I have to say that I thought your post was not only very very funny, but made a genuine point of some importance.
We are brought up witnessing, and then of course internalizing, the reflexive, almost hushed awe with which people are conditioned to speak the names of these figures. It is in the great interest of those who identify with the particular religion, and its Main Figure, to adopt and promulgate a mesmerized, reverent stance toward their deity. It is against their interest to be permissive about clear heads and eyes bringing the same tools to the task of discussing their Figure as they would to discussing and thinking about anything else that was commended to their attention.
Personally, I capitalize the word "God" out of respect for the reverential feelings for believers in this concept; but I think I'd be telling the truth if I said that most every time I do, I think to myself, "Why, again, is it that I have to pay obeisance to this notion?"
This attitude of the membership of the various religious factions, which is "political" in a real sense, and makes little children's minds tend toward the credulousness and awe institutional interests want them to feel instead of toward the rationality and common sense that just might be brought to bear on those same institutional interests, (and does the same to adult minds, too; but the latter seems less dreadful to me, because an adult who chooses that path must need it; children are conditioned, made, to need it, it seems to me)...
...wait a minute, I got off the track. I was going to say that the idea Peter proposes in his funny post has depth, in that it shows how much is in a name, and how different we would feel in our discussions if we did use different syllables in our references than the long-established, "predisposing" ones.
As peter said, people have long-established feelings for the old names, which cause them to believe many claims they would LOL at if, instead of the claim being made in behalf of Jesus and Buddha, for example, they were made for Chuck and Debbie.
[In my Edit window: I just reread this post, and I think it is a complicated post about a simple concept, and I apologize to all.] |
