The Good Atheist

Back before the atheist movement was picking up steam, and way before anyone in the mainstream even dared to denounce their belief in God, one paragon of controversy was always making the religious right flip out. You might think that pissing off Catholics is no big deal, but in the 80’s Madonna was all about that shit. I still remember her video for “Like a Prayer”, which featured all kinds of delicious blasphemy, including her having stigmata, singing with burning crosses in the background, and having sex with a black Jesus (who was actually Saint Martin de Porres).

Yeah, you had to give her credit back then for really getting under the Catholic’s skin. But those days are gone, right? Well, not really. It turns out that her name still annoys the shit out of them, and it doesn’t help things when she planned her Warsaw concert on the real holy day for the “actual” Madonna, called the Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Mary.

As for the rest of the controversy Madonna still manages to stir up, it’s your standard fanfare of provocative and fleshy outfits, something I cared about a lot more when she was in her prime (she’s 50 now, and it’s starting to get creepy now). Still, the cherry on top of all of this is the fact that her latest boy toy, a 22 year old Brazilian model, is named Jesus. You can guess what kind of buzz that generated!

Don’t ever change, Madonna.