I need some Jesus . . . and a cell phone.
Work has been . . . interesting lately. I have discovered that I have something to whine about every time I work with one of my managers, who shall remain nameless since this is a public entry, but I will most assuredly write a private entry about said manager a little later. Should you be one of my readers who cannot be on my approved friends list due to lack of a LiveJournal, message me if you want to read the "secret" entry. I'll write it sometime later today, I think.
But now for something I can publicly share that happened at work . . . which really ticked me off.
For the second time since starting work at the bookstore, I have had a customer in my checkout line hold up the flow of customer traffic because she was busy trying to convert me to her religion.
This lady was being kind of a bitch at the beginning, whining to me that she didn't want to check out with the OTHER cashier because the OTHER cashier has a cold and oh she needs to WASH HER HANDS. (Never mind that she's got the antibacterial hand wash stuff right next to her and keeps using it. Whatever.)
So then for some reason this lady asked if I was a college student, and when I told her I wasn't (and had graduated six years ago), she then asked me if I was a Christian.
I should begin by saying that I wish I had said both more and less to this woman. I would have loved to say a lot more to her than I did, and you will see why in a minute. But if I could have chosen to say less, I wish that this would have been where I'd nipped it in the bud. I wish I had told her I didn't want to discuss personal matters like that while I was at work, and ended it there. But there weren't any customers behind her at the time (YET!) so I just answered truthfully.
"No, I'm not."
Her response:
"Oh, not yet?"
Yet?
I told her that Christianity didn't happen to be my religion of choice.
"What IS your religion of choice?"
I told her I follow an Earth-centered spiritual path. That's kind of what it is I guess. I didn't really want to get into trying to explain the sort of atheistic Paganism concept I follow, which is more of a philosophy and a lifestyle and a connection to my roots than, you know, a *religion*. But being vague in these sorts of situations is usually the best policy.
Of course, I probably shouldn't have said anything at all because anything that isn't a "yes, I'm Christian" is an answer that needs changing in her mind.
She then asked me if I had been raised by a churchgoing family, and I said I had not. I was not born, raised, or educated as a Christian, and have never felt any sort of calling toward that path even though I can respect that others do.
From here her first point was to inform me that there IS a God and a Heaven, and then--I shit you not--she leaned over the counter and said, "And YOU don't know where you're going to go, DO YOU???"
This is the point at which I wish I could have said more.
Regardless, she probably took my agitated silence as innocent flabbergastedness, and asked me if I had a Bible at home. I told her I had four. She said that was good, and began rattling on about which verse I should read and how I should do that and pray and ask God if it is real. It was the usual John 3:16 passage--again with the emphasis on how there's only one way to get into Heaven.
No, she didn't quote it to me. She told me to go read it. I already know what it says.
Because--as I would have told her if I had been able to bring myself to say more--it is not IGNORANCE of the Christian religion that has resulted in my not ("yet??") converting to it. It is not ignorance but outright rejection of the tenets that make it up. I don't think those who accept it and live by it are "wrong." I just think that there's no such thing as "one true way" for all these billions of people on the planet, nor do I believe God would create humans in such a way that they had to choose to accept that God made them in this flawed and in-need-of-forgiveness fashion, and that the punishment for failing to accept that we were BORN STAINED WITH SIN is a one-way ticket to eternal punishment in the Abyss.
What's kind of annoying is these types of proselytizing people don't tend to understand that the idea of Hell doesn't frighten someone who has never believed in it (and can't be persuaded to believe that a supposedly loving God is that sadistic). I can't be scared of the prospect of going to Hell any more than I can be scared of the prospect of having the weight of my heart being judged by the Egyptian death god Anubis, who will devour my internal organs if my sins make my heart outweigh a feather. I don't believe thunder occurs when Zeus is angry. I don't believe Yahweh has a "favorite" among all the people he created. I don't believe my mistakes in this life are going to result in an unfavorable reincarnation, and I don't believe my failure to meditate is going to keep me from achieving my most desirable state. I don't believe the world works that way. No amount of quoting a holy book is going to convert me. Evidence is what convinces me of things. None of these gods or ways of living have ever knocked at my heart or manifested themselves unmistakably in nature, so I do not follow them. If something is true in a book, it's true in the world outside the book too.
