belief is a beautiful armor, but makes for the heaviest sword.
In broadcast writing, we were discussing ethics, view points, and why balanced reporting is important. Somehow, we ended up diverting into a discussion about religion and people distributing tracts and those tiny Bibles with only the New Testament, and then this one guy said, "...and besides, anyone who believes in organized religion is stupid anyway."
I turned to him and, very calmly, said, "That argument is insulting, biased, and wrong."
I don't talk about religion much here. If you don't know, I am Christian. Denomination doesn't matter. I believe in God, I go to church, the whole nine. When I was a kid, for one week most summers, my brother and I went to Bible school at our church. I went to Catholic school for a few years and I mention that on occasion (and sometimes joke about it).
I don't talk about religion because it is such a loaded subject. It is especially loaded lately. There is a belief among lots of people, especially here, especially on the internet, that if you believe in a higher power, you are either out of touch, an extremist, fundamentalist, or you're stark raving mad.
I resent this idea--the idea that if you believe in a higher power, that you're delusional and incapable of higher thought; that you're stupid. I can understand how some people can arrive to that conclusion. But at the same time, there are stupid people who don't claim a faith. Just because you do not have a religious belief system, you are no more or no less intelligent than someone who does.
I do not want to be disregarded simply because of the fact that I am religious, and I really wish that more people would actually think before making the sweeping generalization that every person who has a personal belief system that is different than theirs is wrong.
(I wish that I could be more eloquent about this. That's also another reason why I don't talk about faith--because while what I want to say sounds good in my head, when I try and write/type it out, it never looks half as good.)
I turned to him and, very calmly, said, "That argument is insulting, biased, and wrong."
I don't talk about religion much here. If you don't know, I am Christian. Denomination doesn't matter. I believe in God, I go to church, the whole nine. When I was a kid, for one week most summers, my brother and I went to Bible school at our church. I went to Catholic school for a few years and I mention that on occasion (and sometimes joke about it).
I don't talk about religion because it is such a loaded subject. It is especially loaded lately. There is a belief among lots of people, especially here, especially on the internet, that if you believe in a higher power, you are either out of touch, an extremist, fundamentalist, or you're stark raving mad.
I resent this idea--the idea that if you believe in a higher power, that you're delusional and incapable of higher thought; that you're stupid. I can understand how some people can arrive to that conclusion. But at the same time, there are stupid people who don't claim a faith. Just because you do not have a religious belief system, you are no more or no less intelligent than someone who does.
I do not want to be disregarded simply because of the fact that I am religious, and I really wish that more people would actually think before making the sweeping generalization that every person who has a personal belief system that is different than theirs is wrong.
(I wish that I could be more eloquent about this. That's also another reason why I don't talk about faith--because while what I want to say sounds good in my head, when I try and write/type it out, it never looks half as good.)