The Awkwardness of Discussing Religion
Jul. 29th, 2004 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaYou know what? I forgot to wish y'all happy Romeo and Juliet week. *Hangs head in shame . . . * It was on the 18th-- the day I SAW Romeo and Juliet, the theater, how cool! Benvolio was hot *drools* and Tybalt had the coolest cloak . . . and I could go on and on, because it was, after all, Romeo and Juliet . . . but eh , I have enough to say already.
I shall spare all my excessively long entry by hiding it behind lj-cuts . . .
You know something? I've learned how to be shallow.
Lol, that came out really wrong. I've learned . . . well, not how to revert from being deep, but how to appreciate shallower subjects. It's not natural; I have to LEARN superficiality and sillier things. I've had to LEARN how to guy-watch or appreciate sappy chick-flicks. It's not a natural skill; when I was younger, it was inherent to roll my eyes at it and its meaninglessness. Yet, in order to understand a large percentage of the population, it's important I learn to do that-- understand them.
Wow, I sounded so haughty. Take that in the best way, please.
I care more about understanding all viewpoints than finding the right one, I think.
For instance, when talking about religion . . . that's a big one. I don't understand people that can just insist their way is right-- the one and only right way. I admire their confidence, in a way, and wish I was that confident about God, but I'm not. I'm hoping he's fine with me-- He hasn't smited me yet, and I can proudly say I believe in Him if people get cheeky and try to call me an Agnostic in the nasty sense (if you mean it as a compliment, by all means, continue (-:), or an Atheist or Someone That Will Burn in Hell. Yet on the other hand, I can't help wondering that they're in fact even less confident than I am . . . that they must INSIST that they are right, in order to convince themselves. If they yell it loud enough, it becomes true. Also, what about being raised under a religion? I doubt (in fact, I KNOW) that all people raised devoutly are not devout. They go to church and go through the motions, and they don't believe any of it (astoundingly, about 75% of the examples I can supply were Catholic . . . hmm . . . and that would just be an observation, not an attack on the Catholic church). Yet to make up for their lack of faith, or shakiness of it, they try to raise themselves up and feel better by insisting they are righter than someone else.
Though maybe the devout people are truly right. It would make most since if God was strictest. Otherwise, why would one bother to be stricter than necessary? Perhaps God is a capitalistic endeavor; the more you do, the better place in Heaven you get? Perhaps people were born to a certain devout caste-- or even just a conscience that matches a certain strictness-- and you must do as you believe in your particular conscience in order to deserve Heaven? Yet that would entail karma, or a sense of divine punishment-- why would someone be forced to be more pious to deserve Heaven unless he had sinned worse in a past life or something? Perhaps there is truly a natural hierarchy, which many believe but I have avidly rejected, so that would not be necessary.
You know, I care too much about not offending people. Look at the way I disclaimed and danced around the last paragraph. Some people are very quick to offend when it comes to religion, because they "know" they are "right."
Much as I love to talk about religion, I tend to be scared of them . . .
(You know, it's funny; for such a Harry Potter-thumper I sure am scared of Bible-thumpers, lol . . . (-:)
For instance, my friend's and my church-going thing. We do our research, and go to different churches, and we're even going to get a little more out there with them, too, probably. She suggested Christian Scientist (by the way, there's one right across the street from my subdivision; that would be real easy to go to one day when we're in town), and I know they believe in prayer only for medicine-- God's power only-- which sounds very old-fashioned and strict, but then I read their newspaper (The Christian Science Monitor-- we have a subscription) and it's very worldly and surprisingly secular (there's only one little article every week that focuses on religion and theology). Of course, different branches operate in different ways, so that's a given. Denominations can be strict or loose, depending on the branch-- or even within each church itself.
