0:) The South African Council of Churches is planning to prevent Lady Gaga from performing in South Africa
http://www.channel24.co.za/Music/News/Church-group-plans-to-ban-Gaga-from-SA-20121107 >:D
Right, so a bunch of cassock-widdling old fuddy-duddies with delusions of moral adequacy is trying to exercise its vastly overdeveloped sense of self-worth in order to dictate what others, whom they have never met and know next to nothing about, may or may not see/hear/do. More special privileges, anyone? One is left to wonder whether they have nothing better to do, for example denouncing government excesses, corruption, abuses of power, incompetence, and suchlike things that affect many more SAns than an off-the-wall performer’s itinerary.
Even if Lady Gaga is a raging Satanist, those opposing her tour will need to show that her presence does indeed lead directly to increased moral laxity or even decay among SA’s youth. I’ll wager that the places she has toured as well as her hometown, New York, are no more (or less) depraved than before her rise to fame.
If, as unlikely as it is, they do succeed in getting Gaga canned, it would be a miscarriage of epic proportions.
ETA: This whole sorry mess brings to mind the hectic furore surrounding the Rolling Stones’ album Beggar’s Banquet because of its cover, and more particularly the track Sympathy for the Devil. There, too, dire predictions of rapid doom were trumpeted by hordes of self-appointed guardians of societal norms — predictions that have yet to materialise. Degenerate Satan-worshipper that I am, I would of course draw such an inapt parallel…
'Luthon64
They’ll also have to explain why they oppose freedom of religion. If they are allowed tom proselytize to all and sundry, why can Satanists not do the same?
I have, for a very long time, been tremendously tempted to join the Church of Satan. They look like a cool bunch. 
Oh, that’s easy: Satanists are evil! If you can’t see the difference then you’ve been touched by Satan. Prove me wrong. 
Yes, the LaVeyan school with its Eleven Rules of the Earth is certainly more relevant and admirable than the Christians’ largely debauched Decalogue.
'Luthon64
I love it when art pisses off the church toppies. They are soooo easy and predictable. Hope that Marilyn Manson will agree to open for her. 
Rigil
PS: 8) 8) 8) Cool new trio of sigs M.
4. If a guest in your home annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy.
Satanic code for make sure you hog the salt cellar.
I live in Centurion, heartland of the Afrikaner. And it sometimes seems to me they have all, en masse, turned to Christian fundamentalism over the past few years. On Saturday mornings I can’t go take my little morning walk without being accosted by Jehovah Witnesses. I can’t breathe without someone wanting to know which church I belong to or wanting me to participate in prayer. I currently teach at a school with an overt Christian ethos, which actually doesn’t bother me all that much in principle, but I find myself ever more irritated when I see how the small, pre-school kids are made to participate in table prayer in the morning before eating, and having to help out with organizing a Nativity play for the year-end concert. The good news is they pay me so little I won’t be able to afford to work there much longer.
Anyway, I find that the effect of all this evangelism is sort of cumulative. Any one instance of it can be dismissed as harmless, and I am by nature exceptionally tolerant. But over the years, having to deal with ever more and more of it, I find my irritation growing and growing. I think I should consider moving to evil, god-forsaken Johannesburg - perhaps there aren’t as many of my fellow Afrikaners there. But more and more I find myself fantasizing about being asked about my religious affiliation, and then whipping out my CoS membership card.
Agreed. When it’s overt evangelism and the circumstances are right, the only appropriate response is faint ridicule if total acquiescence isn’t your thing.
A significant part of the problem though is that these religious notions are so pervasive and deeply engrained in the common psyche that they often manifest subtly in common exchanges, usually without much notice or further comment. Whenever possible, I try to confront such cases as delicately as I know how, thereby perhaps making a point. Two recent incidents will illustrate what I mean.
In the first, a very talkative woman in a group with whom I need to interact on occasion was doing her usual jabbering away loudly on assorted inconsequentialities. At one point, the topic of church attendance somehow surfaced and she proceeded to say how she and her husband didn’t go to church regularly. She quickly added, “Not that we’re atheists, or anything like that!” A short pause followed during which I looked at her before asking, “But why not!?” The ensuing blinking silence all around, short as it was, was well worth it. One bloke in the group then winked at me. I think he was the only one who really got it.
The second incident involved a contracts manager while waiting for some other people to arrive for a meeting. Apparently he had been to a wedding the previous weekend and someone asked him what the occasion was like. “Nice,” he said, “It was a Christian wedding. Ja, very nice. Christian, you know?” I thought to myself that I can’t let such a blatant non sequitur pass and asked, “So if the wedding had been Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim, would it have been not as nice?” “No, it’s just that I liked it because it was right for me as a Christian, you know?” came the reply. “Okay,” I said, “I myself really love Hindu weddings with all those colours and happy people. Pagan weddings can be really nice too.” The subject changed soon after.
'Luthon64
These Christians have had it in for L.G. for a while now. They had a facebook page which I can’t find now, but I commented on it some time ago. Whackjobs to a man.
Your essays are always very enjoyable, st0nes! When I have time, I want to read all of them, van 'n kant af.
Rigil
Thanks. I’ve more or less stopped writing them, because the antics of the crazies tend to depress me now, rather than making me angry. Maybe I’ll get my mojo back at some stage…
I identify strongly with this emotion. It is all so tedious…
It is stunning for me how adept the brain is at rewiring itself. At one stage I was one of these people, I thought like them, talked like them, acted like them.
As reason has permeated my mind it’s so easy to take for granted: What I see as self-evident today is still completely obscured from those around me.
Then when things like this happens, how can one react with anything but: “These people are patently crazy! Can’t they see!?”
No, they can’t, just like I couldn’t. So I must learn not to take rationality for granted. It only came to me through brutal introspection and honesty. I wish I could find a way, a subtle but effective means to show these people the world through the eyes of rationality. The only thing that seems to work is to patiently chip away at their prejudices one by one, and hopefully someday they see the light.
Maybe this is why it feels so goddamn tedious. We’d all love to paint the picture in a single stroke.
On this I can agree: Patience can be a powerful virtue.
Just wish I had some. 
Ah, BoogieMonster, ever the diplomat. What you say is exactly right, and I can sympathize with religious folk for not seeing the woods for the trees. But there is a limit to what sympathy can achieve. At this stage I think the most effective response to unsolicited religious ideas is blatant ridicule. Because as the saying goes, “People who don’t want their beliefs laughed at, shouldn’t have such funny beliefs.”
Rigil
Silly church have nothing better to do than waste their own time and ours. And the people who will attend LG concert don’t give a hoot what a church group thinks. I doubt they will manage to stop Gaga anyway. Rammstein came to SA after all…
On Saturday mornings I can't go take my little morning walk without being accosted by Jehovah Witnesses.What do you get if you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Hell's Angel? Someone who knocks at your door and tells you to fuck off!