Posted by 79 at 5:15pm Jun 28 '06so today's my day off, i'm proud to say i goofed off in style. the last thing i did was walk over to McD's a few blocks away, have some stuff that wasn't food but filled me up anyway, and just read for a while. on the way back, i was passing two women on the sidewalk and one suddenly turned and asked me if she could ask me something (yeah, i know that's a weird thing to do). i said sure, because i wasn't in a hurry anywhere and it could be kind of interesting. she started off by asking me if i knew about kids starving of hunger around the world, and one bell went off. then she asked me if i myself was happy, and the second one went off.
sure enough, the bible was soon out and i was getting read passages and being told all sorts of things. i was a little annoyed at first because i said i was agnostic, and they thought that was basically athiest or that i didn't care. i tried saying no, it doesn't mean either one, it means i've thought about it and decided that if a god/gods exist, he/she/it/they aren't really that concerned about all the things people claim they are.
basically, the conversation lasted long enough that they closed it off to go find something cold to drink (probably not beer, although we were only two or three blocks from a great irish pub). i sort of got their style, their approach to talking to people.
roughly, it's "there's a whole lot wrong with the world, right? and we know things should be better, that this isn't what's working, yeah? God agrees, and here's some quotes on why [it's happening/he lets it happen/what it means/what he wants you to do/why this works for people/etc etc]."
the problem is, and what these people always seem to have a hard time with, is that i don't buy it. i don't believe in anything which really contradicts what they're pushing (ie, i'm not athiest or catholic or hindu or moslem or environmentalist), so if i'm in the mood i'm happy to talk about what makes them tick. but i don't believe them as much as i don't believe communists or baptists or neocons, because i see a lot of belief systems as inherently logically invalid. that doesn't mean they don't have stuff to say (although i have my doubts about baptists and neocons), it just means they don't have anywhere near the whole picture.
and they never bloody get it! they either try to convince me with "quotes from God Himself" without bothering to try to deal with the fact that i don't believe the Bible works that way, or they try to explain the Bible just is or something. i toss them questions about why the Bible has to be IT, rather than the Baghavad-Gita or the Torah, or (more likely) a combination of all of the above, but they always dodge those and go back to the rote patter.
one of my best friends growing up, who i've known since early elementary school and have seen pretty regularly since, became a JW last year. he smoked (nicotine and weed), he drank like a fish, we listened to crazy music and played violent video games, he cursed and watched porn, etc etc. so now none of that. and what i got from him is basically that the JW stuff made sense to him, that it was Truth-with-a-capital-T like he'd never seen before. which is the same thing i pick up from everyone else, other JW's and everything i mentioned above and all....basically, these people always think their way is The Way. that they've got it, and everyone else is mistaken.
i'll give the JW's one thing - they don't attack other faiths or anything, just immorality and things that upset them in the world. but that's just as weird, just a different kind of weird - sure, poverty and war and hunger and rampant hard drug use and disease upset me, too, but that doesn't mean i think there's any sort of easy explanation or quick fix. i think wanting one is childish, but of course i never get far enough to explain that to them.
so what the hell is up with these people? yeah, apparently it worked for them - but they think that means it'll work for everyone. WAKE UP, PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. just like one diet makes someone thin and doesn't help someone else, one religion makes someone happy and another one works for someone else. that tells me a lot of things about the God that everyone runs around talking about[/for]. but they don't get that. it's so fucking selfish to have that kind of world view.
oh yeah, and then they made the mistake of getting into the abortion thing. as soon as it came up, i tried to tell them to stay away from it because the conversation had been going okay and there was no need to go there. but sure enough, they thought that meant maybe a way to get to me and convince me, so they pushed it. idiots. eventually, one started saying how much a woman hurts emotionally after an abortion for years, and i said yeah no shit, some of my best friends have had them and it still hurts, but that doesn't mean that they think they made the wrong decision - it's a tough one to live with, yes, but sometimes even the right decision hurts a lot.
and she had the fucking balls to tell me they wish they'd made a different decision. i got really flat-toned and told her i thought it was really insulting that she's barely met me and she thinks she knows my friends better than they know themselves. and tried to tell her that was the basic problem, when someone thinks they know what a stranger actually needs better than the other person and tries to enforce it (we all think that about other people, but it's that enforcing bit that really gets to me - everyone agrees that's a bad thing, but no one will fucking admit it once it comes to their own views).
they tried to explain it by saying that girls talk about different things when they're with "the girls" and so i didn't know what she was really thinking. fuck you, it's my friends and i know what level of trust there is (that i know about it in the first place, for instance, because it happened before we were friends), just because you share a gender doesn't mean you know any better.
oh yeah, and don't even get me started on the "but scientists can't even explain..." bullshit. you're not competing with science, because science is curious and readily admits it doesn't know much, just wants to keep finding out more - and you think you have all the answers, but even aside from method you're talking about DIFFERENT THINGS. you want people to be moral and live for eternity after death, and science is wondering about things like why GABA receptors in the brain act differently or what CO2 does in the atmosphere or why pulsars and magnetars are so different yet so similar.
i didn't really have a point to this post. i was sorta curious and a teeny bit annoyed that so many people think that what worked for them is the ONLY thing that can work for anyone else, and get so pushy about it.
oh, and one last thing. don't try to tell me more about history and the crazy stuff that happened by talking down to me like i should be blown away, when i can tell you more about it than you know (yeah, of course i've bloody heard about the Persian empire - want to hear about Xerxes falling flat on his face because of a couple hundred Spartans and one fancy naval maneuver?). especially when you think i should be amazed that the bible "predicted" seven big empires, and they all turn out to be middle east/europe - i kept trying to find out why the bible didn't care about the Chinese or the Inca or Indian or Aztec or Norse or anyone else non-western, but all i got was "the Bible can't include everything, it's got so many books already that you can study it and forget the beginning before you've finished!" it would have been cute, but it was also sort of annoying.
