Religious warping of Popular culture

[Otis McNutt 395]

Picture this for a minute. It's 1998 and you're sitting in your friends living room battling Pokemon on Game boy (via a connector cable) when his mother comes in. "Quick hide your Gameboy!" Your friend says. "What are you guys playing?" The mother asks. "Oh we're just battling Pokemon" you say. The smile fades from the mother's face and is replaced by a vicious scowl "excuse me? Did you say Pokemon! Didn't you know Pokemon is a tool of Satan?

 

You then find yourself sitting through a half-hour . Long sermon on the evils of Pokemon. I'd like to say this scenario is fictitious but it actually happened to me. The "Mother" being my friend Greg's mom an Evangelical Christian. I recently reconnected with Greg over Facebook and during the chat asked "so how's your Mom" and he said "I don't know, I haven't seen her in six years" as you could probably surmise from the story several years ago Greg came out and his parents being good Christians promptly shunned him (and people ask me why I'm an Atheist).

 

The point of this post is, have you ever seen or experienced Religious warping of Popular culture?

[Necropolis 763]

[Sahaqiel 1232]

I'm sure that the Monster cans' hidden meanings are just easter eggs because Monster drinks are for edgy edgemeisters. The cross is a bit of a stretch though. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be more like a phi that represents an eye, because monsters.

 

Also there probably isn't pop culture that hasn't been warped towards a religious meaning. Religion pretty much exists based on retrofitting patterns that you interpret to suit your own needs, so it's no surprise that people go to such great lengths to find malevolent meanings in pretty much whatever so they can feel like they're being persecuted or that they're crusading against the literal Satan.

[Otis McNutt 395]

Who can forget..........

Zelda Level 3

I know that I've already mentioned Pokemon but......

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

Had an example but nah. Edited

Edited 8 Feb 2015 by L.L. Bean's Menswear (see edit history)

[Chase 390]

Is it the religion, or people? I don't think I've ever heard the Pope speak on Pokemon.

There are people with love and people without, in all places, and across all religions, races, and creeds. There are scared people, angry people, vindictive people. I've met angry, belligerent atheists, shall I pass judgement on all atheism based on my experiences? This world is not religion vs atheism. This world is love vs hate. Understanding vs ignorance. Compassion vs callousness. Forgiveness vs vengeance.

It's difficult to judge an ideology based on the people that follow it. If you want to see what "Christian" is, look to the source. Christ.

I think his parents are scared, quick to judgement, perhaps even prideful. But his mom was thinking of him. To her, Pokemon was bringing harm to her son. I don't agree with her, but I empathize with her.

[Necropolis 763]

The point of this thread isn't, all people who believe in religion are unreasonable crazy people, its, look at these crazy unreasonable people who justify their views with a religion.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

I would argue that there isn't really one interpretation of religion that is definitively the correct one. Like I said, religion doesn't exist unless you interpret it to suit your own needs.

 

That is why this Wikipedia page exists rather than just "the sect of Christ". So I can't actually say any of these people are wrong, per se. There are some that are entirely sketchy according to history, like the King James Bible, or Mormonism, but I can't call any denomination's beliefs more right or wrong than the belief that the Bible says that Pokemon is the devil and the Beatles are waging an unholy crusade with their devil music. They're all just about the same level of believability, containing all the same justifications.

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

Saha, the other day in the talk thread, you said that feminism is simply the belief that the sexes are equal. You said that everything else was connotation. I didn't reply to it because the conversation moved away from it.  

 

Religion isn't a bad thing. Religion is a set of organized beliefs/moral codes/etc. It's the connotation that has a bad reputation. Of course people can use this concept as they see it and it can have misinterpretations and bastardizations. Just like feminism. Just like religion, feminism isn't a tangible thing. 

 

just sayin'. You can't disregard feminism's connotations just because you subscribe to that particular belief, while religion's connotations are mocked. I don't have stake in this argument, I was simply pointing something out. This isn't specifically about religion or feminism.

Edited 8 Feb 2015 by L.L. Bean's Menswear (see edit history)

[Sahaqiel 1232]

There are distinct differences though. Feminism espouses one particular belief that doesn't really exacerbate any particular kind of behavior. It's not a matter of faith, but of empathy, ethics, and owning up to the history of humankind.