It's my offending thing that sort of plunges me into ignorance, too. It's the same thing that keeps me from just jumping on Tory's oboe teacher and demanding he give me all the information on his family that he can-- it would be so useful, but it would be so hard, so awkward, so tactless in the process to get get. For instance, I want to try Seventh Day Adventist sometime (though I was told by a religion quiz it was my second most incompatible religion, after Jehovah's Witness and right before Mormon), and I could talk to my Seventh Day Adventist friend really easily to try to get a feel for the religion, but for some reason I just HAVEN'T. I can talk to her about all this crazy Harry Potter stuff (thank God her religion doesn't ban her from reading Harry Potter-- she's only person I know who's as obsessed as me-- and yes, the thanking GOD was intended (-:), but I feel so awkward around religion-- and I talk about religion to EVERYBODY. Lol, when/if we do go, it'll have to be her church since it's the only one in the area, and so I'll just show up and be like, "Hi! I'm in your church, randomly, you had no idea I was planning this!" (which has happened already, lol). At one point she had some survey she sent out to all her friends that was for some school project, and I had waayyy too much fun filling it out, since I was just in the process of figuring it all out myself. The questions were real simple, like "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you believe Christ is divine?" but I went on into huge paragraph-long answers explaining it all, all of my findings, my hopes, my reserves . . . I sometimes wonder what she thought of it, or what was done with the information. Was it shared? Was it graphed? Who knows . . .
I'm so insanely religious for someone who goes to church so little. It would be easy to be pious if I were told every Sunday to pray or go to Hell-- I would do it out of fear-- not even necessarily of God, but of those people I see every Sunday, fear of rejection. Mass worship . . . it works on the grounds of fitting in, on shunning. Age of Pisces-type worship (thank you, The Da Vinci Code . . . ).
I get so equally scared talking to my godparents. They're supposed to be in charge of-- or at least have a great say in-- my religious education (lol which always struck me as ironic that Sirius is called Harry's godfather when supposedly Harry Potter is the devil . . . ). So when we get on the subject of religion-- which we do a lot (and mrr, don't even get me started on that embarrassing situation in which they bashed liberals until they asked me my take on things and I was honest and it came out liberal and the whole car was very, very silent . . . )-- I have to be careful to edge on my good beliefs and not focus on the real loose ones. I don't talk about Jesus's divinity or evolution. I just insist I believe in God.
I don't think I would mind doing "bad" things just in order to gain an understanding of the mindeset behind it. It can prove the inherent goodness of man-- and that is what I am all about. If I locked myself up inside strict definitions of good and evil, I would find man very, very evil because not many would be as strict as me. You have to be liberal to be accepting, I guess (and I mean liberal as in open-minded, and freer about morals, all ye freaks de politicale-- yeah, I know that was no particular language; it is getting late and I am getting tired).
I shall spare all my excessively long entry by hiding it behind lj-cuts . . .
You know something? I've learned how to be shallow.
Lol, that came out really wrong. I've learned . . . well, not how to revert from being deep, but how to appreciate shallower subjects. It's not natural; I have to LEARN superficiality and sillier things. I've had to LEARN how to guy-watch or appreciate sappy chick-flicks. It's not a natural skill; when I was younger, it was inherent to roll my eyes at it and its meaninglessness. Yet, in order to understand a large percentage of the population, it's important I learn to do that-- understand them.
Wow, I sounded so haughty. Take that in the best way, please.
I care more about understanding all viewpoints than finding the right one, I think.
For instance, when talking about religion . . . that's a big one. I don't understand people that can just insist their way is right-- the one and only right way. I admire their confidence, in a way, and wish I was that confident about God, but I'm not. I'm hoping he's fine with me-- He hasn't smited me yet, and I can proudly say I believe in Him if people get cheeky and try to call me an Agnostic in the nasty sense (if you mean it as a compliment, by all means, continue (-:), or an Atheist or Someone That Will Burn in Hell. Yet on the other hand, I can't help wondering that they're in fact even less confident than I am . . . that they must INSIST that they are right, in order to convince themselves. If they yell it loud enough, it becomes true. Also, what about being raised under a religion? I doubt (in fact, I KNOW) that all people raised devoutly are not devout. They go to church and go through the motions, and they don't believe any of it (astoundingly, about 75% of the examples I can supply were Catholic . . . hmm . . . and that would just be an observation, not an attack on the Catholic church). Yet to make up for their lack of faith, or shakiness of it, they try to raise themselves up and feel better by insisting they are righter than someone else.
