It's taken on a life of it's own, which has created some separation between it and the religion from which it originated.
I hadn't quite thought of that, but it's true, isn't it? Also, although before 9/11 I thought the virgins-in-paradise myth was weird and comic, I wouldn't have raised it out of the blue as an issue.
When 9/11 happened, and we understood that part of the payoff for those who perpetrated it -- they had been led to believe -- involved the virgins, the inanity (imo) of that promised religious reward became, to me, a legitimate subject matter. It wasn't only a silly-but-harmless religious notion like so many others, then; it became a component part of a system of brainwashing to murderous ends.
I say what I think in argument, of course, but in casual conversation, I do a certain number of things to be polite. I capitalize "God" as a matter of courtesy. I usually even write "Geeez," instead "Jeeez," senseless though the former is (the ejaculation being a contraction of "Jesus," not an expansion of "Gee.")
But I feel no urge to be courteous about the virgin-myth and the uses to which it has been and is being put. |
