See why I don’t usually address religion on this blog?
You answer one comment about a religious subject, and before the day is over, you have the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front flashing their Jebediah-begat-Jedediah decoder rings at each other to establish which group may call itself True Believers.
Doesn’t that tell you something when a subject that should be so unifying and positive so often produces strife and acrimony when it’s discussed with others? There’s no cause in history that has prompted as much misery and bloodshed as the argument over whose theology is the True Way, and how do you think the Prince of Peace would feel about stuff like the Thirty Years’ War, and the hundreds of other wars in Western history where the followers of Christ cheerfully put each other to the sword for believing in Him the wrong way?
Look, if you believe in God, that’s a-ok with me, and the way in which you choose to believe doesn’t concern me in the least, unless you try and make your faith the law of the land for others, too. If your faith gives you comfort, and it helps you in your efforts to become the best possible version of yourself, then I have no issue with that. Some of you just need to remember on occasion that your neighbor is just as deeply attached to his faith as you are to yours, and that your chance to convert him is about as good as his chance to convert you. Religion is an intensely private matter, and if you want to enjoy your religious freedom, you have to grant it to others as well, regardless of how much you disagree with their theology, or how much you’d like to see them saved. In the end, if you believe there’s a judgment due, let God make it, and don’t assume that the Creator and Mover of the Universe needs your help.
And that’s as much as I want to say on the subject for a while. I’ll leave the Comments open, but please refrain from sharing theological road maps for my eternal salvation/damnation.
21 Comments
April 29, 2008 at 9:29 am
Amen.
April 29, 2008 at 9:42 am
In reading the comments from the other ‘religious’ threads, I don’t think anyone was trying to convert you.
Still, on the whole, the discussions were rather interesting and I’m glad you opened the door for the topics. Why the regret?
April 29, 2008 at 9:54 am
I want to have fun with this, and religious discussions are not fun to me. They’re irritating, usually pointless, and leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.
April 29, 2008 at 10:01 am
Can’t blame you. It’s pretty much irrelevant to a rational life, and people who insist that religion is required for morality remind me of hoplophobes who insist that I be disarmed because they’re unsafe with a gun.
Bleh.
April 29, 2008 at 10:39 am
I used to get beaten with a wooden spoon by my wife when I let the Jehova’s Witnesses in when they came round to spread the word. I like to know what people believe and why they believe it. I would talk to them and listen to them and take their pamphlets to read while taking my ease on the crapper, and my wife would throw them out whenever she found them. And damn my soul, I laughed like hell to see her scramble about as if she had tarred her shorts. Like you, Munchkin, she was very intolerant of other’s religious views.
Religion gets a bum rap for causing strife and war and pain and it doesn’t deserve it. All wars and clashes are about two things, and two things only: money and power. If a religion can be bent to aid the pursuit of those things, most politicians will use it.
Set your moral compass as you see fit, folks, and forgive me as I do the same.
April 29, 2008 at 10:48 am
Like you, Munchkin, she was very intolerant of other’s religious views.
…
Oh, hell. I don’t know why I even bother.
April 29, 2008 at 10:56 am
Dammit, I’m sorry. Poor choice of words. Maybe I should just shut the hell up sometimes.
Could you do me a favour young fella and delete my comment? I seem to have made an ass of myself again…the devil needs no advocate when silly old men are bored with nothing to do, and I have work in the shop.
April 29, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’m with you, Marko. I don’t want to be preached at or invited or talked to about religion. I went to church most of my life and was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, I took classes on various religions and their impact on history in college, and I was deployed to Iraq after three months of military cultural training and personal research into Arab culture and the Muslim religion. Basically, I’m saying that I know all I want to or need to about other’s religions and I respect their right and their need to believe in what they will. But as soon as their beliefs start to affect me adversely then I have a problem.
I know it’s not the religion’s fault that people have killed or done terrible things in it’s name. It is humanity that does these terrible things, just as it was humans who wrote the Bible or the Talmud or the Quran. God may be infallible but we as humans are not so the idea of taking any religious texts, none of which were literally written by God and have been edited to mans will for centuries, seriously or literally is hard for me.
I really just don’t want to hear about it, especially not on my favorite blog. Stresses me out and this is the last I will say about it.
