God and Pseudo-Science

Today I discovered GodandScience.org, a very extensive website that claims to hold the correct interpretations of the Bible that will leave any atheist quaking in their cruelty-free boots. Interestingly enough, this is the first website that I’ve encountered that spoke to my specific original question, the question of why it appears that God created the sun after he created plants. As in explained in their page “Does Genesis One Conflict with Science? Day-Age Interpretation,” GaS.org believes that the sun, the moon and the stars were created initially, and a layer of “clouds and gases” were periodically lifted as the creation story goes on.

It appears that this website tries to use science to back up the Bible, and logic to show that Biblical teachings aren’t as crazy as an atheist would have you believe. I was almost with their logical approach until I saw a few more pages- one that explains (with some dubious studies?) that atheists are immoral, and one that explains how the human race will surely degenerate into complete sexual immorality to the point of having sex with robots.

Man, now I can’t have sex with robots? Religion takes the fun out of everything.

Maybetheist Anthems: Laura Marling’s Discography

Laura Marling has been many things in the few years that she’s been in the indie spotlight. She has been the short-haired, white haired waif who was too young to drink at the venues she was gigging at, she has been the long-haired back-up for Noah and the Whale (notably in “5 Year’s Time”), and recently she has been the dark-haired adult touring India and the rest of the world. But she has always, always been an old soul, writing music most people her own age can’t even comprehend.

(For the record, I am a whole eight-and-some months older than Laura Marling.)

Part of the reason why her music is so haunting is because it speaks of the deepest questions and emotions human face, including (but definitely not limited to) religion. Laura Marling seems to have a complicated relationship with religion, sometimes invoking God’s name in love or reverence, and sometimes in gentle mocking. For example, Laura sings, “if he made me in his image, then he’s a failure too,” in “Failure.” At other times, she uses God’s name for emphasis, such as in “It’s Only My Opinion,” when she says, “God, we’re so controlling/What am I to do?/I’m not going to sit here/And just wait for truth.” (I am obviously a fan of the last two lines, as I am trying to be a truth-seeker right now.)

Marling herself has admitted a few times to her own religious background, as varied as it is. In 2008, she said to The Sunday Times, “‘I don’t have a religious family…but I’m quite susceptible to religion. I went to church by myself until I was 12, then I was a Buddhist for four years.'” However, my favorite of her quotes came from The Sentimentalist Magazine in 2008; when asked to explain why religion is such a driving force of inspiration for art, she explained:

People are searching for some sort of feeling of community. Now a lot of people find it in atheism. I’ve never met anyone seriously religious and still young and did all of the things that young people do. If you put all the best parts of religion together you’d have a perfect person but there’s something that isn’t perfect about religion and that’s why there’s no perfect person. But the best freedom we have is the freedom to question (religion).

That’s the best approval of maybetheism that I’ve ever heard.

Jesus is for noblewomen, too

Vatican: Oldest known images of apostles Andrew and John found – Religion – CNN.com Blogs.

There are three main things that I love about this article.

1. “Their inclusion in the tomb shows the aristocrats were among the last Romans to convert to Christianity, archaeologist Fabrizio Bisconti said.” I wonder if this has something to do with Jesus and his words against wealth?
2. “The Vatican spent about 60,000 euros (about $74,000) on the archaeological work, it said.” I’m all for archaeology (I’m even considering a new major of Anthro) but perhaps this money could have been spent on spreading love and food to a needy world, rather than on illuminating a past world?
3. “The apostles were a group of a dozen men, according to Christian tradition, who spread the gospel of Jesus after his crucifixion.” I love that this article not only explains who the apostles were, but mentions nothing of resurrection. Way to be neutral, CNN.

This is an extremely short post because I am sick and cannot think clearly! Expect crazy Twittering.

