Will this prove to have even greater power than God's Holy PSP?
November 2006 Archives
Speaking of the reason for the season, American Atheists is selling a pagan solstice ornament "start a fresh Solstice tradition in your household."
Scoff if you will, but I think that Americans are more primed for this than you might think. Mother Nature, Heat Miser (the sun god), Cold Miser (the snow god)--what else is The Year Without a Santa Claus if not a pagan evangelistic tool? And of course, no self-respecting idolator could do without his (or her!) own household gods:
The dubiously Egyptian symbol for Only God Can Judge Me continues to be elusive is indeed not Egyptian at all. For the full story, look down about five lines for the update. For how other languages say "Only God Can Judge Me," click here for a lively discussion of Cantonese, Hebrew, Latin and other translations. For an instructive guide to key Egyptian religious symbols that could easily be adapted to tattoos, check out this page on Jennifer Emick's Alt-Religion site. And for the connection between this tattoo and Tupac Shakur, read my first story on the tattoo.
Update: SOLVED!
Just got an email from the divine Ms. E on the symbol in question. As I suspected, "long story short, it's not Egyptian." It's actually
Ashanti, from adinkra designs for funeral cloth. It's "Gya nyame," and it means "god alone" or "the presence of God."
You can find the symbol on her site here (third one down), and a stencil (useful for tattoos?) here.
Gotta run--more later--but if you haven't already be sure to check out Jennifer Emick's site. It's an invaluable resource!
"The Gospel According to Peanuts" is the title of a bestselling Christian book that teased out the sometimes not-so-latent Christian message of Charles Schulz' classic strip. As evidence of the extent to which some people identify Peanuts with a Christian witness, check out the Christmas displays at Plymouth Lights, which use a Peanuts nativity and a preaching Linus "to help spread the real meaning of Christmas."
Hallmark has also sold Christmas decorations on the Peanuts nativity theme, although presumably for more mercenary reasons:
UPDATE: The 2000 Year-Old Virgin Dept.
A quick follow-up on the Peanuts nativity, with Lucy as Mary and Charlie Brown as Joseph. I was wondering why Schroder didn't play Joseph until I remembered this--and then realized that if God was going to command anyone to marry a perpetual virgin, Charlie Brown would have to be the guy.
Good grief!
Hang out long enough with the B of G's Heavenly Host over a couple glasses of communal wine and you'll eventually hear him--err, me--spin on about the science of shiny things, what monkeys can teach us about the cult of celebrity and the roots of Ellen Dissanaye's theory of "making special" in what I call the ratio of difference.
All of which is a high falutin' way to introduce the videos below, ads for a tacky little product called "Bling It On!" And by "tacky" I mean "sticky," of course--Bling It On! is a package of adhesive strips of printed glitter that you can use to adorn your cel, laptop or iPod. Who needs a heroic quest when you can "go from ordinary to legendary in just seconds"?
The ever-enlightening Jennifer Emick features the Baha'i faith today in connection with the commemoration of the ascension of Abdul Baha, son of the movement's founder.
Pictured here: coins created for a Baha'i school. Be sure to click through to the original photo for helpful annotations explaining key aspects of the design.
One consequences of wearing cocktail dresses, polo-shirts or tank-tops is that it's hard to wear your religion on your sleeve. That's where Bible Bangles come in. Bible Bangles are unisex sterling silver wrist bracelets inscribed with scripture verses.
For a take on the significance of bracelets that's actually more relevant to Bible Bangles than one first might think, check out the work of psychologist William Marston, inventor of the lie detector & creator of Wonder Woman.
UPDATE: Mystery solved. For an explanation of the symbol (and a stencil for copying), click here.
Miami Ink is a popular tv show about tattoos, and it has not been shy about displaying religious imagery. The video below is of a Texas pastor--Pastor Cleetus--getting a Jesus tattoo. Another popular tattoo has been what is purported to be an Egyptian symbol for "Only God Can Judge Me."
Don't know about the Egyptian symbol part--unlike the "G" in B of G I'm not omniscient (yet!) and I don't have the time to go beyond the research I've already done. However, I do know why "Only God Can Judge Me" has emerged as a particularly popular tattoo trope. The contemporary source of this meme was Tupac Shakur, who had "Only God Can Judge Me" tattooed next to a cross on his chest & performed a signature rap by the same title. This stanza is particularly haunting when you consider how he ultimately died:
I hear the doctor standing over me
screaming I can make it
Got a body full of bullet holes
Laying here naked
Still I can't breathe
something evil's in my I-V
Cuz everytime I breathe
I think they're killing me
I'm having nightmares
Homicidal fantansies
I wake up stranglin'
Danglin'
from my bed sheets
I call the nurse
cuz it hurts
To reminisce
How could it come to this ?
I wish they dind't miss
somebody help me
Tell me where to go from here ?
One of the things you lose when drawing a line between business & social enterprise is stuff like this:
The Buddha Belt, from uncannily prophetic Project Runway contestant Angela Keslar. Click the pic for a nice little story about how the Buddha belt helped one Manhattan girl be enterprisingly social.
Hat tip: the cheerily charitable Blogging Project Runway.
Here's a link to everything I wrote about the B of G in October & November over on Trexfiles. I decided to post on both sites--since I've been keeping pace with the B of G, I figured why not? It's a live project, a nice archive, and google searches steer a bunch of people here anyway.
Advance spiritual business coaching--the golden six figure formula!
One common argument against the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is that it vitiates free human acts. But does it really? Check out this, um, sociable enterprise: sovereigngracesingles.com, a dating service run by and for Calvinists.
And the hits just keep on coming! For more proof that the Home Shopping Network is an irony-free zone, check out the video below: Jesus pieces of silver! Call now, shoppers--only thirty left . . .
Well, on the Home Shopping Network it's $199.95 plus shipping.
What's a widow's mite, you ask? The HSN provides a helpful explanation:
The Bible relates the story of the widow's mite in the book of Mark, verses 12:41-44, in which Jesus observed people giving money to the treasury and noted that a poor widow who gave two small bronze coins, known as mites, was more generous than the rich men who gave more valuable coins.