April 29, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Marko,
What you choose to blog about is your business and no one else’s. I would have to disagree with you however, that religion is only a private matter. I wish this were the case, but more and more religion is creeping into all aspects of society. I think it healthy to challenge of our beliefs once and a while and reexamine what and why we believe what we do; religious and non religious thoughts alike. An intellectual spring cleaning of sorts.
Admittedly many, if not most, of these debates degenerate into the gnashing of teeth , quoting of scriptures, and pulling out of one’s hair. Nonetheless, I consider it worthwhile. [Disclaimer: I have been married twice, so I just may be a masochist
]
With so much hanging in the balance, none of what we believe about anything should be beyond scrutiny or debate!
April 29, 2008 at 12:36 pm
QotD!
MarkHB wins the intarw3bz!
April 29, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I found the entire discourse horribly depressing. I’m a believer, and I read more thinly-veiled intolerance and judgment from the self-professed Christians in these threads than from anyone else. Despite my deep interest in religion in general, because of the huge part it plays in human interaction, it’s something that almost never can be discussed with civility and openness. It becomes yet another subject that simply devolves to us/them.
April 29, 2008 at 4:38 pm
But they are funny!!!
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the
edge, about to jump off. I immediately ran over and said “Stop! Don’t
do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
“Like what?”
“Well … are you religious or atheist?”
“Religious.”
“Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?”
“Christian.”
“Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
“Protestant.”
“Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
“Baptist.”
“Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the
Lord?”
“Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed
Baptist Church of God?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or
Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”
To which I said, “Die, heretic scum!” and pushed him off.
April 29, 2008 at 4:39 pm
There will be no place on the Sex-Goddesses flying saucers ( or in the sex/hurt booths ) for you unless you buy your Sub-Genius foundation card.
Don’t get left behind on X-Day!
April 29, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Religious discussions certainly bring all sorts of people out of the woodwork…
April 29, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Holy crap (no pun intended. Honest)…
Some things just can’t be discussed civil-like. And that’s a damn shame.
Religion, it seems, is quite like the “my gun is better than your gun” garbage. Just a bunch of folks who remember some of what they heard from someone else and try to jump up on a soapbox with it.
Maybe the “If it fits, it hits” mantra is more universal than we knew…:)
tweaker
April 29, 2008 at 10:24 pm
My gun is better than your gun.
Just kidding…
April 29, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I do my best to be rational about the whole “religion” thing. I try to be tolerant of religion, because I know I’m non-rational about a bunch of stuff in my own way. If I wasn’t, I’d eat less red meat, quit smoking, have an occasional glass of red wine instead of a couple of days a week off the sauce and I’d get a bunch more exercise. Who am I to go around criticising people for their invisible friends?
But the main problem with it is that so many folk with invisible friends are so damn noisy about it. Back when I was in touch with my immediate family, my mother eternally treated my “apostasy” as some serious-but-not-life-threatening medical condition. Those who I encounter with lots of personal faith always seem to exude some faintly patronising concern for the wellbeing of my soul. And, all to often, discussions like this crop up. Marko, you’ve fallen into the same trap I frequently do of trying to have a rational, polite conversation about it.
You can’t. It’s neither rational, nor polite. Any reasoned argument gets trumped with “God’s Will”, and mental fatigue brought about by trying to be polite to someone holding an insupportable position leads to stress, and upset. The argument will never end. The argument can never be won – it’s predicated on unprovable premises. And there are enough proselytising religious types everywhere to ensure that the argument Will. Not. Stop. Whether it’s Variant III, someone taking your comments as a personal slur on their faith, or Variant II, the Person Concerned for your Eternal Soul, or Variant I, the person with infinite time to waste on the Intertubes…. you cannot win.
This is why I consider religion to be utterly irrelevant to modern life – we’ve got quite enough to do dealing with everyday reality without wasting time on pointless, unwinnable debate. An interesting game, Dr. Falken. The only way to win is not to play.
April 30, 2008 at 6:33 am
Ditto to almost everything MarkHB just said.
April 30, 2008 at 7:08 am
To mis-quote Mark Knopfler:
Two guys in the park, both say they’re Jesus,
[At least] One of the must be wrong.
April 30, 2008 at 12:43 pm
My 1911 is a 9×19mm!
(Well, one of them. The other 1911 is a 9×23mm!)
May 2, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Every last person in the world is going to straight to hell. Except me.