sound like "Wicca" as a philosophical label does take "just anybody." Perhaps your group doesn't, but those you won't take can find (or found) another that will.

All this is a rather long picking of a smallish nit. Of your description of your own group, I've got no beef. It sounds pretty cool. I'm just skeptical of anyone who claims to be offer any sort of description of Wicca as a whole, because I don't believe there is a whole.

Posted March 9, 2005 12:11 PM by Steve Eley

Since most vanity publishers seem to lack a sense of humor, perhaps they qualify as a cult after all.

Actually, I suspect that this is what was in our hostess's mind to begin with. PublishAmerica has a great deal of cult-like behavior. No questioning allowed. Irrational discarding of evidence contrary to the worldview of the leaders. You send a lot of money to the organization. It really is a cult, other than it's not particularly about religion.

Posted March 9, 2005 12:15 PM by Alex Cohen

I have been accused of being in "The Cult of Feynman."

This is hard to refute, as he was my mentor at Caltech. I am mourning this week's loss of one of Feynman's mentors, Hans Bethe, who recruited Feynman to Cornell.

One can find graffiti at Caltech declaring "Feynman is God." Further, there is a beautiful bas relief in the courtyard of Dabney House at Caltech which shows Galileo, Archimedes, Newton, and Kepler assembled in iconic poses, with an oversized figure in the center from which rays are emitted, said central figure labelled "Feynman."

This month we should see Basic Books' "Selected Letters of Richard P. Feynman.

From "The remarkable Dr. Feynman", Lawrence Grobel, Los Angeles Times Magazine, 20 April 1986:

"His friend, Albert Hibbs... likes to give costume parties. At one April Fool's party, the theme was famous characters in history--king, queen, knave or fool. Feynman came as Queen Elizabeth. At another party, the theme was Myths and Legends. Feynman came dressed in a long white robe and a long gray beard. Someone approached him, asking if he was Moses. "No," answered Feynman. "I'm God."

"Yeah," Hibbs said. "We've known it all along."

Posted March 9, 2005 12:29 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

I'd be willing to argue that PublishAmerica *is* a religion, albeit a materialistic one. At the very least it bills itself as a "revolutionary movement" -- much like MP3.com did back in the early days -- and those kinds of things tend to inspire cultish religious fervor among the true believers, no matter how rational they may be otherwise.

I was an mp3.com "true believer" at one point in time. Once bitten...

Posted March 9, 2005 12:32 PM by Christopher B. Wright

Steve Eley - you're absolutely right, of course. What I ought to have said is that no one coven is likely to feel pressure to take just anyone. There might be omnibus covens somewhere, as a matter of fact, but I'd rely on natural selection to keep their lives short and numbers small (i.e. I believe that a coven with such a policy would tear itself to bits in short order).

And there ARE people who don't ever find a coven.

BTW, if you believe Wicca is a religion, it has "priesthood of all believers," though I'd change 'believers' to 'practitioners' in our case. These days there's a wider NeoPagan community who believe what Wiccans believe, want a Wiccan priest/ess for their wedding etc., but aren't members of a coven and don't practice on a regular basis. The Wicca are the priesthood of that community, in my view.

On another topic: PublishAmerica and the Church of Scientology. Compare and contrast.

Posted March 9, 2005 12:42 PM by Xopher

King Saul consulted a seer to contact the spirit of Samuel in order to predict the outcome of a battle against the Philistines... despite the fact that Mosaic law sort of expressly forbids such things.

Now, now, Christopher. Weren't you taught the truth of that encounter? The spirit was obviously an agent of Satan pretending to be Samuel, because he rose up through the floor instead of descending from above.

*forcibly breaks channeling connection with childhood teacher*

Posted March 9, 2005 12:47 PM by OG

The Cult of Mac department:

"Linux creator Linus Torvalds said this afternoon that he's now running an Apple Macintosh as his main desktop, mainly for work reasons, although partly simply because he's a self-described 'technology whore.'"
ZDNet Australia: Linux creator Torvalds switches to an Apple Mac

Written by Wired News journalist Leander Kahney, "The Cult of Mac" has spawned lots of stuff in the blogosphere, such as:
blog.wired.com/cultofmac/

Questions: if Mac is a cult, is the PC a religion? If Linux is a cult, is Microsoft a religion? Or is it really the other way around in both cases, per Teresa's Disambiguator.

SFnal phrase of the day for googling:

"Tweak Space."

Posted March 9, 2005 1:05 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

All I know is, there's nothing an Agnostic can't accomplish if he really doesn't know whether he believes in it or not.

(There are probably more Agnostic jokes than that, but I'm not sure whether they're any funnier.)

Posted March 9, 2005 1:08 PM by HP

If Linux is a cult, is Microsoft a religion? Or is it really the other way around in both cases, per Teresa's Disambiguator.

Using Teresa's definition of a cult, my experience lends me to believe that Microsoft is the religion, Linux is the cult -- for the most part, Linux users find it very difficult to find humor where Linux is concerned. Microsoft users aren't as likely to have the same problem.

