The Metro reported, this morning, that despite a concerted weather attack, the giant Homer painting next to the Cerne Abbas Giant has survived. I guess the Old Gods are powerless in the face of the New.

I can’t find an online source to link to for this, so if anyone has any more luck, can you stick it in the comments? I’ll update this post appropriately.

OK! We get the message; no more Homer pictures. Enough with the weather magic already!

It turns out that being publicly offended by disrespectful behaviour isn’t unique to the Abrahamic religions. Now it’s the turn of our own home-grown nature worshippers to make some waves. The cause of their disquiet? A gigantic image of Homer Simpson painted next to a gigantic image of a naked man.

Apparently it’s disrespectful, although I’m not sure to whom; whoever carved the giant is long dead. And if you’re thinking that it’s somehow disrespectful to the religion of our ancient ancestors (as imitated by today’s pagans,) it’s worth remembering that the giant is likely not more than a few hundred years old, and there’s no evidence to suggest it’s purpose was in any way religious, much less what that purpose might have been; for all we know the original could be an artifact of 17th century humour – sort of an early-modern Homer Simpson himself. Basically, a bunch of born again pagans found something older than they were carved into a hillside, decided to adopt it as a religious symbol and assigned their own meaning to it, and are now the rest of us are supposed to respect their outrage when someone comes along and paints a similar image in the neighbouring field. I’m sorry, I’m not playing.

Oh, and as for the “not aesthetically pleasing” line; isn’t that sort-of an “in the eye of the beholder” thing? I’ll bet if you polled the population you’d find plenty of people who think Homer is just as easy on the eye as some naked, club wielding barbarian, no matter how old he may be: at least homer had the decency to keep his pants on.

In their defence, at least the Pagans aren’t blowing people up, or threatening legal action. They’ve vowed to use “rain-magic” to wash the Homer painting away. Sounds like a pretty empty (not to mention redundant, given the British Summer) threat to me.

Update: Actually, I think I’ve been a bit needlessly harsh on the Pagans here. They haven’t really said anything except that they don’t like it, and that they’re going to appeal to their gods to remove it. They haven’t asked the rest of us to be offended on their behalf, and they haven’t tried to use the legal system to force us to “respect” their belief. They’re using the practice of their faith to battle the perceived threat to their faith. Clearly, if they think that’s going to increase the chance of the rain erasing it, they’re deluded, but there’s nothing inconsistent in their position. In fact they’ve neatly highlighted a contradiction in the position of pretty much every other offended religious group we hear about. Namely that this omnipotent god (or gods) we’re supposed to be so careful not to offend somehow needs to be looked after by mere mortals. Surely if Allah is so great, and so angry at the West he doesn’t need people to blow themselves up in the hopes of taking us with them: couldn’t he just wipe us out wholesale himself? If you truly believe in the power of your Christian God, wouldn’t praying to him be a far more effective means of gaining the right to wear your crucifix at work than taking your employer to court?

Claiming the existence, sanctity and omnipotence of some higher being while at the same time using purely earthly methods to enforce the supposed rules of that being is hypocrisy, pure and simple. We should point it out in those terms whenever it’s encountered.