Okay, as I've already stated, I have senior-itis in a bad way. This makes it very difficult to make myself accomplish much of anything. However, today it hit me that, once again, I am surrounded by religious doggerel...er, dogma. Catholic doggerel...er, dogma, to be precise. Why? Because the Middle or Dark Ages were immersed in it. In fact, I recently saw a bumpersticker that made me giggle and reminded me of class: When religion ruled the world, it was known as THE DARK AGES. Not only do I like the political message, but it's just humorous to me. I can't help it. My mother warped me. At any rate, I am in a medieval women course. To study medieval women, one must understand something of the culture and society they lived in. Unfortunately, watching A Knight's Tale doesn't qualify, even though Heath Ledger is rather yummy. Apparently, Catholicism at the time, and a truly patriarchal society, made it difficult for women to get any respect. I mean, these people actually believed redheaded children were born that way because their trashy mothers had sex during their menstruation. Conception during menstruation was also blamed for such lovely illnesses as measles and chicken pox. Oh yeah, these people were brilliant. No, I do not believe this was a Catholic doctrine, but the mackerel-snappers certainly played their part. For the record, several of my boyfriends (including one husband) were Catholic. I am friends with several Catholics...practicing ones, I mean. And under other circumstances, I try to be less prejudiced. I just have a strong aversion to female oppression.
Back to my original point. Today in class while discussing Memorial by Angela of Filigno (who died in 135?), we examined some art depicting women receiving blood from Christ. Now, I admit I have no artistic talent, but these paintings are a bit odd. One of them was down right creepy. In examining these pictures, several references to the religious beliefs of the day came up. One of them, the seven deadly sins. Now, I've committed most of them. I rather enjoy them, myself. But, as part of the discourse, I volunteered to research them and their counterpart virtues. Which is why I am on the internet now. FYI: this is not a recommended past-time. Researching the seven deadly sins and the seven great virtues, I mean. The only good thing I've found out so far is that while I have committed most of the deadly sins, I've also been virtuous. Depending on who you talk to, my virtuousness ended years ago.Just bear in mind that god got Wendy's periods reversed: every 28 days, she starts acting nice. It lasts about a weekend. (which is a movie line, obviously -- now, tell me which movie! That'll tell me if any of you still read this damn thing.)
Tata for now. I'm off to research when the deadly sins began to appear in artwork. This ought to be enlightening. Or would be if I had any real interest in it. Being surrounded by all this christian dogma is really wearing my witchy-fanny out. Pretty soon, I'll be forced to call for the flying monkeys to open a can of whoop-ass on people.
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