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May 11, 2007

Then I found out that the other name for the Bible is the Gospel, so it is all true

While writing my chapter on creationism, I came across this Ricky Gervais routine. The most brilliant thing about it is that in terms of his presentation of "facts" there's not much he says that creationists could actually object to.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

Comments

But... the word "gospel" only refers to part of the (Christian) Bible, and not the part he's reading from.

I hate it when the premise of a joke is incorrect.

plus gospel means "good news", not "truth"
But the piece is still damned funny

Heh. The part in the middle about the French was awesome.

Read literally, of course, the Johns are correct. And, yes, that would contradict my claim that RG doesn't violate any actual creationist arguments. But the Larger Truth is spot on: that evangelicals often say they know the Bible is true because the Bible says so.

Did I just say "spot on"? The British accent got to me.

Oh, the Bible says have faith, hope and charity
That's the way to live successfully
How do I know, ...
The Bible tells me so
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/don_cornell/the_bible_tells_me_so.html

In fairness, I should add that the closing bit about the snake's punishment doesn't quite "work" either, because creationists say the serpent in the garden originally had legs. I'm not sure which version of the story is funnier.

I thought the part about the snake was especially hilarious, because when I was first learning Bible stories at Congregation Solel, I got to that part and thought "Wait -- so the snake did have legs before?" Until the crawl-on-your belly stuff in Genesis 3:14, the snake's legs aren't mentioned. (Notice that paintings of the Garden of Eden mostly show a serpent wrapped around a tree tempting Eve, not a lizard-like creature walking around.) It's like when an inept joke-teller forgets a crucial part of the set-up.

The snake did have legs before the apple incident, but - get this - didn't know what they were for!!! So he was already crawling on his belly, with what he thought were these interesting ornamental appendages - then God takes those away and says, "Guess What, sucker, you could've been walking around all this time, but now I'm taking that away!" Now, see, that's some primo psychological warfare.

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