Pajiba

Agreed, 100%. The worst part? This particular episode takes place in my hometown. Yes, I accept your condolences. Thank you.

“I’m raising my child just as well as any mother does … I take my kid to church every week … at least I’m not forcing them into sports and getting my child injured like some parents.”

She's right, the psychological injuries these kids will suffer are far, far worse.

TLC: The Lying Cunts.

Yet if we were to kidnap that child and give her to decent parents and then have the mother sterilized we'd go to jail. It's a hell of a country.

What "sports" are you going to force your kid into at THREE YEARS OLD, lady? The much derided toddler ultimate fighting circuit? And what a terrifying prospect regardless: encouraging your your kids to exercise - it's madness!

"Breeders and Workers. Two simple steps to improving the nation"

Does anyone else feel like they slipped into the Twilight Zone and are now participating in the making of the documentary "Idiocracy"? Or is it just me...anyone?

The lack of self awareness in the costume choices reminds me of all those people who used Every Breath You Take or I Will Always Love You for their wedding songs.

And one more thing:

I'm so glad that she goes to church so it will be okay with the Invisible Man in the Sky when she dresses her daughter like a prostitute, but the Golden Unicorn that lives in my glove compartment told me that the Tea Cup revolving around Earth heard from the Pixies in my azalea bush that the Minotaur on the Dark Side of the Moon is pissed off about the child pageants.

To get another perspective, I asked Evolution for its thoughts and it was refreshingly sanguine about the pageant situation. It's sure the whole thing will work itself out.

Tomás de Torquemada went to church too. It's probably why no one was expecting him.

Mrs. Julien is my favorite.

Mrs. Julien, FTW, and the other W, and the other, other W, and ... just brilliant.

As a pop-culture spectator, this is amazing. How to you satirize a culture where this actually happened? It's difficult to believe that such poignant irony can be produced by someone with such poor self awareness. If this were an intentional commentary on televised child beauty pageants that would be one thing, but the fact that we produced this by dumb chance (emphasis on the dumb)? Incredible. You would think at some point they would have rented Little Miss Sunshine, if only by mistake.

As far as the kid goes, well, it's not like this is overwhelmingly more damaging than thousands of other, more subtle crimes against a developing psyche. The mother kind of has a point there. The odds are overwhelmingly against her kid ever having a healthy sense of self worth but this individual costume choice is just one of many wildly thoughtless and irresponsible actions, I'm sure. That ship had sailed before the end of the first T&T casting call. The hooker getup is just a chance for us all to stop and marvel at the audacity.

Mrs. Julien: "Tomás de Torquemada went to church too. It's probably why no one was expecting him."

Thank you for the laugh. I will be stealing this, if you don't mind.

@Courtney - nice work.

I'm so curious, now. The mother is quoted saying in effect "It ain't so bad." How does she think it's good? For whom? Does TLC say anywhere that doing this is good? Good for whom? How?

What are they thinking?

I think you need to revisit this logic.

Posted by: samantha t at September 8, 2011 4:28 PM

Church teaches children that invisible old men in the sky have plans for us, and everything we do is part of this plan. It teaches blind obedience of authority and that class systems that oppress and murder people are all part of a divine plan.

Dressing a little girl up like a prostitute actually serves by extreme example to point out the absurdity of pageantry, the sexism in pageantry and the sexism and absurdity in the world at large. When parents are shocked by this, they just might ask themselves why it is different when they dress their little girls in ballgowns and have them wear tiaras.

Most people eventually grow out of pageant nonsense on their own, but religion is a plague that it is difficult to catch as an adult, but rampant among vulnerable children. Childhood infection is actually the main reason we are still forced to deal with religion in the modern age.

Mrs. Julien: "Tomás de Torquemada went to church too. It's probably why no one was expecting him."

-Any posts that are this clever in staying on track with the subject, making somewhat obscure yet accurate historical references and brilliantly conceal mention to Monty Python, are automatically fast tracked to the shortlist for Eloquents of the Year*

*Yes...Yes, I know that weekly honor has been on indefinite hiatus, but this post was too good to pass up on giving props to.

"Church teaches children that invisible old men in the sky have plans for us, and everything we do is part of this plan. It teaches blind obedience of authority and that class systems that oppress and murder people are all part of a divine plan."

