Let me set up a scene for you. It’s the day before the 4th, a beautifully brilliant, sunny Sunday. It’s a day when families, with their barbecue set and a soccer ball or football in hand, come out to play. Our hero of the story (a.k.a. Yours Truly), well, he likes to waste an amazing day like this and spend his idle time by going to the movies, alone. But not just any movie—he goes to see Batman Begins. In IMAX. So it’s okay to waste a day cloistered indoors with a humungous screen reflecting the only source of light in a darkened chamber. Unfortunately…? maybe, fortunately, the 4:00 showing is sold out. What shall he do? Why, of course, he’ll buy for the next showing. After the purchase, he does what he does well when he is killing time and is without the option of a movie—he takes a walk.
I’ve lived in New York for most of my life, yet there are still places in the city I have yet to visit, Riverside Park being one of them—I never knew how awesome the park is. It’s a constant surprise to re-discover my city anew. But the funny thing is… Well, walking alongside the Hudson, I was reminded of my high school years. Then, the all consuming thought was how much I wanted to get away from the city, to leave behind a school where feelings of “I don’t belong” was like a constant base line, to fly far away from a church where my so called “brothers and sisters in Christ” readily passed judgments, deeming me worthy to be shunned, and to escape the clutches of my family whose unbridled pleasure was to pressure me to fit into their image of what success is; New York had given me more coals than honey. If heaven had seen fit to rain down fire and brimstone on this city, well, it would not have found a dissenter in me. And now, I was headed up to Columbia—a source of conflict between Mom and me: she wanted me to attend there, whereas I… well, let’s just say that I royally wrecked my already slim chances of getting in by making myself seem like a fanatically crazy Christian, saying to a Jewish interviewer stuff like, I don’t know, had Moses been a contemporary of Jesus, he would have been an apostle, who’d’ve readily wiped his ass with the Torah. Okay, maybe what I said then was not that offensive, but it came very close. Well, you get the picture. But even as I was reminded of all that, while walking alongside the Hudson, towards Columbia, with the gentle sunrays showering me, I smiled, because, now, I couldn’t think of any other places where I’d rather be. An as the Riverside Church’s tall gothic tower came into view, I was thankful for the goodness of Gotham City.
In a blink of an eye, it was 7:30, and the lights darkened and the giant screen filled with beautiful, dark images of Batman’s Gotham City. (By the way, if Batman Begins doesn’t garner at least a nomination nod for Art Direction, it’s nothing less than a tragic travesty and an outrageous oversight on the Academy’s part.) Anyways, I should get back to the point why I was reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, first of all, it’s not my intent to ruin the plot, but since the movie has been running for a quite a while, I think I can be forgiven if I were to disclose a certain important storyline. As you all know, the premise of Batman Begins is Batman’s origin story, retelling how Bruce Wayne becomes Gotham’s Dark Knight, a force of good. Obviously, there is more to the plot than that: one point I was struck with was Bruce Wayne coming into terms with Justice. For young Bruce, he was not able to separate vengeance from justice. With an unsavory end to his parents’ murderer by the hands of a minion of Gotham’s criminal lord, Bruce goes into a tailspin, unsatisfied and still hungering for vengeance disguised as justice. He leaves Gotham, later finding himself with the League of Shadows, a vigilante group that see themselves as law enforcer, judge, jury, and executioner. They train him to become a warrior, to fight for their cause. But when their views on how justice should be dispensed to Gotham diverge, Bruce leaves them in a violent, explosive way. Like Abraham pleading for Sodom’s salvation, Bruce pleads that, however corrupt Gotham has become, there is still goodness left in it that’s worth saving; but unlike Abraham leaving the fate of Sodom in the hands of the three heavenly guests, Bruce fights for Gotham’s salvation.
Now we all know what this beautifully flawed city experienced on September 11, 2001. A few bunch of religious zealots, thinking they know well the will of God, decided to dispense their judgment. And today, again, we saw a similar and no less horrific act perpetuated on London’s Underground, reminiscent of the monorail usage in Batman Begins. I want to change the tone of this post a little by addressing the idiots who tarnish the good name of Islam:
Who the fuck do you think you are? The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is justified in that in was the very hand of God that had smitten the city with fire and brimstone. Your desire to destroy New York and London with your own hand, while abusing the good name of God, for your own, selfish end is not justified. It was God who saw it fit to punish and destroy Sodom. Are you God? How dare you claim to know God’s mind and his judgment for us? I hope the law of Man will find you and it will dispense the harshest judgment on you. As for God’s judgment, I can’t claim to know how He’ll judge you, but I pray that His Justice will be enough to assuage my desire for vengeance.Also, I would like to address the idiots who tarnish the good name of Christianity:
You also claim to know God’s mind, claiming Sodom’s destruction was due to its people’s faggotry. You use this incident in the Bible as an example of God’s condemnation on homosexuality.
Well, what if I propose to you otherwise?
The customs and traditions of nomads, as some scholars have supposed, dictate that when a guest, even a stranger, arrives in front of your tent, you go beyond the call of duty to meet the guest’s needs. Chapter 18 of Genesis begins with three heavenly guests appearing before Abraham. Abraham says to them, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.” He then prepares a feast for them, telling his wife, Sarah, to make some break, going to the herd to choose the best calf, and giving it to his servant to prepare. After the meal, and as the men got up to leave, the Lord reveals to Abraham his plans to destroy Sodom, saying, “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” He continues, “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.”
Now compare the events in chapter 18 with those in chapter 19. The heavenly guests arrive at Sodom and are greeted by Lot, whose hospitality echoes that of Abraham, but they also are met with people of Sodom, who have placed their needs first to those of the guests, demanding Lot “bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Now, this verse has been, in my opinion, misinterpreted.
If we can agree that the two greatest commandments are “Love Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; and Love your neighbor as yourself,” and that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments,” then the greatest sin people of Sodom have committed is that they failed to love their neighbor and the two guests by showing the appropriate hospitality customs and traditions demanded. Unlike Abraham and Lot, they have not done what is right and just. The discourtesy shown to the guests is what they have done “bad.” Those who had come prior to the two guests, those who had come to Sodom seeking shelter and food, those who were wronged—they cried out to the Lord; and it was their outcries that reached the Lord’s ear. Non-consensual sex, whether it is a heterosexual or homosexual one, is a good example as any of failing to follow God’s commandments. The passage does not condemn gays in any way at all!
So, whose interpretation is correct? The operative word being “interpretation.” And so I ask you, my idiotic brothers and sisters, as I have asked my idiotic Muslim brethrens, who the fuck do you think you are? Are you God? Can you tell me with absolute certainty that your interpretation is without a doubt God’s will? My only certainty is my relationship with God. I can’t claim to know how your relationship with God is, whether you are going to heaven or hell. Therefore, “do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured with you.” Unless you want to be no different from those terrorists who flew planes into buildings or unloaded explosives into packed subway cars, continue to spread your hate.
Yeah, so the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has been on my mind…
Finally, to the good people of London—Christians and Muslims, atheists and theists, rich and poor, to everyone—my prayers are with you. You will rise above this terror, as you have risen from the ashes of World War II, and you will be stronger for it. Shalom.
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