Homeless Former Hell’s Angel Brings New Interpretation of Bible to San Francisco
Walking down a security-compromised dark alleyway near the Elbo Room last Saturday, my friend and I were approached by a scraggly old fellow who was bearded, toothless, Caucasian but black with dirt, and holding a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. Addressing us with a profound slur, he wanted to find a good place to sleep. I pointed towards a porto-potty across the street and suggested he take the luxurious bathroom suite over there. Pleased, he began to walk in that direction, which was — crucially — away from us. Noticing a Ducati sport bike on his way, he had to return and discuss it with us:
“Hey man…You see that fuckin Doookahtee over there?! I’m a motherfuckin Hell’s Angel prospect man and I hate motherfuckin crotchrockets man mother fucking Hell’s Angels prospect, man… man I hate motherfuckin crotchrockets… but i love fuckin Doookahtees man.”
He repeated the above several times.
We tried to make him go away. But then he wanted to talk about Jesus.
“You know what else I fucking love, man, mother fucking Jesus Christ man. I love Jesus man, Jesus got people like us man. He was one of us man. Jesus Christ… that guy, you know he was hanging out with guys like us man, with whores, and killers… and bikers, man.”
Jesus Christ was hanging out with bikers. This was his message. Jesus was on his side; Jesus was a bad-ass, he subverted the status quo of the Jewish and Roman ruling class, and he did it by shacking up with hustlers, turning water to malt liquor, and cruising on his hog.
At this point the Prospect wanted to show us the way Jesus did things. He slipped his hand under his vest, revealing the belt that held up his dirtbag pants, and caressed what appeared to be the chrome butt of some kind of firearm. He asked, “Do you pray?!” Swaggering, caressing the chrome, he repeated “Do you pray?!”
I said no. My friend said, “Sometimes.” He didn’t like “sometimes.” He wanted to know how often. I jumped in with “Wednesdays and Sundays.” He asked “What do you pray for?” My friend said “My family.” The Prospect said “Why don’t you pray right now?!” I said “Its not Sunday yet,” though it probably was.
Somehow, we eventually got this guy to start laughing and he backed off and we got the fuck out of there. Moral of the story is: Jesus Christ may save your soul, but you’ve got to save your own ass from his followers.
Atheist Advocacy
I’m becoming ever more interested in advocating the cause of atheism in America. Especially when I read quotes like this one from Katherine Harris:
We have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.
and when I see polls that report 53% of Americans say they would not vote for an atheist (10% more than the group that wouldn’t vote for a homosexual!). Maybe Obama knew about these figures when he joined Trinity United Church.
I acknowledge that being atheist is only like being a racial minority to the degree that intelligence is heritable. Regardless, I am starting to feel oppressed to the point that I think we need stronger atheist advocacy groups in this country. And with end times theology increasingly shaping American foreign policy, our safety may depend on it.
Prostrate Yourselves! (On religious self-indenture)
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes of “Unconditional Duties”:
All those who feel they need the strongest words and sounds, the most eloquent gestures and postures, in order to be effective at all…talk of “duties,” and actually always of duties that are supposed to be unconditional. Without that they would lack the justification for their great pathos, and they understand this very well. Thus they reach for moral philosophies that preach some categorical imperative, or they ingest a goodly piece of religion….Because they desire the unconditional confidence of others, they need first of all to develop unconditional self-confidence on the basis of some ultimate and indisputable commandment that is inherently sublime, and they want to feel like, and be accepted as, its servants and instruments.
Two years prior, in 1880, Dostoevsky published The Brothers Karamazov, whose famous chapter “The Grand Inquisitor” ruminates on a very similar theme. In this intensely ironic parable in which the Grand Inquisitor addresses Christ, Dostoevsky writes:
In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know he would at last reject even Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems.
The Grand Inquisitor informs Jesus that the Church has had to perfect his work by adding to it the kind of spiritual bondage that allows people to live untroubled, in service to commandments that are — on the Church’s authority — inherently sublime.
These passages share a subtext, namely this: that religion functions primarily as a means to negate the fundamental freedom that comes with existence, because that freedom is too heavy for most to bare. By its simple imperatives, its categories of good and evil, it lifts from its adherents the burden of being arbiter of their own lives.
I agree that religion so functions, but is that necessarily cause for contempt? The inability of the average human to deal with the complex ambiguities of life is independent of religion; if he had not this mechanism of self-indenture, he would devise another. In light of this, it might be inevitable for there to exist various ways for us to indenture ourselves (indeed there are others besides religion, capitalism for one). But religion goes further. Not only does it enslave, it claims to exalt. It claims to empower as it thrives on subjugation. It demands respect for the ignoble task of making the feeble-minded absolutely certain of truths that do not exist.
I have to side with Nietzsche in contempt of religion; not only does it feed the “will to ignorance,” but it deceitfully claims to do the opposite. If we are going to throw ourselves into bondage out of some profound ennui, we should at least be honest with ourselves about it (cf. Heidegger’s Being & Time). Digging deeper into this honest interpretation of life may lead us to better understand the very condition in which we find ourselves — questions and answers over which religion pretends to have ultimate authority.
