The Burr in the Burgh

Some of you may remember "Pat" from Saturday Night Live, the recurring gender-ambiguous character played brilliantly by Julia Sweeney. The joke was always that no one could tell if Pat (not to mention Pat's significant other Chris) was male or female. Let the comedy ensue. The humorously icky way that Julia Sweeney brought this favorite character to life made her famous - for a while.

Sweeney is no longer a staple on late night television, but she is in the public eye once again. Apparently, the comedian has decided that she is an atheist and is taking the stage with a new act entitled "Letting Go of God."

Now, I am truly saddened to hear of Sweeney's loss of faith and I pray for her to come around. But what irks me is how she, and soooo many others, reject Christianity and then go around talking as if they are quite knowledgeable about the subject when the evidence suggests otherwise.

My dad used to say, "It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt." This is advice Ms. Sweeney might have taken.

In this interview from the San Francisco Gate, she discusses her disillusionment with religion. I wasn't too surprised when I read that one of the things that turned her off to Christianity is Jesus Himself. She thinks he is "angry a lot" and "hateful."

But did you notice the one example from the Gospels she attempts to cite? The story where Jesus casts demons out of someone and into a herd of pigs, who then hurl themselves off a cliff. She mistakenly claims that Jesus turned people into pigs.

First, she states that Homer's Iliad has as much or more insight than the Bible. And then - as her one example of the hatefulness of Jesus - she goes on to misquote a text found in Matthew 8. In fact, far from being an example of Jesus being mean, this story is about Jesus helping people. What bugs Sweeney most of all, she admits, is that He's not kind to animals.

Sweeney tries to act all educated and well-read when, in fact, she confuses the Bible with Homer. And not the Iliad which she refers to (notice the casual reference to smart people books), but the Odyssey. Jesus never turned people into pigs, my dear. But the witch Circe did.

It just goes to show that Sweeney, for all her talents and charms, is not a serious atheist at all. She's just ill-read.