Thank you for the well thought out explanation, Niki. I definitely can understand the perspective from which you came. I suppose, to compare to my own life, when I was an animal rights radical, I truly believed that each person "converted" to vegetarianism would not only live a longer, healthier life, but I was saving animals, the environment, and starving people every time I got someone to choose vegetarian over a meat option. It wasn't that simple in reality, but that was what I believed, and my behavior reflected that. It was also comforting to believe that my choices had such an enormous impact across multiple issues. If one really and truly believes that a loved one's immortal soul is in danger, I can see the urgency in "saving" that person, even to the point of making oneself unpopular or a nuisance. After all, eternity in hell is infinitely worse than even starving children, global warming, and factory-farming atrocities! :)
Because of this, I have to admit that my skin crawls when I see dozens of Vacation Bible School signs pop up every summer or when I hear a parent say s/he homeschools a child because learning to live with diverse people and hear different perspectives is so essential to a person making an informed choice about what they believe.
I remember the temptation to go overboard with animal rights and eco-friendliness myself! My friends and I would draw posters about how important those things were... using lots of poster paper and drawing with crayon, which our school said made the paper non-recyclable at the time. Oops. :S
Of course, I can only go so far in my understanding of people who intrude on others' rights and privacy in the name of saving souls, no matter how much they believe it. One has to ask, "What about people of other religions who have similarly serious beliefs--but simply aren't in the majority?" And I would think that if a person is super concerned with saving souls the best they can (especially instead of making sure they get recognition for Having Faith), they'd be serious about learning the best ways to get people to see their way of thinking. I would then think that would require them to not only learn about the other people and their beliefs, but also to learn to question their own religion (and privilege) with another's point of view in mind so they can better explain it and make it look more appealing and logical. I know I'm personally much more likely to explore alternatives to what I'm already comfortable with when I feel like an equal to the person talking to me (and like they've tried very hard to do their homework and have genuinely had some of the same doubts as me), and when a person approaches me like "I am the superior and you can either learn for me or shut up," (even if they're not aware that's how they come off) I get knee-jerk cynical. But maybe that's just me.
That makes my skin crawl too--my cousins were home-schooled because my super religious aunt and uncle thought even the local Christian schools weren't good enough (for religiousness), and I've seen some not-pretty results from them. (Fond memories of one cousin telling a friend of mine "The Jews are blind" in an e-mail, and said friend happened to be from a Jewish family. And then my cousin acted more distressed for learning that her northeastern, public-schooled cousins actually socialized with any people who aren't Protestant than sorry for having said such a thing. :\)
Because of this, I have to admit that my skin crawls when I see dozens of Vacation Bible School signs pop up every summer or when I hear a parent say s/he homeschools a child because learning to live with diverse people and hear different perspectives is so essential to a person making an informed choice about what they believe.
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Of course, I can only go so far in my understanding of people who intrude on others' rights and privacy in the name of saving souls, no matter how much they believe it. One has to ask, "What about people of other religions who have similarly serious beliefs--but simply aren't in the majority?" And I would think that if a person is super concerned with saving souls the best they can (especially instead of making sure they get recognition for Having Faith), they'd be serious about learning the best ways to get people to see their way of thinking. I would then think that would require them to not only learn about the other people and their beliefs, but also to learn to question their own religion (and privilege) with another's point of view in mind so they can better explain it and make it look more appealing and logical. I know I'm personally much more likely to explore alternatives to what I'm already comfortable with when I feel like an equal to the person talking to me (and like they've tried very hard to do their homework and have genuinely had some of the same doubts as me), and when a person approaches me like "I am the superior and you can either learn for me or shut up," (even if they're not aware that's how they come off) I get knee-jerk cynical. But maybe that's just me.
That makes my skin crawl too--my cousins were home-schooled because my super religious aunt and uncle thought even the local Christian schools weren't good enough (for religiousness), and I've seen some not-pretty results from them. (Fond memories of one cousin telling a friend of mine "The Jews are blind" in an e-mail, and said friend happened to be from a Jewish family. And then my cousin acted more distressed for learning that her northeastern, public-schooled cousins actually socialized with any people who aren't Protestant than sorry for having said such a thing. :\)
This is an interesting discussion. :)
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