Yesterday's Homework for Nan-Fiction was to Write About Something We Hated

[skull_bearer]

I picked religion. I decided not to draw my claws this time, my characters don't, so why should I? The result was a roaring tirade:

 

I have very little to no patience for religious types, whether they come from England,  Americas, the Middle East or a small island off the Philippines. They might be perfectly nice people but then Himmler was a perfectly nice person too when you got to know him, and I still would have trouble being friend with someone whose philosophy I consider to be repulsive.

This may be a prejudice, but it is anything but uninformed. My childhood was secular, it is true, but my parents taught me that everyone is equal and that religion is a person’s choice, and that choices have to be respected.

Fine good, all present and above-board. But it gets tiring when you’re the only one playing that game. They scream ‘religious prejudice!’ The moment one voices an opinion that differs in the slightest to that of their imaginary big beard in the sky (because it’s nearly always beards, bloody chauvinists). They howl that without their gods we would all be immoral and cruel, or that we are immoral and cruel, and that only by repenting and worshipping their god can we become moral (their idea of moral, which seems anything but in my opinion). All the time forgetting that the time their god was in control (The Dark Ages, today’s Middle East and Israel), were a time of horror and death.

But Oh! They cry, what about NAZI GERMANY tm? Weren’t THEY atheists? What about THEIR human rights abuses?

Firstly, no, they were not atheists. Hitler was Catholic, the army went to war with ‘God is with Us’ on their belt buckles, and their human rights abuses would not have been possible without the silent consent of the masses, already prejudiced against the target groups by the very churches said to be so ‘moral’.

Quite simply, I hate religion because religion hates me. For all the Lamb of God and acceptance rubbish, at the end of the day a truly Christian nation would burn me as a witch, and a truly Islamic nation would stone me. I’m not entirely sure about Judaism, but by what I’ve heard of Israel I’m not in a mad hurry to go and live there.

But again, aren’t I being unfair? What happened to my parent’s reminders of being accepting of other people’s choices?

That jumps the shark every time I see signs outside churches reproaching me for a fool for not believing in their dead zombie god. Every time I get sneered at for not being ‘one of the chosen’, and condemned to go to hell for my refusal to believing in an invisible, inaudible and incorporeal being that has shown me no sign that he ever existed. And while I know that variety in the human race makes the world a more interesting place, every time a doctor gets shot by a Christian fundamentalist, every time yet another terrorist bomb goes off, killing people who were most likely against the wars now raging, every time the peddlers of hate mount their pulpits to spew their loathing like true latter-day Hitlers, then I can’t help but wish they’d all evaporate off the face of the Earth.

To my surprise, the group I read it out to all laughed. At least two were Christian and one was Muslim. When each group had to choose one group to read, I got picked. The response was... well, I don't think most of them were expecting this one. Felt pretty good about it, although I can't say I was feeling too safe about walking home, with the glares some people were giving me. One person all but accused me of being a nazi, which, coming from her, is a compliment.
Oddly, loads of people were congratulating me too, mostly due to sheer balls. So I think this made me more friends than less.
One think I've learnt this past year is that some people really aren't worth the bullets it would take to kill them.

Comments

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

at the end of the day a truly Christian nation would burn me as a witch, and a truly Islamic nation would stone me. I’m not entirely sure about Judaism, but by what I’ve heard of Israel I’m not in a mad hurry to go and live there.

Here in particular, you're making the extremists' arguments for them. I am quite sure that the historical Christ would not have burned you as anything, and I doubt Mohammad or Abraham would either.

This is the core of Judaism in a nutshell, and it could stand just as easily for any other religion you'd care to name (courtesy of the Rabbi Hillel): "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."

I'm not any kind of Jew except by heritage, but in interpreting Judaism, I'd sooner take my cues from Hillel than Avigdor Lieberman. Just as I'll take my cues on Christianity from Martin Luther King Jr or Walter Wink before Torquemada. Just as I take my cues on Islam from Leila Ahmed over Ayatollah Khomeini or Khameini.

Your hatred of religion in general seems to me founded in accepting the latter individuals' claims of representing the only "true" version of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or whatever. By implication, it denies the validity of all those who have drawn upon their belief in a beneficent deity or pantheon in their own struggle for good in the world. (Including the many Christians who saved Jews from the Holocaust.)

I can see how progressive religious types might agree with you, seeing as how I imagine their opinion of the kind of person you're talking about is approximates a Marxist's opinion of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, I know how ticked off I'd be if somebody were to point to the flaws of representative electoral politics (infinite) and then used that as an argument for the inherent oppressiveness of democracy.

... I feel like that all may have come out harsher than I'd intended. Obviously, you're free to feel what you like, so long as you don't try to to punish others for continuing to believe in God/practice their religion. I just felt these were some important considerations that you don't really address (although it is hard to fit everything you have to say into just 500 words, I am aware).