She did so with a patronizing lecture on parenting,

“While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads. In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that – as great as her friends may be – we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.”

Perhaps it’s just me, a student of contemporary and ancient cultural anthropology, but the ritual and social recognition of human marriage are a complex trend and not at all as static or simple as “thousands of years of thinking about marriage” might implicate.

In fact, across those thousands of years of thinking about marriage monogamy is only one solvent for tribal and clan affiliation; it sits side-by-side with polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, and numerous other rites and contracts for matrimonial relationships. Perhaps Palin should be aware that arranged marriages still persist today in some cultures where children can be assigned to a potential mate even before the day they’re born. Maybe she’s thinking of the ancient Israelites and other cultures where a male could be married to multiple female slaves—or that marriages in other cultures also included not just a male and a female, but sometimes both partners also maintained harems of concubines, none of this was considered extramarital.

That’s only the scrim of the history of the subject.

Perhaps in those thousands of years of thinking about marriage we can look to the way that North Carolina used to think about marriage in racist terms, in 1875 they altered their state charter to include a law that prohibited blacks from marrying whites. North Carolina is in the news because of an ideologically driven amendment to their constitution that leaves strange wreckage of domestic partnership laws in order to deprive gays of any chance of being married in the state—an amendment that rings very similar to the miscegenation amendment of 1875.

After all, Palin, you know that you’re speaking to a dad—a dad of color—he might as well let his daughters know that states like North Carolina have a long, ghastly history of bigotry and prejudice against people of color. Just like they’ve voted to make certain gays are constitutionally deprived of their 14^th amendment rights, NC previously deprived blacks of those same rights—that to marry whom they wished.

To the “thousands of years of thinking about marriage” there’s a lot of history for this sort of behavior, after all bringing an outsider into the intimate bounds of the tribe or clan is unacceptable. If we looked at this obviously racist view of marriage in North Carolina in the same way that Palin does the world of today we would still have to live with that black mark.

Advice from Palin on this matter has been ignorant, patronizing, and overprivileged—and it resounds with the enduring reek of insensitive chauvinism.

Those thousands of years of thinking about marriage are still ongoing and hopefully with a greater modicum of wisdom than the 61% of North Carolina who voted on Amendment One and people like Bristol Palin. People who cannot bring themselves to be compassionate about why people marry and why depriving them of that right makes them second class citizens.

Not entirely the case, but for the most part, to communicate well with mainstream culture most media meant for a broad audience does try to keep religion as a cultural backdrop and not a main theme.

In the video game Mass Effect, Commander Shepherd must mediate a dispute over religious freedom on the Presidium Commons of a space station known as the Citadel when a hanar (basically a floating man’o’war jellyfish alien) wanted to preach about the Enkindlers. In Mass Effect, the Enkindlers are essentially a dead race known as the protheans who the hanar believe seeded their homeworld and lead to their eventual evolution into the sentient race they are today. The Enkindler religious belief is important to them amid other cultural artifacts. The hanar on the Citadel is “preaching without a license,” an act a little confusing to someone in the United States where preaching wouldn’t require a license.

Later, in Mass Effect 2, a batarian can be found on the asteroid space station Omega preaching on a box about how humans (like Shepherd) are a pox on the universe. “A blight. You, sir, are a blight.” And how their gods may yet return and raise them into glory over the other lower races. (Sadly, by Mass Effect 3, the batarian race will become all-but extinct with the annihilation of their homeworld.)

That’s science fiction.

The game Eternal Darkness views religion as a sort of poorly lit scrim against the real gods, a sort of gauzy backdrop of shadowplay as they move in the dark. Charlemagne is mentioned in passing but really it’s the old gods that hold sway along with their magic and other dead and gone civilizations. Of course, that’s because the game takes some very strong influence from Lovecraft’s Mythos writings and does an excellent job of it.

Then there’s the Diablo series—and the upcoming Diablo III—that borrows liberally from ancient Jewish and modern Christian mythology. With the major boss of the series, the eponymous Diablo, is a name for the Christian character of “the Devil,” there’s also reference to ancient gods like Baal—the name of any number of ancient local deities in the Middle East—and others taken from contemporary Western, especially German sources. In the game, there are several religious orders of vague cultures such as the Horadrim, there are chapels, there’s demons, and even angels. All central vestments of modern Christian mythology repainted into the Diablo universe.

Then there’s games where players get to play as gods, such as Black & White and From Dust—all extensions of the ever popular progenitor of the style Populous.

