tiptoe through the terrorists

Today it was announced that a Berlin opera cancelled its controversial modified "Idomeneo"--a piece in which Greek sea god Poseidon commands the mortal king of Crete, Idomeneo, to murder his own son. The king gets out of it when his son's girlfriend, in an act of altruism, rushes up to be beheaded in his stead and some how it works out that Poseidon's command is overruled and they all live happily ever after. In the modified Berlin opera Idomeneo appears onstage accompanied by the heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha, and the prophet Mohammed, in a visual representation of Mankind's victory over the gods.

The piece was cancelled due to the producers' concern that showing Mohammed's severed head on a chair may offend some Muslims and it could put theatre employees and patrons at risk for car bombings.

May I make a small request, please, of all religious radicals?

Could y'all kindly get down off your damn high horse?

First you got your panties in a wad because people included Mohammed in cartoons. Then your wedgies further shimmied between your cheeks when the Pope mentioned that the Big M was a douchebag. Now you've got the european theatre circuit scared out of their boots to say anything that might irk you in the slightest because its very bad PR to have your theatre blow up on opening night.

Dammit... KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!

Most people--all religions alike--can take a joke. "So Jesus and Satan walk into a bar..." and "So Buddha is in a candy store..." are not uncommon openers for them. If the joke is good enough, everyone gets a charge out of it, and even the really religous people smile and hope their diety of choice enjoyed it too. Very rarely there's some uptight turd at the next table who scuttles over and expresses just how offensive they found that, you faithless heathen, and i'd appreciate it very much if you went and blew yourself, but that's typically the extent of it. Everyone gets a good laugh at the twit's expense and nothing ever comes of it. This is what we call "not letting one's religion get in the way of living." Because lets' face it--if we all lived the way it says we should in those ancient texts, life would really, really suck.

Now, however, it is not so easy to kid. Now we know that there's some Muslims out there who have a real chip on their shoulder about their religion, and they want to make sure everyone knows it. Mohammed is like every fanatic's little brother--you say anything mean about him, they're gonna fight you. En masse.

what makes you so goddamned special that you feel you have the right to take offense when people who Disagree with your beliefs express them? "We're the only right religion, all the rest of you are going to hell--in fact, i'm going to kill you now so you can be Hellward bound even sooner."--GUESS WHAT.

ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE THINK THEIR OWN RELIGION IS THE RIGHT ONE.

Otherwise they wouldn't buy into it.

a=b. the statements are synonymous. I believe it because I believe it.

The planet Earth is rapidly spinning out of the time of gods. We don't need them anymore--we've figured out that the gods we invented in our sacred texts don't actually encompass--or even shed light on--the true enormity of the universe. The incomprehensibility of infinity. Where babies come from.

The staggering number of wacko religious people is getting to be a good indicator that its time for change. These people are terrified that the world no longer has room for them. That their outdated ideas are rapidly fading from quaint to backwards, like when you realize that grandpa's war stories are actually the unintelligable babblings of a syphilis-rotted brain. The religious fanatic chooses to reject the truth of progress and resents all who have happily passed him by. Rather than fade quietly away or join the movement ahead, however, he gets angry at everyone and reacts violently. The zealot would rather have negative attention than no attention at all.

This does not mean, however, that we should be patient with them--try and coddle them into behaving and quietly going about their lives like everyone else. No--just like the child who has learned that throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery store gets him candy, the only way to break the vicious cycle of violence and appeasement is to ignore it entirely. Eventually they'll have to cry themselves out, get up off the floor, and come along quietly.

I may have mentioned this before, but I find religion offensive and would rather not have easily-recognizable houses of worship in my town. Same goes for the Golden Arches of McDonald's joints. Both establishments convince people that the most staggeringly outlandish lies are true in spite of heaps of evidence to the contrary (for organized religions, its that the Earth is the focal point of the universe; for McDonalds, its that their chicken sandwiches are now somehow good for you.) They do it with the cunning use of crayons. Yes, Big Church and Big Business have figured out that if you lure in children with promises of fun, colorful baubles and unconditional love, they'll stick with you for life.

Congratulations, Deutsche Oper, you caved. You did exactly what the terrorists would want you to do--you compromised your artistic integrity, you let down your patrons, and you fuelled the zealots' fire by going out of your way to not offend them. You censored yourselves because you were afraid--terrified--that the big bad Muslims would spank you for saying something mean about their idol.

A more mature way of handling this situation would have been to identify that a threat was possible, tighten security at the entrance, and go on with the show. Tighten it around the block if you'd like. Anyone who's flown in the past five years is used to queueing in security lines. Its a necessary evil these days that we all hate and all blame on W...but its either that or change who we are to appease the men with bombs.