Here I am again. This time I'm the idiot. I think.
I was just in an impromptu chat with some loverly squirrels. One insisted that another check out this site's guestbook. I hit the link as well.
I forget my exact words, having closed the chat window shortly thereafter, but it was something along the lines of "Oh joy, another website that lists my beliefs and insults them one by one." The site seems devoted to attacking Christianity.
Grr. Not again.
It's not easy for me to be the only member of Pro who is both fairly active (eh, kinda) and openly Christian. It's a rough environment online for a conservative anything, much less conservative Christian.
I have a hard time sometimes with the differences between online and offline culture. Offline, I live in South DaFuckingKota, in the "heartland of America". It's a state full of staunch Republicans and stores that close on Sundays, because remaining open "ain't Christian". Parts of town are so full of churches that simply living nearby ensures you will never sleep in on Sunday again; the bells WILL rouse you.
On the other hand is the Internet. "Fundies" are commonly bashed, in my experience. Some atheists online (certainly not all!) persistently mock conservative Christianity on a regular basis. Being Republican is considered almost shameful; liberalism must conquer the right-wings to keep this country free!
Combining the two in my head make me very confused indeed.
To get back to my initial tangent, I spouted my vitriol without thinking (ah, the workings of Ree's brain fail once again, we see). The person who has been asked to check the link seemed taken aback, and exited before my shame reached my fingers to pound out "I'm sorry." I posted my pathetic apology anyway to he who had posted the link, and exited instant messaging.
I would like to think that I'm an open-minded person. My belief system, including (but not limited to) my religious beliefs, has changed significantly over the last year. I regularly go back to sites like religioustolerance.org (a personal favourite) in order to better understand faith(s), whether or not I have any interest in following its protocols myself.
In particular, it bugged me a lot to hear that Arab-Americans were being attacked (physically, no less!) after September 11, 2001. Some Americans are complete idiots, though my nation certainly doesn't have a lock on stupidity. (Yet, anyway.) That anyone would attack an Arab just because a small group of Arabs, who had seriously distorted and contradicted the Islam of their area, had done something incredibly awful and horrific... it made me mad. I don't think I've ever been more ashamed to be an American, a white American, than when I heard that on the news.
I wonder why the hell I keep having to balance extremes in my life. Conservative vs. liberal, devotion to religious creeds vs. skeptic aetheism, masculine ideals vs. feminine form -- it's really pissing me off!
I can't believe I did that either. I owe both people who were in that chat a major apology, with prettier (and more sincere) words than an unadorned "I'm sorry." I refuse to be ashamed of my faith. Without it, I would have killed myself years ago. Given time, I could pinpoint the very on which I held a full bottle of sleepings pills, and threw them from me because I knew it wasn't God's will for me to die. I didn't care then about leaving my family. I didn't care about anything except making my pitiful life end. God didn't stop me. My knowledge that it would make God sad did, childish as that may seem.
Whether or not anyone believes that there is a God, a vital part of understanding me is that I do. I expect those I consider friends to accept this belief in me. If they choose it for themselves is up to them; I'm not a missionary. I do love answering honest, sincere questions about what I believe, though, and that's becoming more important as my beliefs continue to deviate from the mainline. I'm actually a suitably fucked-up individual when one gets to know me.
There are so many other groups that could be picked on, really. Jains, Sikhs, or any number of smaller groups that would commonly be termed "cults". Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are already popular comedic targets.
Jains believe that fans hurt invisible creatues in the air, and so don't use them. Their monks and nuns go about naked (or clad in a white sheet, depending on the branch they belong to.) And Sikhs? According to my world religion text, several Sikhs once got into a fight -- not an argument, a FIGHT -- about whether or not it was right to use chairs in their place of worship. Cops had to come break it up. I dare you all to resist smiling at that. On one hand it's sad that there's sectarianism even in a religion so little known in North America (its stronghold lies over the India-Pakistan border), and on the other hand.... heh.
Deviate from religion. Pick on people who think Elvis never died. Poke holes in conspiracy theories, or create better ones. Make fun of obsessive cat owners. Insult people with chronic depression! It would be nice to get flak for something about me BESIDES being Christian, for a change!
The very best part of it all, though, is that picking on conservative Christians means picking on my grandmother. I love my grandma. She's a sweet woman, if tremulous and fragile emotionally. (Having a breakdown over your husband's affair, well-known across town, will do that to you. Grandpa taught my daddy that adultery's okay, y'see. *fumes*) Anyway, if anyone ever picked on Christianity to my grandmother, I have an idea what she'd do. I suspect she would just smile brightly and say that God loved whoever said otherwise. She'd spout platitudes from "Touched by an Angel", stuff that "Even if you don't believe in God, he believes in you!"
It's really, really hard to get properly angry with a woman who acts so adorably. She still likes Trent Lott (he's a nice man, she thinks -- ack) and she still serves the most God-awful orange juice I have EVER tasted, but her God is her strength. Even though we have radically different ideas about who God is, and how He is, I can't help but admire her convictions. She loves God and she will not be swayed by naysayers.
Ugh, feel the tangent! Nooo! Bad Ree to deviate from the main idea! Eh, this isn't formal writing. Neener!
People outside my grandmother's small farming community might see her as closedminded, and I suppose she is. It's been a maxim of mine that a person ought not open their mind too much, for fear that all its holds will fall out and scatter. It's impossible to accept all beliefs as your own; the objective of tolerance, however, is a much more sensible and reachable goal.
Ah, America, land of tolerance. Where the Pledge of Alligence is unconstitutional, devout aetheists mark out "In God We Trust" on money, and all our dead white Presidents (and those still living) have had a Christian religious affiliation of some sort, I suspect. Clinton was nominally Baptist, I think? Kennedy caught flak for being Roman Catholic in a predominantly Protestant country, I do know that.
Tolerance, hell. Freedom of speech means this is the nation where you're free to malign your neighbor. Just don't violate noise pollution ordinances and you can mock him as you please.
For all I hear about how awful America is, though, I can't quite imagine wanting to live anywhere else. My friend Sin has traveled overseas and been to many countries. He tells me that America is as good as it gets. Europe simply doesn't have the sanitation or sewer system that America has. Even Canada, he says, isn't as tidy our United States. (He also says that France has an incredibly high incidence of homosexuality in males, and that all the French he's ever met were horribly stuck-up because his own French-speaking wasn't fluent enough, so I listen to what he says and take it with a double grain of salt.)
I note that, of all the diaries I've read over the past few years, no one who swore they're emigrate if Bush won has actually done so. Much as some might dislike our Dubya, he's good for comedy skits, and he hasn't managed to sink us completely just yet. Sin's view is that the President doesn't have enough power to fuck up much anyway. He says people like the director of the CIA are able to manipulate politicians by controlling what information they're allowed to base decisions on; while I loathe politics and don't know how they work, Sin's concept does seem plausible enough.
This entry's going all over the place! Eh, well, it's mostly well written, to my mind. Off track, certainly, but I write what fills my mind at the time.
I should grab munchies, though. I'm off.
And Jack and Snog, if you're reading this: I am sorry. I don't know what made me spontaneously vomit out that horrible string of verbal bile, but I want to formally apologize to you both. As you may have seen in this entry, I often feel attacked by people online for being American or Christian or whatnot, but I'm aware that doesn't excuse my behaviour. Please tell me how I can make reparation for that ugly commentary I so thoughtlessly offered. EDIT: We got it patched up. :)