sure enough, the bible was soon out and i was getting read passages and being told all sorts of things. i was a little annoyed at first because i said i was agnostic, and they thought that was basically athiest or that i didn't care. i tried saying no, it doesn't mean either one, it means i've thought about it and decided that if a god/gods exist, he/she/it/they aren't really that concerned about all the things people claim they are.
basically, the conversation lasted long enough that they closed it off to go find something cold to drink (probably not beer, although we were only two or three blocks from a great irish pub). i sort of got their style, their approach to talking to people.
roughly, it's "there's a whole lot wrong with the world, right? and we know things should be better, that this isn't what's working, yeah? God agrees, and here's some quotes on why [it's happening/he lets it happen/what it means/what he wants you to do/why this works for people/etc etc]."
the problem is, and what these people always seem to have a hard time with, is that i don't buy it. i don't believe in anything which really contradicts what they're pushing (ie, i'm not athiest or catholic or hindu or moslem or environmentalist), so if i'm in the mood i'm happy to talk about what makes them tick. but i don't believe them as much as i don't believe communists or baptists or neocons, because i see a lot of belief systems as inherently logically invalid. that doesn't mean they don't have stuff to say (although i have my doubts about baptists and neocons), it just means they don't have anywhere near the whole picture.
and they never bloody get it! they either try to convince me with "quotes from God Himself" without bothering to try to deal with the fact that i don't believe the Bible works that way, or they try to explain the Bible just is or something. i toss them questions about why the Bible has to be IT, rather than the Baghavad-Gita or the Torah, or (more likely) a combination of all of the above, but they always dodge those and go back to the rote patter.
one of my best friends growing up, who i've known since early elementary school and have seen pretty regularly since, became a JW last year. he smoked (nicotine and weed), he drank like a fish, we listened to crazy music and played violent video games, he cursed and watched porn, etc etc. so now none of that. and what i got from him is basically that the JW stuff made sense to him, that it was Truth-with-a-capital-T like he'd never seen before. which is the same thing i pick up from everyone else, other JW's and everything i mentioned above and all....basically, these people always think their way is The Way. that they've got it, and everyone else is mistaken.
i'll give the JW's one thing - they don't attack other faiths or anything, just immorality and things that upset them in the world. but that's just as weird, just a different kind of weird - sure, poverty and war and hunger and rampant hard drug use and disease upset me, too, but that doesn't mean i think there's any sort of easy explanation or quick fix. i think wanting one is childish, but of course i never get far enough to explain that to them.
so what the hell is up with these people? yeah, apparently it worked for them - but they think that means it'll work for everyone. WAKE UP, PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. just like one diet makes someone thin and doesn't help someone else, one religion makes someone happy and another one works for someone else. that tells me a lot of things about the God that everyone runs around talking about[/for]. but they don't get that. it's so fucking selfish to have that kind of world view.
oh yeah, and then they made the mistake of getting into the abortion thing. as soon as it came up, i tried to tell them to stay away from it because the conversation had been going okay and there was no need to go there. but sure enough, they thought that meant maybe a way to get to me and convince me, so they pushed it. idiots. eventually, one started saying how much a woman hurts emotionally after an abortion for years, and i said yeah no shit, some of my best friends have had them and it still hurts, but that doesn't mean that they think they made the wrong decision - it's a tough one to live with, yes, but sometimes even the right decision hurts a lot.
and she had the fucking balls to tell me they wish they'd made a different decision. i got really flat-toned and told her i thought it was really insulting that she's barely met me and she thinks she knows my friends better than they know themselves. and tried to tell her that was the basic problem, when someone thinks they know what a stranger actually needs better than the other person and tries to enforce it (we all think that about other people, but it's that enforcing bit that really gets to me - everyone agrees that's a bad thing, but no one will fucking admit it once it comes to their own views).
they tried to explain it by saying that girls talk about different things when they're with "the girls" and so i didn't know what she was really thinking. fuck you, it's my friends and i know what level of trust there is (that i know about it in the first place, for instance, because it happened before we were friends), just because you share a gender doesn't mean you know any better.
oh yeah, and don't even get me started on the "but scientists can't even explain..." bullshit. you're not competing with science, because science is curious and readily admits it doesn't know much, just wants to keep finding out more - and you think you have all the answers, but even aside from method you're talking about DIFFERENT THINGS. you want people to be moral and live for eternity after death, and science is wondering about things like why GABA receptors in the brain act differently or what CO2 does in the atmosphere or why pulsars and magnetars are so different yet so similar.
i didn't really have a point to this post. i was sorta curious and a teeny bit annoyed that so many people think that what worked for them is the ONLY thing that can work for anyone else, and get so pushy about it.
oh, and one last thing. don't try to tell me more about history and the crazy stuff that happened by talking down to me like i should be blown away, when i can tell you more about it than you know (yeah, of course i've bloody heard about the Persian empire - want to hear about Xerxes falling flat on his face because of a couple hundred Spartans and one fancy naval maneuver?). especially when you think i should be amazed that the bible "predicted" seven big empires, and they all turn out to be middle east/europe - i kept trying to find out why the bible didn't care about the Chinese or the Inca or Indian or Aztec or Norse or anyone else non-western, but all i got was "the Bible can't include everything, it's got so many books already that you can study it and forget the beginning before you've finished!" it would have been cute, but it was also sort of annoying.
Witnessing Jehovah - 79