Proselytizing oh Proselytizing

"Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion –- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven."

--- Mark Twain
Why do folks who are all caught up in religion seem to think that those of us that happen to hold an original thought or don't subscribe to their version of things need "saving"? Why do people of the "faith" deem themselves of superior vision and knowledge of getting safely and securely to a pleasant afterlife. Such was an experience of yours truly yesterday. What started out as an educated discussion about people, racism, classism and attitudes of some neighborhoods shockingly and rapidly took a screeching turn to a sermon about the "coming end" and where I was going or more like headed for in the afterlife. My sister-in-law's husband, a self professed Pastor can seemingly no longer hold a conversation about anything unless it includes the Bible or some form of salvation from this life. I noticed that at the figurative intersection his tone of voice change and he became emboldened and instead of a discussion the conversation turned into a church sermon, with my husband, my mother-in-law and me being the congregation. I was completely taken off guard and just didn't know where this came from, I hadn't said anything to allude to "the end" of times. He just went off on a tangent and said at one point "don't you want to spend eternity with Christ" - what! I lost it this time. I was alarmed and pressed to know where this suddenly came from, I was taken aback and completely insulted by the fact that he seemed to need to talk to me about where I was going after I died and that fact that he needed to tell me the "truth" as he called it. He tried to go down the road of me running from the truth. I became incensed, loud, forceful and confrontational.

My philosophies about life are completely different to most but I surely don't run around trying to shove it down people's throats or try to make them believe as I do at any circumstance. I hadn't asked for this meltdown nor was I over his house to discuss the Bible and life. Just throw me some history, world culture, even some typical pop nonsense and I'm good. I don't wear my opinions or philosophies on my sleeve, nor is my relationship with God anyone's business or up for analysis by folks who think they know better. I'd come over for a nice bar-b-que to enjoy my weekend and forget it all. Just looking at his self righteous face as he continued on in his condescending tone was making my temperature and blood pressure rise, just the thought of his disrespect for my views and his total lack of any education beyond the Bible was enough to make me want to slap the taste out his mouth. But I held a cool head and quickly put an end to the conversation.

I am completely soured and jaded on religions and people. We all run around on this planet thinking that this group or the "us" have the answers, the keys to that glorious shangri la up in the skies, truth is, none of us have it we don't even know what's going to happen next 5minutes much less next 50 years. We spend so much time pontificating and preaching that we don't stop and really take a deep breath and truly experience God, these people don't care they're just in a tremendous frenzy to get the message out and "spread the gospel" I think its all about turning conversions into cash and living their life on earth in their own slice of heaven. It's sickening and creepy at best. His whole behavior and attitude yesterday just pushed me ever farther from joining or partaking in any type of organized religion, it was weird and odd and it totally put me off I don't even want to speak to him again and more than likely I won't - Thanks a bunch Pastor and I'll say this again, the only salvation I truly need is salvation from insipid religious creeps like yourself.

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.