Lent

[Boon 0]

...started yesterday.

 

What are you giving up?

[daileyxplanet 0]

I'm not Catholic but I'm giving up all sexual activities...

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Try giving up your dumbshit religion. Hurry up and do it now before you have kids and scar them too.

[Boon 0]

I'm not Catholic but I'm giving up all sexual activities...

That sounds crazy enough to make a movie about.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I saw a ton of people with the ash yesterday. Goofy little ritual. I thought it was cool when I was 8, but I was 8.

[daileyxplanet 0]

Yes, but I have a fiancee.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Try giving up your dumbshit religion. Hurry up and do it now before you have kids and scar them too.

 

 

Aren't you a Christian too?

 

If so, you're all really connected, you can't exclude him for being a part of the oldest branch of Christianity. Also came off a little harsh.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Don't tell me how I'm obligated to treat other denominations. I think Roman Catholicism is particularly full of shit. The only way you can disagree is if you've been brought up in it and thoroughly indoctrinated. To a non-member, it's an overly ritualistic, emotionally taxing, ridiculously bureaucratic, historically destructive waste of time. My mother grew up as a typical Polish Catholic and found the whole experience to be nothing short of traumatic. My relatives who are still mired in The Church are more burdened by it than uplifted. I have no ill will against Catholics themselves, I just think they need to get out of that thing and find an alternative approach to their religion. You sure don't find many middle-aged Presbyterians seeing psychologists to talk about deep-seated emotional scars from bake sales.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Well I guess I won't tell you how to treat anyone else, if you're that upset about it.

 

From my experience, Catholics are the normal ones while Protestants are the crazy "Jesus Camp" type folk. But to each his own.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

...hurry up and do it now before you have kids and scar them too.

 

You're talking about Catholics -- too late.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Evangelicals, yes, but mainline denominations are down-to-earth. A lot of the Catholics I know who have gone through parochial school and all that jazz are either nutty or displaying reactance from all that oppression, and pretty much shirking the faith entirely and becoming drunken skanks, townies, and unmarried parents. I guess that's normal, though.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

To add to that, I won't get into the idiocy of Fundamentalists and most protestants in taking the Bible much more literally than Catholics. Also, how can you call them crazy for what they believe in when Christianity in general is full of shit? That's a different argument altogether, but c'mon. This is like Scroby calling out UTSU out for being a retard.

 

But I don't wanna sidestep the point of this thread, Czech has done that enough already. I think it's a sign that I've completely lost my religion when I don't even realize that Ash Wednesday and Lent have gone by.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Okay, well this is a matter of who you know again. I don't know any mainline, it's all fundamental from my experience.

 

As far as Catholics, it's about as normal as you can get.

[Guest Queen Leelee]

I only know it's Ash Wednesday when Stat Boy has ashes on his head.

 

I'm also a raised Christian that now finds religion to be ridiculous, but Czech is offensive in this thread and should apologize.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I'm offended that Paragon asserted that Catholics are normal. They're not normal, they're just prevalent. Being assigned ten Our Fathers and twenty Hail Marys like a coach assigns push-ups and sit-ups isn't what religion is supposed to be about.

[Guest Queen Leelee]

Who are you to insult someone just because of their religion.

 

Your no better than The Pit.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

Who are you to insult someone just because of their religion.

Not insulting people.

[vivalaultra 0]

Can we all at least agree that Catholics are better than Scientologists? As far as Ash Wednesday, when I was young and I lived in So. Louisiana, there was almost 100% Catholic penetration. Not being Catholic, I, for some time, felt some degree of sadness, if only because as a youth and being exposed to varying degrees of Catholicism, I was somewhat led to believe that the only way to get close to God was to put ashes on your head and go to confession and give up meat or alcohol or such. The Catholocisim down there ran deep. Catholic parenting was interesting. I remember hearing stories from friends in elementary school where, for punishment, their parents made them kneel in the corner on uncooked rice for varying degrees of time. I also found it strange that Mardi Gras, quite possibly the largest collection of drunkeness and reckless abandon, was celebrated by the Catholics as a religious holiday but celebrated by drunkeness and reckless abandon. I think the only reason these days for Lent, at least in my old homestate, are so all the coonasses can have crawfish boils every nite of the week.