That is only one sect of Christianity. I'm a Christian and do not believe in predestination. I was also always encouraged in church to question my beliefs and take an active role in leading (I'm a woman). I hope that anyone that blindly follows a belief system without questioning or gaining a greater knowledge of other options can find a way out of that mindset.

I'd respond, but Helen just called me out on another thread for being obnoxious.

Coincidentally, in one of my daily online trivia games today, I learned that a certain network had officially removed what its initials stand for, due to a shift in programming content that no longer represented the network's title.

Yes, "TLC" no longer stands for "The Learning Channel." They are simply the empty moniker "TLC."

That's very well said, Mrs. Julien, but John G. wasn't simply saying "religion is dumb 'cuz it can't be proven by science", he was saying that bringing your child to church is worse than teaching her to emulate a prostitute. All I was saying is that we're not all the nutty, brainwashed sheep he apparently sees, and that maybe he should open his eyes (and mind) before making such douchetastic generalizations.
I have no problem with people pointing out that they think religion is stupid because none of it can be proven with science--that's why it's called faith.

sure, threadkilla, tell that TO YER SISTER. she's the one that got me watching it.

@Jessie

I wasn't trying to just be "douchetastic." I really believe that religion is a cancer on society, ALL RELIGIONS (yes, even Buddhism, Richard Gere). I think they only still exist today in such numbers, because we indoctrinate children with it, and then they find it hard to give up when indoctrinated so early. If no one was allowed to join a religion until they were 21, I think it would be reduced greatly in the world, which would be a great thing in my opinion.

Many religious people claim that they are not the bad ones, and not part of the fundamentalists, and they are totally rational, you just have to have faith. Unfortunately, that's the problem. Teaching children that they should believe in fundamentally ridiculous and unprovable things leads directly to things like Fox News. We must teach our children to question everything and never accept arguments from authority, so they can become educated citizens of the world. Religions of all kinds teach the opposite of this, and are therefore dangerous in my opinion.

As far as prostitute kids in pageants, I think all pageantry is prostitution, teaching young girls to value their bodies as a commodity to be sold on the open market. I wish this mother had said she was doing this on purpose to point out what all the mothers were doing in the pageant, pimping out their little girls.

"Teaching children that they should believe in fundamentally ridiculous and unprovable things leads directly to things like Fox News."

Sorry, but that's just effing ridiculous. How do you account for people who were raised practicing one faith and switch to another later on in life? I was raised a Lutheran, yet I rejected a large portion of their (in my opinion) antiquated beliefs and now attend a church of a different denomination. By your reasoning, I should have remained a Lutheran for life, because as a mindless follower, I couldn't possibly have had the ability to decide which parts of the Lutheran doctrine worked for me personally. Faith and the ability to question one's beliefs are not mutually exclusive, and I intend to teach my children that while also exposing them to my chosen faith. Maybe they'll choose to practice my faith, maybe they'll choose a different one, or perhaps even none at all, but I will be glad for them regardless of what they decide.
Like I said, maybe you should get to know a few Christians before painting us all as right-wing fanatics who never question authority.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled football...

Thanks, mom!

Love,

Aqualung

I feel very similarly to Mrs. J and John G. in that I know religion to be a disease.

The problem with ","'s comment is that all those things could easily be accomplished without any notion of a higher being. Yes, there are some organizations that are rooted in religion that manage to do an incredible amount of good in this world. But people should be able to do those things for the old, sick, and disenfranchised becuase it is the right thing to do - not because we were told to do it by the invisible man in the sky and we are afraid he'll smite us if we don't. Because we are all stuck on this fucking ball in space with no where else to go. Because this ball and our time on it is literally all we have. There is no special place for you after death. There is no "after death" at all. There is no reward or punishment, except that which you recieve here, on earth, in reality. There are many ways to parse out a code of ethics and mine comes from the idea that whether we like it or not, we are all here together and it is our responsibility to make this world what we want it to be. Not knowing if anything comes after means we should make this the best place possible. Only those people with faith in something better later on are willing to let our planet and our lives remain as shitty as they are.