The lady observed that she was making me uncomfortable--I felt it was a bad idea to retort when I was at work and because we had now been joined in the line by a father with his maybe nine-year-old daughter--and took that as a sign that she needed to keep going.
"I see how you're looking at me and I know what you're thinking, but really, go home and read your Bible. You'll see. I know you're a smart lady. You'll make the right choice." She went on to try to get me to promise her that I was going to do what she said.
If I had felt comfortable with saying more, this would have been the time to say, "You know what? I'm familiar with that passage. It doesn't stir anything in me, while the ways I now practice certainly do. I respect your path and ask you for the same."
But, being trapped at work wearing an apron and nametag and therefore being a representative of my company, I felt like that would be too much. I told her I didn't want to discuss this with her, and pointed out that people were waiting behind her.
She stepped aside and looked at them in surprise, but then said to the father, "YOU know about the book of John, don't you?!"
The man gave her a measured glance and replied, "YOU must be a BAPTIST."
Obviously flustered, the woman replied that she was not; she was just a Christian, talking about the words of the Lord. Why did such a person have to be a Baptist in his opinion anyway?
"Because they're always the ones trying to push their religion on everyone."
The woman left shortly after that, and I don't know if she said anything else to him or me because I was trying so hard to pretend she wasn't there. He put his purchases on the counter and made a loud exhalation, and I asked him the usual question about whether he had a discount card. He did not.
"Well, if you'd like to be INDOCTRINATED into the club today, it'd add eight dollars to your total. . . ."
Heh. He laughed at my joke.
I think his daughter was a little shell-shocked by the whole thing.
Heh, I just thought of this, but I should have told the lady that I was a filthy heathen. Or a witch. Or a Satanic nun.
Nah.
And, in other news, one of my co-workers asked me if I had a cell phone, and when she found out I didn't, she gave me a bug-eyed look and said, "How do you LIVE without a cell phone?"
The same way I live without other "necessities," such as sex, cars, meat, and cable television. I don't frickin' want them.
But don't take my Internet please.
But now for something I can publicly share that happened at work . . . which really ticked me off.
For the second time since starting work at the bookstore, I have had a customer in my checkout line hold up the flow of customer traffic because she was busy trying to convert me to her religion.
This lady was being kind of a bitch at the beginning, whining to me that she didn't want to check out with the OTHER cashier because the OTHER cashier has a cold and oh she needs to WASH HER HANDS. (Never mind that she's got the antibacterial hand wash stuff right next to her and keeps using it. Whatever.)
So then for some reason this lady asked if I was a college student, and when I told her I wasn't (and had graduated six years ago), she then asked me if I was a Christian.
I should begin by saying that I wish I had said both more and less to this woman. I would have loved to say a lot more to her than I did, and you will see why in a minute. But if I could have chosen to say less, I wish that this would have been where I'd nipped it in the bud. I wish I had told her I didn't want to discuss personal matters like that while I was at work, and ended it there. But there weren't any customers behind her at the time (YET!) so I just answered truthfully.
"No, I'm not."
Her response:
"Oh, not yet?"
Yet?
I told her that Christianity didn't happen to be my religion of choice.
"What IS your religion of choice?"
I told her I follow an Earth-centered spiritual path. That's kind of what it is I guess. I didn't really want to get into trying to explain the sort of atheistic Paganism concept I follow, which is more of a philosophy and a lifestyle and a connection to my roots than, you know, a *religion*. But being vague in these sorts of situations is usually the best policy.
Of course, I probably shouldn't have said anything at all because anything that isn't a "yes, I'm Christian" is an answer that needs changing in her mind.
She then asked me if I had been raised by a churchgoing family, and I said I had not. I was not born, raised, or educated as a Christian, and have never felt any sort of calling toward that path even though I can respect that others do.
