The Religious Tin-Foil Hat Club

Oh, that crazy religion.  It’s been around for thousands of years, in many different flavors and coming from all areas of the world.  Billions of people consider it to be fact regardless of however it may clash with scientific opinion.  In most cases, one’s religion is a personal matter, something that you don’t push on other people.  But in some cases, people get so zealotous that they feel the need to express their religious points of view upon the world with force. 

Those very same people also have a tendency to be the craziest, misinterpreting and deliberately reinterpreting religious doctrine to suit their needs and seeing enemies in every shadow.  It’s these people that can be the most dangerous, starting crusades and ushering in wars to slay thousands and tens-of-thousands of people.  It’s also those people, coincidentally, who produce some of the most hilariously ridiculous propaganda on the Internet.

To start our journey into religious crazy-town, an analytical video of Beyonce, including her numerous ties to the occult and her channeling of demonic spirits into her stage performances:

Well, they certainly do an interesting job of getting from one point to the other there.  I think they fail in the common sense department big-time though.  For one, the pentagram has roots in religions far older than Christianity.  The symbol was, in fact, adopted by Christianity in an effort to demonize competing native pagan religions.  What was once a symbol of protection was transformed into something to do with Satan.

And the Jay-Z and Sasha Fierce things are just as hilarious.  The individual narrating appears to have no concept of metaphor or stage persona and little idea of how generating media-hype works.  Congratulations, crazy religious person, you have just produced an 11-minute commercial to help promote Beyonce’s album sales.

Not to mention the “mean man face” comment.  Poor Beyonce.

At first I thought the above video was a joke making fun of crazy religious people, but later I found out differently.  The irony is that anti-Christian groups are posting the video on their own sites and using it as evidence as to why religion is bad for the brain.  Not only does the video demonstrate a distinct lack of knowledge concerning other religions, it makes heavy use of false assumptions and half-truths in order to support its argument.  It reminds me quite a bit of preachers who pick and choose different parts of the Bible in order to support whatever doctrine they’re selling, ignoring whatever bits of the book that don’t agree with their point.

But the war of religion versus music has been going on for hundreds of years.  Many of those reading this may remember the big stink back in the 70s and 80s about heavy metal and other forms of rock music and how the musicians who performed this music were all evil and satanic.  This same sentiment has had a place throughout time and been applied to any music that didn’t fit well into the prevailing views of religious societies.

Music is just one enemy of the religious fanatics, however.  When I was a kid, one of the main enemies was toys and this war still continues today.  Christian organizations attack everything from He-Man (one of my childhood favorites) to Harry Potter (magic is evil!) to Rainbow Bright (there’s a star on her face that resembles a pentagram).

Check out this rather poorly written article that attempts (with only minimal success) to make an attack on various toys and other forms of entertainment for kids.  They discuss the horribleness of She-Ra, who was apparently designed to distract little girls away from Christ, and Thundercats, the half-man/half-beasts being the obvious by-product of bestiality.

Another article from the appropriately titled demonbuster.com lays out the entire outline of how the devil is trying to control our kids by using their toys.  He says it is all part of the “New Age Plan,” in which children will slay their parents if they don’t obey the “New Age World Order.”  Harry Potter (poor Harry is a popular target), cartoons, comic books, regular books, video games and even the lovable Pokémon are all secretly evil and trying to corrupt your children.  I’m guessing that anything fun that kids like is suspect according to this individual.

To contrast the above articles (which are indeed serious), I’ve found one that is not so serious.  This one, entitled Toy Story 3: The Hidden Demonic Scenes, is truly and amazingly funny.  But, if you look at it from another angle and consider the other two articles, you begin to see that what this person is claiming about Toy Story (and in particular, Woody) isn’t too far off in tone from what the others have to say on their own subjects.  There is a fine line between what is “the truth of God” and what is tin-foil hat crazy-speak and to the outsider it’s not always that apparent.  If you don’t believe me, check out some of the comments to the Toy Story 3 article.  Several people actually thought the article was serious.

Personally, I’m not an enemy of religion.  Whatever people want to believe is fine by me.  It’s when those people turn into crazy zealots and start trying to change the world “for the better” that I get a bit disturbed.  For it is when you assume yourself completely right and other people too weak to make their own decisions that bad things start to happen.  Luckily, we’re smart enough as a species to not burn down toy companies.  Or so I hope.

Rabid Pokemon photo courtesy of loyalkng.com

Chucky courtesy of comicvine.com

Beyonce & Satan video courtesy of goodfightministries via YouTube