In similar fashion to Mrs. J with her youngster, when people get all fire and brimstone on me, I make a point of being as blasphemous and outrageously irreverent as I can, just to prove there is no punishment for non-believers. Unless it's that invisible punishment that the invisible man doles out after we go to the place that no one has ever returned from.

No matter how you calculate it, the negatives outweigh the positives. Religion, in any form, is a negative sum game. Society and people in general will always be worse off with it than without it.

I've worked as casting director and let me tell you, each kids casting session hollowed out a little bit of my soul. Perfectly healthy pre-teen girls obsessing over their weight and looks and skin, comparing diet plans in the waiting room. I seriously considered buying an Uzi and shooting every accompanying adult. As we have strict gun control I changed careers instead.
We don't get TMZ here. Do shows like this get high ratings?

Wow. The idiot above this post needs a copyeditor.

The problem with ","'s comment is that all those things could easily be accomplished without any notion of a higher being.
---
(I knew this was coming. It always does in these debates.)

Oh, sure, in a perfect world we'd all care for and look out for our fellow man and woman just because it's the right thing to do, without the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

In a perfect world.

You see any perfect worlds around?

But what do you suppose: In a world without religion, i.e. without religious guilt, i.e. without much of a conscience, i.e. without much motivation toward altruism, would there be MORE people or FEWER people driven to render aid and comfort to their fellow man/woman?

I can't say for certain, but fortunately, history provides us with some experiments in that regard. So look up "Soviet Union" and "Red China" and see how things turned out in societies that attempted to eradicate religion (and still do, in China's case).

"Not knowing if anything comes after means we should make this the best place possible."

It could also mean you should grab everything you can for yourself and your fellow man and woman can just go fuck themselves, I'm getting MINE, baby, whoever dies with the most toys wins, and whoever I have to step on to get them, so what? Because in the end there are no cosmic consequences for anything I do.

You probably have some experience with human nature at its basest. Tell me: In a world without religion, which do you suppose more or most people would choose to do?

BTW, this is coming from someone who has pretty much come to the conclusion in the last year or two that the Invisible Man in the clouds does NOT, in fact, exist. So I'm sort of on your side, except when you start in with the dreamy utopian nonsense, or John G.'s equally nonsensical (and, if I may say so, moronic) rant.

The problem with John G and jesuschrysler is that you make the leap from "some things that are done in the name of religion are bad/negative/harmful" to "all religions are bad/negative/harmful".

If you limit your scope to attacking specific aspects of religion you would be fine (well, assuming your ability to put forth a sound argument, which is questionable at best). When you start shouting down and attacking anyone and anything associated with religion, that's where you lose me.

I support the freedom of individuals to think and believe what they like. Foremost as a matter of practicality, because you can't control the thoughts of others no matter how much you seem to want to, and second of all because I don't want any of my minority interests and unpopular opinions to be impugned like that. I may not like what they do, I may not agree with it, I may even think it harmful, but you have to get pretty far out of line before I'm willing to support an argument that an entire field of human thought is out of bounds. I'm not a big fan of intolerance, and especially not when it's coming from people who claim to share my position (atheism) on the matter.

All the fighting over the mention of church in her quote is gross. Can we all at least agree that it's fun to watch What Not to Wear sometimes? No? Fine, I'm leaving.

The only assumption I made about all religions is that they ask you to believe in God/Gods/Energy/Magic with no proof. Since the existence of any God of any kind has never been proven, all religions ask you to take that bit on faith, and that is the part I object to. All your other arguments are meant for people who think you should choose one god over another, or assume all religious people are bad or good. I made no such claim. I think religion is bad, not the religious.

and Ender, if you're saying that it's generalizing to claim that all religious people believe in some kind of deity, then I won't call you an idiot, like you called me, but I will say that's pretty silly. If we're blanketing the term "religious" to include people with no faith or belief in god/gods, then the word has lost its meaning.

, or Comma,

I think it's along the lines of a disease. We want to cure the disease. We hate the disease, not the sick. Religious people mostly contracted religion in their youth, so it's not their fault. Their parents exposed them before they had a complete worldview, and now that the worldview has solidified, the religion is trapped in the mix. My whole point in bringing it up was because this pageant-thingy is also a thing that people indoctrinate their children with, and I wish they wouldn't.

Mrs. Julien,

It's Sky PIE. Blasphemer.

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