 

Another fun Catholicism story: When I was about 14, my friend Mike was taking part in the Catholic ritual of Confirmation. He invited me to go, and, not being a Catholic, I kept forgetting what the ceremony was called and a couple of times, absentmindedly told people that I was going to watch my friend Mike get Circumsized.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

My dad likes to regale our family with tales of his wacky Irish Catholic neighbors growing up. Being that this was the early '60s, they actually had two big pictures on their kitchen wall: yes, Jack Kennedy and the Pope would watch you eat. Downright weird-ass.

[vivalaultra 0]

My friend Mike's parents had the Pope and this picture of Jesus that was one of those pictures that was actually made up of a bunch of little pictures. This picture of Jesus was a closeup of his face after the Resurrection made up of little pictures of him bloody on the cross. I once counted about 85 crucifixes in their house. Catholics love crucifixes.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I don't know any mainline, it's all fundamental from my experience.

 

It's not surprising that you don't know any mainlines.

 

"Mainline" Protestantism is withering. These denominations are shrinking quite rapidly.

 

Evangelical Protestantism is, from my understanding, the most rapidly expanding religious leaning on the planet--particulary Pentencostalism (the denomination that believes in certain religious phenomena, such as speaking in tongues, levitation, etc.)

 

Recovering Evangelical Protestant here (Southern Baptist). I'll take a Catholic over an Evangelical any day of the week (no offense, fundamentalists). My finocee was raised Catholic.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

That would be a mosaic, and it's interesting that they'd have that, since mosaics are usually associated with Greek Orthodoxy, which, if reading David Sedaris is any indication, has basically the same effect on people as Catholicism does, but that same effect has a unibrow and faintly reeks of cheese.

 

I don't particularly care for the crucifix hangup. If you have Jesus on the cross up on the wall, and start praying to that, that's idol worship, is it not?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

My dad likes to regale our family with tales of his wacky Irish Catholic neighbors growing up. Being that this was the early '60s, they actually had two big pictures on their kitchen wall: yes, Jack Kennedy and the Pope would watch you eat. Downright weird-ass.

 

If I was a father, I wouldn't want Kennedy leering down at my daughters while they ate.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Also if I was a father, I wouldn't want the Pope leering down at my sons while they ate.

 

(haha all Catholic clergy are pedos!)

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I wonder if they had a picture of Ted above the bar. Maybe the really good stuff that was hidden away was accompanied by Joe Sr. (Or was he next to a window for when they looked across the street at their Jewish neighbors?)

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

David Sedaris rules. I love his story about the poop.

 

Big Boy, I think.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I'm gonna put a picture of W.H. Taft over my bathtub.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I like the ones about other countries' holiday traditions, like when he tries to explain the Easter Bunny to French people, but they reply that a giant bell from Rome flies over the children's houses and gives them candy.

 

"Well, it doesn't make sense for a giant flying Roman bell to drop candy to kids."

"Well, it doesn't make sense for a giant rabbit to give kids candy and hide eggs in their house."

 

There's also some country where Santa is accompanied by "six to eight black men." Norway? Netherlands?

 

EDIT: Netherlands it is. http://people.cornell.edu/pages/bs16/Chris...8_black_men.txt

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Hey, we can now revise the joke.

 

What do you call a white guy with 4 black guys?

 

Point guard.

 

What do you call a white guy with 10 black guys?

 

Quarterback.

 

What do you call a white guy with 6 to 8 black guys?

 

Santa!

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Oh man, that is awesome.

 

The words silly and unrealistic were redefined when I learned that

Saint Nicholas travels with what was consistently described as "six

to eight black men." I asked several Dutch people to narrow it

down, but none of them could give me an exact number. It was always

"six to eight," which seems strange, seeing as they've had hundreds

of years to get a decent count.

 

The six to eight black men were characterized as personal slaves

until the mid-fifties, when the political climate changed and it

was decided that instead of being slaves they were just good

friends. I think history has proven that something usually comes

between slavery and friendship, a period of time marked not by

cookies and quiet times beside the fire but by bloodshed and

mutual hostility. They have such violence in Holland, but rather

than duking it out among themselves, Santa and his former slaves

decided to take it out on the public. In the early years, if a

child was naughty, Saint Nicholas and the six to eight black men

would beat him with what Oscar described as "the small branch of

a tree."

 

"A switch?"

 

"Yes," he said. "That's it. They'd kick him and beat him with a

switch. Then, if the youngster was really bad, they'd put him in

a sack and take him back to Spain."

 

"Saint Nicholas would kick you?"

 

"Well, not anymore," Oscar said. "Now he just pretends to kick

you."

 

"And the six to eight black men?"

 

"Them, too."