The whole idea seems nasty

How disgustingly fitting...

I'm not only referring to the candy angle, but also the fact that Monty Python can at least fall back on the fact that they were TRYING to be funny. Seriously, plague-themed candies? The next thing you know, Christians will come out with one of those Christmas-style boxes (the one with 25 little compartments for each day leading up to Christmas) with ten individual candies inside compartments, with each one corresponding to one of the ten plagues Moses rained down on Egypt. Can you imagine it? The hail one would be a bit bland, but the death of the firstborn children would be a little hard to translate to candy form...

I always thought that one was pretty ghoulish, "yay! let's celebrate a divine mass-murder of innocent kids!"

Religion is really stupid. How can they get away with such nutbaggery? It's not like we evil nihilist darwinists celebrate holocaust night. Oh, that's right - we didn't cause that, in spite of what Ben Stein says.

I rise in defense of Passover.

For the following reason:

Coke made with REAL SUGAR!

During Passover, Coca-Cola Corp makes Coke with real sugar, and not the appalling High Fructose Corn Syrup.

If you want "The Real Thing", it's Kosher for Passover Coca-Cola.

Get it while you can, people.

Chris,

i honestly did not know that....I wonder if there's a religious holiday on the calendar where Coke reverts to putting the actual coca plant (cocaine's parent plant, just in case someone didnt know) back into their product. somehow i doubt it...

Now, now. There's no question that the plagues described are awful, but the people they were inflicting them on *were* holding the Jews as slaves. I mean, okay, sure, there's no evidence that that particular bout of slavery ever happened, but since there's also no evidence for the plagues, I think we should just call it a wash.

Chris - Good point, however you don't have to wait for passover. I've seen Costco sell Coke with real suger. Look for the glass bottles. The ones that say: Bottled in Mexico.

And don't knock the advent calendars. Chocolate is still chocolate, even if it is molded into pagan symbols. I mean, it's not the chocolate's fault. And don't get me started on chocolate easter bunnies.

I'm an atheist, but my family is Jewish, so I still celebrate some of the major holidays, including Passover.

At least as my family celebrates it--different families do it differently, depending on how observant they are, but the basics are the same--the plagues aren't celebrated at all. In fact, a significant part of the ceremony involves mourning the victims of the plagues. It's very much a celebration of liberation. (For the religious, of course, it's an opportunity to thank God for said liberation, but religious folks will thank God for anything.) There's also a secondary message that you should care about, and work for, the freedom of others.

Frankly, I think there's something to be said for a religion that includes holidays to remind you that you're free. As bat-shit crazy as Judaism is, it at least has that going for it.

It's... bag of plagues!

The Crunchy Frog skit's great, but I like the Hell's Grannies one better. Gotta' stay away from those vicious gangs of Keep Left signs.

Hey, you remember when DI assclown Michael Medved wrote that piece on slavery, the one in which he stated:

"THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY'S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA"

At the Medved family Seder, do you suppose he serves not-so-bitter herbs to commemorate the enslavement of the Israelites?

I confess.....

I bought the finger puppet plagues for my 3 year old son. I did so in order for him to be a part of the "Seder", the ritual presentation of the story of Passover. A typical Seder involves the explanation of the history of Passover, the symbolic food that is eaten during the meal, and among other things, a recollection of the Ten Plagues. As stated above, we do not celebrate the Plagues; in fact, we dip our finger in a cup of wine and place one drop on our plates to commemorate each plague. We do so to remind ourselves that these were horrible events that befell the Egyptians.

Part of our cultural tradition is to help teach the next generation our history and customs. I'm hoping that my son not only appreciates the puppets, but becomes an active participant of future Seders.

Bag includes: fake blood, frogs, lice, bugs, beasts, finger puppets, cow mask, boils, locust, sunglasses, death of first born puzzle (all items made of plastic).

8:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and tell him, 'Thus says the Lord: "Release my people in order that they may serve me!
8:2 But if you refuse to release them, then I am going to plague all your territory with finger puppets.
8:3 The Nile will swarm with finger puppets, and they will come up and go into your house, in your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading troughs.
8:4 Finger puppets will come up against you, your people, and all your servants."'"

Chris:

Alternatively, you can import Mexican (and I believe Canadian?) product year round, since they never did switch to HFCS. All the specialty places and even a lot of the better supermarkets where I live have Mexican coke on the shelves at a slightly premium price.

Brokensoldier
They still use the coca leaf, actually. They just use leaves which have had the active ingredients extracted from them (and made into medical morphine.) Yes, it's a little weird to be drinking byproducts of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Well, in England we still celebrate the hanging, drawing and quartering of a Catholic wannabe mass murderer every November 5th. Oh wait... but that makes sense. :-)

I like crunchy frog.

It's... bag of plagues!

Is that what they're calling Expelled now?
(Sorry, couldn't help myself)

I've seen cane sugar cokes in a few Latino markets (imported from South America, apparently.)

'Is is hardly appropriate, I think it'd be better if the box bore a bright red label warning: LARK'S VOMIT!

I am a big fan of crunchy frog, and often go to Johnny's Reef on City Island (Bronxtucket) or the original Nathan's on Coney Island to get it. The best thing about frogs' legs is that you can pretend you're eating smurfs.

Anybody remember the Simpsons' bible-story episode, with Skinner as pharaoh and the schoolkids as the Israelites? After the plague of frogs, Skinner-Pharaoh is licking his lips, sated with froggy goodness.

#1 brokenSoldier-

You do realize that those are the same plagues, right? Christians wouldn't necessarily need a holiday (or a box of candy) commemorating the ten plagues of Egypt, because the Jews already have one... Passover.

HA! I had seen the bowling set in a Dave Barry newspaper article a few months ago and showed it to a Jewish coworker thinking she'd laugh and get a kick out of it. Instead she was all excited about buying it for her grandchildren to make Passover more fun!!!

Nentuaby, I'm sorry, but as a pharmacologist I have to point this out: the coca plant is not the precursor to medical morphine. Coca, and the cocaine derived from it, is a psychostimulant of an entirely different pharmacological class than morphine and other opiates.

Morphine, and all other opiates, have their natural precursor from the opium poppy, and so naturally made medical morphine would be extracted from the opium poppy. These days, however, morphine (and heroin) can be synthesized in labs.

But you are right, they do still use "decocainized coca leaf" in Coca Cola. Whatever that means.

Coca Cola with real sugar is the best! You can get it year-round in Israel if all else fails. Real sugar is also in the formulation for Coca Cola from Belgium.

My family still celebrates Passover, but as part of mourning the victims of the plagues, we always talk about modern day plagues as well.

The whole thing is told as a fairy tale, as it should be.

There is also a portion of the Seder where a drop of wine is removed from the class for each of the plaques, to show the sweetness of the liberated is diminished from by the suffering of the enslavers.

It's a difficult thing to explain to a kid. I'm a secular Jew, but my kid does a lot of things with other jewish kids (and lots of kids from other backgrounds). She wants to read all these horrid passover books, and it's tough to figure out how to explain things to her, but such is parenthood.

I am officially creeped the fuck right out.

By the way, I don't know how widely Jones Soda is sold around the USA, but they make cane sugar cola. I tried some only to find out that I crave the HFCS. Still, it was good to have later in the evening when I wanted something not so syrupy.

You know, I just had an insight as I read through the comments. Here's what I saw:

PZ posts something about a Jewish holiday, and describes an aspect of it with the somewhat provoking comment: "It seems terribly mean-spirited to me".

What is the reaction?

A fatwah-style edict demanding bodily harm? No...

People posting ad hominem attacks? No...

People accusing PZ of racism, or some other equally nasty label? No...

People posting holier-than-thou screeds, telling PZ he's going to Hell or some other nasty (and often fictional) place? No...

