The Variety of Religious Experience

I suppose Labor Day isn't the ideal moment to link to a story about a lottery winner, but this is too priceless to pass up:

A Wicca devotee and small businessman from Dundalk came forward yesterday with a photocopy of a lottery ticket showing the winning numbers to Friday's Mega Millions drawing and claimed a share of the estimated $330 million jackpot, though lottery officials have yet to verify his assertion.

... Bartlett gathered just a stone's throw from the Walther Boulevard store to celebrate with friends and fellow pagans at Mystickal Voyage, a New Age gift shop he considers his spiritual home and that he said he plans to help improve with his winnings.

As an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, Bartlett recalled feeling compelled to do more teaching in the New Age store last month, but felt torn because he couldn't pull away from his job. He told the "powers that be" that if he won the lottery, he would focus on teaching completely.

"And a month later, here I am," he said. "I thank the gods for this gift. ... I don't know which one granted me this wish, but whichever one did, thanks!"

If you click through to the story, you'll see that he looks at least a little bit like the Comic Book Guy. Which somehow doesn't seem at all surprising.

Comments

Haw haw! Man with different beliefs is fat! Har har har!

Posted by Woody Bombay | September 3, 2007 12:21 PM

This fellow is the logical result of the Reformation, which over time has spawned a cacophony of "religious" beliefs. I say this as an Episcopalian caught for reasons of family tradition in the present miasma of a disintegrating church.

Thank heaven for the Catholic Church, which despite its manifold faults over time, remains a stalwart of serious faith and tradition.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | September 3, 2007 1:16 PM

I _think_ I understand. Ellwood Bartlett is crazy because he believes in the efficacy of prayer and that supernatural beings intervene in human affairs to benefit those who have faith in them. These fringe beliefs apparently have no business in the serious, stalwart Catholic Church, and Ross certainly wouldn't espouse them himself.

Posted by S. Tarzan | September 3, 2007 2:22 PM

Thank heaven for the Catholic Church, which despite its manifold faults over time, remains a stalwart of serious faith and tradition.

Thank heaven for Islam, with the same caveat.

jenny

Posted by jenny | September 3, 2007 3:14 PM

"If you click through to the story, you'll see that he looks at least a little bit like the Comic Book Guy."

What about you, Ross. Don't you look at least a little bit like the Comic Book Guy? Or all "serious people" buff and clean-shaven? What about G.K. Chesterton?

Posted by Alan Vanneman | September 3, 2007 5:15 PM

I'M STILL WAITING FOR ROSS DOUTHAT TO DEFEND THE TRUTH CLAIMS OF HIS OWN RELIGION.

(I'm glad to see he can ridicule someone else's faith system though...)

Posted by Devin Carpenter | September 3, 2007 5:43 PM

Devin......it gets a bit irritating reading the same response to every one of Ross' threads. We get what you want. Move on now man...........go read a book.

Posted by Joe | September 3, 2007 11:14 PM

Re: Peter Leavitt, I don't understand this strain of conservatism that takes a postmodern, group-identity approach to religious truth. What does family tradition have to do with the actual truth of the religion? It reminds me more generally of the trope, which comes up on conservative blogs sometimes, that Christianity is valuable because it is a cultural attribute of Western society, rather than because it is true. Or are you only saying that the Catholic church is admirable, but some of its beliefs are false?

Your comment about the Reformation, similarly, suggests that you are not interested in whether religious claims are true or false. The Reformers broke from the church because they believed its doctrines to be false. You seem to believe that truth or falsity is irrelevant, because the point is some kind of group cohesion; it would be better for everyone to hold the same false beliefs than for many people to hold many different beliefs some of which are perhaps true.

Also, what does any of this have to do with Wicca?

Posted by BP | September 4, 2007 10:49 AM

This is sort of ironic, since Ross looks like that "Bushbaby" contestant from "American Idol."

I look forward to Ross's next post in which he points out that the current Pope looks like a cartoon pedophile and Jerry Falwell looked like something flies would circle over and that John Hagee looks like General Buchalter from "Hogan's Heroes."

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 4, 2007 2:38 PM

Peter Leavitt writes: "Thank heaven for the Catholic Church, which despite its manifold faults over time, remains a stalwart of serious faith and tradition."

Hey, while religion is being serious and all, could Jesus come over to my house and exorcise my cat? The thing puked on the kitchen floor again, so it must be a demon. I know Jesus exorcised some pigs once in the bible, so he could probably do a cat.

How about it? Anyone have JC's cell phone number?

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 4, 2007 2:42 PM

Nonsense, Moe. Benedict's a fine pope, but he mostly looks like an evil Emperor, perhaps with undead minions.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 4, 2007 6:02 PM

Oh, come on, Benedict is a sop to the cranky oldsters and even they don't get excited about his Aryan antics.

I have come up with a better comparison for Benedict, though. He's Baron Harkonnen. Give him an anti-grav chair and he'd be perfect for the role.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 5, 2007 12:06 AM

He's a scholar and professor at heart, I suspect, and a much more readable (and humorous) writer than John Paul II. He writes, and thinks, beautifully -- it's not as if only Catholics notice this, unless Jurgen Habermas has converted without fanfare.

