Possibly the angriest entry ever.
Fuck Stewart Lee. And fuck all Dawkins-type hardcore atheists who choose to adopt some kind of intellectual highground because they've foregone faith in favour of pure reason.
Maybe, just for once, could we not use humour against religious irrationality as a means of sneering at people who believe in any kind of theistic totem or figurehead that aren't out to thrust their beliefs down other people's throats and just, y'know, want get on with their lives without doing anybody any harm?
That's the angry knee-jerk rhetoric out the way.
Stewart Lee's show, Comedy Vehicle, really offended me tonight. My hands are actually fucking shaking, I'm that upset. A while ago I talked about the power of comedy to offend and provoke in such a way that it makes people question the way they look at society and want to change it for the better; well, this sure as FUCK was not one of those times.
Stewart Lee was talking out against bigots who defend their views with the phrase 'Political correctness gone mad'. I have no problem with that, in that sense he's got a point; some (but not all) people who use this phrase do have a hidden racist/sexist/prejudiced agenda.
But what angers me is that while he's saying that, he also makes a joke about how being religious is on a par with having a mental handicap.
And it's at this point I want to tell him to FUCK RIGHT OFF. That kind of pathetic sneering name-calling is complete bollocks. For a start a mental handicap, unlike most forms of religious belief, is not a voluntary part of life. It's something that is forced upon you, you can not ever shake off and can be at worst utterly fucking debilitating. While the effects of extreme religious fundamentalism can be harmful and destructive and are just as likely to be forced upon you, for those that are moderate in faith, it is something that not only do they practise with respect to other people, but also they have the right to question and the ability (should they choose) to renounce it and walk away. And lumping the moderates in with the extremists and tarring them all with the same brush in a way that's both demeaning to them and those with mental handicaps (because not only does it make them a cheap target but also not many mentally handicapped people are as hateful as said extremists) - how the fuck is that politically correct, Stewart? And how is that also not incredibly hypocritical?
I'm not trying to say here that it isn't right to make any jokes about religion at all. To whit, there are tenets of Christian belief that are wacky and in some parts plain wrong (for example, Leviticus); those are fair game for humour. As indeed are the extremists and cultists themselves (Jerry Falwell, Osama bin Laden, L Ron Hubbard, to name some), because what they do is not preach faith but pervert it to suit their own hateful and/or self-serving purposes. It's humour against them that undermines their strength and helps to prevent us from falling under their lead.
I should also admit that while autism and other mental handicaps in and of themselves aren't funny, it's not impossible to find humour in certain things that, say, my brother does. Yes, some of the traits of his autism are pretty bleak (like constantly needing adult supervision) but at the same time it's very hard not to laugh when, for example, he pretends to sit on the crockery shelves in John Lewis, especially because he thinks it's funny. And he once vomited on a duck. In all honesty, I find the idea of anybody puking on a duck funny, because of the surrealism of it; it just happened to be my brother that did it. His autism doesn't make it any more or less funny.
But, I will say it again. Religion in and of itself is not a mental handicap, and a good number of those who follow it are good-natured, thoughtful and kind people. I'm getting more than a mite tired of people like Stewart Lee and Richard fucking Dawkins calling people like my religious friends and family handicapped or idiotic just because they choose to believe in something beyond science. The people that I know who practise faith (who I believe to be akin to the majority of religious people) don't forcibly thrust it upon anybody else, they don't denounce those who believe differently; some, get this, right, actually have an open mind to, and respect for, different ways of believing (unlike, funnily enough, Dawkins, whose condescending prose scattered throughout The God Delusion I grew very quickly tired of). And it's not stupid for people to believe that something greater than human life is looking out for us in some way, or that there's something beyond this life after we die; if that gives people strength and hope, and motivates them to live in a moral way and do good for other people then surely that's a positive way to live?
Surely more positive than making cruel and patronising jokes?
Maybe, just for once, could we not use humour against religious irrationality as a means of sneering at people who believe in any kind of theistic totem or figurehead that aren't out to thrust their beliefs down other people's throats and just, y'know, want get on with their lives without doing anybody any harm?
That's the angry knee-jerk rhetoric out the way.
Stewart Lee's show, Comedy Vehicle, really offended me tonight. My hands are actually fucking shaking, I'm that upset. A while ago I talked about the power of comedy to offend and provoke in such a way that it makes people question the way they look at society and want to change it for the better; well, this sure as FUCK was not one of those times.
Stewart Lee was talking out against bigots who defend their views with the phrase 'Political correctness gone mad'. I have no problem with that, in that sense he's got a point; some (but not all) people who use this phrase do have a hidden racist/sexist/prejudiced agenda.
But what angers me is that while he's saying that, he also makes a joke about how being religious is on a par with having a mental handicap.
And it's at this point I want to tell him to FUCK RIGHT OFF. That kind of pathetic sneering name-calling is complete bollocks. For a start a mental handicap, unlike most forms of religious belief, is not a voluntary part of life. It's something that is forced upon you, you can not ever shake off and can be at worst utterly fucking debilitating. While the effects of extreme religious fundamentalism can be harmful and destructive and are just as likely to be forced upon you, for those that are moderate in faith, it is something that not only do they practise with respect to other people, but also they have the right to question and the ability (should they choose) to renounce it and walk away. And lumping the moderates in with the extremists and tarring them all with the same brush in a way that's both demeaning to them and those with mental handicaps (because not only does it make them a cheap target but also not many mentally handicapped people are as hateful as said extremists) - how the fuck is that politically correct, Stewart? And how is that also not incredibly hypocritical?
I'm not trying to say here that it isn't right to make any jokes about religion at all. To whit, there are tenets of Christian belief that are wacky and in some parts plain wrong (for example, Leviticus); those are fair game for humour. As indeed are the extremists and cultists themselves (Jerry Falwell, Osama bin Laden, L Ron Hubbard, to name some), because what they do is not preach faith but pervert it to suit their own hateful and/or self-serving purposes. It's humour against them that undermines their strength and helps to prevent us from falling under their lead.
I should also admit that while autism and other mental handicaps in and of themselves aren't funny, it's not impossible to find humour in certain things that, say, my brother does. Yes, some of the traits of his autism are pretty bleak (like constantly needing adult supervision) but at the same time it's very hard not to laugh when, for example, he pretends to sit on the crockery shelves in John Lewis, especially because he thinks it's funny. And he once vomited on a duck. In all honesty, I find the idea of anybody puking on a duck funny, because of the surrealism of it; it just happened to be my brother that did it. His autism doesn't make it any more or less funny.
But, I will say it again. Religion in and of itself is not a mental handicap, and a good number of those who follow it are good-natured, thoughtful and kind people. I'm getting more than a mite tired of people like Stewart Lee and Richard fucking Dawkins calling people like my religious friends and family handicapped or idiotic just because they choose to believe in something beyond science. The people that I know who practise faith (who I believe to be akin to the majority of religious people) don't forcibly thrust it upon anybody else, they don't denounce those who believe differently; some, get this, right, actually have an open mind to, and respect for, different ways of believing (unlike, funnily enough, Dawkins, whose condescending prose scattered throughout The God Delusion I grew very quickly tired of). And it's not stupid for people to believe that something greater than human life is looking out for us in some way, or that there's something beyond this life after we die; if that gives people strength and hope, and motivates them to live in a moral way and do good for other people then surely that's a positive way to live?
Surely more positive than making cruel and patronising jokes?