Instead, I see people posting clarifications and explanations of the reasoning behind the ritual, and why they feel PZ may have been a little... off... on his interpretation. Compassionate discourse. Calm argument. This, I think, is why I still stick by my brand of Judaism, for better or worse.

Y'all excuse me, now. We've got 9 coming for the first night, and 13 for the second night. I gotta clean the house.

Wishing a good Seder to those who will be attending one. Don't overdo it on the desserts!

--Raynfala

I have been looking without success around Cape Cod and the Boston inner suburbs for kosher Coke, but Jewish readers might be interested in a recipe I posted the other day on my blog (offseasontv.blogspot.com) called Scacchi. It's an Italian Jewish dish, sort of a cross between spanakopitta and lasagna with matzo replacing the lasagna noodles. Good stuff.

Jake - The Plagues struck the common Egyptians, peasants. The oppressors, according to the Biblical story, were Pharoah and other high-ranking officials. In the Biblical story, it was the innocent peasants who were punished for their leader's sins - a leader they had no role in choosing, no less. The deity portrayed in that story was a sadist.

You do realize that those are the same plagues, right? Christians wouldn't necessarily need a holiday (or a box of candy) commemorating the ten plagues of Egypt, because the Jews already have one... Passover.

Posted by: Phill | April 18, 2008 9:59 PM

Yeah, I realize that, but I also know that Christians - as a habit - have a proclivity to do things their own way, redundancy be damned. Especially when the potential for marketing is involved.

Nik - you are wrong saying Pharaoh wasn't harmed by the plague. (His own son died by the last one). Also, if we follow the story's way of thinking-I guess the point of the plague was to cause Pharaoh to suffer from the sight of his own people suffering and to get him under social pressure.
While the plagues are the thing most of us remember about Passover the whole story was actually about slavery and becoming free people. You should notice that in the story Moses tries to convince Pharoah to stop the plagues and the madness and let his people go (instead of, let's say, unleashing all the plagues and torturing Pharoah as revenge)
If we follow the story's spirit I don't think Moses liked the plagues.. (Also the Hagadah, the 'holy short story' you read at the Passover table doesn't seem too happy about it either).
Anyhow, I'm an atheist and I think that while the plague part of the story is horrific, the Egyptians in the story did deserve some major pwning for all the enslavement and stuff. May all who enslave people suffer the same...

#29 'May all who enslave people suffer the same...'

That would include white americans right? I mean for a start...

I came across these toy plague things a few years ago,and I felt just like PZ about it. The whole thing made me very uncomfortable. Then I realised I just didn't have the proper mental disconnects in place. I think I've got it now. Next time I attend a passover, I'm even going to suggest making little paper pyramids and jumping up and down on them.

BTW - there is one thing that is even more grotesque, it's an animated film called the Prince of Egypt. You get the full force of the smug 'you didn't listen to God, so take that' attitude. I let my daughter watch it once, but now I think I'm going to restrict her to morally uplifting classics like Clockwork Orange.

Of course there wouldn't have been ten plagues except that God wants to show how big an arsehole he can be.

Yahweh then said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh, for I have made him and his officials stubborn, to display these signs of mine among them;

so that you can tell your sons and your grandsons how I made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I performed among them, so that you would know that I am Yahweh.'

Recently, a christening reminded me: these events and religious festivals, when families get together, do provide a tremendous familial and ethnic glue. What would a fully atheist family be like without them? How does a people define itself without them? Of course, for the thinking person, that's not a reason for believing what can't be true, but it must be behind a lot of people clinging to their religiosity.
In the old DDR, they tried to provide an ersatz with a secular confirmation ceremony for teenagers, which was supposed to commit them to the values of the state. But nothing like the caboodle you get with a full-blown religion.
Peter

