It's finals time and I should be studying, so, naturally, I'm posting.
ABC News is doing a highly entertaining series on religion in America. Tonight's installment:
"Is spanking a religious duty?"Apparently those crazy Christians, in further support of the theory that you can find a Bible verse endorsing absolutely anything, have found a pearl of Old Testament wisdom to use as proof of divinely sanctioned spanking: "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly." (A gold star to anyone who can find me a Bible verse that says God wants me to kidnap a certain Academy Award®-winning actor with duct tape and poison darts and chain him to my bathtub.)
According to one good Christian woman quoted in the broadcast version of the story, God even designed the human posterior specifically as an ideal spot for spanking without inflicting serious injury. That God, He just thought of everything.
I wonder if there's anyone out there who tries to live as a genuine Biblical literalist, complete with all the contradictions and unbridled vengeance. They can't wear any blended fabrics, they can't eat any seafood (because
God hates shrimp)–but they can paddle their progeny to their pure hearts' contents.
It's even lawful in Alabama and 22 other states to slap around other peoples' kids in school and remain immune from prosecution or lawsuits–in fact,
"Teachers can spank kids black and blue!" And all this time, I was thinking the wooden slab my high school psychology teacher wielded as the "board of education" was just a joke.
Maybe they can spread the benevolent bludgeoning across the nation by including a corporal punishment provision in No Child Left Behind to take over for some of the fines and funding cuts for "failing" schools. That'll learn 'em.
But, really–why aren't they publicizing this more? That "teacher shortage" you always hear about would clear right up.
And finally, we get
"Christian cheerleaders full of 'holy' spirit." Aside from the delightful irony of the less-than-scrupled picture and the group's acronym being "FCC," this one is absolutely ridiculous.
"The ultimate judge of each routine is believed to be God himself." I'm sorry, but it's ludicrous enough that these people expect us to believe a supposedly infinitely perfect deity created this decidedly imperfect world out of no discernible motive, but then to accept that it created a bunch of perky plebeian high-schoolers to cheer for it and sits around deriving entertainment or esteem, neither of which it should desire in the first place, from their sub-par dance routines?
I miss Peter Jennings and that great "what a load of bullshit and what a bunch of fucking losers" smirk he gives after reporting stories like these.
