Hedging Gods: “I’m a Christian, but I’m also a [Buddhist, Taoist, Agnostic, etc]!&
I saw this again today, in a comment on a Taoist forum: "I'm a Christian, but I'm also a Taoist! Some people may see a conflict in that, but it works for me!"
Well duh it works for you, homie. You're a member of the default, popular, nearly-politically-mandatory religion in this country, which gains you a huge wad of social cred and privilege (which, maybe you don't recognize that fact, but like all privilege, it's true even if you're ignorant of it). And yet, you've recognized that the dominant religion has some…problems for you, things you don't agree with philosophically, morally, or cosmologically; or maybe you've just read some history and gotten grossed out at all the Crusades. Regardless, a different set of religious ideas has begun to appeal to you…but if you switched allegiances, you'd have to deal with all those privileged Christians treating you like shit all the time! What do, what do?
Oh I know, you can be a complete fucking coward and pretend, no matter how UTTERLY ridiculously not true it is, that your new chosen faith is "compatible" with Christianity. You can strut around claiming all the benefits of Christianity, while flip-flopping instantly in any conversation that includes its detriments to "really, a Buddhist" or "in my heart, a Taoist" or some other such rank bullshit.
Well, I was born and raised a Christian (and am not anymore, privately and publicly), and to anyone who perhaps doesn't understand the religion, let me clear this up: Christianity, even super-lite gay-friendly nondenominational sorta-Christianity, is NOT COMPATIBLE with holding another religion's - especially another culture's - views to be true. If you "are a Christian" then you are philosophically a monotheist (or you are a heretic), you stand behind the teachings of Christ as written / passed down through the Church and the various Councils (or you are a hypocrite), and you grant the power and authority of the Christian church-structure (or you are, to them, a criminal; and if this were a few hundred years ago you'd be killed for it).
There actually *are* some religions which are explicitly okay with their followers "blending" faiths and such - many of which decided to be that way after realizing that anihilation by Christians was their only other option - but in Chrisitianity, the only acceptable reason to even listen for one second to "pagan thoughts" is because you're planning to convert, overthrow, or (sorry to be harsh but) murder the pagans in question. To claim that you "are" a Taoist or somesuch is grounds for an instant banning, both from all legitimate Christian institutions, and socially from the general mileiu of Christian-Westerners.
It's also wildly insulting to people who actually believe and follow the tenets of another religion, especially if that other religion happens to be one of the many that Christians have gone on violent campaigns to enslave or overthrow, and yes, you're being amazingly gross and the epitome of culturally-appropriative by saying it.
JUST STOP. Either throw your lot in with Christianity, which you were probably born to and/or defaulted to and yes, it's quite comfortable there in our culture, isn't it; OR step up and say no, you'd like to play another game instead, and deal with the backlash that gets you and maybe while you do so, do some meditating on how important it is to respect other religions and cultures because the road between "dissing foreigners" and "mass killings" is pretty damn short, innit?
TL;DR: Playing in the sandbox of Big Ideas requires not being a wuss.
No, Timmy, you can't be on *both* teams.
Sheez. :P
(For the record, I have a million reasons to no longer call myself Christian, but the easiest one to explain is this: I'm a woman. For me to be Christian is morally analogous to a black person being a KKK member. Christians have perpetrated more torture, horror, injustice and death on the female half of the species than damn near anyone else in history, and after educating myself about the past and present outcomes of their beliefs and activities, I would actually choose to burn at the stake over giving them a single dime of my time. ::spits::)
Originally published at counterclockwise. You can comment here or there.