Zarquon makes a good point; in the story, it's said that God specifically went out of His way to "harden the heart" of the Pharaoh to make sure he wouldn't listen to Moses's pleas. So basically, Moses was doing his best, but God was kind of a jerk. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with modern-day celebrations of the holiday; the whole "the Egyptian people were God's children too, and we should feel bad that they needed to die" aspect tends to be emphasized a bit more than the "God wanted to have a good story about that one time He saved us, so He made the Egyptians enslave us and then ensured that we could only be freed by His hand" part. (Hint for the hyper-cynical: the latter part is never mentioned, and I bet if you brought it up to an Orthodox Jew, he'd have an elaborate explanation about why you're misinterpreting the phrase "hardening his heart," and how the Egyptians did some major crime farther back in history and so had it coming, and how if God hadn't let the Jews out at that time and in that way, they'd still be slaves in Egypt to this day, and isn't that a greater crime in the long run compared to one generation dying?) Anyway, if you don't believe the story at all (which I vaguely suspect is the case with PZ), then the take-home message that is actually shared today is probably the important part, and that's 100% "enslavement = bad" and basically 0% "you should kill your enemies." (The Orthodox response to that last one would probably be something like "If your enemies actually deserved to die because of what they'd done to the Jewish people, God would have done so Himself; since He hasn't, who are you to second-guess Him? He's good enough at killing people on His own, He doesn't need your help.")

Oh, and Raynfala, the real explanation for the phenomena you've noted is that Judaism is the religion of arguing about things. The Talmud, the Midrash, the Rambam, the only authority a Jew believes is one who can beat him/her in a debate. So until PZ can actually beat the Jews at their own game, he's no threat. ;-)

I still think this takes the prize for religious holiday perversity: The Christmas Nail Christmas tree ornament.

Passover isn't the only Jewish holiday with a bloody background. The story to Hanukkah is fundamentally about religious fanatics in Palestine who violently resisted a foreign occupier. Come to think of it, there's something very familiar about that...

There is an interesting story about this in Jewish tradition that I heard. When God caused the sea to close over the heads of the Egyptian army, the angels rejoiced, but God rebuked them, saying basically, "Why are you rejoicing when my children are dying?" Meaning the Egyptians, of course.

It's an interesting view of an omnipotent being being forced to do something he doesn't want to do for reasons we can only guess at.

Reiterating Chris Tucker above - Coke with Real Sugar, otherwise only available in the UK and Europe (where sugar is cheaper than corn), tasting exactly like you remember it tasting back before the "New Coke" fiasco.

it's one saving grace of this holiday. :)

There is an interesting story about this in Jewish tradition that I heard. When God caused the sea to close over the heads of the Egyptian army, the angels rejoiced, but God rebuked them, saying basically, "Why are you rejoicing when my children are dying?" Meaning the Egyptians, of course. It's an interesting view of an omnipotent being being forced to do something he doesn't want to do for reasons we can only guess at.

The diagnosis is in, no need to guess!

OK, here's a bit of REAL BLASPHEMY for you: "coke" is a disgusting, vomit-flavoured, tooth-rotting, gut-burning, artery-clogging, fart-generating, shit-coloured ABOMINATION! Whoever makes it, and whatever kind of sugar they use.

The astonishing thing is how many followers of the Abrahamic religions can be good people, while worshipping a hypocritical, jealous, psychopathic, misogynistic, homophobic, genocidal megalomaniac. I put it down to the evolved human capacities for compassion, altruism and cooperation.

We shouldn't forget that in ancient Egypt the Pharaoh was worshipped as a living god, so it's also about sticking it to a rival deity, proving he is weak and unable to prevent the plagues.

"Recently, a christening reminded me: these events and religious festivals, when families get together, do provide a tremendous familial and ethnic glue. What would a fully atheist family be like without them? How does a people define itself without them? "

Posted by: peter | April 19, 2008 4:45 AM

While I understand you main point here (my extended family definitely has come together mainly for these holidays), I would offer that Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday, but every year it brings together families for food, fun, and football just the same.

