Monday, April 09, 2007
Why I don't write about the Catholics occupying channel 3 on Comcast or How to piss another religious group off
Channel 3 on my loverly Comcast[TM] cable network is current showing nothing but the ever-famous ETWN (Eternal Word Network) a.k.a. the angry Nun channel. I used to watch ETWN for fun when it was on channel 72 or whatever on Comcast[TM], but after being removed from the cable network for a year or so, they are back, decidedly so, on channel 3 where they used to show Park City TV and a ton of fun snowboarding and skiing highlights.Now I salute Comcast[TM] for being committed to religious diversity, especially since they offer 2 channels devoted to LDS concerns and one (channel 72) devoted to fundamentalist concerns, but come on! Put ETWN back on the high end of the dial where I can surf between evolution and poker.
In any case, I was very amused while wandering around between the Simpsons (who had a great slam on Utah, by the way) and Family Guy, to find either a Benedictine or an Augustine Monk (can't tell the difference between their gray garb) proclaiming that "Jesus was offensive to all the religions of his day" since he proclaimed himself or was proclaimed the son of God. He also mentioned that Mohamed would have been very offended by such a proclamation, because (like the Jews) followers of Islam believe that God is one god and that there can be no "son" of god.
Now all of that is sound, in that both Islam and Judaism proclaim that. His next claim, however, was extraordinarily specious: pagans (i.e. the Roman/Greek religion) would also never accept that a man could be god.
I stood (yes I was standing), stunned, not thinking of my next hit of the button to change channels. I had to wonder if this monk really believed that. Did he not know that Julius Caesar was declared a god by the Romans? Did he not know that Augustus (while seemingly denying his elevation in lifetime) was also declared a god?
What about the ever-problematic Caligula? He proclaimed himself to be Jupiter himself.
Nero too.
Claudius, the god.
Ignoring cultural context and proclaiming something unique seems to be a rather human foible.
Labels: history, religion, Rome
¶ 7:13 PM 5 comments
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