Of course, lest we forget, there’s things like Left Behind: Eternal Forces; but I’m not about to go into how badly that one went over when Kazz already did.

The current case that’s unfolding itself in Texas between a movie theater in Arlington, the Green Oaks Movie Tavern, and another one in Plano, the Angelika Film Center. In this case, the Dallas-Forth Worth Coalition of Reason sought to run family-oriented ads before movies (the advertisements are quite adorable, actually) but two times now they’ve been rejected by movie theaters on the basis of apparent policy or complaints after a deal had been struck to run them.

Advertisements connected to atheist interests commonly give rise to fake, astroturfed controversy. Although some of the campaigns have been loaded with deliberately caustic messages such as, “You know it’s a myth,” others have relegated themselves to simple messages such as “If you don’t believe in God, you’re not alone.” Both generate an equal level of surprise and appeal in local communities and with media organizations.

The DFWCOR advertisements display images of happy families, elderly, and smiling faces along with the message: “What makes our families beyond belief?” and “Our families are great without religion.”

Nothing stands out as controversial about this campaign. In fact, it’s possibly even more tame than any others that have received even more attention.

The first theater in Arlington rejected the advertisements after the deal was struck cited that they refused to run any religion-related ads before movies. FOX News, a news outlet well known for political and asocial distortion in their reporting, ran the story as if the advertisements were “directed at children,” rather than intended to be run in front of all movies at the theater.

The second theater in Plano recently agreed to take the advertisements, but then suddenly turned around and rejected them citing complaints from the community. Updates to the story have suggested that the decision to reject the ads came not from the theater itself, but further up the corporate chain. They had received complaints from people who had seen an article suggesting that the ads would be coming.

The story is still building, but this one is coming across like a very anti-social community intent on pushing these advertisements out of their sphere of influence.

For one, there’s literally nothing blatantly offensive about these ads to the reasonable ordinary person. Why certain community members felt the need to complain about it and the theater corporation decided to cave to their complaints feels somewhat strange.

We’ve seen this behavior several times before. With bus companies attempting to suppress or reject ads of an irreligious nature, with the florists surrounding Jessica Alquist who refused to deliver to her (although at least one was legitimately closed for the day), and even with billboard companies who refuse to put up advertisements for atheist groups. That’s not to say that advertisements haven’t been going up–sometimes not without a fight–but that there should be a fight at all, especially when billboards and bus ads in these networks run sectarian religious ads already.

I guess this wouldn’t be so apparent or demonstrable in the theater situation if the theater had done their homework initially (in the case of the “no religious ads” policy) and if the second one hadn’t accepted the ads just to have their corporate home office overrule them after that acceptance.

The problem is possibly all about exposure. If a few complaints from a small number of people can get an advertisement pulled; I wonder how many counter-complaints it will take for them to put it back up again or at least understand that they’re not dealing with a tiny minority of people they can just step on without consequence. It shouldn’t be necessary, but social pressure is already being used by one set of petty individuals.

The theaters in Plano do run advertisements for local religious organizations on a regular basis, so an atheist organization like DFWCOR wouldn’t be out of place amidst them.

Unlike many of the other mythological and fantasy archetypes, the literary addition of the lich is a relatively recent addition. Although the underlying history comes from a multitude of sources. The cognate for the word has a heavy weight from Old English and the German word lic referring to a corpse or body.

Many cultures have studies of ancient sorcerers who return after death to reanimate their own bodies. Most folklore from tribes that venerate their dead also suggest that the innate properties of the former person (given a connection to gods or a predilection to magic) could possess their former vessel. These expectations fuel a great deal of cultural awareness of the external spiritual worlds and the afterlife of the dead.

The best known example of the lich that I’m aware of comes from the Dungeons & Dragons game—which is well known for drawing on folklore and mythology of dozens of cultures (mostly European) and certainly the extent of the use of the term has grown out of the widespread appeal of D&D.

It’s not unexpected that geek culture would adapt to examine and redefine our understanding of the mythology of old and modern practices that involves it.

While each term used in the argument above is a discussion of external culture examining and categorizing internal Christian mythology and symbolism it hearkens back to the rise of the meme, “Zombie Jesus Day” in reference to the celebration of the holiday of Easter.

In a subcultural sense the terms and the argument in the poster will resonate in particular most boldly with geek culture. Well known for a sense of pedantry, an obsession with category and correctness, and that’s all that’s needed to attempt to morph a meme that’s seen as inaccurate.

Although, I doubt we’ll be seeing this meme take hold. It’s embedded too thoughtfully in the pedantry and doesn’t entertain enough of the pageantry.

