Friday, December 18, 2009

Bah, F***ing Humbug

Oh. Mygod. I am so past ready for this country to be done with its goddam neo-Puritan phase. What on earth does it take for us to marginalize these hateful, destructive lunatics? Maha sez:
Does that mean they’re going to fast until the health care bill is defeated (she said, hopefully, thinking that this could take a while)? Apparently not; they’re just going to pray a lot. Anyway, I’m saying that any self-respectful wrathful omnipotent being would have sent enough lightening bolts to vaporize the lot of them by now. Yet members of the Family Research Council are still corporeal.
Exactly.

I got one of those toxic emails from a coworker the other day, you know the one about demanding that everyone say "Merry Christmas" and expressing great offense that anyone should dare utter the dastardly words, "Happy Holidays".

Now, it's true that I'm not a religious person - in fact, I'm pretty namby pamby on the issue of religion. But I was raised as an Episcopalian and I have decidedly fond feelings for the Episcopal Church and pleasant memories in particular of the Christmas service. And it just infuriates me that rightwing assholes use religious language to claim exclusive dominion over the right to call themselves "Christian" when, to me, their practices are anything but. So, against my better judgement I responded to the stupid email, and did my best to keep it civil despite how pissed off I was:
The point is that not everyone is celebrating Christmas at this time of year. As a Christian, I was raised to celebrate this time of year as a time of peace on earth and goodwill towards all, not just those who share my religious faith.
Which garnered this snooty reply from my coworker:
Sorry, Ann, it’s that time/day of year when the birth of Christ is celebrated. Peace on earth can be anytime people choose to participate in making peace happen.
And, yeah I shouldn't have, but I replied:
Of course it can, and you don’t need to be “sorry”. It’s just that other people celebrate other holidays this time of year also that aren’t Christian. I was raised to honor that fact, and I never experienced that as any kind of diminishing of the significance of my own religious celebration.
I'm sure you can see that this is not going to end well. Here, again, is my coworker:
I stand on facts and truth. I’m sorry for those who do not seem to know, the real significance and stand on human, commercial babble.
I truly wished I had not sent this to you.
Let’s ends this. No more correspondence on this, please. We clearly are not like believers in Christ. For that I am truly sorry.
Ah, the classic smug sanctimony and passive aggressiveness of the religious wingnut! Standing on "facts and truth"! She's truly "sorry for (me)"! And, having shot off that little bullet, she then suggests that we "end this" now. Uh huh. NOT:
No, *****. You can’t insult me and expect me not to respond. No we are not “like” believers in Christ, and for that I am most definitely not sorry. I am sorry for those who feel the need to disparage others in order to feel good about themselves, who consider themselves to have a corner on the market of “facts and truth” and imply that others who disagree with them (on matters of FAITH, no less!) somehow “do not seem to know, the real significance and stand on human, commercial babble.” That’s the kind of tripe that drives people away from Christianity and diminishes the spirit of this season.
Well, I haven't heard back from her. I suspect she probably deleted my email without reading it, which is okay by me. Lawdy, save us all from the neo-Puritans.

And speaking of these same pseudo-religious assholes, our good friend Julie alerted me to yet another horrible toxic email circulated by them which contains several nude pictures of (supposedly) Obama's mother(!!) posing salaciously and it ends with the utterly nonsensical declaration:
“and keep reminding yourself that Obama is the first
BLACK President of the United States . Yeah, right.”
WTF is WRONG with these people???

5 comments:

Freewheel said...

Sorry Ann - your co-worker is a piece of work. She's holier than thou and you can't tell her otherwise.

Maybe you could ask her why Christians have launched a war on winter solstice, which is my favorite pagan holiday. After all, Christians chose the date for their Christmas celebrations to supplant pagan solstice festivals.

AnnPW said...

your co-worker is a piece of work.

Yeah, you don't know the half of it FW! Oh, the stories I could tell! She's a classic, prototypical rightwing religious wingnut, complete with crosses plastered all over her work station and a prominently displayed book of daily devotionals. Just so we all know how Christian she is. And, bless what's left of her heart, she's approaching 80 years old and is notorious within the department for being a class-A B*tch. Truth be told, it's not that hard to feel sorry for her. She's not a happy person.

Mike Thomas said...

An interesting quote I came across today...

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Probably doesn't apply so much to your friend, but on this topic it does.

Freewheel said...

Approaching 80? I think you need to leave some brochures for Christian retirement homes lying around her work area.

Julie said...

I read a news article about a group of preachers in New Orleans that have issued a call for civility, because even they can see that christians have become hateful, aggressive, lying a^*h#^$s.