Satire on Christianity

[Raydain]

For a class I'm writing a one-act play and have decided to make it a satire on religion (mainly Christianity). I'm open for ideas on different ideas I can introduce as the play progresses.

My idea is that it's about a typical American of high intelligence (David Sklansky) surrounded only by Christians trying to convert him and "show him the light". The man will begin to question the idea of Christianity and God.

Basically, by the end I want Christianity to look as ridiculous as Scientology. Any ideas on different aspects of Christianity that I can make fun of? An example being, why does God punish people to an eternity in hell for a finite existence in a sinful world.

"I would take the fiery pits of hell then believe in a God that would punish me for not believing in him after giving me the free will to do so"
- someone's quote in this forum, don't remember who or the exact wording

[JackWhite]

Good idea. Let's get rid of Christianity altogether. Let's start by burning down Christian hospitals and schools. Those damn bastards having the nerve to force their religion on us by founding all those thousands of hospitals and schools in the US.

[Raydain]

[ QUOTE ]
Good idea. Let's get rid of Christianity altogether. Let's start by burning down Christian hospitals and schools. Those damn bastards having the nerve to force their religion on us by founding all those thousands of hospitals and schools in the US.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying the play is a bad idea and that the subject should not be touched? I don't view this is that radical of an idea.

Maybe I'll stick to something everyone likes.

[A_C_Slater]

Here's ACT I from a play that is similar to the one you intend on creating. I love this play, you should read it for ideas (LONG.)





excerpt from Act I
(The scene: Wilhelm Reich is on trial in Hell. The trial looks in all respects like a 3-ring circus, complete with jugglers, acrobats, fire-eaters, etc. The prosecuting attorneys are the Marquis de Sade and Count von Sacher-Masoch, both of whom are dressed as clowns. The Ringmaster (Satan) presides as judge.
Early on in the trial, Dr. Reich introduced as evidence a Computer which continually monitors the growth of the worldwide nuclear weapons stockpile. The Computer emits an ear-splitting whistle every time there is an increment in firepower equivalent to the original Hiroshima bomb.....)


SADE: Why did you rebel against Freud?

REICH: (slowly) I rebelled against Freud because he was a coward.

The Computer whistles again.

SADE: A coward? The man who challenged all the taboos of his age?

REICH:He back-tracked, he evaded, he weaseled. He would not say flatly what his theories all implied.

The Computer whistles again.

SADE: (shouting over whistle) You mean he did not share your Utopian fantasies.

REICH:Look at the photos of him; look at that jaw.

The Computer whistles again.

REICH:Look at his expression, those clenched teeth. He was holding back -- and I tell you, all of you, that is why he got cancer of the jaw finally. He wouldn't speak what he knew. He held it in, behind those clenched teeth, until it killed him.

SADE: And what is the truth Freud dared not speak?

REICH:Everybody knows it by now. Look at the crime news on TV --

Computer whistles again.

REICHr go into the emergency clinics and talk to the rape victims. Talk to the battered wives and the abused children. Our whole species is mad, emotionally plagued. We have been mad so long that every attempt to break out of the Trap just unleashes unconscious rage and increases the violence.

Computer whistles again.

REICH:We all know we're in the Trap, but nobody knows how to get out of it. We attack each other thinking that's the way out.

SADE: What? That is the truth Freud dared not speak? I thought he said all that in Civilization and its Discontents.

REICH:He would not say there was a way out of the Trap -- one way only --

SADE: Your way, of course.

REICH:The way I discovered, gradually, after many mistakes.

SADE: Which is?

REICH:Work on the breathing and the muscle tensions. And tell people frankly that there is no metaphysical Good and Evil in the human world any more than there is in the animal world or the chemical world or the physical world of gravity and mass.

SADE: Hedonistic materialism, in short. The permissive society.

REICH:Not permissiveness. Sanity. If a child is a nuisance, tell him so. Tell him his behavior is annoying. But never, never make a metaphysical moral issue out of it. Never, never say anything is sinful or wrong in a cosmic sense. Never pass on the lunacey, the Emotional Plague, that has come down to us from ages of superstition and barbarism.

SADE: A world without morals. Anarchy. That is what you mean?

REICH: It is not anarchy. It is what every person with an ounce of sanity knows. Nobody is to blame for anything. We are all in the mess together because our ancestors were mad and a mad society has passed on their repression from generation to generation.

SADE: And the things I did before I was brought here and cured? They were not Evil?

REICH: You enjoyed feeling Evil because it made you seem heroic. The humiliating truth, Marquis, is that you were merely ill.

SADE: And Hitler was merely ill?

REICH: That is the horror of the situation. We all know it by now, but we cannot remember. We repress it and go on blaming one another -- we forget what we know, because remembering it means remembering that we are robots, too -- that we have all been crippled in different ways by trying to live in the imaginary world of morals instead of the real world of nature.

