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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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April 3rd, 2005 RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS PART II: DEFINING THE NUTS
E-mails continue to roll in response to last week's essay. An un-scientific survey indicates that the letters are evenly split 50/50 between people writing, "Bravo, I agree completely," and people defending their religious positions and challenging mine. All of the letters, by the way, have been respectful, well thought out and well written, qualities often lost in religious discourse. Many people tried to answer my question, "what if you're wrong," and few succeeded. There were a few courageous people who recognized that they have chosen a life of faith against their better judgment, but acknowledged they needed to do so to get through life. I applaud their honesty while simultaneously pitying their weakness. Many others asked me the same question in turn, " What, Rob, if YOU are wrong." This shows a failure on my part to properly convey my beliefs, an error I will attempt to correct here. First, though, I must spend a few lines properly defining a religious zealot. Many of you wrote in with lines like, "I don't know if I am what you would call a religious zealot but…" These letters were often followed with well thought out defenses of your faith and no attempt to demean others' beliefs. You are not a religious zealot. A religious zealot, my mass-appeal term for a "Jesus Freak," is the person who meets any of the following criteria:
2. Demeans, bemoans and ridicules anyone who doesn't believe what he believes. This was also a source of misunderstanding in the previous column. I am not ridiculing you for your beliefs, I am chiding you for being closed minded in light of logic and reason if you are a person who chooses to say, "I am right and you are wrong."
3. Tries to change the minds of other people. These are the ones that drive most of nuts. The people who actually believe that they are on a "mission" to spread the word as they see it. True zealots, true whackos.
4. Chalks up everything that happens, regardless of its' impact to "God's Will." This is the one that ropes a lot of you in to my definition. People who walk around explaining away every horrible tragedy and celebrating every new born baby as simply being "God's Will," have already decided that God is actually a puppet master not a supreme being and by announcing "God's Will," are forcing their beliefs on you (See #2 and 3 above). These people have no real purpose in life other than to find ways to absolve themselves of all responsibility by thanking or blaming their God.
As for those of you who wanted me to answer the question about being wrong, I had hoped that I had in my previous column but I obviously failed to do so. Many of you who asked me about being wrong did so with a tone of assumption that I would be terrified to be standing before Allah or God or Zeus discovering that I am wrong. Your premise is flawed in my opinion in that you went on to prescribe to me a life of damnation and eternal Hell fire. It is possible that I am wrong. (A statement religious zealots are incapable of making). If I am wrong, I am certain of two things, which answer the question... 1. Whoever God is, he is not an angry, vengeful god and he has no need or desire for punishment. He will welcome me, teach me, hold me and love me so that I may learn the error of my ways. He will honor me for many of the ways I lived my life including the fact that I recognized that all people need to come to God of their own accord, not because I tell them to.
2. If #1 isn't true, then the supreme being of the universe isn't anyone I want anything to do with and I will happily live an eternity of misery. If the supreme ruler who created all of this is in fact, a father who rules by fear and has such low self esteem that he demands we all bow before him, then I do in fact refuse to acknowledge him as my God and I will bear the repercussions of that. The ability to create a universe doesn't make vanity, insecurity and immaturity virtuous.
So there it is. Two columns, more than hour of on-air time and hundreds of emails later, people are still struggling with this. I'm not sure why so many people who are "sure" of their beliefs feel the need to so vehemently defend and justify them, but that's one of the things that make this topic so interesting to me. Perhaps at some point someone will come along and start a church whose mission statement is the following: "If you come here on Sunday you'll find out what we believe, other than that you'll never know because we have the sense to keep our beliefs, which we adhere to and strongly believe, to ourselves…because we know we may be wrong." Now that's a church even I would attend.
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