We are gods with anuses: another look at “terror management theory.”

Gods with anuses? This post concerns some of the elaborate ways humans seem to compensate for their anxiety about death. A 2008 Harris poll shows that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus was born to a woman who was a virgin. Thus, by a landslide margin, Americans believe that a woman named Mary got pregnant without any of that icky sperm/penis/vagina stuff (whether a human ovum was involved is keeping theologians busy ). To keep the Savior pure and holy, I can only assume that Jesus emerged into the world through some sort of Divine Cesarean rather than out of the vagina, but the Bible is not clear on the actual method of delivery. Ever since the alleged birth of Jesus, Mary (who was “without sin”) has been referred to as “Virgin Mary,” despite her long marriage to Joseph, suggesting that she kept Joseph sexually frustrated for the rest of his life. All of this uneasiness our animal nature is typical of many religions. In order to keep people focused on the other-world, religions work hard to convince people that human animal existence is vulgar and vile. According to many religions, our earliest “ancestors” were taught that human bodies were shameful even as they were being unceremoniously booted out of the Garden of Eden. Rather than considering our bodies to be exquisite machines that constitute and sustain us, many religions portray human bodies as ungainly, oozing, disgust-inducing earth-bound vessels from which we will eventually escape, thanks be to God! We are to God as slugs are to us. Rather than embracing the marvelous functioning of human bodies, many religions disparage them though, paradoxically, they attribute the “design” of our sordid bodies solely to God, not to natural selection. Thus, there is one notable exception to the general rule: only when Believers are trying to fight off Darwin do they consciously strive to appreciate the exquisite function of human bodies. Oh, such a tangled web religions weave . . .

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The things that bother us

Tonight I’m feeling anxious about the possibility of an immense economic collapse.  I’ve been reading about lots of people being laid off.  Most of us with 401K’s are afraid to even look at our quarterly statements.  The country is running out of fossil fuel and there isn’t anything realistic to…

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Why are humans so repulsed by the idea that they are animals?

Why are humans so repulsed by the idea that they are animals?  Perhaps "Terror Management Theory" can shine some light on this important issue. When I started this blog in 2006, one idea that motivated me was that human beings simply can't deal with the idea that they are animals.…

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Homegrown Cartoons

Back in the mid-1980’s, two graduates of Mercy High School (located in University City, Missouri) drew deeply on that Catholic education and decided to get together every week or so in order to create cartoons.   Whew!  That was more than twenty years ago.  Our plan was to make cartoons so insightful and/or funny that publishers would buy them and then we would never need to get real jobs.  It didn’t quite turn out that way.   Mike Harty was the guy who could draw and I was the guy who couldn’t, but who was willing to offer lots and lots of ideas until Mike found one worth drawing.  This brings to mind the idea of Linus Pauling:  “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”

Mike and I are both baby-boomers.  We drew these in the midst of Ronald Reagan’s second term–cold war politics often worked its way into our cartoons.  As did death and “meaning of life,” and God, and incongruity.  We really didn’t have a plan other than to do something that resonated.  After reading these, you’ll probably pick up on the reason why Mike and I weren’t as popular as the football stars in high school . . .

We worked at drawing and scheming and creating, week after week, until we had created a couple hundred cartoons.  I recently spoke with Mike and asked whether it would be OK to publish some of them at DI.  He was delighted.  Tonight, …

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