SADE: So we just teach people how to breathe properly and relax their muscles and we will have Utopia?

REICH: No. I never said it was that easy. I said it was almost impossible, but we had to try, if there was to be any chance of survival at all. Removing the Emotional Plague is just like removing bubonic plague. It will take decades of work all over the world by thousands of specialists. But if we don't try --

Computer whistles again.

REICH: We must understand that every moral idea is strictly a hallucination. It creates guilt which creates muscular tension, which creates rage. That leads to further armoring, to hold the rage in. That leads to all the psychosomatic illnesses that orthodox medicine can't cure and to all the social pathologies around us. Rape. Child-beating. War.

Computer whistles again.

REICH: (excited, beginning to harangue) You compared me to Rousseau. Yes, in the Age of Reason, he had to recreate the myth of Eden again; he called it the Noble Savage. A hundred years later, Marx had to recreate it: he called it the primitive matriarchy, before private property. Eden is always recreated, because we know there is a natural grace and a natural way of life we have lost. We lost it through the invention of Good and Evil. As soon as we believed we were sinners, the Trap closed on us. We accepted the sin and punished ourselves. Or we projected the sin outward and punished scapegoats.

Computer whistles again.

REICH: (rage bursting through) Masochism or sadism -- those were the only choices once we believed in Good and Evil, once we believed in Sin. We are animals. We are no more guilty than a dog, a cat, a horse, a chipmunk. Everybody has known it since Darwin. But we are still in the Trap.

SADE: You really hate the Morality that caused you to kill your parents.

REICH: It is causing the whole human race to kill its children! We cannot see what we are doing. We have been robbed blind by our damned Morality.

SADE turns away sharply.

SADE: Your Almightiness, the prosecution rests. We believe it is obvious, out of his own mouth, that the defendant is a menace to civilization as we know it.

REICH: Wait! Do you know why that moment in nature is so precious, that moment of peace and oneness?

RINGMASTER: The defendant will not speak at this time.

REICH: It is a moment beyond Good and Evil!

RINGMASTER: You can argue that later. Fifteen minute recess. Then we will hear the case for the defense. (He rises)

The Computer whistles three times rapidly.

MASOCH: All rise!

Houselights up. As audience starts to leave, REICH begins addressing them.

REICH: Listen to me a moment! That moment of peace, that moment in Nature, beyond Good and Evil -- that is the essence of us. Our core. Our true selves. We normally never feel it because --

RINGMASTER: Clear the Court!

REICH: because our muscles hold it down. Our muscles are chronically tense, it is so chronic that we never notice it. We only notice the peace when on a rare moment the tension relaxes. What do you think the Drug Culture is all about? Relaxing the muscular armor, getting rid of that tension for a few hours, or a few moments.

ACROBATS go down into the audience and persuade people to leave. They are very polite, like well-trained policemen, and become very threatening (in a polite way) with those unwilling to leave while REICH is still talking.

REICH: We are diseased -- dis-eased. We have lost touch with natural feeling. When the Life Force tries to break through the muscular armor, it gets deflected, I say, and comes out dis-eased and violent. That's why all political revolutions fail. That's why there are no political solutions. That's why

RINGMASTER: Silence the defendant.

MASOCH and SADE "beat" REICH with bladders again and drag him offstage right.

REICH: (as he goes) You can't feel naturally. You can't see what you are doing, or what is being done around you. You are robots. Robots. All of you. All of you.

Curtain.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
For a class I'm writing a one-act play and have decided to make it a satire on religion (mainly Christianity).
<font color="white">. </font>
My idea is that it's about a typical American of high intelligence (David Sklansky) ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Start again.

[Trantor]

another option is maybe the other way round:you have a believer trying to convert atheists by adopting distortions of the usual believers beliefs. That is you satarise the beliefs by extending them to the absurd.

The play treats the believer seriously but the audience see how absurd the statements are and so by extension the "normal" believers arguments.

Have you seen "Life of Brian". If not get it out of the video shop NOW! A great funny film by the Monty Python team that may give some ideas for other approachs. Such a good satire the UK TV wouldn't show it.

"Blessed be the cheesemakers!"

[RJT]

First find out if your teacher is atheist or a person of faith. Then write the play from the same point of view as the teacher - if he is atheist, then go with what you started; if he is a believer go from that angle and show the other side’s absurdity. Either argument has its absurdities. Guaranteed an A if you go with same side as the teacher. They love stuff like that. Makes ‘em feel hip.

[RJT]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - save your real opinions and arguments for places like this forum, where it really matters. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[purnell]

[ QUOTE ]
First find out if your teacher is atheist or a person of faith. Then write the play from the same point of view as the teacher - if he is atheist, then go with what you started; if he is a believer go from that angle and show the other side’s absurdity. Either argument has its absurdities. Guaranteed an A if you go with same side as the teacher. They love stuff like that. Makes ‘em feel hip.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, definitely +EV