So, while I was out today, the kindly folk down at Charity Baptist Church left a copy of the ten commandments (Ten Commandments? Should that be capitalized? Probably. If there's anything I learned in church, it's that God loves proper nouns) on my doorstep.
Here's where I'm confused: It says that the second commandment is, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Now, I've got a pretty good memory, and I even did a brief stint in Catholic school, but I swear to not God (because somehow, it just feels wrong right now) that I have never heard this commandment. What does it even mean???
Damn it. If I only I hadn't missed them. First of all, I would have my commandment question answered. Secondly, I like talking to those door-to-door Christians. I feel that, due to my sales background, I can relate to these people. Mortgages, frozen food, Christianity... It's all the same basic concept when you're trying to hook someone. So to take my daily frustrations from my sales job out on them, I like to play the asshole potential customer game. I'll ask questions like, "So, what can you offer me that Order of the Sacred Poptarts cannot?" Or, "Do you ever worry that maybe the Scientologists are right? Because how much would that suck?" "Why don't you guys believe in dinosaurs? That's just silly,"
And that's when I try to flip it and sell them science. Not because I don't believe in a higher power, but because I just generally don't take being told that I'm wrong very well. At this point, they usually give up and hand me the second flier. The, we-give-up-because-you're-clearly-going-to-Hell-and-there's-nothing-we-can-do-about-it flier. Which just isn't very nice at all.
Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM ...it teaches you all you need to know about the ten commandments (I subscribe to the belief that the "ten commandments" should not be capitalized unless talking about the Charlton Heston/Yul Brynner movie).
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, as a lapsed Lutheran I can say that many of us consider the Catholic Church to verge on idolatry. Basically, the command is a very indirect way of saying that one should not worship "false idols" such as the golden calf that the Israelites briefly worshiped after leaving Egypt.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, this is a slippery semantic issue. Obviously, the Catholic Church is quite fond of ornate religious artwork. The difference, I believe that they would argue, is that they use the artwork to commemorate and worship their God, whereas pagans worship the images themselves, whether golden calves or totems or golden calves or whatever.
A silly, self-serving distinction? Well, I think so. And don't get a Protestant started on the strange Catholic fixation on the Virgin Mary.