Misreading the signs (Crosses and crosshairs)

[chimpkin]

I read a really complex, thoughtful blog post on the Huffington Post (I know) By a fellow I hadn't read before, named G Roger Denson.

The title of the piece refers to the recent censoring of a short art film at the Smithsonian. It was of a film of a crucifix being overrun with ants, part of modern art exhibit. it was censored at the behest of the Catholic League.

However, the post takes in a lot of different aspects of symbology; how it gets used, how a lot of people don't conscioulsly understand what symbols are, how artists play with symbols (I like to play with symbols...also crayolas), and that people become living symbols...which is a rather disturbing concept to me.

Well...not entirely. I take it back. Being a Pagan, I have done that...but it's for a temporary time,usually in a very-well-defined set of circumstances. When one takes on the aspect of a deity, it's only until the ceremony's over, yanno.

Not that it's not truethat people do become living symbols, of course, but the thought of subsuming my entire identity-all of it-to an abstract concept...is rather frightening.

Certainly going to pay attention to this guy in the future...but I was wondering if anyone here would be interested in going over there...taking a read, and maybe coming back here to discuss?

Anyway, I'll just leave this right here....


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/post_1544_b_806588.html

 

[John99]

Is this an abstract thread?

 

[chimpkin]

Abstract? *blinks in confusion*

It's referring to an article I've linked to in the original post...
Do we not do that around here?

I was under the impression we were allowed to link to stuff elsewhere, but not reprint, and it's a really complex essay, so excerpting would just wreck it.
And since it was such a thoughtful essay, I wanted to see what the community here thought of it...

Mods, feel free to delete thread if I've done something improper, and if so, apologies.

 

[jmpet]

Fron skimming the article quickly twice because it heavy-handedly written, I can only deduce we have a fixation with symbols- the simpler the better. A cross, a crescent. A star.

To be honest, the article actually points out how far we have come as a people if we do not need the fancy cathedrals anymore to believe in Jesus- belief in Jesus today is on the open block in places like this from people of all faiths.

Of course, you can also get caught up in believing the symbol itself and not what it represents. You kiss the cross not knowing why- you just kiss it; there are no atheists in foxholes.

So is the point of the article to suggest we no need idols to worship, perhaps?

 

[chimpkin]

Maybe his drawing in of those disparate subjects: art, politics, symbols, and religion, just appealed to me.
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I guess I find it interesting because the art I've done...and I won't say my art's terribly good, but I enjoy making it...I incorporate symbols in there, and often don't figure out why for some time afterwards. I tend to like and aspire to paint pop surrealism-lowbrow. Why? Blame it on my history of LSD use and love of comics...(BRIGHT....PRETTY....COLORS!!!:bravo

I am inclined to paint horribly morbid things, like people getting blown up or deformed animals (previous subjects) in dayglo, glow-in-the-dark cartoony style. I'm also a mishmash of spiritual inclinations, so those too are grist for the artistic symbol mill.
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I went online after the shootings in Arizona, and saw the postings of Jared Loughner. The man, in my semi-educated opinion, is a flaming schizophrenic.
Schizophrenics/schizoaffectives get symbols and reality confused. Apparently, so does the Catholic League.
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Now, the rhetoric on Fox news is, as always...hysterical. Not funny hysterical either. While they have a right to say it (although I don't know that they have an inalienable right to the public airwaves and cable utilities-that's debatable...),I judge them to be incredibly immoral as an organization for engaging in the hyperbole and, erm..."inaccuracies" is the best face I can put on it... that they do.

Because there are people out there who are either uneducated or delusive and they are going to believe what Fox tells them.Not that Loughner was one. I'm not sure what side-spur of reality he was on.
But I live in wingnut land, and I hear them repeat stuff that, since I don't listen to anything Fox puts out, completely gobsmacks me. And they believe it totally, never question a thing. The have more guns than my wife and I.
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Of course, you can also get caught up in believing the symbol itself and not what it represents.

People get them confused. A lot of people.

I've been kinda following PZ Myers' jousting with Catholics over some round white crackers.
Yep, PZ desecrated a Host. To at least one Catholic who emailed him, this meant that PZ was planning on physically injuring Christ-when he announced his plans. You can read the blog post here:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php.

When I was a Christian, I read the new testament a lot, and got that Christianity was about love for others, forgiveness, and being Christlike.

I read "Judge not lest ye be Judged," as an injunction against condemning others. Similarly, the injunction not to worry about the mote in someone else's eye until you've gotten the plank out of your own.

Christ (if he existed) seemed to want us to focus on our own shortcomings, and to be gentle with others.
This is a wise and kind way of living.

But I have found that a lot of Christians-not all, but a number of them, perhaps the majority in the evangelical movement, are just bone-deep hateful.
And it's not just my orientation or my gender and their disapproval thereof.

The most hateful ones are usually white, well-off, racist, and classist. Nor do you have to scratch them very hard to find that out. There's a lot of them.
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As someone who studied ceremonial witchcraft for a bit, the reason symbols are used (deliberately) is because they raise the emotions, the idea being to stack symbol upon symbol, raising one's emotional state to a point of ecstasy, transcending one's normal state of consciousness. I rather assume this is the whole point of the ornateness of Catholic churches.
But most people invest the symbol itself with sacredness...when the symbol is just a "finger pointing at the moon."

Advertisers use symbols to deliberately create an artificial need (in many cases). Otherwise ads would all look like classifieds. The object they are selling is equated with something else-mastery, sex, social competence..happiness.
I imagine all of us have had buyer's remorse? where we got exactly what we wanted and felt like crap about it? Maybe because we were subliminally told we were buying happiness. Instead we got product X.

Maybe part of the financial crisis is we somehow behaved like debt addicts as a group? that is, our debt made us unhappy, so we bought more crap to make ourselves happy b/c ads programmed us to think buying crap makes us happy, so we got more into debt, so less happy, so bought more crap, and rinse/repeat into the poorhouse...
I dunno. It was just a thought. No supportive data.

Anyway, sorry this post turned out so damned rambly. I'm having insomnia lately, and it seems to make my ability to stay on point way worse. Mind you, I execute random topic broadjumps even at optimum status.