It's not often I get into religious debates. Frankly, I don't give a damn, and the only reason I can see for someone getting angry about a religion is if a) they're trying to convert you, or b) you're being obnoxious. And honestly, people's beliefs should be private. Besides the fact that you might not feel comfortable being open about your beliefs...no one cares.
But this one girl, Paste ('member her?) is really getting on my nerves. She sends a crapload of forwarded messages to people. Fine, whatever; I usually just delete them anyway. But with every religious-ish message she feels the need to announce that she's an atheist. One example I can think of off the top of my head is her saying God never did anything for her, or some bullshit. I'm not even that religious, and this just pisses me off. Why? I don't care. At all. I don't need to hear her self-righteous declarations of her not believing in God with every single message. It's just obnoxious.
So finally I decided to send her a message.
Here is our conversation. Exact words, exact bad grammar.
From: Paste
To: 80 billion people, and me.
Subject: FW: something that involves God.
HA! I DON'T NEED THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -is not catholic/christian-
From: Strawberry
To: Paste
Two things.
Catholics or Christians aren't the only ones who believe in God. In fact, all religions believe in some form of binding power or some unifying force. You can also believe in a god without identifying with a specific religion.
Also, if you don't agree with the forwarded message or you just wanna declare to the 8 trillion people on your contacts that you don't believe in God, don't forward it.
From: Paste
To: Strawberry
owo I never was implying anything except I don't need it~~
I never said catholics and christians only did.. or did I? x3
even so, I'm a atheist, this is a free country, I have the right to believe in whatever I want and express those beliefs accordingly. SO HA!!!!!!!
From: Strawberry
To: Paste
Well, after saying you didn't believe in God, you said you're not a Catholic or a Christian. By specifying those two groups, you implied that only those two groups believed in God.
I don't care if you're an atheist or not. That's my point. Believe whatever the hell you want, but I really don't wanna hear it every time I get an e-mail from you. Eventually it goes from expressing your religious views to just being obnoxious. Especially since the only reason you could possibly have for forwarding that e-mail with that message was to announce to the world you're an atheist. We get it, okay? I don't care if you keep sending those to other people, but I'm really sick of it. Frankly it's disrespectful to the people who do believe in God. I'm not even that religious and it bothers me.
That's the extent of the conversation so far. I don't know whether she'll stop sending me things or keep trying to justify her announcing her beliefs at every turn.
So, the question: Am I out of line, or is she being obnoxious? Maybe in the next e-mail I'll tell her I didn't mean any disrespect for her beliefs, I just don't wanna hear it. Though that seemed pretty clear...
She's being obnoxious. Really, really, REALLY obnoxious. I agree with you. "We get it, okay?" Gosh. You're completely right, Strawberry. She doesn't need to tell the WHOLE WORLD that she's an Atheist. She's an Atheist. Big deal. I'm on your side.
ReplyDeletepritic.
For the most and greater sum of it's parts, religion is a stupid, worthless, reprehensible endeavor. Speaking for the greater portion of religions, God and all subsidies thereof make up the biggest ponzi scheme history has ever known.
ReplyDeleteMan shouldn't need a god to explain something. The fact that a base and morally incongruent species tries to find a blanket explanation for all of existence just further accentuates the gall, presumption, and hubris that makes me want to smack every religious fanatic on the planet. Religions were all born out of a promise for one thing, a better life after you die. Islam began with Muhammed preaching salvation for those who followed him, Jesus did the same and so did my people, those of the old testament and all the one true god hooey. Even the one religion that I have information off the top of my head for that DOESN'T HAVE A GOD, still preaches salvation upon achieving one-ness. So while Buddhism gets so frustratingly close to being a religion I agree completely with, they got cocky, and promised salvation to it's followers. You can teach someone to be a good person with a squirt bottle and a pack of chips ahoy cookies, trust me, I've done it, but the minute you start calling your squirt bottle god and tell people your squirt bottle is the only one that works, well I'm probably going to smack you.
Religion was invented to hold people together under a person and a cause, and yet you can't simply say that your religion is the right one without actually spending a lifetime dedicated to every religion on the planet, just to find the one that gives you a sense of worth. And then there's God. I'm going to type this very clearly, so pay attention.
ReplyDeleteTHERE IS NOT NOW, NOR WILL THERE EVER BE A DEFINITE ANSWER TO WHETHER OR NOT GOD EXISTS. NOT ON THIS EARTH, AND NOT IN ANY BOOK WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO BY NOW IS DEAD AND GONE. LEARN TO LIVE WITHOUT A GOD, BECAUSE WE SURE AS HELL HAVEN'T GOT ANY PROOF OF AN ANSWER DOWN HERE.
Learn to accept that were just another species in a line of evolution. That we are not now, nor will we ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of a higher power. But more importantly, understand that a higher power shouldn't fugging be needed to be an inherently good person! I follow Agnostic Judaism. I sure as hell don't know if there is any such thing as a god, or an allah, or a brahman, or an odin, a zeus, or a kami hierarchy, but I'm still going to follow concepts of mitzvot (good deeds) and tzedakah (charity) and being a generally good influence for the Jewish kids and tots below me. Because, in the end, they should know it's ok to believe what you want to believe, and that regardless of degree of faith or practice, you will always be Jewish, because to them and to me, temple isn't religion or a house of god, it's a house of love, and community, and sure, maybe a few of them aren't happy settling for the answers they have found on their own on this earth, but nobody is going to tell them they're wrong.
And that's just it. When no one can be wrong, then inherently, no one can be right. We are all here because we're all not there, and we're all looking for answers, because nobody really has one. So the world can either burn because a bunch of animals couldn't decide who's god was bigger, stronger, or looked more like Elvis when they wore a leather jacket (Allah looks like Morgan Freeman, btw), or we can rub the dust and shadows from our eyes and realize that nobody on this earth can ever REALLY know, and instead of fighting we can choose to accept that maybe we're all wrong and we're just some 4th grade space slug's science project...
I'll reply to your comment about WG, WG when I get a good portion of the novel under my belt. Remember, just because you didn't like it doesn't make your opinions the final truth. For all you know, your god could be a redneck, and I could like WG, WG.