Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The closeted religious

As a pagan, I usually spend a lot of my time in the religious closet. It's like the gay closet, but not as fabulous. And one thing that has always bothered me is people claiming to be in that closet when they aren't. Think the crazed right wing evangelicals who scream about how they can't be Christian anymore. Please, talk to me about not being able to practice your religion. I mean it. Then tell me about how you can't even keep your religious tools/books out in the open in your own house in case you have company because if this kid's mom knows what religion you are your kids won't be able to play together anymore.
However, there is a very small sect of Christians who actually are residing in the closet. Ada Calhoun wrote a wonderful piece for Salon about it. The secretly religious when your friends are atheist. I can honestly say I never thought about what that might be like. But it sounds amazingly like the experience all the rest of us have. And in a way those right wing crazies make it bad for them too. They reinforce the concept of Christianity or any other faith being evil making it harder to just say, "Dude, I go to church every Sunday, can you lay off the snide comments about how stupid people who go to church are?"*
I find it sad whenever people can't practice their faith in the open, or feel so uncomfortable about doing so they chose not to. Faith can be a comfort, it can provide answers, and it can create a sense of peace for people. Not all people, but some of us. I also find it sad that one group of marginalized people, like atheists, can in fact create a space where they hold a whole other group of people in the same disregard they are held in.*
I dearly hope that one day this might stop. People point their fingers at religion being the source of so many ills, and man terrible things are done in it's name. But at the same time we also find that the real source of this is the people within the religion. We need to address the people, not the religion. I think sometimes we all lose sight of that in the mass of anger and accusations.

*Obviously, not all atheists are like this. There is a small sect of Dawkins like atheists who to tend toward this, which is why I avoid like the plague anyone who is really really into Dawkins. I get tired of being called stupid. I am hoping that as people become more accepting of atheism that rage will cool. I wonder sometimes if there isn't a source of constant anger that causes a lot of the bitter name-calling over on his end of the spectrum. I know it tends to be the reason why a lot of name calling goes on over here in the pagan community.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like a great article, I skimmed it but will read it carefully later. I was a Christian like that when I was a Christian, 'cause I came from a progressive upbringing and never gave up all those relationships. Now sometimes I feel that way on Sundays when I'm not in church.

    "People point their fingers at religion being the source of so many ills, and man terrible things are done in it's name. But at the same time we also find that the real source of this is the people within the religion. We need to address the people, not the religion. I think sometimes we all lose sight of that in the mass of anger and accusations."

    Great point. Some Christians feel uncomfortable around me because they think I will mock their faith since I don't share it now. But I don't, and it stinks they would feel that way. Though I do blame fundamentalist religion for pushing it in people's faces in the first place and I think creating the situation for Dawkins et al to be fundamentalist themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tell me more about this Dawkins....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Goodness, Richard Dawkins. Right here...
    http://richarddawkins.net/
    I do avoid him, he may be a genius, but he is an insulting one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As a rather assertive atheist I can say that it really depends on the attitude of the religious person. I associate with many religious people from several religions and calling them stupid never comes up. However when someone tells me that atheists are inherently immoral, or says being an atheist is abusing my children, or rants about the world being only 6000 years old and saying creation proves a creator and many other things that religious people are prone to saying, naming them stupid does tend to roll nicely off the tongue.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hahaha, Ryk, that is a very good point. Those people are stupid all the time though, about pretty much everything. The Gods love them, because they know I can't.
    Also, I have to admit, as a religious person I never understood how being an athiest is abusive to children. That is one weird-ass thing to say.

    ReplyDelete

All comments are now not moderated. Have at it folks! Don't make me regret it.