Blog Against Theocracy!
7 April 2007 by Stardust
Thanks to BEEP! BEEP! IT’S ME and YouTube
“THEOCRACY: Government by divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. In many theocracies, government leaders are members of the clergy, and the state’s legal system is based on religious law. Theocratic rule was typical of early civilizations. The Enlightenment marked the end of theocracy in most Western countries. Contemporary examples of theocracies include Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Vatican.”
8 April 2007, on 5:30 am
Leave it to a woman to throw the spotlight on the base human nature of patriarchy! Brava, Susan!
8 April 2007, on 8:52 am
I’ve noticed that, too. When I was young and couldn’t escape it, my parents, staunch southern baptists, dragged me to church, sunday school, the whole hocus pocus. Yeah, ‘hocus pocus’ pretty well sums it up. Since I was musically inclined I wound up in a musical group that would go to other churches and perform. We were down south of the state, listened to a sermon in which ‘worldliness’ including that horror and offence to gawd…dancing were inveighed against.
We got up to play, began, and people got up and started dancing, including the preacher.
I asked about this, and was told they weren’t dancing. It was only dancing if you crossed one leg in front of the other. Then you had sinned and you were off to hell. They didn’t cross a leg so they were safe, but one mistake, and ZAP!
As a guiding principle that’s right up there with ’step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back.’
8 April 2007, on 10:43 am
I was raised southern baptist as well, and remember my father, who was a deacon, invariably fell asleep during the sermon, and even snored at times.
Regarding dancing, I heard this joke recently: Why are baptists so vehemently against premarital sex? Because it could lead to dancing!
8 April 2007, on 11:12 am
MoeNeigh…good one. LOL!
As for falling asleep in church, my hubby once fell asleep and fell forwards much like in the Mr Bean video above, and he bumped the back of a lady in front of him, sat up quickly and SNORTED. I was so embarrassed! It’s awful to think back on the past years we were churgoers torturing ourselves like we did.
8 April 2007, on 7:43 pm
So the “Charleston” is a sin, but the “Tiwst” is okay?
9 April 2007, on 12:08 am
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”–Thomas Jefferson
Thought I’d share.
hj
9 April 2007, on 3:27 am
Why the confusion? Of course it’s not dancing if you don’t cross your legs, rather like it’s not sex, according to Bill Clinton, if some dumbo performs fellatio on you.
The hypocrisy of religious people never ceases to amaze me.
Rather like the Phelps family the other night on TV saying that homosexuals should be murdered because it is against their [the Phelp's] god’s law - but these psychopathic monsters were actually wearing clothing of two threads whilst they said it, which is also an executionary offence according to their fucking idiot ‘god’. “Oh, but that’s different - that’s just evidence of our hypocrisy.” Yeh, right, that’s OK then!
Well, I’ve got news for all you shitheads out there: your ‘god’ reserves a special place for hypocrites like you - it’s called hell! And that’s where you’d be going, if any of that crap you spout was real!
9 April 2007, on 5:59 pm
Gack! I just realized why that thing with “crossing legs” sounded so familiar!
Back in the day, when I was in NursingSchool, one of the woman students (we only had one male!) was taken aside and admonished for her walk! Not that it was sexy (no, not really) but because she kept her thighs “thisclosetogetheratalltimes” that she placed each foot in front of the other as if she was walking a tightwire! No one else thought anything of it–until Mrs.G accused her of…how do you say masturbation without saying it…but that’s what she implied! The student, a divorced mother of two, was horrified, as Mrs.G had hinted the student could be expelled!
What else could you expect — it was 1964 and Mrs.G was a dried-up-old-prune, spinster and ex-Army Nursing Corps officer/retired?
Gack…
9 April 2007, on 6:04 pm
Naomi,
Shouldn’t the woman have been stoned to death for being a divorcee, never mind her so-called masturbatory walk?
9 April 2007, on 7:53 pm
I think stoning had gone out of fashion by then. Much more fun to torment them mentally than the relatively quick death by pelting…
10 April 2007, on 8:10 am
Hey, thanks for heads up
11 April 2007, on 2:42 am
Good quotations!
MoeNeigh @ 3: I first heard it as:
Why don’t Calvinists have sex standing up?
It might lead to dancing.
It’s actually in the film Rob Roy, but I have an Irish Catholic friend who heard it growing up.
11 April 2007, on 8:52 am
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