Though maybe the devout people are truly right. It would make most since if God was strictest. Otherwise, why would one bother to be stricter than necessary? Perhaps God is a capitalistic endeavor; the more you do, the better place in Heaven you get? Perhaps people were born to a certain devout caste-- or even just a conscience that matches a certain strictness-- and you must do as you believe in your particular conscience in order to deserve Heaven? Yet that would entail karma, or a sense of divine punishment-- why would someone be forced to be more pious to deserve Heaven unless he had sinned worse in a past life or something? Perhaps there is truly a natural hierarchy, which many believe but I have avidly rejected, so that would not be necessary.
You know, I care too much about not offending people. Look at the way I disclaimed and danced around the last paragraph. Some people are very quick to offend when it comes to religion, because they "know" they are "right."
Much as I love to talk about religion, I tend to be scared of them . . .
(You know, it's funny; for such a Harry Potter-thumper I sure am scared of Bible-thumpers, lol . . . (-:)
For instance, my friend's and my church-going thing. We do our research, and go to different churches, and we're even going to get a little more out there with them, too, probably. She suggested Christian Scientist (by the way, there's one right across the street from my subdivision; that would be real easy to go to one day when we're in town), and I know they believe in prayer only for medicine-- God's power only-- which sounds very old-fashioned and strict, but then I read their newspaper (The Christian Science Monitor-- we have a subscription) and it's very worldly and surprisingly secular (there's only one little article every week that focuses on religion and theology). Of course, different branches operate in different ways, so that's a given. Denominations can be strict or loose, depending on the branch-- or even within each church itself.
It's my offending thing that sort of plunges me into ignorance, too. It's the same thing that keeps me from just jumping on Tory's oboe teacher and demanding he give me all the information on his family that he can-- it would be so useful, but it would be so hard, so awkward, so tactless in the process to get get. For instance, I want to try Seventh Day Adventist sometime (though I was told by a religion quiz it was my second most incompatible religion, after Jehovah's Witness and right before Mormon), and I could talk to my Seventh Day Adventist friend really easily to try to get a feel for the religion, but for some reason I just HAVEN'T. I can talk to her about all this crazy Harry Potter stuff (thank God her religion doesn't ban her from reading Harry Potter-- she's only person I know who's as obsessed as me-- and yes, the thanking GOD was intended (-:), but I feel so awkward around religion-- and I talk about religion to EVERYBODY. Lol, when/if we do go, it'll have to be her church since it's the only one in the area, and so I'll just show up and be like, "Hi! I'm in your church, randomly, you had no idea I was planning this!" (which has happened already, lol). At one point she had some survey she sent out to all her friends that was for some school project, and I had waayyy too much fun filling it out, since I was just in the process of figuring it all out myself. The questions were real simple, like "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you believe Christ is divine?" but I went on into huge paragraph-long answers explaining it all, all of my findings, my hopes, my reserves . . . I sometimes wonder what she thought of it, or what was done with the information. Was it shared? Was it graphed? Who knows . . .
I'm so insanely religious for someone who goes to church so little. It would be easy to be pious if I were told every Sunday to pray or go to Hell-- I would do it out of fear-- not even necessarily of God, but of those people I see every Sunday, fear of rejection. Mass worship . . . it works on the grounds of fitting in, on shunning. Age of Pisces-type worship (thank you, The Da Vinci Code . . . ).
I get so equally scared talking to my godparents. They're supposed to be in charge of-- or at least have a great say in-- my religious education (lol which always struck me as ironic that Sirius is called Harry's godfather when supposedly Harry Potter is the devil . . . ). So when we get on the subject of religion-- which we do a lot (and mrr, don't even get me started on that embarrassing situation in which they bashed liberals until they asked me my take on things and I was honest and it came out liberal and the whole car was very, very silent . . . )-- I have to be careful to edge on my good beliefs and not focus on the real loose ones. I don't talk about Jesus's divinity or evolution. I just insist I believe in God.
I don't think I would mind doing "bad" things just in order to gain an understanding of the mindeset behind it. It can prove the inherent goodness of man-- and that is what I am all about. If I locked myself up inside strict definitions of good and evil, I would find man very, very evil because not many would be as strict as me. You have to be liberal to be accepting, I guess (and I mean liberal as in open-minded, and freer about morals, all ye freaks de politicale-- yeah, I know that was no particular language; it is getting late and I am getting tired).
