amusing drama

It still disturbs and astounds me how small-minded, ignorant, afraid and intollerant some people are when it comes to their own beliefs. I was mistaken to think that more people in the world were like me – that if they are misinformed or have some wrong information about something that they’d want to be corrected, or pointed in the right direction. That does not seem to be the case. I had a friend of a friend – actually, the wife of a coworker who was one of my friends on facebook. I tolerated her gushing, rambling statuses about god and how great he is, yadda yadda, and don’t make any complaints or comments. I post what I like on my own status’ etc. But yesterday evening, she posted a long thing about how science is fiction and god is god and how great minds, like Einstein were all Christians, and they “kick scifi – oops, I mean science’s ass”. So…I pointed out that Einstein was not, in fact, a Christian. He was raised Jewish, and was taught about Jesus, yes. But he did not believe in personal god. And I added a quote from Einstein himself: “”It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.” That’s all I said. I corrected a misconception and a mistaken idea claimed to be “fact”.

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. This morning, I woke up to a message that went on for a few paragraphs that I didn’t have the energy to read that said, in summary, “I believe in god, no one can change my mind about him, big bang my ass, etc, blah blah blah, jesus, blah blah blah, god…if you don’t like what I post, I can delete you because i have no time to waste on you.” I’ve taken issue with this person before due to their over-reactions to things, their overwhelming defensiveness and their drama. And then, when I went to go look at their profile, not only was the thing about Einstein deleted, but I was deleted from her friend’s list as well. No matter.

I’ve found that a lot of christians these days are still dealing with an enormously large persecution complex. They feel like they’re being persecuted if people disagree with them, if people point things out to them that they don’t like – even if people correct them. That’s not persecution. Christians in this country have no concept of what persecution is – and the fact of the matter is that the church in this country does a lot of the persecuting of others. They have a huge intollerance for other beliefs, and they seem to carry the idea that their beliefs and morals should be forced on everybody else, whether they believe the same things or not. It seems to be a growing trend that I’ve noticed. Perhaps it’s always been this way to some extent – but in my lifetime of looking at things like this, I sense it to be growing.

I have no fear of speaking out against christianity, catholicism, islam, judaism, etc – if It seems I come down a lot harder on christians, it’s because, being raised in the church, I know a lot more about them and their doctrines then I do about other faiths. So I can speak from knowledge and personal experience there, where I can only speak from what I’ve learned about other religions, and I don’t trust a lot of the people who have taught me things about them, as they came from a biased standpoint. But in this case in particular – I didn’t speak out against christianity. I didn’t insult the person I was correcting. I just simply pointed out a fact that was in direct contradiction to what she was claiming. And the resulting dramatic fallout was over nothing. Not that I’m upset by it – it’s really no skin off my nose either way, and I”m actually seeing it as a positive thing, that I no longer have to be slapped with god first thing in the morning. But still. Really? That’s worth that kind of reaction.

No one likes to be proven wrong. Hell, I don’t like to be proven wrong, and I’m the first person to admit that I can be very defensive, especially about things or subjects that I’m passionate about. But that seems a little overboard, even to me. I may not like what some people have to say – but at least I try to listen to them. And if I get heated, I walk away for awhile, then think about it, calm down, and return to the conversation. A reaction like the one I got this morning gives me a sense of fear on her part. Fear of being challenged – of having her faith questioned. A fear of having to face differences. To me, that’s a sign of weak faith. If you cannot tolerate any dissent, it seems to me that you are on shakey ground to begin with. What are you so afraid of?