Politics, Religion, Sex and Other Cocktail-Party Conversational No-Nos

These are the 3 most important things to human beings I guess, and open discussion of these matters (as opposed to discussion of the weather or what a nice hat you have) – and especially where alcohol is involved, has the potential to result in unplanned homicide.

That’s all I can make of the etiquette regarding discussions of politics, religion, and sex.

One weird thing that happened to me over the holidays is that I had time to read. I read Confessions of an Economic Hitman and Jesus Lived in India.

And I had time to think.

And I came up with the conclusion that here in the ‘First World’, we have replaced religious belief with the worship of material goods/wealth. The mall is our church; our gods are Prada, iPod, Sony, Ferrari, etc. We are not Christians or Muslims or Jews, but Consumers, strict adherents to the principles of Consumerism.

Some empires in history have replaced religious belief with government (Communist Russia & Rome’s Caesar come to mind), but in N.America, consumerism is definitely the religion de rigeur.

Having spent some time in India where I met very few atheists, it is strange to come back to this godless culture.

I’m not criticizing, just observing.

It’s not surprising that so many Christians have jumped ship – as members of the culture learned to read and think critically, the obviously philosophically unsound (pro-slavery, misogynistic) components of the bible (esp. old testament) have become unpalateable and the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater here.

I’ve never met so many staunch atheists as in Quebec, where the Catholic church was the real oppressor all those years. The Quebecois frequently blame Anglos or “the rest of Canada,” but in their hearts, they are sitting there with Sinead O’Connor on Saturday Night Live (the swan song of her career), knowing who the ‘real enemy’ was all those years.

Teaching people that masturbation/homosexuality/non-baby-producing-sex is hateful to a vengeful God (who will gladly grill you on a spit in hell for stuff like that) is a wonderful behaviour modification tool for an organization (the Catholic church) which benefits from having a large-as-possible, poor, ignorant, and guilty, worried populace.

People have now noticed that they haven’t been struck by lighning bolts for disobeying the Church’s teachings and have concluded that it is 100% bullshit….ie: there is no God.

I don’t agree with that, but hey, this is not about me!

So anyway, I’m thinking that this consumerism is different from, but equally as bad as wonky religions. We are destroying everything with our consumerism – we are like a plague of army ants or locusts, and we are ruining everything. The Rich are metaphorically eating the Poor right now.

I thought this was such a funny article, because I can read in WIRED now – just like in the bible – that everything is the fault of WOMEN:
Women Who Find Ferrari Drivers Sexy Contribute to Global Warming.

I guess some things will never change.