And I'd also proffer that you'd be hard pressed to find a great number of atheists that would describe their family as a "fully atheist family," simply because most people with an atheist world-view do not define their entire family as atheistic as much as families tend to identify wholly with one religion or another. (This is solely based on my own reasoning, but the reason I'd hesitate to call my FAMILY atheistic is that it presumes to foist upon my kids a world-view whose total implications they aren't even fully aware of yet. This is one of my personal differences with religion, but that is for another discussion.) More likely would be to find parents who view themselves and their children as either secular, humanist, or some other like description. (This is not merely semantics, because in defining yourself using the term atheist, you wholly define yourself on a lack of belief, while secular and humanist imply a wider, more positively-oriented consideration of the world than simply your views on theism.)

But to try to answer what I take to be your main question, plenty of pagan families in history have held festivals and celebrations much like the religious sort mentioned here. It might be worthy to note - and I am not even close to being the originator of this point - that Easter falls squarely on the old pagan festival of fertility held at the beginning of the spring harvest. (If you ever wonder what in the hell the bunny has to do with Jesus's version of Easter, herein lies THAT explanation.) As Eddie Izzard (one of my favorite comics) pointed out in one of his bits, the eggs and chocolate rabbits we eat at Easter are symbols of the very fertility that the spring festival was celebrating!

Yup, now that Israel is on the scene and doing its thing, Passover does become sort of problematic. But don't worry, we'll keep that Jews-as-the-victim thing going as long as we can. Everybody gets a kick out of it.

The astonishing thing is how many followers of the Abrahamic religions can be good people, while worshipping a hypocritical, jealous, psychopathic, misogynistic, homophobic, genocidal megalomaniac. I put it down to the evolved human capacities for compassion, altruism and cooperation.

or else they have good compartmentalization skills.

OK, here's a bit of REAL BLASPHEMY for you: "coke" is a disgusting, vomit-flavoured, tooth-rotting, gut-burning, artery-clogging, fart-generating, shit-coloured ABOMINATION! Whoever makes it, and whatever kind of sugar they use.

Leela: I've never seem anyone so addicted to Slurm.

Fry: This is nothing. In high school, I used to drink a hundred cans of Cola a week, right up to my third heart attack.

PZ, the calamities that befall the Egyptians is not celebrated during the Passover, it is mourned. What is celebrated is freedom from bondage.

Try and learn something more about the service; better yet actually sit on a seder. You might actually have fun.

"Yup, now that Israel is on the scene and doing its thing, Passover does become sort of problematic. But don't worry, we'll keep that Jews-as-the-victim thing going as long as we can. Everybody gets a kick out of it."

Indeed, no thread that touches on Judaism would be complete without at least one post of gratuitous Jew-bating.

Well that finishes it; I guess we can all move on now.

"I have been looking without success around Cape Cod and the Boston inner suburbs for kosher Coke"

Blasphemy! You should be looking for MOXIE!

Back to the topic on hand, I can picture the Stein family seder:

"Uncle Ben, how is this night different from all other nights?"

"This is the night my movie kills the evil Darwinist conspiracy!"

Happy Passover, all.

I may have gone to Hebrew school for a couple of years, but I also find all that plague memorabilia right creepy. I never got all that hung up on the plagues at our family seders; for me, it was always about ransoming the afikomen for all it was worth. Also, charoset and Manischewitz.

brokenSoldier #43:
Thanks for taking up the point: guess I was just thinking aloud. And thanks for the reminder about thanksgiving:having spent very little time on the other side of the pond, it didn't occur to me. In the UK now most of the lesser holidays are almost completely divorced from their religious origins, but the two big ones of Christmas and Easter remain religious, if you want it that way.
Peter

A quote: "Don't criticize what you can't understand."
An altered quote: "Judaism is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

I basically agree that we shouldn't be inhibited from calling religion as we see it, but I think prudence and wisdom would counsel us to consider the possibility that there may be something we don't know that might change the picture.

What in god's holy name am I blathering about? I don't know, I guess that there's very little you can tell about a person from the simple fact that they're Jewish or that they do Jewish things.

PZ, the Seder doesn't celebrate the deaths among the Egyptians- there several symbolic mournings all across the protocol of the meal:from removing drops of wine from your glass to a hymn which is basically saying all the miraculous things God has done during the Exodus according to the Bible and saying "if He did (this) and not (next thing on the list) it would have sufficed"- the first few lines are a catalog of what he did to the Egyptians.

