Between the Lines
I recently had a devoutly religious family member challenge me on my faith.
By personal preference, I'm taciturn about my own faith. I don't feel the need to go around pushing what I feel might be true, or what's convenient for me to feel is true, on anyone else. I've spent years investigating my own feelings about these matters, and I don't see them as being necessarily applicable or even transferrable to any other person.
Nullius in verba. That's my only advice to anyone approaching religion for the first time: if you'd really like to know, go and find out for yourself.
But of course, you can't remain completely silent on the matter in all circumstances, always. Sometimes you have to say something, lest the conversation become awkward, or for some other contextual reason.
I'm generally comfortable tossing out bullshit about my own religious beliefs. That's not to say that I lie about them, but I've always had the sense that these sorts of things are extremely difficult to reduce into words. Once you've managed to construct a phrase that expresses something you might be feeling about God or whatever, the feeling is compromised.
For example, I wrote this post on Christianity earlier this year. Does it accurately represent how I feel about Christianity? Not really. It kind of touches upon how I was feeling at the time, but I was really just poking fun at things. I'd have to imagine that if I wrote a post about my own faith at length, in all seriousness, it would be pretty tedious to read. And still inaccurate anyway, since, as mentioned, these things don't condense into text very well.
This family member I mentioned earlier clearly read this blog post of mine, and took issue with it. He didn't tell me he had read it, but he kind of addressed several points that I made in the post in a very general way, clearly demonstrating to me that he had read it, but trying not to let it come to light that he had. He seemed to be hoping to establish rapport with me on the topic. In hindsight, I don't think he was establishing rapport so much as he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security so he could pounce, while my defenses were down. Admittedly, I can't be sure of his motives.
His approach was at first tactful...he tried to point out the things in the post that he agreed with, and gently pointed out, in broad strokes, the ways in which I was wrong. I was unresponsive to this, largely because I had nothing to contribute, and I was more interested in learning what he had to say on the subject.
As time went on, he tried harder and harder to draw me out on the topic. From the start, I told him that it wasn't a conversation to which I was interested in contributing my own thoughts on. But it wasn't something he could leave alone. He was quite insistent on getting me to talk about God, in particular the Christian God, and His role in my life. So, I started to say things. Sometimes it was something that a devout Christian might say, other times it was "godless" nonsense. Even though I was at time directly contradicting myself, I meant every world. As Whitman pointed out, I contain multitudes.
And this is where the danger lies, because after enough time, he grew frustrated and downright angry by my slippery approach to the conversation. I gently reminded him that this wasn't something I was keen to chat about, and that I wasn't exactly "shopping around" for a new faith. I've had roughly the same faith for the past 20 years; I'm not about to toss it away like some cheap pair of socks just to win the approval of some distant relative of mine.
This family member of mine got around to say that he was shocked that, when he approached people about being saved by Jesus, they would often get annoyed or mad with him for pushing his religion onto them. He was genuinely surprised by this. Ultimately, this is what surprises me: people who have you convert to their religion approach you and try to upend some major part of your personality, and they act shocked when people get defensive.
Put it to you this way: there's a couple that's trying to have children, and you go to them and tell them that they shouldn't want to be parents. They politely tell you that while they understand how you feel, they still want to try and have children, because they really want to be parents. You persist and tell them that they should reconsider. They politely rebuff you again. And if you keep at it long enough, eventually they're going to get angry, rightly so, and dismiss you altogether. In this context, the reaction of the couple isn't surprising, and I'd say they're entitled to it. Why is it that people feel they can push their religion on others, incessantly, without regard to the emotional impact they're having?
By personal preference, I'm taciturn about my own faith. I don't feel the need to go around pushing what I feel might be true, or what's convenient for me to feel is true, on anyone else. I've spent years investigating my own feelings about these matters, and I don't see them as being necessarily applicable or even transferrable to any other person.
Nullius in verba. That's my only advice to anyone approaching religion for the first time: if you'd really like to know, go and find out for yourself.
But of course, you can't remain completely silent on the matter in all circumstances, always. Sometimes you have to say something, lest the conversation become awkward, or for some other contextual reason.
I'm generally comfortable tossing out bullshit about my own religious beliefs. That's not to say that I lie about them, but I've always had the sense that these sorts of things are extremely difficult to reduce into words. Once you've managed to construct a phrase that expresses something you might be feeling about God or whatever, the feeling is compromised.
For example, I wrote this post on Christianity earlier this year. Does it accurately represent how I feel about Christianity? Not really. It kind of touches upon how I was feeling at the time, but I was really just poking fun at things. I'd have to imagine that if I wrote a post about my own faith at length, in all seriousness, it would be pretty tedious to read. And still inaccurate anyway, since, as mentioned, these things don't condense into text very well.
This family member I mentioned earlier clearly read this blog post of mine, and took issue with it. He didn't tell me he had read it, but he kind of addressed several points that I made in the post in a very general way, clearly demonstrating to me that he had read it, but trying not to let it come to light that he had. He seemed to be hoping to establish rapport with me on the topic. In hindsight, I don't think he was establishing rapport so much as he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security so he could pounce, while my defenses were down. Admittedly, I can't be sure of his motives.
His approach was at first tactful...he tried to point out the things in the post that he agreed with, and gently pointed out, in broad strokes, the ways in which I was wrong. I was unresponsive to this, largely because I had nothing to contribute, and I was more interested in learning what he had to say on the subject.
As time went on, he tried harder and harder to draw me out on the topic. From the start, I told him that it wasn't a conversation to which I was interested in contributing my own thoughts on. But it wasn't something he could leave alone. He was quite insistent on getting me to talk about God, in particular the Christian God, and His role in my life. So, I started to say things. Sometimes it was something that a devout Christian might say, other times it was "godless" nonsense. Even though I was at time directly contradicting myself, I meant every world. As Whitman pointed out, I contain multitudes.
And this is where the danger lies, because after enough time, he grew frustrated and downright angry by my slippery approach to the conversation. I gently reminded him that this wasn't something I was keen to chat about, and that I wasn't exactly "shopping around" for a new faith. I've had roughly the same faith for the past 20 years; I'm not about to toss it away like some cheap pair of socks just to win the approval of some distant relative of mine.
This family member of mine got around to say that he was shocked that, when he approached people about being saved by Jesus, they would often get annoyed or mad with him for pushing his religion onto them. He was genuinely surprised by this. Ultimately, this is what surprises me: people who have you convert to their religion approach you and try to upend some major part of your personality, and they act shocked when people get defensive.
Put it to you this way: there's a couple that's trying to have children, and you go to them and tell them that they shouldn't want to be parents. They politely tell you that while they understand how you feel, they still want to try and have children, because they really want to be parents. You persist and tell them that they should reconsider. They politely rebuff you again. And if you keep at it long enough, eventually they're going to get angry, rightly so, and dismiss you altogether. In this context, the reaction of the couple isn't surprising, and I'd say they're entitled to it. Why is it that people feel they can push their religion on others, incessantly, without regard to the emotional impact they're having?