As a rule, I could give a crap what you believe. You believe in Sky-daddy and Zombie Jesus? Awesome. Jeebus? Fanatastic. The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Lovely. Good for you.
I don't. Obviously. If I believed in any of those things the blog name would be different.
I don't go around in my real life proclaiming what I believe. You'll find most people who have unpopular viewpoints tend not to, what with the crazy factor, you never know if the person you're talking to is a religious nut. Which will not be a good thing if they find out what you believe. However, if I were to start pointing out what I believe you'd better believe I would be accused of all manner of things, starting with harrassment and going on from there.
I will talk about my religion, if I know you, and you ask me. Directly. As a rule I don't believe that in real life religion has anything to do with anything in a social context. These days religion isn't the same things it was before. We have science to explain things now, we have a global community to replace the church community, and these have pushed religion into a more personal space. And that's good. That's where it should be.
Your conversation with your god should be private. That's where it does the most good. I wonder sometimes what on earth some Christian think the Bible is talking about when it talks about the still small voice?
Now, what if your God is insisting that you need to tell EVERYONE about him? Well, here is where you go back to that voice and listen. Is it really asking you to tell everyone? Or is that someone outside of your conversation, your private space with your god? That person outside of your private faith shouldn't be telling you what to do with your faith. And that's where we always seem to run into problems.
I've talked here about how everyone has to find their own path, their own god, or their own self and not need a god. So for one thing, trying to force your god on someone may not even do them any good. For another it is irritating, especially if someone has an established relationship with a faith (and highly irritating if you are bugging someone who already believes in your God. Just saying).
The global community has made us all closer, and has brought all our faiths to light. Everyone knows about other religions, or at least can find them in the internet easily, so there is no need to tell everyone. Now religion is being transformed into faith, and personally I love it. It creates a more personal relationship with your god, and you get to stop bugging your friends about your religion. It's a win-win.
As a footnote, most people don't really get that I feel very strongly about my faith. However, I have never felt that gives me the OK to go around and piss off other people by telling them that they should feel strongly about my faith too. That is insane, and quite insulting. I talk to my Gods on a regular basis, I would never presume that you would feel as comfortable with them as I do. That's what bugs me about Christian evangelicals, they presume that I would feel as comfortable with their god as I do with my own. And that is not right.
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Unfortunately, people tend not to take paganism seriously, for the same reason a lot of people don't take atheism seriously- because it's a fairly popular phase for teenagers to go through. Even as an atheist, I tend to be suspicious of teenage atheists, and I know pagans who feel the same way about teenage pagans. My opinion could best be summed up as "stop making me look stupid".
ReplyDeleteJesus actually said not to pray on street corners as the Pharisees (apparently) did, but to pray silently behind a locked door.
Christians not listening to what Jesus actually said, what else is new?
Yes, we call them "fluffy bunnies" but yeah, same concept. We're nice to them, because there aren't a lot of us, and sometimes they do actually end up in some branch of paganism, but as a whole, it's a phase.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the fact that there aren't a lot of us doesn't mean that we want to be preached at constantly. It really does bug me that people treat us like we've never heard of Jesus. Come now on, we're not stupid.