The Risen Judge

Christ is love, Dredd is law. Love is law . . .



Christ is Dredd.

Blasphemy Is Boring

Two random examples of recent pop culture blasphemy: Jon Stewart brags about eating pork on Passover, Maynard James Keenan sings that "Christ is comin', and so am I." My objection is not that blasphemy is wrong, but that blasphemy is boring. The exception is blasphemy against Islam, simply because the phenomenon is much more recent, thus not done to death/resurrection. Islam is ripe for satire precisely because anything that hasn't already been satired is ripe for satire. The same is not true of Judaism and Christianity.

Jon Stewart is the latest in a long line of tradition-spitting Jews beginning with Spinoza (who also took on a Gentile name), and needless to say he is no Spinoza. Even Maynard's little wordplay is derivative, arriving over a decade after Al Jourgensen's riff that "the fathers who write that eternity is used to fight the sword / have filled you up with the devil's cock and he'll come in the name of the lord." The fact that artists and entertainers rely so much on religious imagery, even in the negative, is a tribute to its power. The story of Christ is compelling, no matter your belief or unbelief, and the allure of the chosen people is so strong even African-Americans pretend to be the original Hebrews. (I have no problem with blacks converting to Judaism, but to pretend they are Semites and I'm a Khazar is a little rich.)

I don't ask that entertainers try to live up to the example of Christ and turn the other cheek when it comes to the mock-worthiness of much religion (Leo Strauss argued that the Enlightenment never proved religion wrong, only mocked it to a standstill), but that they at least try to live up to the example of Voltaire. When I listen to Maynard James Keenan's umpteenth song about Christianity being an opiate for fools, I am drawn to the conclusion that anti-Christianity is the opiate of creatively bankrupt dimestore intellectuals. When I listen to Jon Stewart bragging about eating pork on Passover, I hear a pathetic man tied in a parasitic relationship of loathing to his ancestry. The greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment did not just seek to bash religion to death; they also sought to revive Greco-Roman virtues as a substantive substitute. There is no substitute substance to the modern pop culture blasphemers; there is only a relativist, history-blind dedication to the ephemeral. I don't believe they are the only two options, but if I did, I'd choose religion over blasphemy simply because, in these times, the former is less obnoxious.

Song Of The Day

"And we want to live over them like strong winds, neighbours of the eagles, neighbours of the snow, neighbours of the sun: thus live strong winds. And like a wind I yet want to blow among them one day, and with my spirit take the breath of their spirit: thus my future wills it."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Young Gods - Moon Revolutions

The men started dancing
The women are gently swaying
What are the children singing?
Outside
Oh little wind, we have no place to hide
Outside, outside
Dance little wind, show us the world around
Oh little wind, show us the way to kiss the ground
What side? Outside
Pas fermer les cieux ce soir
Pas fermer les cieux
What side? Outside

I'm the arrow now
I'm piercing up the sky
I'm looking for a heart
Looking for my eagle heart
I'm calling the moon
Calling the moon revolutions
What are the children singing?
Calling the moon revolutions
What are the children singing?
Calling the moon revolutions

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Rhyming Couplet Of The Day

I don't know but I've been told
Eskimo pussy is mighty cold
- Full Metal Jacket