Dangerous Words Pt. II
You may remember a while back I picked up Dangerous Words: Talking About God in an Age of Fundamentalism, a book that sounded interesting, despite being authored by a religious moderate. Since the speech he gave during his book signing got me really fired up, I was determined to read the book as quickly as possible and then tear it apart. I read half of it in one sitting, but the bottom finally dropped out of my spite and I lost my momentum. That was about two and a half months ago. I have since tried to finish the remaining 100 pages and have only succeeding in completing another 20. I can only stomach about 2 pages at a time and it’s not just because I don’t agree with the guy — it’s just not written very well. That’s right, I am a lowly blogger, the author of Dangerous Words is chairman of the English department at Fancy Schmancy U. and I am calling him a bad writer. Deal with it.
We’ve all written papers for school before and we all know how hard it can be to stretch our subject material to fit the assignment’s requirements. So we’ve all been guilty at one time or another of packing in pages upon pages of needless filler, repeating the same ideas over and over or creating unwieldy sentences to streeeeetch that paper’s length. Dangerous Words is probably the the most redundant book I’ve ever read. It’s almost as if Mr. Eberle’s publisher doesn’t accept submissions under 200 pages in length so the same three or four ideas are reworded, reiterated and regurgitated chapter after chapter after chapter ad nauseum so that it juuuust barely tips the 200-page scale. It’s a fucking tedious read. Believe me — I can sit for hours upon hours meticulously tagging hundreds of MP3 files, laboring over proper capitalization; if I call your book “tedious,” you have a fucking problem. Still, I managed to trudge my way through 3/4 of it, and though I absolutely HATE not finishing a book, I finally decided to put it aside so I can get started on my growing “to read” pile.
Here’s what I gathered: Greg Eberle has an unbelievably pessimistic worldview and absolutely refuses to admit that the non-religious/non-spiritual among us are capable of leading fulfilling lives. His position that a purely logical mindset ultimately cannot provide happiness is established very early on, and it’s all downhill from there. Countless lengthy, rambling passages are spent attacking modernism and the cold, gray world of rationalism; nothing is “personal” anymore, he claims. This is an attempt to set the reader up for the Answer to Everything™: faith, the one-size-fits-all brain salve! Woohoo! He then tries to justify his position, basically, with wordplay. “Oh, well ‘myth’ didn’t always mean THIS, it used to mean THIS, so it’s okay to base your life around mythology.” “Truth didn’t always mean THIS, it used to mean THIS, so your mythology can actually be TRUE!” I get his point, but his presentation renders it moot, since he’s the biggest Negative Nancy on Earth. 125 pages in and pulling my hair out, I’ve concluded Dangerous Words is the messiest, most unfocused train wreck of a spread-too-thin high school persuasive essay I’ve ever read.
Originally, I was collecting passages that were either hilariously misleading, deluded or presumptuous, but I basically would have ended up providing a CliffsNotes-style running commentary on the entire book, and I frankly just don’t really care that much. Therefore, I picked a quote that I think summed up the book’s point well and we’ll leave it at that:
“In addition, and more positively, one’s religion should give one something to live for. Without some sort of religion, some way of binding together the otherwise fragmented pieces of our lives and of healing the inner conflicts and suffering we inevitably have as humans, we may take our suffering out on others. … These are the sorts of evils from which we need to be saved, and it is precisely from these that religion and the religious function of the psyche can deliver us…”
If that sounds like your kinda book and you have a pessimism-shaped hole on your bookshelf, by all means: go nuts. I have a signed copy I’d be more than happy to unload.
Oh, and apologies in advance to anybody at whom I may lash out. I can’t help it, really — due to my Godless and therefore pointless and fragmented existence, I can’t help but take the constant conflict and suffering I endure out on others.
2 Responses to “Dangerous Words Pt. II”
Pointless existence might be defined as: adj. noun Eng. - Showing ebullient devotion to a fictional character. See also - Dungeons and Dragons, Gears of War, Religion.
I promised the Mormons that I would pray for something that I truly needed God’s help on. I did, and while feeling a little ridiculous, I sincerely made an effort and followed the rules of proper prayer etiquette. I couldn’t help but think that God might be tired of being addressed as “Our heavenly father who art in heaven…” since God must surely know that it is 2008 and we no longer talk like that. The ritual of kneeling and the clasped hands pointing towards the sky with the head bowed are a little much also. But, I calmly laid my broad sword on the ground and took a knee, then carefully aimed my hands as transmitting antennae to the heavens in order to more accurately direct my prayer. I don’t think Mr. Omniscience Himself requires my groveling adulation of His greatness. I don’t think God gives a fuck whether or not I capitalize “His” everytime I refer to “Him”, God knows what a fucking pronoun is… Because “He” fucking invented pronouns. This archaic ritual seems slightly (read: insanely-lunatic-level batshit-crazy) excessive, if you sincerely believe in God are you afraid he might cast you in to hell for all eternity into the pit of burning hatred and fire and contempt and torture because your finger slipped off the “Shift” key? ….Fuck…
Maybe it is good that these people remain as cow-like as possible, who knows what they might do if they didn’t have some sort of ridiculously overly-complex ceremony to occupy their every waking breath. Maybe L. Ron Hubbard started a religion just to keep his fan-boy sci-fi stalkers busy while Ronnie spent some time in Hawaii.
cow-like can be dangerous, read “Under the Banner of Heaven” for an example
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