As we’ve seen with previous memes often humor more than accuracy provides durability. The above poster may reappear next Easter holiday due to the nature of humans to categorize even their own thoughts and the mythology of others; however, the meme involving zombies will prevail due to its silly, irreverent nature.

No doubt the populations at odds in the Jewish myth of the exodous felt a certain amount of umbrage for the actions of one another. However, in the story, how could have the Jews or the Egyptians known that the god YHVH was purposefully changing the Pharaoh’s mind each time that Moses demanded that his people be released from their servitude.

I, for one, really loved the Eye of Ra transition effect between the different segments of the video.

Well produced and in some ways it pokes satire at modern foreign affairs—although sometimes these occurrences are little laughing matter.

This satirical faux news show is worthy of the Onion News Network.

Link, via YouTube.

Through December 20th, 2011 Audible.com is offering the Dalai Lama’s new book Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World for free!

I haven’t read it yet, but after reading a description I’m excited to see what’s in it.

In his new book "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World" His Holiness the Dalai Lama argues that religion is not a necessity for pursuing a spiritual life. Rather he proposes a system of secular ethics that transcends religion as a way to recognize our common humanity and so contributes to a global human community based on understanding and mutual respect.

I’ll post a review here once I’m done with it, but I have no doubt that it has some good advice to offer, so don’t hesitate to download it from Audible or get ahold of a physical or e-book version.

After a lengthy, involved battle against esophageal cancer, cultural critic, opinionated journalist, and ardent advocate of atheism, Christopher Hitchens has died.

Vanity Fair has published a report confirming and mourning his death.

His passing will be felt by many and he shall be missed by even more.

“Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

- Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011.

In his newest video, Rick Perry makes up confused lies about Obama’s administration and American jurisprudence while pandering to what can only be described as homophobic bigots as the Christian contingent of his audience.

Right now, this video has 257,247 down votes and only 5,493 up votes.

Not only does Rick Perry make himself a liar; but he also panders to Christians as if they’re ignorant, bigoted cretins. If this is the demographic that he wants to reach—homophobic idiots who don’t care about freedom of religion—I hope he loses his Presidential bid based only on that.

Gays openly serving in the military?

According to Rick Perry: non-ashamed Christians are homophobic, unpatriotic troglodytes.

Children not able to openly pray or celebrate Christmas in school?

Perry, Perry pants on fire.

The same laws that protect religious freedom of students to openly pray in school and celebrate Christmas prohibit public school officials from endorsing religion or leading prayer in schools.

Many who dislike the restriction placed on public school officials (acting as agents of the state) against endorsing religion or leading prayer often dishonestly misrepresent the trials of religious students who get in trouble in school as being it for their religion. For example, a student who disrupts class for opening her Bible and reading out loud during Geography gets sent to the principal for the disruption—not the Bible reading.

A student who gets disciplined for praying non-disruptively during lunch would have a case the ACLU would take against the school for suppressing her right to religious expression. Just like when they faced off against Colorado Springs School District 11 over a student’s right to wear religious symbols.

Rick Perry is complaining about the very underpinnings of what guarantees his right to freedom of religion.

Obama’s War on Religion?

I don’t know what people think has been going on under President Obama’s administration but he’s not really been that big of a friend of the separation of Chruch and State. Obama is also openly Christian and faced criticism for the fundamentalist views of the pastor at his church.

Religion—read: Christianity—has not suffered under Obama’s administration.

A vote for Perry is a vote for shameful bigotry and stupidity

If we want strong leaders in America, perhaps we should look for candidates who don’t insult not only the target of their bigotry but essentially portray their audience as unpleasant, shameful people.

America is already stronger than that.

Notable responses

If anything, revealing that President Clinton was far more overtly religious than President Bush is an interesting demonstration about how religiosity is reflected in our culture and among our politicians. Especially because we’ve seen a lot of propaganda attempting to reflect poorly on President Obama by claiming he’s a Muslim, and then shortly (almost in the same breath) blaming him for the wacko-crazy Christian church that he belonged to.

Politicians pander to people in the ways they believe they’ll respond to; religion is both a great divider and a powerful motivator.

Of course, we’re probably not going to see any sort of religious vs. non-religious schism in political frames since really most of the class and language warfare is reflected between the empowered groups and disenfranchised groups. It’s about groping around and holding onto power in the face of other groups trying to take it away — or, especially in the case of the Information Age, the Internet bleeding power away from concentrated groups who maintain themselves by attempting to indoctrinate their children (or citizens, or parishioners) by lensing them a false vision of the rest of the world.