Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
________
My friend Brook posted this pic on Facebook this morning and it made me think about religion. Primarily because Brook has used the phrase "These go to eleven" as a descriptor for how most religious people explain their faith.
If you have seen the exchange above, you know that Nigel has strengthened his amps and re-marked them at 11. Of course, volume rating in this sense is completely arbitrary. There is no objective decible marker for 10. What counts as 10 in terms of decibles would vary from amp to amp. Saying one's amp goes to 11 is completely meaningless... but it makes Nigel feel as if his band has something that no other band has. The fact that his amp goes to 11, in his mind, makes Spinal Tap unique.
When I am in religious conversations on Facebook, Brook will often, like an audio drop on radio, pop in to say "These go to 11". This is shorthand for stating that the person I am talking to is stuck in a logic loop. Their religious item is true BECAUSE they say it is true. Their religion is superior. Their religion is unique.
Their religion goes to 11.
An example of this is when an evangelical states that their religion is different because they are not actually in a religion, they are in a "relationship". The fact that there is no functional difference between how they relate to their god and how my Mormon friends relate to their god would be pointless for me to bring up.
Their religion goes to 11.
On the flipside, various Mormon friends of mine state that one of the things that makes their religion different is their claim they are god's "one true church" on the earth. The fact that pretty much every other church group makes a similar claim doesn't seem to hinder their belief that they are unique.
Their religion goes to 11.
So what about your religion? How does your religion get that extra push over the cliff? What makes yours one louder?
When all the other religious blokes are playing at 10, how have you remarked your religion as 11?
This is FANTASTIC. I love having little catch phrases like this to go to, even if just internally, when I come across something in the Christian world that is just too much. "But these go to eleven." I'm going to file that one away to use, and maybe I won't hurt myself so much and often with the old facepalm.
ReplyDelete