From here her first point was to inform me that there IS a God and a Heaven, and then--I shit you not--she leaned over the counter and said, "And YOU don't know where you're going to go, DO YOU???"
This is the point at which I wish I could have said more.
Regardless, she probably took my agitated silence as innocent flabbergastedness, and asked me if I had a Bible at home. I told her I had four. She said that was good, and began rattling on about which verse I should read and how I should do that and pray and ask God if it is real. It was the usual John 3:16 passage--again with the emphasis on how there's only one way to get into Heaven.
No, she didn't quote it to me. She told me to go read it. I already know what it says.
Because--as I would have told her if I had been able to bring myself to say more--it is not IGNORANCE of the Christian religion that has resulted in my not ("yet??") converting to it. It is not ignorance but outright rejection of the tenets that make it up. I don't think those who accept it and live by it are "wrong." I just think that there's no such thing as "one true way" for all these billions of people on the planet, nor do I believe God would create humans in such a way that they had to choose to accept that God made them in this flawed and in-need-of-forgiveness fashion, and that the punishment for failing to accept that we were BORN STAINED WITH SIN is a one-way ticket to eternal punishment in the Abyss.
What's kind of annoying is these types of proselytizing people don't tend to understand that the idea of Hell doesn't frighten someone who has never believed in it (and can't be persuaded to believe that a supposedly loving God is that sadistic). I can't be scared of the prospect of going to Hell any more than I can be scared of the prospect of having the weight of my heart being judged by the Egyptian death god Anubis, who will devour my internal organs if my sins make my heart outweigh a feather. I don't believe thunder occurs when Zeus is angry. I don't believe Yahweh has a "favorite" among all the people he created. I don't believe my mistakes in this life are going to result in an unfavorable reincarnation, and I don't believe my failure to meditate is going to keep me from achieving my most desirable state. I don't believe the world works that way. No amount of quoting a holy book is going to convert me. Evidence is what convinces me of things. None of these gods or ways of living have ever knocked at my heart or manifested themselves unmistakably in nature, so I do not follow them. If something is true in a book, it's true in the world outside the book too.
The lady observed that she was making me uncomfortable--I felt it was a bad idea to retort when I was at work and because we had now been joined in the line by a father with his maybe nine-year-old daughter--and took that as a sign that she needed to keep going.
"I see how you're looking at me and I know what you're thinking, but really, go home and read your Bible. You'll see. I know you're a smart lady. You'll make the right choice." She went on to try to get me to promise her that I was going to do what she said.
If I had felt comfortable with saying more, this would have been the time to say, "You know what? I'm familiar with that passage. It doesn't stir anything in me, while the ways I now practice certainly do. I respect your path and ask you for the same."
But, being trapped at work wearing an apron and nametag and therefore being a representative of my company, I felt like that would be too much. I told her I didn't want to discuss this with her, and pointed out that people were waiting behind her.
She stepped aside and looked at them in surprise, but then said to the father, "YOU know about the book of John, don't you?!"
The man gave her a measured glance and replied, "YOU must be a BAPTIST."
Obviously flustered, the woman replied that she was not; she was just a Christian, talking about the words of the Lord. Why did such a person have to be a Baptist in his opinion anyway?
"Because they're always the ones trying to push their religion on everyone."
The woman left shortly after that, and I don't know if she said anything else to him or me because I was trying so hard to pretend she wasn't there. He put his purchases on the counter and made a loud exhalation, and I asked him the usual question about whether he had a discount card. He did not.
"Well, if you'd like to be INDOCTRINATED into the club today, it'd add eight dollars to your total. . . ."
Heh. He laughed at my joke.
I think his daughter was a little shell-shocked by the whole thing.
Heh, I just thought of this, but I should have told the lady that I was a filthy heathen. Or a witch. Or a Satanic nun.
Nah.
And, in other news, one of my co-workers asked me if I had a cell phone, and when she found out I didn't, she gave me a bug-eyed look and said, "How do you LIVE without a cell phone?"
The same way I live without other "necessities," such as sex, cars, meat, and cable television. I don't frickin' want them.
But don't take my Internet please.