Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

The ability to choose to believe in a god/gods is a basic human right in my mind. It doesn't mean you have to submit to the idea that there is one.

 

You know what it means. But I think I've got my answer.

 

Love Rachel Baribeau.

 

No, it doesn't. Who said it did?

 

Alma brought up an analogy about conversations in coffee shops. I've used it, too, when people come into conversations among believers just to say they don't believe. Which is fine. When the yelling about there being no God starts, it turns into performance art. To be frank, it's exhausting. There is no chance for discourse because it is essentially one person shouting down everyone else with a side of expressing their contempt for the people they're screaming at.

Story time:

One of the kids I worked with at a facility that had both paid and court-appointed programs was banned from their chapel. He would get dressed for Sunday services and always ended up being walked back to the house early. He never said much, just seethed. I asked him if he wanted to talk about it. Nope.

After a couple of weeks of this, I found two notes in my message box from the head chaplain and my clinical director. M. was not to come back to chapel. There was no explanation. I was just to tell him no and make him stay with the little heathen younguns at the residence. When my shift partner got back, I asked her to fill me in on what was going on at the next staffing change. It turned out he would sit for a few minutes and then try to argue that there was no God and when no one took the bait, he would talk loudly to himself about how this was bullshit and everyone in there was a stupid motherfucker who needed to be shot between the eyes.

We talked about conversations in coffee shops and how it wasn't too different from him going into a space where people were doing things he didn't like and being generally hateful. I think he both did and didn't get what I was saying. It came down to me telling him we deliberately keep religious talk out of general discourse but offer people who want it a chance to express their spirituality. The bottom line was, who was being hurt by this? He was free to stay with the group of kids who were having a good time at the residence or he could go to the chapel and get his mad on listening to ideas he disagreed with.

Like Alma, my coffee shop analogy came to life about a month later. We'd all had a good week, so we used some of the petty cash to take everyone to a batting cage and McD's afterward. We were all sitting in the side area, keeping to ourselves, and I was listening to them tell what they knew about the old Negro League. An older man walked past us and I saw him pause before he walked on into the restrooms. He came back out, paused again at the door and listened a little bit before coming up to our tables.

He told our group that "those people." "you people," always had to have a separate thing of their own. How would they feel if someone started a Caucasian Baseball League? Then he preened when sixteen kids all stared in disbelief at him. I should have cut off that blowhard. I'm still sorry I didn't. I did say this:

"Sir? There was a Whites only baseball league. It was the MLB until they agreed to let an African American play in 1945."

"Yeah, well, Jackie Robinson was one of the good ones, I guess."

"The first Black player was Branch Rickey. Jackie Robinson didn't start with the league until 1947. You know, you're out of your depth here. You need to excuse yourself to these young men and me."

He stood there for a moment and then screamed, "Fuck you!" at us, slammed open the door, and left.

Mr. Chapel Crasher was there. Later on, he told me he finally connected the dots.


One other story: I had -very important and deliberate word choice here, HAD- a friend who lost siblings in Iraq and Afghanistan. His family was one of those kinds where they would have probably all been friends if they hadn't been put together by blood relations. His grief consumed him. We would get together and talk. As things got worse and he never seemed to heal, he started calling me and everyone like me (think Shakira's ancestry minus the Charo fabulousness) "Sand-Niggers." He was using this term at a cafe in Midtown Nashville when one of the counter staff came over and stood for a moment, waiting for him to pause so he could say something.

The counter person told him he figured out he was calling me a Sand-Nigger. He looked confused, which was understandable given that I have light skin, dark blue eyes, and reddish-brown hair.

Was I okay with that?

My former friend said of course I was. You see, he's lost family in Iraq and Afghanistan and...

At that point, the counter guy cut him off and said he needed to take it outside and preferably away from the cafe if he couldn't stop talking like that.

So we went outside and sat on their otherwise empty patio and I explained to him that I was not okay with it.

He cut me off and again told me about his family and how he was allowed to feel the way he felt and his family and surely I knew he was...

As gently as I could, I told him I understood about his grief over his family and really cared that he still hurt. However, it did not give him carte blanc to use everyone who might be like the people who hurt him as emotional punching bags.

He told me I was a terrible person and not a good friend. That was last I saw or heard from him.

 

I don't think this is true in this thread.

 

OK. You're right, as always. [rolls eyes].

You think his wife would approve, based on what he's always posted about her? You don't think he's being rude and disrespectful, again, repeatedly (do a search of his posts on this thread; they're almost like a mantra), for any reason other than to offend?

Well, then I guess we know the problem between us (and by that, I mean you and me). If he's offended by what I suggested, maybe/hopefully, it's because he knows he's in the wrong.

 

It has gotten better over the past day or so. I really appreciate that you, Alma, and HeyAbbot have actually engaged. What I don't appreciate is when the conversation turns to calling people from the south trash and worse or lumping all Christians into the same perdited handbasket. This usually occurs here and in the politics thread. The cast of characters is always the same and it comes down to it being okay because of what's going on in their lives. I've seen some pretty vicious dogpiles over a lot less happen to people who are scared, tired, and hurting.

Most everyone has gone through or is going through some bad stuff. No one has the right to say, "I hurt. Gotta go punch somebody. Here's my place to do it."

 

The notion of 'yab running his mouth outside the right Parisian banlieue is a pretty amusing one.

 

Not mine.

Really, it is the discussion of religion(s) that often is about labels, in large part, I think, because people need points of reference in the discussions, otherwise it is difficult to try to say what you mean. It's a similar issues as what arises in talk of race. It practically can't be discussed without comparisons, either(s)/or(s), and if you don't use them, the discussion is pretty much over. Which is why there is never any progress, or agreement.

 

People are good, bad or a combination. Religion has little to do with it. The fact that American is overwhelming not only a nations of Christians, but one where conservative Christianity is a theocracy for many. Both sides point to their Christianity to support their politics. Therefore Christianity is more of a political party or ideology than a theology in America. And my basic argument is that a Christianity has always been political. Almost always violent, bloody and oppressive, both to non-Christians and within a d between the many sects of a Christianity.

 

No, you cannot be a bad person who believes that Christ was born and died for your sins and is your personal lord and savior. And no, you will not have eternal salvation based only on saying magic words.

Because if you believe that about Christ -- truly believe it -- you won't be a bad person. You won't. You'll become a better and better person, or at least one who gets convicted, so that if you do not grow and change and become better, you will know/be made aware of it, and continually prompted to do so by the Holy Spirit, the least talked about, understood or appreciated person of the trinity.

And you will not have eternal salvation based on only on saying magic words. It starts with saying such words, of course, but they must, at some point, be meant, believed and taken to heart, and, as much as possible, and time permitting, they should be acted upon. And, at the end of life, it is God (not us) who will determine whether that actually occurred. If not, He'll say, that no, "I never knew you."

Those words make most Christians shudder. But the point is, there should be, and there usually is, some evidence of an attempt at Christ-like living. And, if not, said Christians are in for a rude awakening at some point, which could come either here, or in the hereafter.