{"id":848,"date":"2013-08-12T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/?p=848"},"modified":"2013-08-11T19:28:11","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T00:28:11","slug":"orange-new-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/2013\/08\/orange-new-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on ‘Orange is the New Black’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Orang<\/a><\/p>\n

I haven’t watched the Orange is the New Black<\/em><\/a> tv series yet, but it looks like worth watching the pilot, at least.<\/p>\n

Hemant Mehta<\/strong>, at the Friendly Atheist<\/em><\/a> has a post about a scene where the leading character\u00a0discloses her atheism<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/kBt-Jig6Ik0<\/p>\n

Piper<\/strong>: I can\u2019t pretend to believe in something I don\u2019t, and I don\u2019t [believe in this]\u2026 I believe in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in Nate Silver, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Christopher Hitchens, although I do admit he could be kind of an asshole. I cannot get behind some Supreme Being who weighs in on the Tony awards while a million people get whacked by machetes. I don\u2019t believe a billion Indians are going to hell. I don\u2019t think that we get cancer to learn life lessons. And I don\u2019t believe people die young because God needs another angel. I think it\u2019s just bullshit. And on some level, I think we all know that\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So far, so good (although I cringed a little about the “believing<\/em>” in science and evolution and the Christopher Hitchens<\/strong>‘ assholery comments, but I can live with that). But it doesn’t stop there. After having something said to her, Piper goes on, and this is the part I take issue with:<\/p>\n

Look, I understand that religion makes it easier to deal with all of the random shitty things<\/strong> that happen to us. And I wish I could get on that ride, I’m sure I would be happier<\/strong>. But I can’t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe I’m being picky but I don’t think religion gives anyone comfort<\/strong>; for me this is some kind of metaphor of the cliche that Christians are better people. I’m sorry – they’re not. We grieve as badly as they do, and we can be happy, and have wonderful, enjoyable lives (maybe not so enjoyable for people in prison, I’ll give you that).<\/p>\n

People go to religion because they think they live in a vale of tears, but that’s the Christian narrative<\/em><\/strong>, not the atheist one<\/em> (which there isn’t), and certainly it isn’t mine. I don’t despise the material, physical, world, and I don’t think there’s some kind of ethereal spiritual one better than this one. This is the only<\/em> one, and it is wonderful!<\/strong><\/p>\n

So no, I don’t see any more comfort in religion than I see in Harry Potter<\/em> or Pinnochio<\/em><\/strong>, and,\u00a0assuredly, to play Quidditch doesn’t make anyone happier than non-Qudditch players such as myself.<\/p>\n

Then, I came across Sam Mauceri<\/strong>‘s advocacy for the show<\/a>\u00a0and this part caught my attention:
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Orange is the New Black\u00a0makes it clear that it is not Pennsatucky\u2019s and Piper\u2019s religious values that make them good or bad people, but how they treat others. It is a respect of others\u2019 beliefs<\/strong>, a willingness to coexist, and an avoidance of extremity that allows many of the other prisoners to befriend one another and avoid conflict.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, no, no, no, no. \u00a0Beliefs don’t deserve respect, people do<\/a>! Questioning beliefs is disrespectful, but that’s the way science and democracy work and that’s what I think we as Humanists should get behind – we don’t respect beliefs, we respect people.\u00a0Now, ain’t that a motto?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t watched the Orange is the New Black tv series yet, but it looks like worth watching the pilot,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[382,28,57,139,31,260],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-christianity","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-humanism","tag-new-atheism","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}