Posted March 9, 2005 1:13 PM by Christopher B. Wright

Heh. Thanks for the jokes. I'd heard Bill's before (usually as a follow up to the "make me one with everything" riff), but Sarah's was new to me. Funny either way.

Faren, not sure what sort of history you're looking for, or how detailed but Buddhism does have a lot of schools of thought that disagree with each other (Pure Land Buddhism versus, say, either of the Zen schools is a sort of "saved by faith alone versus good works" split. Sort of. And that's just within Japan).

Buddhism has been used, as Epacris says, as an excuse to... erm... smack down the non-believers. This was in the early days of Buddhism coming to Japan, when it was trying to establish a place for itself over and above the not-actually-organized indigenous religion. The doctrinal conflicts in China are, quite literally, the subject of legend. And martial arts movies. I'm pretty sure there were some early conflicts with the Therevada and Mahayana traditions in India, but I can't speak with authority there.

The worst is probably the accusation, in the past decade or so, that Japanese Buddhism has justified the oppression of minorities and propogated a sense of Japanese superiority. I'm not sure I agree, but the details of the debate are probably getting a bit off-topic, so I'll just cut off.

Posted March 9, 2005 1:31 PM by Jason

Microsoft=Christians / Apple= Jews (quicktime)

Posted March 9, 2005 1:39 PM by Sumana

I can't find the reference, but Umberto Eco once wrote a little piece about Microsoft being Protestant, Mac being Catholic

Posted March 9, 2005 2:28 PM by Jonathan Shaw

Individ-ewe-al: Nope, you are quite correct, as can be seen in Exodus 19:3-8 (JPS electronic edition)

And Moses went up unto G-d, and HaShem called unto him out of the mountain, saying: 'Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.' And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which HaShem commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said: 'All that HaShem hath spoken we will do.'

Posted March 9, 2005 2:32 PM by Claude Muncey

Jonathan:
"Linux creator Linus Torvalds said this afternoon that he's now running an Apple Macintosh as his main desktop, mainly for work reasons, although partly simply because he's a self-described 'technology whore.'"

Let's be clear here. Linus has said that he's running Linux on a dual G5 PowerMac. It's a hardware platform, nothing more; he didn't suddenly forsake his creation.

(And if he ever did, he certainly wouldn't forsake it for OSX, after calling the Mach kernel "a piece of shit" in his autobiography.)

But just to bring things back to subject, here's one off the cuff:

Q: How many Apple users does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None; Apple pulled all the bulbs out of its stores last week. But iBulb '05 is due out any day now, or no later than 2007 for sure, and everyone says it's going to be great...

Posted March 9, 2005 2:40 PM by Steve Eley

Chris - please don't conflate "Microsoft users" with "Microsoft believers" - there are a lot more of the former, willing or unwilling, than the latter, and my impression is the latter have no sense of humor about it at all.

Posted March 9, 2005 2:53 PM by Jeremy Preacher

Chris - please don't conflate "Microsoft users" with "Microsoft believers" - there are a lot more of the former, willing or unwilling, than the latter, and my impression is the latter have no sense of humor about it at all.

I don't think I'm conflating. I've met a fair number of Microsoft fans that have a healthy sense of humor where Microsoft is concerned. I've encountered some in the Linux world as well, but it's been my experience that if you poke fun at something specific in the Linux community it's as likely to be taken as a blanket condemnation of Linux as a whole than it is as a specific jibe about a specific thing. A fair amount of this is understandible given the way Linux is often mischaracterized by the press, but it still gets annoying from time to time. For that matter, the same criticism can be made about OS/2 users and Apple users... in general terms, of course. There are always exceptions.

This observation comes from 9 years of writing a tech-themed web cartoon.

Posted March 9, 2005 3:08 PM by Christopher B. Wright

(delurking) *waves a hand* Non-denom Pagan just adding MVHO.

Xopher: These days there's a wider NeoPagan community who believe what Wiccans believe, want a Wiccan priest/ess for their wedding etc., but aren't members of a coven and don't practice on a regular basis. The Wicca are the priesthood of that community, in my view.

Me: Undoubtedly true for many, but I'd also say that there are a growing number of non-Wiccan NeoPagan groups forming. At least, that's been my experience in the DC Metro region, where there are several groups of non-Wiccan NeoPagan circles that meet regularly, and are forming their own, very eclectic traditions. While my beliefs share, at root, some of the same values of my Wiccan friends, I don't know that I'd consider any of them my priesthood. :)

I also have to unfortunately add to the stories of religious intolerance. I'm currently living in south-central Pennsylvania, but even when living in Baltimore, MD, or other more 'progressive' parts of the region, I can list plenty of examples of harrassment, upto and including vandalism and the traditional "Go to hell" speeches.

(Sidenote: Since the UCC was mentioned above, and since I'm a proud daughter of my UCC minister father, I have to cheer the Still Speaking ad up top. UCC--very much NOT the Church of Christ :)

Posted March 9, 2005 3:15 PM by Heatherly

chrs - not to derail, but that's exactly what I mean. I'm a Microsoft user, but not a Microsoft fan. Bit of a sore point, actually.

