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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27715 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Baphomet Has Fallen

How much good faith is required for an American state government respecting a religion's symbols?

The Satanic Temple, specifically the Satanic Temple of Iowa, put a statue depicting the pagan idol Baphomet in the Iowa Capitol, following the letter of the law allowing religious symbols. Thing is, it's explicitly an atheistic (or rather "non-theistic") religion; they have as much belief in the reality of Baphomet as they do the Flying Spaghetti Monster (mHNAty). They use literary symbols and provocative symbols to promote science and promote humanist atheist goals of tolerance and justice. It was designed to provoke a response, and it has; a Christian broke it. Deseret News reports that:

Jason Benell, the president of the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, described the “targeting” of the display as “encouraged by legislators.” He wrote in a news release, “This is unacceptable. When our leaders make it permissible to destroy religious — or non-religious — displays they find religiously objectionable, they are abdicating their responsibility to safeguard the freedom of expression of the citizens they represent.”

The state of Iowa finds itself in the position of avenging the rights of atheists to display a pagan idol they don't even believe in, which mocks people of genuine Christian faith with a dark symbol drawn from mythology.

Take that to its logical conclusion.

A Christian church could create a parallel object to be installed in the Iowa Capitol, a similar deliberately provocative anti-atheist symbol to be promoted as a sacred symbol of a pseudo-atheist "Church of the Human Condition" which exposes the failures and tragedies of the Enlightenment and promotes learning how to morally philosophize using the Jefferson Bible and select readings from Ayn Rand in after-school clubs. I can think of a few:

  • A statue of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in their best suits, French kissing atop a pile of human skulls
  • A statue of Margaret Sanger and Madalyn Murray O'Hair standing back-to-back, dressed as Greek priestesses, each holding a knife in one hand and together holding the corpse of a Black baby
  • The Invisible Pink Unicorn (possibly made of pink-glazed blown glass, in the style of My Little Pony) as the steed bearing the returning Jesus, depicted as a Super-Saiyan, His head and hair burning white, His eyes like a flame of fire, His feet like fine brass
  • Or, if we want to avoid humanoid and animal statues entirely per the Third Commandment, an orrery (representing science) surrounded by gravestones bearing the names of Marx, Darwin, O'Hair, Sanger, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Christopher Hitchens, and other prominent atheists.

Desecrating any of these would bear the same fourth-degree criminal mischief charges, with up to a year in prison and a $2,560 fine, and exposure to lawsuits by the artists and owners of the symbols.

But aside from the turnabout, I'd like to remind that atheism is treated as a religion de facto by its adherents and proselytes, and de jure by the government in having Freedom of Religion under the First Amendment. Anyone who says it is not a religion must, by implication, accept that the broken Baphomet statue is only a violation of Freedom of Expression (under the same Amendment) so any cries of Christian hypocrisy at its destruction are inaccurate on their face due to the uneven parallel. Only by accepting that atheism is a religion can atheists claim a sacred right to offend Christians.

One of the Satanic Temple's causes is separation of church and state, and I expect part of what they're trying to do here is cause governments to decide it's too much trouble to allow holiday displays on public property at all. Vandalism of their displays, or Christians also using such displays in deliberately inflammatory ways, both make it more likely they'll get that outcome.

Meanwhile, I don't think the ideological faction represented by the Satanic Temple would actually care very much about the content of your proposed displays. If anyone did dramatically tear such a display down, it would almost certainly be some progressive activist, a distinctly different faction.

If they object to holiday displays, then they should be going around shopping malls demanding the Santas and Christmas trees be taken down. It's that they're sticking their tongues out, like primary school kids, at specifically Christian festival is the major pain in the backside. I'm not impressed, and honestly I think it makes them look like wet blankets rather than Kewl Edgy types, but eh. If they have nothing more meaningful in their lives to be getting on with than trying to shock their grannies, I feel sorry for them (I may be a pathetic loser, but I'm not going around trying to construct maximally offensive to atheists rip-off imagery in public spaces).

Malls are run by private individuals; separation of church and state doesn't apply.

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