11.17.2009 – Tired of ‘In-Your-Face’ Religion

It’s so tiring to be constantly bombarded with religious ‘stuff’. I’m very much a Facebook junkie and 90% of the folks on my friends list are fundamentalist Christians. That’s because they are mostly family, and people that I grew up with. I know I could just launch them from my page, but then, what kind of a positive atheist would I be by doing that? And that’s definitely not the kind of person I want to be or portray.

Still, I get so tired of the religious posts. “need prayer for..” this. “god is great” that. 1 person in particular finishes ALL her posts and comments with “Jesus Loves You”. And sometimes I just want to post in all caps “NO HE DOESN’T. AND HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU EITHER”. But alas…I don’t. All in the name of maintaining the peace and harmony. 

I know for certain that if I was to post some of my TRUE thoughts on topics there, I would never hear the end of the preaching. I don’t HIDE my non-belief. My religious view are set to ‘Atheist’ and most of my family knows my stance. But I still feel that I can’t express my thoughts the way I want to without pissing someone off. It’s just frustrating at times. 

I apologize for the rant. I guess I’m just overworked, under-rested, and not feeling particularly well lately. All that added together usually makes for a less-than-happy me. I hope that this all fades pretty soon, and I expect that it will. Just feeling a bit ‘down’ today.

09.03.2009 – A Family Visit (and some preaching to boot)

This past weekend we had our families over for a cookout. My wife invited her Mom, step-dad, and brother. I invited my mom, step-dad, and sister. Before my Mom was to come over, she called to tell me that she’d be bringing my Grandmother along too.

My Grandmother is getting rather old now (late 80’s), and I thought it would be nice to see her since it had been a long time (due to the never-ending dramas that are always going on in the family). Anyway, there was this little voice inside my head that started saying, ‘this is going to be a tag-team effort between your mom and grandmother to preach as often as they can this afternoon.’

Well, for the most part, everything was cool. Except for the standard interjections by my Mom (who is an evangelic pastor for anyone who hasn’t read me mentioning that before) about healings and demon deliverances at church.

I had a long conversation with my Grandmother (which was generally very nice btw), and was able to show her some of my photography work from the last few years. That lead her to start the usual, ‘God has given you such tallent’ stuff. And then from there it went onto the tirades about how we are living in the end times, and how she knows I don’t want to hear it, but that we need to fall down on our knees and repent while we still have time. Blah blah blah.

For a very short moment, I thought about spouting off about how sad it is that people think that this world is so awful and how life it just dirty, and we are all worthless sinners, etc etc. But then I realized, my Grandmother is 89. She’s not going to be around much longer. Why should I bother ‘rocking the boat’ when it’s not going to change anything anyway? So, I just nodded and didn’t really say anything and tried my best to change the subject.

It’s so tiring to constantly be preached at. I just want to scream “HEY!! THERE’S NOTHING THAT HORRIBLY WRONG WITH ME!! I DON’T KILL PEOPLE! I’M NOT A DRUG ADDICT! I LOVE MY FAMILY AND AM RAISING MY KID TO BE A GOOD AND RESPONSIBLE MEMBER OF SOCIETY! BACK OFF ALREADY!” I’m guessing that at some point it’s going to come to that. Most likely between my mother and me. Having grown up in that fundamentalist situation, I know the mentality and what is thought about those that aren’t part of ‘the borg’.

I just wish that I could be accepted as I am (though, my family would say that they have) and respected for my beliefs. Or lack thereof.

-eoe-