I read this and immediately thought of our own culture.  In ancient rome women walked around with one or both boobs exposed, as do women in parts of africa, and it's not considered sexual or taboo.  It's taboo because it's forbidden.  A muslim woman in saudi arabia showing her face is the equivalent of an american woman showing her breasts.  And the equivalent of a woman in british antiquity showing her ankles, and so on and so forth.  As one of my favorite comedians, doug stanhope once said, if women were forced to wear gloves the handjob would be the ultimate sex act.  "Yeah she's such a fucking tease, she just palmed me for like 45 minutes, I didn't get the full hand." 

Haha.

In nudist colonies people don't walk around horny all day, because being exposed to nekkid ladies for a long time de-sexualizes it and removes the taboo.  I personally think that's insane - intellectually I know the taboo is irrational, but it makes sex and nudity soooo nice, so why get rid of it?  In the case of forcing women to cover their faces that seems a bit extreme, but maybe forcing women to cover their tits would seem extreme and archaic to someone from africa.

Maybe the tradition of berkas wouldn't be so bad if women were really getting off to it too.

But yeah, this made me see my own culture with fresh eyes, so I thought I'd share.

I wake up this morning, check my messages and find this:


 

So I click the link, and find:



As expected.

I didn't even know the thing had been submitted.  And while it's awesome that whoever did it and other folks spontaneously voted it to the top, if you'd have run it by me I'd have told you revelife would do this.  They have never featured a single one of my blogs, even when this one was submitted to them by the guy who fucking runs xanga.

They just send out the "we'd like to feature your blog" notice, then retract it to nuke it from the list of submitted blogs.  It's a silent form of censorship.

Fuck revelife man.

I found my old 8th grade catholic school religion book, and was reading through it.  Mainly because it's a 241 page disposable paperback book where the students write their answers in (which is why I still have it) and some of the answers I gave were priceless.  Man I was a funny little shit.

Er, but that's beside the point.

I was reading through it and a lot of it struck me as being very brain-washy.  This blog specifically is about the definitions of terms in the back of the book.  I went through with a pen and circled ones I thought were demented or insightful into the "official" catholic mentality (which I will share below, but please keep reading), and that lead me to think about various cults like scientology. One of the things that's always struck me as very creepy about cults is the manipulation of language to reinforce beliefs.  They will create their own glossary of terms for things there are already words for, or for concepts which can be explained in a word or two, and reassigning meanings to words that already have meanings so that only fellow cultists can decipher their dual meaning.  Two devotees, whether they are catholic or scientologist, can, if they know their terminology like good little believers, have a conversation which is totally impossible to follow to the un-initiated, using mostly fairly common words.  Conservative republicans also have many words that have coded double meanings.  "Family values" means anti-gay sentiments.  Comparing a politician to hitler is a reference to abortion and the constant insistence from anti-abortion folk that it's the "american holocaust" etc.

Anyway, you get the idea.  Speak in clear, direct language.  Convoluted, peculiar speech is to me a sign of a convoluted, peculiar mind.

On to the definitions!

Catholic: That identifying mark or gift of the church which enables her to teach the total message of jesus to all people everywhere and in every age; universal; world-wide.  (this one is so bizarre it seems more like they used the wrong word here)

Despair: The lack of trust in god's goodness and mercy. (This explains why christians, upon having spoken to an atheist for ten whole seconds, tell them how much "despair" they have, how "hardened" their heart is and so forth.  Their religion maintains that only the faithful have the will to get out of bed in the morning).

Dogma: Any truth or doctrine of the Church that has been revealed in Scripture or Tradition and defined by the Church.  Catholics must believe in dogmas. (Ironically the word dogma actually means a belief or opinion misstated as a fact.  Luckily the same catholic school taught me the difference between an opinion and a fact when I was about 6, so they kinda shot their own foot there.  Also, I'm being lazy about punctuation and grammar and all that, but I kept the capitalization accurate on this one, you may find it interesting...)

Fast: To take in a day only one full meal and two lighter meals that do not equal the main meal. (OMG what pussies!  Ghandi could fast a catholic under the table any day.)

Hope: The virtue of desiring eternal life with god and trusting god to assist one in attaining it; confidence in god.  Hope is one of the three theological virtues infused into the soul at baptism.  (Emphasis added.  Seriously, this is all kinds of fucked up.  Remember what I said about manipulating language?  I've been asked "but how do you have... hope?" by so many christians, some of whom are apparently delusional and setting up an ironic question that I can't answer to their satisfaction because they're using "their" secret sense of the word, and not, you know, the one we use here on earth.  I'll say it again, clear, direct language people.)

Infallibility: One of the traits of the catholic church whereby it is free from error when teaching matters of faith and morals.  Vatican council I defined the dogma of papal infallibility.  (They fail to mention that "vatican council I" aka the "first vatican council" was 18 centuries after the death of christ.  Apparently it just occurred to them 1,800 years after the apostles died that they were infallible.  If you don't know why the rest is bullshit, well, nothing I can say will likely help you to.)

Mental reservation: Speech that intends a meaning different from the spoken words when there is a good reason for concealing the truth.  The listener must have some clue that a reservation is being made. (Translation: rationalizing deception rather than owning up to it and saying "yeah I lied, but I had a good reason).

Profanity: Irreverent or unnecessary use of god's name.

Satanism: Worship of the devil.  Satanism is seriously sinful.  (That's actually not what satanism is, lmao.  But yeah, satanism is seriously sinful.  Like totally.)

Scandal:  Leading other persons to sin by bad example.

Sexuality: All the human qualities that characterize a person as a male or female.  (Oh     your     god.)

Theologian: Someone who studies the truths of our faith and tries to understand and explain them better. (Apparently there are no non-catholic theologians.  And theology is not an attempt to understand scripture, but to better explain the catholic dogma.  There were actually a lot more definitions like this that took general terms and excluded all non-catholics, but I didn't want to type them all out.)

Yeah, that's it.  There were only a few pages of definitions.

Hope you enjoyed and/or were creeped out by this blog.  If you were, please click the little "recommend" heartey button thing below, this blog took more time to write than my usual rants.