ATDTDA (17): liberal + Church (equum mortuum percussum)

[Michael Lee Bailey]

robinlandseadel:

>
>  The gospels, according to
> Burton L. Mack and others, display a heavy Cynic aspect , suggesting that
> "Q" [see footnote] is a series of wisdom sayings for Cynics that only later
> became the words of the messiah. 

cool.  Another source may be Brian of Nazareth, who
had some great contributions as well.
 
I've heard that "take, eat, this is my body" was a
dinner table commonplace for hosts in those days - 
which seems reasonable, sharing substance and so forth

Likewise, semantic drift over the ages may have 
caused phrases like "son of God" or "son of man"
to not be recognized as hoary cliches which they may have
been at the time they were spoken -- 

as if someone reading 20th
century stories thought of "son of a bitch" as a reference
to the founders of Rome, reared by wolves; or
somebody getting stoned as a reference to Medusa
-- the level of sophistication (Cynicism) of ancient
peoples whether from the 60s or the 1960s is always
getting underestimated and allusions getting scrambled.

A poem like the chambered nautilus or Longfellow's Psalm
of Life speaks of Heaven, bespeaks belief and recommends same.
Were those guys really envisioning some bearded guy in pajamas
up in the clouds?  Of course not - and yet popular rejection of
religion is based on people's natural revulsion to this
sort of earnest oafishness, which isn't really what they 
were evangelizing at all - like Bill O'Reilly,
religion-haters may sometimes distort the message 
and prove the distortion false.

>
> Well, afterwards Frank gets as drunk as possible and wakes up to the sound of
> Groucho [Julius at the time, though he still favors "Havanas"]Marx battling
> bed-bugs, so I'll continue to opt for a purely satirical reading of this
> section, 

wait a minute, just going to write off the bedfellowship
with _Marx_ ???  and the bedbugs???  Further allegory...
not to mention the "Havanas"

> rendered forcibly ridiculous by all the violent anarchist
> references---Rev Gatling, anyone?

I was gonna say that one but hesitated!  Yes, Gatling as in gun!!
That fits my paranoid system of history (all these political
shibboleths are sown by weapons makers to advance their trade)


> "Q"* aphorisms---Bless those who curse you, Carry no money, bag or sandals,
> Sell your possessions and give alms u.s.w.---Mack notes:
>
> The public arena is the place of accidental encounter with
> people who are living by traditional rules. The behavior
> enjoined is risky, but possible. And there is more than a hint
> of social critique or countercultural life-style. The advice is
> to be cautious, but also courageous. . . .
>

building the whole edifice of organized religion around
this is a wonderful feat -- like teachers who manage 
to work the story of the Wobblies and free speech 
into jingoistic history lessons mandated by boards of education
 -- same thing on a huge scale: the cathedrals that kings and
queens and other toxic bigwigs have their state occasions in 
are founded upon a creed that clearly doesn't support their
violent claims to specialness.