 

I view religion in practical terms. If you want something--ie, better health, a stable society--you take liberties in enforcing anything that goes towards that belief. Like saying gay sex is evil because it has a risk of certain preventable diseases (this in particular is why the focus is on male-on-male) blaming cancer on evil spirits, etc. The problem is that once you've cemented that idea in the faith, there's no self-correcting process based on societal changes. You have a set of rules and you have to constantly retrofit your religion to your society, because nobody follows those rules anymore. Further, faith by definition tells you to ignore any reason that might tell you otherwise. These are two things that have been well-demonstrated to affect the general population. It's not a connotation, it's an unavoidable side-effect that comes with the ideology, because religions don't change, but society does. You are required to interpret religion in a way based on your own confirmation bias.

 

Now, as a counterargument, you could say that the emphasis on women's rights that come with feminism might have a side-effect of a sort of toxic attitude towards male-dominated societal structures; sure, but the goal is still ultimately to make it so society as a whole isn't a male-dominated structure. You don't have faith in that it's the correct thing, you don't have to retrofit any ideas, because it's not about a scripture that laid out a story that doesn't change, it's about whether or not society is currently keeping up with its own ever-changing story. Comparing the two is completely ridiculous.

 

When I talked about religion above, I wasn't talking about any connotations, I was talking about what I view as a fact. Jews don't stone people to death anymore. They adapted to society. They retrofitted their beliefs. All these sects didn't pop up because religion is a rigid structure, it's because peoples' nature gravitates them to retrofit their belief systems to their societies and personal ideologies. But the reality is that religion is not like feminism--it really is rigid. There was a 100% real set-in-stone idea set forth that didn't intend to change whatsoever, forever, at least in terms of the Judeo-Christian religions. It's not supposed to change with society. But people change it, because people have the good sense to know what's wrong from them. Rather than a connotation, I would say it's the force of the concept that good ideas do eventually win out over bad ones. It's more about the people involved than it is about following the religion.

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

I said it wasn't about religion or feminism. 

 

It's more about the people involved than it is about following the religion.

 

That's my point. Same with feminism. Or anything. Religion and feminism and every other example are pure concepts. Both of those concepts were examples/tools to point out hypocrisy. No part of me is going to have a debate about religion or feminism

Edited 9 Feb 2015 by L.L. Bean's Menswear (see edit history)

[Sahaqiel 1232]

The difference is that religion is insanely subjective. What is feminism? Wanting equal treatment between the sexes. What is Christianity? It depends on your sect. Religions are not pure concepts, they are stories you have to interpret. It's like saying Harry Potter is a concept. The difference between a true democracy--one person, one vote--and theocracy--some government based on how you interpret a text, which could vary wildly. Feminism has a definition and a set of connotations. Religion has infinitely many definitions based on a narrative, followed by connotations based on which definition you've created.

 

This is such a fundamental difference. One is totally dependent on arbitrary interpretations. It teaches you that you must arbitrarily interpret things and twist words to suit your needs. So I'm saying that because religion relies on this idea, that idea is an inherent, fundamental part of it you simply cannot separate from it like you can with a connotation. Religion requires you to follow a narrative you cannot prove, and thus, you must justify why it is something you should follow. Religious children literally find it harder to separate fictional stories from real ones. This is me being totally soft about it too, because all I'm saying is that as a religious person, you are required to have a unique, self-determined reason for why you follow it that can differ wildly from everyone else. It's not a connotation, it's a fact. I'm not saying that all religious people are out of touch with reality to some degree, though it is certainly something I feel, and that's not what I'm commenting on this about. So sure, the people involved may twist the religion, but it is by the very nature of religion that they do so. Because religion is not a definition, it is a narrative. My motives for saying this are not the same as someone saying that Christians are all hypocritical holier-than-thou people who want to exterminate the Muslims. That's a connotation. That's a stereotype. What I'm saying (as I view it) is completely redundant--religious people are religious. They are required to retrofit their texts to what they want to see.

 

Which is why we have a high incidence of religious people who look for conspiracies in things they don't like. They're taught to believe that they're allowed to find Satan in whatever they want. I'm not saying this doesn't happen in feminism too, but when it does it's for a totally different reason.