Spanked by an angel

[Elok]

This was published in the WaPo's "On Faith" section today by a religious scholar of profound depth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/fifty-shades-of-god/2012/06/14/gJQAg6fccV_blog.html

SUMMARY, since I'm not MrFun: The book "Fifty Shades of Grey," which ostensibly concerns a young coed's hardcore S&M sex with a rich guy, is on some level about religion. Not NORMAL religion, of course, but an empowered, loving, modern religion free from institutional trappings. I understand she also referenced the book last week in an editorial about that heretical-nuns brouhaha (if you don't know what that is: group of ostensibly Catholic nuns comes out in support of masturbation, homosexuality, and "moving beyond Jesus," RCC writes grumpy letter to nuns, people act shocked for some reason).

Does anybody else feel like their relationship with God involves electrified alligator clips on their pink parts? I'm going to go with "no."

[Sava]

Going to church feels like alligator clips on my vaj

[Elok]

If, as was the case last I heard, you do not have a "vaj," I take it you don't really feel anything in church. I'm sorry. If, on the other hand, you have acquired one, your theological problems are just one aspect of a much larger issue.

[SlowwHand]

It's just one part, for sure.

[Main_Brain]

I think the whole concept of Pain-Religion Link is a bit outdated but not unheard of. While I personally don't see the appeal, Religion should be a personal/ private Experience. If a person decides self-flagellation/ rapid whirling / nippleclamping or whatever they come up next with strengthens their Bond to God, i do my best to respect that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei#Mortification

[Uncle Sparky]

A large number of Saints were flagrant masochists.

[Lorizael]

50 Shades of Grey is just Twilight fanfic without supernatural elements. If anyone finds religion in it, they're inferring an implication that's not there.

[Elok]

I think the whole concept of Pain-Religion Link is a bit outdated but not unheard of. While I personally don't see the appeal, Religion should be a personal/ private Experience. If a person decides self-flagellation/ rapid whirling / nippleclamping or whatever they come up next with strengthens their Bond to God, i do my best to respect that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei#Mortification

My objection--okay, not my objection, the reason I burst out laughing reading this--was not to her ideas so much as her absurd style of argument, which she shares with postmodernists: point out a similarity or association so mild and tenuous that it could easily be chalked up to coincidence, phrase your arguments to appeal to a bland, fuzzy spirit of open-mindedness, and avoid saying anything specific. What you wind up with isn't an argument so much as a vague sense of linkage between two ideas that can't be explored because there's nothing really in it. Item: fictional rich guy could be argued to share certain traits with certain people's conceptions of God. Item: a lot of religions have stuff to say about sex. Item: Mother Teresa had a rough relationship with God. What's it add up to? A big article that would fail freshman Composition class!

With that said, the ascetic elements of most any religion tend to be fairly similar to martial arts: they're associated with sets of rigid rules to be followed, nothing individualistic about them. Their purpose is not the discomfort in itself but to weaken or overcome undesired aspects of oneself--sensual appetites, passions, whatever they don't like. And they are done by the individual to himself; God didn't make you stand on that pillar for years, you did it yourself to know God better. Whereas she's talking about something that eschews formal discipline for more individual experience, is supposed to be done by God to the believer, and makes no clear sense to the person experiencing, or rather passively enduring, it. To the extent that she's saying anything coherent at all, that is.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

no