Posted March 9, 2005 3:32 PM by Jeremy Preacher

Heatherly reminds me -- I may be the only capital-A Agnostic here (not counting UU), but a while ago I stumbled on the website of a group that's set up a neo-Epicurean community, where they live in accordance with Epicurean ideals and have some basic rituals like weddings, funerals, etc. It's Agnostic and neo-pagan at the same time.

Posted March 9, 2005 4:14 PM by HP

HP:
I may be the only capital-A Agnostic here (not counting UU),

What's the difference between capital-A and lower-a agnostics? Does it mean you're absolutely certain of what you don't know?

Posted March 9, 2005 4:54 PM by Steve Eley

Heatherly, that's why I was careful to specify WHICH subgroup of NeoPagans I was talking about. Certainly there are the Asatru, for example, and many others who don't follow the Wiccan belief system. I define my subgroup of NeoPagans as "the ones who consider the Wicca their priesthood." Circular, but perfectly practical.

There are massive disagreements on many points even within Wicca. My partner priestess does not believe in reincarnation. I do (on a good day).

One thing though: Some British Traditionals (Gardnerians, Alexandrians, a very few others) think the term "Wicca" should be reserved only for British Traditionals. (Some BTs. Not all, thank the gods.) They are simply wrong. I'm as Wiccan as they are (is there an emoticon for thumbing one's nose?).

HP: it's perfectly possible to be both an Agnostic and a Wiccan. I have some tendencies in that direction myself. That's because Wicca is about praxis, not theology. The beliefs support the praxis, not the other way around; my beliefs-about-the-world change when I enter Circle, and again when I leave it.

Most Agnostics behave as if they were Atheists. It's perfectly possible, and in my view equally valid, for an Agnostic to behave as if s/he were a religious believer. (If there are no gods, what's the harm? If there are, why not cover the bases?)

Posted March 9, 2005 5:01 PM by Xopher

Not exactly jokes, but Bertrand Russell has said some funny things on the overlapping subjects of religion, evidence, and math; as well as (implicitly) that every religion began as a cult and every science began as magic:

"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

"God is a reality of spirit... He cannot... be conceived as an object, not even as the very highest object. God is not to be found in the world of objects."

"I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return."

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

It is said (I can't find the citation) that Bertrand Russell moved from small a atheism to Magiscule A Atheism. At that point, someone asked him what he would say to God if he, Bertie, found himself past the gates of heaven and at the throne of the Creator.

"That's easy," he replied. "Insufficient evidence!"

Posted March 9, 2005 5:10 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

My favorite Buddhist joke (and, in my experience, Buddhists are among the folks most happy to laugh at their religion, which is why I trust them) is, "Why can't the Buddha vacuum under his sofa?"
"Because he has no attachments."

Posted March 9, 2005 5:40 PM by Ian Osmond

Thinking about the whole humor/humorlessness thing, I think it could be boiled down to: humor about one's religion arises when the group has sufficient confidence to both give and take mockery. Humorlessness correlates strongly to feeling threatened.

Counterexample: Judaism.

A story is told of a Jewish man during World War II who was reading the Nazi newspaper. A friend of his noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he asked: "Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading a Nazi newspaper?"

Moshe replied: "I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Jews disappearing, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the Nazi newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!"

Posted March 9, 2005 5:45 PM by Lis Riba

BTW, Buddhist doctrine sounds quite kindly, yet there must have been some repressive regimes of believers along the way. Can somebody offer this near-ignoramus about Oriental history a little info? (Not meaning to divert the thread.)

I haven't read this book, only reviews of it, but Brian Victoria's Zen At War apparently goes into some detail about Japanese Buddhism's complicity in Imperial Japan's militarism and wartime activities.

Posted March 9, 2005 5:54 PM by Jonathan Lennox

Xopher: Apologies for misunderstanding and thanks for the clarification. And absolute agreement re: Brit Trads. :)

HP: In addition to easily being an Agnostic Wiccan, I also have a friend who's a Jewitch--not Wiccan, specifically, though, but a Jewish Pagan.

Oh, yes, and a small contribution to the humor, since I have no specific tradition to draw upon:

How many Pagans does it take to change a Light bulb?

Six. One to change it, five to sit around complaining that light bulbs
never burned out before Christians came along.

Posted March 9, 2005 6:48 PM by Heatherly

Chris - also bear in mind that the type of people who write emails to cartoonists about stuff which upsets them are going to be fairly highly strung to start with (I'm thinking "comic guy" from the Simpson's here). And Ubersoft is going to attract people who aren't that keen on MS, by its nature.

For my experience, I've found that Mac people tend to have the least sense of humour if you criticise something Apple- or Mac-y. Most of the people who actually do the work on Linux stuff have a good sense of humour about it; the group of 'l33t' people who write lots of comments on Slashdot don't, but then I get the impression a lot of them only use Linux in order to be able to say they use it. (If that makes any sense.)

It's hard to find anybody passionate in any way about MS products, in my experience. That probably says more about Microsoft than I could, in a number of different ways.

Posted March 9, 2005 6:48 PM by Paul