Edited to say: This blog may now be reached at its own domain: TheMaybetheist.com

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Call My Name, Alejandro

“Well I struggle, I struggle with my feelings about the church in particular, but I guess it’s, quite honestly, completely separate, isn’t it? Religion and church are two completely separate things. But in terms of religion, I am very religious, I was brought up Catholic, I believe in Jesus, I believe in God, I am very spiritual, I pray very much, but at the same time there is no one religion that doesn’t hate or speak against or be prejudiced against another racial group or religious group or sexual group and for that I think religion is also bogus. So, I suppose you could say I am quite a religious woman who is quite confused about religion and I dream and envision a future where we have a more peaceful religion or a more peaceful world or a more peaceful state of mind for the younger generation, that’s what I dream for.”

-Lady Gaga on Larry King Live, June 1st 2010

Yesterday, Lady Gaga’s video for Alejandro (finally!) released over the internet. Now, I’m not going to pretend to have some secret insight into what it all means or anything like that. I can only tell you what it means to me.

After all, it wasn’t but a month ago that I was sitting into a coffee shop in a business meeting with one of my professors, the Reverend Dr. Robert E. Shore-Goss, the head of MCC In the Valley, and we started talking about Lady Gaga.

“I’m in a ‘bad romance’ with God!” I realized with a laugh. It only makes sense that my patron saint of discovery should be Lady Gagalupe.

Amongst imagery of homosexuality, Nazism, Cabaret, Fosse, Madonna, war, sodomy, and rape, there was very clear religious symbolism. A few of her costumes include a red, latex nun’s habit and a red and white robe (Wikipedia says this is reminiscent of Joan of Arc) that opens up to reveal panties with an upside-down, red cross. Near the end, in what appears to be a direct homage to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” video, Lady Gaga sings in front of a thin, black cross. At one point in the video Lady Gaga does something quite controversial, if Twitter is to be trusted: in her nun’s habit, she swallows the rosary she has been holding.

Described on its own, this all seems to be sending a message that she is subverting, perverting, queering religion. As an audience, we are left to ask why? What does religion have to do with a song seemingly, on the surface, about a relationship between a woman and a Hispanic man (or plural Hispanic men?). The Bad Romance video and song had very similar themes, and we can even see extremely subtle religious symbols in the Bad Romance video as well. But this video takes all of the subtlety away, making me wonder: are all of these songs, much like how I’ve been using them in my life, about a complicated relationship with God?

Finding an answer to this question is quite impossible; in fact, waiting for an explanation for this music video would be quite as futile as waiting for God himself to come down and tell me the secrets of the universe. However, I have a few theories. Much like what I am trying to do with The Bible and find clues to interpret it, I am searching for clues on how to interpret the Alejandro music video.

(Yes, I am putting too much thought into this. Yes, I know. Yes, it’s two in the morning. Why do you ask?)

One of the themes that I found so interesting to notice throughout the video was the theme of role-reversal. During some points in the video, the soldiers were dressed up in male underwear, shoes and socks, and at other times their underwear was female and they wore high heels. (One even wears fishnet stockings, both near the beginning and the end of the video.) Similarly, we see Lady Gaga being taken in quite submissive, sexual positions by a soldier, and then at other times (as pictured above) she is pictured as the dominant, in a “male” role. However, the most important instance in which role-reversal takes place is at the end of the video, in which we see flashes of what could either be rape (a circle of soldiers throw Lady Gaga, in her robe, between them and surround her) or an orgy (Lady Gaga sings to the camera as she seems to enjoy being in this circle of soldiers, who are paying more loving attention to her). The last flashes we see of this scene are of her getting rid of her robe, stripping down to her underwear from the bed scene, and staring at the camera. If it weren’t for this robe, this would seem to be saying that she is fighting to take control of her relationship (supposedly with a man named Alejandro). However, because this religious symbol is there, I am left to hypothesize that what she is ultimately struggling with is religion. If the end of the video is any clue, in which herself as the nun appears to be dead, she decides to either go without religion or rise above it.

Again, I note how fitting it is that my patron saint of discovery should be Lady Gagalupe.

“Do I believe in heaven? Or hell? I guess I believe I’ll go to heaven but I suppose I could go either way, couldn’t I.”

-Lady Gaga on Larry King Live, June 1st 2010