As to "Aryan" antics, I really don't know what you're babbling about.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 5, 2007 12:11 PM

TMoC replies: "He's a scholar and professor at heart, I suspect, and a much more readable (and humorous) writer than John Paul II. He writes, and thinks, beautifully -- it's not as if only Catholics notice this, unless Jurgen Habermas has converted without fanfare."

I can't equate "beautiful" thinking with an authoritarian schmuck who thinks raped children should clean themselves up and call a priest instead of a cop, but then I guess that's why "traditionalists" tell me I'm going to hell.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 5, 2007 3:15 PM

Look, Moe, I know you're not an intellectual. That's fine. Liberalism needs a strain of pseudo-populist know-nothings, too. But even when you dislike some of his ideas, you can grant the abilities of men. There are people who followed Stalin for years, hook line and sinker, who no reasonable man can fail to appreciate in their areas.

There's also a bit more to the internal-canon law handling of such matters than your "summary" and you know it -- the Church erred greatly, and bishops covered things up. But everyone who follows news in Boston (not about the Catholic Church's failings only) or anywhere else in the US also knows that abuse accusations in the legal system often work out as witch hunts and "repressed memory" based persecution. I don't like the answer Ratzinger came up with, but it wasn't only for an American context, and automatic turning of every claim over to cops has a price to pay too -- but I doubt the presumption of innocence applies to Catholics, in Moe land.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 5, 2007 3:33 PM

Look, Carabass, I know you fancy yourself as an intellectual, but what you really are is a lifelong lickspittle for authority figures. And I know you'd like to keep on pretending that the Church child-rape scandals were just an American problem, but that's simply a lie that you like to tell yourself - it remains a lie.

The presumption of innocence certainly applies to Catholics, even when said Catholics have taken away a child's innocence through acts of rape and coverups of same. I just wonder why you're so happy about it that you use the word "beautiful" to describe the thinking of such a man. You didn't restrict it to his theistic thinking, of course.

As far as "witch hunts" go, I'd apply that term to Ratzinger's weird plan to rid his Church of homosexuals, even celibate ones, but you probably think that's just spiffy, too.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 5, 2007 4:18 PM

How do you know I'm a lifelong anything, Moe? I'm a convert, actually.

Yes, I guess I was clumsy! Gosh, you have me. I have no idea if Ratzinger thinks beautifully when issuing bureaucratic decrees or wrangling in Vatican politics -- probably not. I meant his theological and philsophical work is quite good. You still haven't explained what on earth "Aryan" is about. I have a guess, but I'll let you put your own words out there.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 5, 2007 6:11 PM

I said you were a lifelong lickspittle to authority figures, TMoC. I didn't limit it to religion.

Of course you didn't limit your gushing about Ratzinger's "beautiful" thinking to his theological or philosophical work, and I saw no reason to think you really meant to. I still don't.

As for his Aryan antics, I understand that he still, to this day, wears black leather knee-high boots under his robes, and occasionally likes to go for walks in the woods with his Alsatian, Blondie. But those could just be rumors.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 5, 2007 6:43 PM

I will admit, Moe, that _you_ seem as if you wouldn't know an actual authority if it bit you on your nasty little head.

Gosh, Nazi cracks. I thought so. I guess actually learning anything about something in order to attack the substance would disturb your vapid emptiness and general snottishness.

As far as I know, there was no plan to rid the Church of homosexuals (though the uglification of liturgy over the years has surely done something in that regard). There was a recommendation against either all or some homosexuals (depending on how you read it and how essentialist you are) from the seminary, in part as a tool against this scandal. You are aware of how startlingly disproportionate, in an age of altar girls, the numbers were on homosexual vs. heterosexual incidents of abuse (and affairs in non-pedophilic but stil illegal and immoral cases), right?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 5, 2007 7:07 PM

Since you consider people who aid and abet pedophiles to be "actual authorities," Carabass, I'll consider the source and suggest that you bite your own "nasty little head." It might improve your general disposition.

"Vapid emptiness"? As opposed to what other sort of emptiness? Perhaps the reason so many of the pews in your Church are empty is because of the moral vapidity of your authorities.

And it's a little sad that after decades or centuries of winking at the molestors in their midst your authorities have decided to scapegoat many innocent priests or priest-aspirants, but it's not at all surprising that you love their move.

Lickspittles always do.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 5, 2007 8:27 PM

The Pope is an authority in some matters, though certainly not all. Wener Heisenberg (probably) tried to help Hitler atom bomb the world, and he remained a pretty good authority on matrix equations in quantum mechanics.

I didn't love the move -- I actually incline to thinking it was a mistake. However, it was a not-absurd response to a real phenomenon (the "pink seminaries" and such). Centuries of winking? Where's your evidence on that, Moe, that the Church has done this more than anyone else, on that time scale? There's solid evidence of (willful) coverup and shameful response by a number of bishops and clergy in the US, Ireland, and some other places, in the last 60 years or so. Before that, I think any claims that the Church is more guilty than any other aspect of society (certainly than public or private schools) is baseless anti-Catholic bigotry. I'll be happy to take that back if you have evidence otherwise.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | September 6, 2007 12:29 PM