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[MacSpirit] Weaning you off the Kool-Aid (tm): Fallacies of Christianity... and the Mac religion 4/9/01
Two weekends ago, I was interviewed for a documentary. This reporter wanted to record my comments on
the topic of the Bible and slavery. As he set up his camera, lighting
and microphones, I wondered aloud why he wanted to interview l’il
ole me. It seems that he’d run across a local NPR
reporter who’d done a piece last year about the ongoing religious/Mac-cult
juxtaposition in my writing, and my perspective seemed along the
lines of what he wanted to address. Also, it seems that I’m infamous
in some Christian circles: a now-defunct web site I’d created was
labeled heretical by the Christian Powers That Be on the internet, because
I said such blasphemous things like “Christianity doesn’t
teach nor encourage critical thinking about Christian dogma.” Oh, mercy me. Good, Lawd! Anyway, this reporter, asked me a series of questions,
all leading up to this: does the Bible condone slavery? I said yes, and added that it amazed me to no
end that Civil-War-period Christians ostensibly didn’t understand
the quandary they'd put themselves in when they tried to argue their
position on slavery from the Bible -- it didn’t matter if they
were for- or against slavery. The Old Testament supports slavery, plain
and simple. Yet, the New Testament appears to frown upon slavery ("there
is neither, Jew nor Gentile, free nor slave, male nor female”)
and condones it at the same time (go and read the book of Philemon).
And those were just the beginnings of my, uh, road to blasphemy.
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition…
Several years ago, I seriously considered attending
a seminary. I was an up-and-coming “lay” minister
in a small denomination in this piss-ant town in Georgia. It all occurred
by a fluke, really. It was a time during which my denomination was experiencing
a re-examination of its core tenets; its leadership boasted a progressive
theology based on the belief that each member had God-given gifts and
abilities that should be used for the “edification of the body
of believers.” It was during this time that I was asked to present
sermons, lead song services, give church announcements, etc. All of
this was a way of testing to see where my “spiritual gifts”
lay. Being a college professor at a nearby university,
it was natural to assume that I had some variation on the “gift
of gab.” This turned out to be true. Couple my new speaking duties with well-received,
unsolicited submissions to religious publications, and I became somewhat
of a sought-after speaker, within and outside of my denomination. As
they say, I was “going places.” I would often tell my wife
during this time that “just because a nigger can string together
a few sentences, they think that I’m a spiritual mensa.” Then the “godly” got ungodly on me. What was at first celebrated was subsequently
disdained. I began receiving lots of one-on-one instruction on “humility”
and “vanity.” Rumors began to spread about me, saying that
“Satan had puffed me up with pride.” I tried to find out who
said such things and discovered that it was my pastor. He said that
I needed to repent. In the spirit of Christian love, I told him to
kiss my black ass. They excommunicated me. I repeated the aforementioned
request, again in the spirit of Christian love. The next few months comprised a period of disillusionment,
to say the least. I had already, before the above incident, begun to
question many of my beliefs after seeing that they just didn’t
add up:
And my biggest personal heresy, which is the main reason I was excommunicated:
You see, you can't have religion without control.That's the dirty little secret that got me excommunicated. Religion is all about control. And that's no more spiritual than the "secular" corporation. That's the "heresy" I espoused. I can feel many of you shunning me as I write.
But, I love you!
The only difference between religions and cults
is time, like Charles Jaco says. The Mac religion has turned into a
cult, as I've pointed out time and again (this is my last time doing
this... for now). I have no problems with the “religious”
aspects of the Mac world. Hell, I’m prone to much genuflection
myself. But I think both Christians and Mac users (the similarities
are startling if you are willing to look at them) need iconoclasts and
heretics like myself who will, from time to time, remind us to not take
it too seriously. Charles Jaco also says that there isn’t
really too much difference between your Sunday school and the Branch
Davidians. The Branch Davidians are Sunday school taken too far. I should hasten to add that I believe in God.
I believe in a Creator. But I don’t believe in church. I’ve
seen the narrow-mindedness, intolerance and sheep-mentality that it
breeds. However, I must also add that I don’t consider myself a
spiritual liberal. I don’t play with Ouija boards, Transcendentalism’s
crystals, spirit guides, Scientology (John Travolta don’t sue me,
please), or any of that other junk. I have definite rules of right and
wrong (apparently, so did Hammurabi, from whom Moses ostensibly derived
his Ten Commandments). And I also don't claim the final word on spiritual
Truth. Also, I love my Mac. I wouldn’t use anything
else -- at the moment. My eyes are open wide enough not to have blind
allegiance to Apple. Apple will have to work for my dollars henceforth,
just like any other manufacturer. Just like any other church. And I
even will attend “church services” at those other shrines,
like Gateway Country, even though I have my religion of choice. Again, Mac users have many parallels to what I’ve noted above. For example, many Mac users will unflinchingly proclaim the following:
For each of these, and many others, I can give
you many instances where each point is not true. Of course, we realize
that 5) can't be proven wrong. People often wonder why the Mac isn’t taken
more seriously. Well, the reason is two-fold: 1) Apple always finds
a way to mess up a good thing and 2) Mac users can turn people off with
their wild-eyed fanaticism and insistence that the Macintosh is The
Way. Even if that were true, our proselytizing will surely turn away
those potential Mac users -- even moreso, if we try to "convert"
people based on erroneous and self-contradictory beliefs. If we’re going to be so over-zealous about
the Mac, we may as well go totally overboard and drink all of the Kool-Aid
(™). Or, am I too late on this point? (For those of you who are too young, or too historically ignorant to know that Kool-Aid reference, I’m talking about Jim Jones and his Guyana cult. Go and read about it.) I don't believe I'm wrong about how too many of us claim that the Mac is perfection epitomized. But, I do leave room to admit that I may be wrong about Christianity and my Christian brethren. I'm not worried about being wrong, even if I
am wrong about such things as hell (in which I don't believe: the Greek
and Hebrew original translations of the word "hell" mean,
literally, "the grave." no more, no less). For if I do end
up going to "hell" when I die, I won't have time to worry.
I'll be too busy "high 5'ing" and greeting all of my friends
:-)
This column is © 2001 Rodney O. Lain. All rights reserved. The Mac Spirit logo is by Copzilla/Denton's Graphics.
View the Mac Spirit archives
About Rodney O. Lain A former journalist and college prof, Rodney lives in Minnesota, where he freelance writes by night and works by day as a junior manager for a Fortune 50 company (daily he bemoans the fact that he was assigned a Gateway laptop by the IT guys). He has a soft spot for H. L. Mencken, Steve Jobs, Prince, Richard Wright and other well-known status-quo breakers. Rodney also writes "iBrotha" for Mac Observer and "Things Macintosh" for Low End Mac. Also, he writes about religion, race and culture at his website iBrotha.com.
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