Hell House Criticism (was The Nightmare, Part 1)
10/17/2005
Posted this in a friend's journal, but I thought it summed up some things about my beliefs that readers here may find interesting. It's in response to her visit to "The Nightmare," a local Evangelical event held around Halloween every year. "The Nightmare" is what is commonly referred to as a "Hell House," a 'spook house' filled with mock-ups of AIDS victims, drug abusers, and abortions gone wrong designed to scare people into becoming Christians.
What follows is a loose edit of my comment, along with a link to a fantastic documentary about Hell Houses.
(original post here)
In the larger scheme of things, what they are doing is about as meaningful as a mouse dropping. So I agree with you in principle (that I don't see anything 'wrong' with what they are doing). The universe has been around for billions upon billions of years. And before that... well, where does the body end? A couple thousand years of proselytizing and burning witches and condemning heretics and brainwashing young children and setting up exclusive retreat centers and theme parks and resorts won't mean anything in another epoch. It will be folk history. The stuff of children's rhymes, if it is remembered at all.
The trouble with most religious folk is that they cannot fathom infinity. They have to put a cap on it. Eventually, the questions that led them to discover a spiritual path are forgotten - or forced out - by a decisive choice to 'give up.' Because it's probably very hard for most people to feel good about oneself when staring in the face of infinity. It's just so... vast. William Burroughs once said that "A man who prays in Space is just wasting his breath" or something to that effect.
I'm a bit vocal on the subject; it interests me. I was raised with the 'fear of hell,' and I got to see the depths people could crawl in order to uphold the tenets of the Church. In the here and now, I think what GUTS promotes is an extremely sad, limiting, and imprisoning ideology. But ultimately irrelevant. Mother Nature will see to that; she always wins because she has nothing to prove.
Read More about Hell Houses at Religioustolerance.org
Buy "Hell House" from Amazon
posted by Edward Svengali @ Monday, October 17, 2005,
1 Comments:
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At 7:39 AM,
Freya's Paragon said...
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Does your band have an artist's statement...and/or mission statement? Do you have a demo?
The reason I ask is because I believe you are aware I am co-chair for the New Genre Festival that Living Arts puts on every year, and we still have to fill the Opening Night performance slot. I wanted to suggest some performers. They really like the idea of electronica with mixed media...I didn't know what you guys were like. It does pay. Let me know what you can throw together.