Also, much of the Talmudic discussion of the Exodus harps on the fact you shouldn't be happy for other people's suffering: For example it is said that the angels rejoiced seeing the Egyptians drowning and God rebuked them saying "My creations are drowning and you rejoice?!".

In general, it is worth noting that many parts of Judaism have universalist themes, as well as parts which are extremely xenophobic.But I think that the one thing I can see in Judaism that I didn't see in any other religion is the basic demand for self responsibility: the basic approach is "you broke it, you mend it"- if you did something wrong to someone you can't just "apologize" or "confess" and that's it: you have to repair it to that person's satisfaction.

I'm still a Jewish atheist.Because there are far too many parts of religious Judaism which I find repugnent- like the anti-homosexual commandment and the racist undertones that are so easily attached to it.But if you attack something, do it on real problems rather then imagined ones.

For example it is said that the angels rejoiced seeing the Egyptians drowning and God rebuked them saying "My creations are drowning and you rejoice?!" - AntonGarou

Well that sounds to me like the height of hypocrisy on God's part - it was him who was drowning them after all; and him being omnipotent, he could surely just have caused them to be unable to pursue the Israelites? Or he could have softened Pharoah's heart instead of hardening it?

But I think that the one thing I can see in Judaism that I didn't see in any other religion is the basic demand for self responsibility: the basic approach is "you broke it, you mend it" - AntonGarou

If I had £10 (or even $10) for every time I've seen "You broke it, you mend it" given as justification for continuing the US/UK occupation of Iraq, I could probably afford to retire. I think such an attitude can all too easily be used to justify continuing to interfere in the life of someone you've wronged, when all they want is for you to go away and leave them alone.

"OK, here's a bit of REAL BLASPHEMY for you: "coke" is a disgusting, vomit-flavoured, tooth-rotting, gut-burning, artery-clogging, fart-generating, shit-coloured ABOMINATION! Whoever makes it, and whatever kind of sugar they use."

You might want to try drinking it cold. :)

Re #55 - Right, so you can hardly taste it! Even better, I could have my tongue injected with a local anaesthetic - that numbs the taste-buds completely for a few hours!

Well that sounds to me like the height of hypocrisy on God's part - it was him who was drowning them after all; and him being omnipotent, he could surely just have caused them to be unable to pursue the Israelites?

Indeed. Classic abusive mentality: "Now look what you made me do!"

Re #57 I think you're really onto something there, windy! I bet most of God's misbehaviour could be interpreted as that of an abusive partner - pathological jealousy, setting the partner (humanity) up to fail (Garden of Eden), imposing incredibly detailed, pointless rules (what's wrong with clothes made of mixed fibres, for example?), telling them they absolutely need him and are worthless without him, even the promises not to do it again after some particularly damaging outburst of rage (like the Noachian flood).

#58: I can't take credit for that observation, see for example here

Re #59 - Thanks! Bookmarked for future use.

Nick @55:the basic idea isn't you try to do it against that person's will, but that you try to do "repair" and the *other* person tells you what is considered good enough(from "rebuild my house" to "go away, I don't want to hear from you again").You cannot decide for them what is considered "good enough".You take responsibility, but you can't decide for them- the basic Hebrew reply for someone who tries can be roughly translated as "who the hell gave you authority"

windy @57: well, I saw at least one Jewish theologian(Reformed, of course) who referred to God as an abusive spouse.And railing against God/arguing with Him is an old and revered tradition in Judaism as a whole- there is a whole legend centering around God losing an argument with the Rabis:)

I am positive that I've seen chocolate covered frogs legs before ... and I KNOW I've seen chocolate covered ants before, because I actually tried them ... and while I was in Africa, I met a family who pan-fried a certain kind of small, blueish beetle as a delicacy. Sometimes, food from elsewhere can seem unusual, but thats usually because we simply aren't used to it ...