Quote of the Day

Take from the below quote what you will, and read it in the right context. I have close Christian friends -- the REAL kind of Christian, and I have a healthy suspicion part of my Nathan Soul can be branded with a pure "C" -- but I do think, especially in our scary political/religious climate, there's much that can be culled from the following musings:

"'Now the Christians have had a good run. No question about it. One dead Jew with some neat tricks up his sleeve, promoted like hair tonic by a few fanatical followers, and one converted emperor later they've got themselves a Holy Empire to shame any in history. Going on two thousand years. How did they manage it? The secret of their success was simplicity: Concentrate your power. Wrap it in mystery. Hide it inside the biggest building in town. Lay down a few commandments to keep the peasants in line, get a regulatory grip on birth, death, and marriage, throw in the fear of damnation, some smoke, a little music --there's your first commandment: Put on a good show -- and customers will come crawling on their knees for the stale crumbs of that Feast of Saints. Now that...that was a business....

"So: How do you change man from a dim-witted, randy farm animal to a domesticated, productive tool ready to roll up his sleeves and pitch in for the greater good? There's the puzzle anybody that aspires to rule has to crack, be it religion, government, business, what have you. And here was the plain genius of the Christians' solution: Convince your constituents of one big lie. We hold the key to the gates of heaven. You want to make the trip, brother, you'll have to do it through our auspices. Sure, advertising how dodgy the Other Place is helped close the deal: Fear puts those poor ignorant sods down on their knees lighting candles like there's no tomorrow. And let's be straight, Old Nick's always been their real matinee idol -- the man you love to hate, he'll scare you so bad you piss in your union suit, but you still can't take your eyes off him. He's the one puts the ladies in a lather, not that simpering, doe-eyed Messiah. Throw the Devil in to spice up the soup, and you've got yourself a flawless formula for religious hegemony. Worked like a Swiss watch. Nothing came close.

"But the march of progress -- and you know it moves independently of our measly concerns; there's mystery for you -- the march of progress demands that those in power change right along with the times. We're at the big table now, boys, playing with a whole new deck of cards: heavy industry, mass production, international economies, weaponry like you've never dreamed of. Pious homilies and weak cheese pulpit-pleading to the customer's spiritual virtue just don't cut the mustard anymore. The Christians, as they are fond of saying in Kentucky, are just about shit out of luck. Excuse my French.'

As the sun sank below the horizon, its dying rays lit Chandros and the sandstone wall behind him with a fiery orange luster."

--Mark Frost, The List of 7, 1993
(*all copyrights belong to Mark Frost)