Blasphemy is Entertaining

I consider myself to be a lazy atheist. I’m not as intelligent as Richard Dawkins nor am I as boisterous and clever as Bill Maher, two people who famously try to educate the believers, so I am not skilled enough to try and express myself to the multiple congregations. I just sit back and enjoy my nonbelief in peace. But while I do not believe in any established belief system I must admit I have derived a large amount of entertainment from those belief systems. Or I should say I have derived enjoyment from the mockery and sacrilegious examinations of belief in various media.

For the most part I am going to stick to Christianity in this blog entry. Not that there aren’t other films that poke fun at religion, but Christianity seems to dominate the number of satires. Life of Brian, Dogma, the comic book Preacher, these are excellent works of media. They are also properties that have received vitriol hatred from the religious right and inspired more than a few protests and the occasional book burning.

Sadly all religious protesting has ever done for a film or book is encourage people to want to experience it more. Life of Brian was a small film from the Monty Python crew that received worldwide recognition due to its “blasphemous material”. Many members of the Christian right are so detestable in their shaming of the average citizen that any chance to rebel or anger them is welcomed by the rest of society, or the individuals looking for anything to rebel against. Much of this ranting from me is inspired by a graphic novel I recently picked up entitled Punk Rock Jesus (available at your local comic shop now). In it a clone of Jesus Christ, created to star in a reality show, grows up to essentially rebel against all the teachings favored by modern Christianity, essentially declaring himself an Atheist and joining the last punk rock band on earth. I can only hope this book sells out in droves.

What has never made sense to me about people protesting for religious reasons is why? Why does one care about the beliefs of others? This may have been what lead me to becoming an Atheist, but were I still a believer I would take comfort in the fact that I was going to Heaven and all the nonbelievers were going to Hell. And I wouldn’t care what those who are hellbound (not just the second film in the Hellraiser series) were doing. I’m not them. More room in Heaven for me. If anything it is beneficial for the righteous for there to be as many sinners as possible in world. Makes their good behavior stand out more.

Entertainment has long existed on parody. Taking the social and political environment of the day and openly mocking. And nothing has entwined its self more into society and politics than religion. And it isn’t just in modern times that entertainers have felt the need to speak truth to power. Plato, Socrates, even the brilliant Shakespeare had moments in his work where he mocked the concept of religion. Which could explain much of their popularity.

Now, while the title of this article says “Blasphemy is Entertaining”, I in no way think blasphemy is a good thing. Because I don’t think religion is a good thing either. Blasphemy implies going against the tenants of your religion while still being apart of it. Honestly if one feels the need to mock their religion they probably shouldn’t be a part of it anymore. The pop singer Madonna famously mocked Christianity and then said she still considered herself to be Catholic. To me, I would have just left the religion.

I also do not consider these things blasphemous because poking fun at schools of belief is no where near as offensive as the atrocities committed by the institutes themselves. People have used religion as justification for horrible things, so why not comedy at their expense as well? Many will be offended just by the suggestion that it is okay to mock religion. To them I say, Two Priests and a Rabbi walk into a bar….