"Is God on 'Our' side? Sometimes I wonder, who is on His..." - Cromwell (paraphrased)

Pharyngula: Superbowl!:

Here's something I do find interesting, though. One of the petty annoyances of American sports is their ridiculous religiosity. There are always these showboating athletes who piously announce that their greatest triumphs are due to divine intervention (strangely, when they fumble, they don't afterwards shake their fists at the heavens and curse their gods). It's absurd that they believe their omnipotent deity is at all concerned about whether one team wins or another loses, but it's common background noise at these events.

For the first time, though, I'm encountering media articles that are critical of these god-wallopers.

Does God care who wins? There are few things regarding religion that approach consensus, but it's fair to say that most of us concur with FoxSports.com columnist Mark Kriegel, who recently wrote, "I refuse to believe that God --anyone's God -- has a rooting interest in the outcome of something as secular and perverse as a (football) game."

And here's an editorial where the writer just wishes they'd knock off the public god talk.

Forget the arrogance of that assumption for a moment -- God is with only me. There's something else. I assume some Pittsburgh Steelers are God-fearing men. They can't all be heathens. So whom does God root for in the Super Bowl, the Cardinals or the Steelers?

And with wars going on all over the world and starvation and an economic collapse, with so much to attend to, does God have leisure to root at all?

Do we believe in a shallow, superficial God? God the Sports Fan?

None of these critics are saying this because they're atheists who disbelieve this nonsense, don't get me wrong; they all seem to be saying that these superficial attributions all trivialize faith. But they are at least doing us the favor of pointing out that these are secular games, and they're a bit embarrassed at the silly piety.

What do sports fans know about arithmetic anyways?

Yesterday on the TV that was showing a college basketball game (which no-one was paying attention to), they were scrolling other sports team news and scores (this is ESPN, you know), and the following wonderfully insightful update came by:

[Team A] and [Team B] are currently tied, 69-66, at the end of the 3rd period.

Uh, did I miss something in my P.E. classes about what constitutes a "tie"?

I love you Martha Quinn...

...but why in Hell did you just follow Funky Cold Medina with Playing with the Queen of Hearts?

Today's AT40...

...is January 25, 1986, halfway through my sophomore year.  Oddly, i was just thinking about this year last night for reasons I don't know. Still, should be exciting (right...)

Last week's tops were

3. Party all the Time
   
2. Say You Say Me
   
1. That's What Friends Are For (which will stay there forever, as it's still #1 according to a Feb '86 recap I just looked up).
   

( 40-11 )

And into the top ten we go with...

• 10. Paul McCartney's Spies Like Us.  Cute song for a somewhat crappy movie.  The video pretty much showed every funny sequence in 1/30th the time.
• Eddie Murphy's only hit, Party All The Time drops big time to #9.  Eddie at the time says he wanted to be a variety artist, like old school Vaudeville acts that sang and did comedy sketches.  Raw, unfortunately for that dream, would paint him strictly as a raunchy (if brilliant) comic for years until he started doing the kids films.  Today, "Donkey" can sing, but "Eddie Murphy" is still just an actor.
• Klimaxx says "I Miss You" and acroyear70 says "I didn't miss this song...and still don't"
• Another overplayed video, Dire Straights doing the Walk of Life
• Bruce gets his 7th hit from Born in the USA, My Hometown, tying Michael Jackson's Thriller for most hits from single album.  I think the only other to get that to that bar was Def Leppard's Histeria, also with 7.
  
• 5, I'm Your Man from Wham.  A VERY different meaning, now that we know far more about George Michael than we did 23 years ago...
• Stevie Nicks says you can Talk To Me
• Survivor's Burning Heart, also from Rocky 4, is at #3.  As I wrote before, I had no idea this wasn't the same singer as Eye of the Tiger, who'd left due to voice problems (but rejoined years later).  The original singer does beer commercial jingles now.
  
• Say You Say Me from Lionel Richie holds at #2, leaving the #1 song intact...
• That's What Friends are For.

So it ends with another overplayed on MTV hit, but at least it was for a good cause.

Enjoy the game, or whatever you do to avoid it.  I should be back next week...