Geek - Nerd - The Big Bang Theory - Forum - Portal - Fan Site - Fanseite - Fansite - CBS - Pro7 - ProSieben - TV Series - TV-Serie - TV Show - TBBT - BBT - DVD - Blu-ray - Script Download - Screenplay - Geek Nerd Gadgets

 

Den folgenden Artikel hat eine gute Freundin von mir vor ein paar Jahren geschrieben und mir erlaubt, ihn hier mit euch zu teilen. Wieder eingefallen ist er mir bei einer der Debatten über Religion.

Ursprünglich wurde Sympathy for the Devil in eMAG 02|2005 veröffentlicht.

Sympathy for the Devil
Behind Enemy Lines 3: at the Theology department

The sound of her voice, the lovely tone that tells me that everything will be all right as long as I do whatever she says immediately reminds me of what I imagine Sunday School to be like. There is nothing harsh that shows that “thou shalt not mess with the Professor”, it is rather like you wanted to crawl to the front of the room and ask her to forgive you for your sins.

And strangely enough, the people around me look like they are about to do just that. They do not look like us, let me tell you that much. I've seen the geeks, the rich and now I am about to encounter... the religious.

I am not baptized. I have never attended a church service in my life and do not plan to do so. But, as “we are pope” now and as in my eyes, there is no better example for nostalgia than the Catholic Church, I felt it was about time to go where I never went before to get a better understanding of one of the officially most relaxed and laid-back religions in this world.

On a superficial view, a religion that managed to make the Vatican its headquarters, to force Michelangelo to paint the roof of the Sistine Chapel for them and that is ruled by an old man who is chosen by smoke, and, above all, made the Exorcist movie possible can't be that bad. Can it?

Well, right in the beginning of the lecture, I decide that there is no chance for me to understand what this is all about, I rather start off with having a look at all those students in here. It's 8:30. Yes, they do have lectures at that time in some faculties. And in some faculties, people even show up at that time. Many have shown up, all seem awake but it does not really count at they're aspiring priests and have to get used to getting up early. By the presence of me and my assistant (Since the trip to the Economics department, I have decided I need an assistant to optimize my work flow) the female quota is increased by at least 50%.

But that does that lovely - “Oops, I've numbered all the papers wrong and made several typoes but that shouldn't matter too much” - Sunday school woman who surprisingly looks like my old P.E. Teacher talk about? Generally speaking, I have no idea. We are pondering important religious matters that need to be solved before getting to less important issues, e.g. solving world hunger and ending wars: Who was there first? The chicken (God) or the egg (Jesus) and what about the Holy Ghost anyway? Emperor Constantine wrote, ages ago, that Jesus was procreated by God and at that moment, the Holy Ghost derived from them. And it happened all at the same time because, well, you want to ask a critical question? Shut up.

As we all know, these three make up the Holy Trinity (not the one from the Matrix, no leather), are equally important and, above all, to be worshipped equally. Amen. Someone very critical now poses the question how they can all be created at the same time as, just like mentioned before, God became the father of Jesus, thus he must have been around creating the world and all that Old Testament stuff.

It happened at the same time. Thou shalt not ask as we, human beings, can not understand these things anyway. We can not understand the Trinity and have to lean on that Constantine, who did understand the Trinity, wrote down for us. Hm.

Okay, I take a deep breath, tell my assistant that it is not a good idea to raise a hand and ask whether we can really be sure that God after all, exists and that a scientific research of Jesus showed that he was a soldier and... no, bad idea. Evil, bad, evil, devilish idea that could cost our lives.

But it is hard for students of literature, who have, in years and years, learned to question everything, to analyze everything and to prove everything, to be critical and take almost nothing for granted, to shut up and accept that here we simply get facts that we can not understand.

Metaphorically speaking, what she is trying to say that, in my words, if God was a writer, and Jesus was his (or her) first bestselling novel, that would mean that God became a writer (father) the exact moment he (or she) started writing that novel, not before. At the same exact moment, the plot (Holy Ghost) of the novel was created by writer and book alike. Amen.

After even we got it now, we can continue and understand that we, with all our education and our knowledge are not able to fully understand these theological issues but people like emperor Constantine could. Okay. So it is one of the few incidents where people, hundreds and thousands and maybe a few hundred more years ago could understand and explain what we do not explain but simply copy from them without questioning as we can not grasp it anyway? I see.

My first interaction with a student just happened. When everyone talked about how great Constantine the old fellow was and how nice of him to tell us all these things someone said that he was not even baptized. My whispered: “Stone him!” caused one student to turn around, look at us and actually... laugh.

The absolute not to top highlight just happened. A young aspiring priest asked why Constantine used the drawings he did use for his books and what their textual reference would be. I swear – even to God – that the answer, and now hold your breath all you art students, literature students and whoever had to ponder over the intention of someone who died long ago: “I can't tell you about these drawings but you can ask Constantine when you meet him in Heaven.”

Yeah.

So, I'll better start writing down all my unanswered questions to Virginia Woolf and a like now and send in all my papers once I've died and... will I meet them in the Catholic Heaven? Will I end up anywhere near it? No. Because most of the interesting people ended up in hell. I make a mental note to find out whether I can send mail from hell or not.

I am glad that I am still around because, considering the way I live my life, I somehow expected to disappear into thin air the moment I'd enter this room. Didn't happen. But, I hope you all appreciate how I sacrifice myself here because it's close to war-journalism and each moment I feel more and more like asking a question that will make everyone in here hate me.

Important matters are being pondered now. Did Virgin Mary, after giving birth to Jesus (whoever finds the not so logic part of this sentence please write a mail), go to Heaven? This, in my little scheme of things, would make her the publisher of the novel. Lots of talking and considering later, we learn that, yeah, probably, maybe not, who knows.

Getting bored now as we discuss sex and marriage. Yesterday, I had the same discussion in one of my classes. But while we got to the conclusion that you can't really promise eternal love and what is it anyway, we here just learn that you should get married and give your self to the other person for eternity and exclusively. The biggest difference seems to be that you don't ask, wonder or even discuss anything here, you read, nod and accept and that way you become one of the bright people the Catholic Church needs in the future.

Well, if that is what's considered bright, “I would prefer not to,” to say it with the words of Bartleby the Scrivener.

Charlie Kaufman: Here you go. The killer's a literature professor. He cuts off little chunks from his victims' bodies until they die. He calls himself "the deconstructionist".

 

WOW, what an awesome answer, I nearly peed my pants from laughing so hard!

And this is exactly the answer you can expect from a religious dude who, of course, has no answers whatsoever and therefore has to make stuff up as he/she goes along. That's plain brilliant.




I second that, I too don't wanna be bright, if that means to just shut up and obey to a colorful fairy tale. If I wanna be entertained by a colorful fairy tale, I go and see the new Shrek movie.