Wednesday Waffling:

I've decided that since I'm committed to posting every day this month, I should tackle a few posts I keep approaching and then backing away from, for various reasons. One reason is that I've been too mentally lazy to try to marshal my thoughts into a coherent post. The other reason is that these are issues about which, no matter how much I go over them, I can't come to a firm resolution.

Today I'm going to talk about my problem regarding religious people. This is separate from my problem about organized religion - I have more concrete reasons there, many of which are articulated brilliantly in God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

I read an essay once by a woman who was proudly, defiantly against all religion. She said something about not being sure that faith could move mountains, but it could certainly knock down buildings. I tend to think of religious faith as something like fire: used properly, fire can warm, fuel and cook - activities that sustain life. Used improperly, fire can raze and destroy. And you can't blame the fire - it's the people that decide how to use it. So religious faith in the hands of good people should be a positive thing. So religious people. On paper, I have no problem with them. I even admire them. But in real life? I'd like to be more precise, but the truth is, they tend to give me the heebie-jeebies. If I'm conversing with someone or interacting with someone on social media, and I suddenly realize they're religious, it generates an immediate knee-jerk negative response. Of course, there's a sliding scale of mentions or remarks, the mildest being "we can meet you after church" or "please pray for us at this difficult time" (barely an eyelash flicker) to "all praise belongs to Him" or "Don't thank me, it was all God", (squirmy discomfort, tingly elbows), to "we prayed on it" or "God told me to" (uncontrollable eye-roll, mild nausea).

Why is this? I do recognize that, in a large measure, it's not them, it's me. Why do I care if they feel free enough to refer to something important to them in casual conversation? Why does it make me cringe and debate lessening or cutting off all contact with them?

I don't really know.

I guess I sort of believe that faith should be a private thing, and that if you're secure in your faith, you shouldn't need to keep talking about it. I know this doesn't dovetail with the idea that, with some religions, a big part of the deal is proselytizing and converting other people. But since this is a part of religion I REALLY don't agree with, my feeling is that you have every right to follow the tenets of your faith as long as they don't hurt anyone else, but I don't need you peppering me with references to it. It sort of reminds me of Tom Cruise jumping on the couch yipping about Katie Holmes - if you really feel it, you don't need to be public about it.

Also, I find it sort of annoying when someone gets complimented or praised and says "oh, don't thank me, all the credit belongs to God" (I do have a facebook friend that does this very thing.) The corollary of this is "well, what can we do, it's all in God's hands". It's true that we can't control everything. But it seems silly and unfair to me to discount all human agency. If you worked hard for something and were successful, what kind of sense does it make to say all the praise should go to some amorphous being? Do you think you would have gotten the same result if you'd just sat at home and watched Oprah? I don't like the sense that people are just puppets with the shadowy Man in the Sky moving their little arms and legs around. I also don't like the implication that nothing we do has any effect if God decides to make things go a different way - why do anything, then?

As I feared, I don't feel like I'm getting my feeling across with any precision or coherence. I know I have friends who believe in God and I have no problem with that. And I don't want them to feel like they have to hide it from me either - that's not what I'm saying.

I was raised Catholic. I went to church faithfully the whole time I lived at home. I sang in the choir and was the organist for two years. We had a priest I really liked. He had wild reddish hair down to his shoulders and a skewed sense of humour. When he came to my school he was great with the kids. But he wasn't very good with adults and he acted very strangely sometimes. Once we got home after Saturday night mass and my mother realized she'd forgotten her purse. She called the rectory and my Dad went to pick up the purse, but the priest would only open the door a big enough crack to shove it out, then slammed the door. My father, who thinks organized religion is a total crock, was angry - he didn't see why that kind of behaviour should be allowable just because it was a priest. Shortly after I left home for University, the priest was arrested for abusing altar boys. I was upset about this, but sometimes I don't think I realized just how upset. I stopped going to church regularly (more due to courseload and heavy drinking than any philosophical decision), and the times when I tried to go to mass with my Mom on Christmas or Easter, I felt physically repulsed when I entered a church.

I don't usually do the 'what do YOU think' thing at the end of my posts, but I really struggle with this, and if anyone has any thoughts I'd really like to hear them.