Monday, January 19, 2009

Keep the faith

Ireland has become increasingly secular and materialistic in the last few decades, and the GAA has reflected that. Many people have long since swapped their rosary beads and peculiar certain-foods-on-certain-days rituals for astronomical house prices and a frankly absurd obsession with cooking. We’re also, of course, an increasingly multi-denominational society, with people of all faiths and none living pious cheek by atheistic jowl.
So how to know the proper procedure if that new club member is a Jainist, Zoroastrian, Beelzebubian or Yugoslavian? How to avoid making an embarrassing or, in the case of that devil worshipper, potentially fatal gaffe about their religion? Here’s a little guide to the world’s major faiths, in terms you, the reader, will understand:

Catholicism: Belief in God guarantees victory – but you must feel guilty about it afterwards
Presbyterianism: Hard work and sobriety will earn their just rewards (although the break of the ball could swing things either way)
Buddhism: The path to enlightenment is one of suffering – hence the maniacal training regimes now employed
Islam: Allah will strike down the Yankee infidels (which might explain New York’s consistently poor performances in the Connacht championship)
Taoism: Too complex to explain in one sentence
Confucianism: Man who struggle on with hamstring injury in club match risk missing big intercounty final following week
Judaism: We have wandered in the wilderness for forty years; God has forsaken us; we obviously need to put in more work at schools’ level
Satanism: The Dark Lord will one day rise and bring Hell on earth – although after watching the average Ulster championship match, some believe this has already happened
New Ageism: You have to feel the ley-line energy to truly be as one with the Association (man)
Native American Animism: When I was a boy, my people ran freely over this half of the pitch. We had plentiful free space, and many chances for goals. Where are those warriors now? They have been slaughtered by the handpassing game
Amish: What’s sport?
Calvinism: The Damned and the Saved are pre-judged – so no amount of tinkering with the formats will help the weaker counties
Moonies: Any chance we could use Croke Park for an upcoming mass wedding?
Hinduism: The caste system must be kept in place; we cannot have the pure mixing in the same division as the Untouchables (like Carlow)
Sikhism: These enormous plaits can be kinda hard to squeeze in under a helmet
Evangelicalism: And on Judgement Day the Lord will smite down the wicked and those who brought in the back door, sending them into the pits of Hell for interfering with the work of God and the traditional winner-takes-all structures. Testify!

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