Miscellany - 22 April 2002

Frustration would be the word fitting my state of mind

I hate people who say "oh, I'm open minded, I don't judge anyone" and then the minute they find out you're a christian, worse, a born-again christian, and worst of all an apolstolic christian who believes in water baptism (immersion) and receiving the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in tongues, suddenly the "open minded" person informs the christian that the christian is a narrow-minded, bigoted, brainwashed robot with the IQ of turnip.

Gee, that sounds real "open minded" to me. And the fact that 30 second or less before we were discussing Newtonian vs Einsteinian physics proves that the christian (in this case, me) is too stupid to entertain an idea on their own, let alone a conversation.

I have never been as discriminated against as I have been since finding the truth.

I don't go around condemning people because they don't believe what I do. I don't go around spouting only what I'm told to spout. I have interesting ideas too, but because I'm christian, I'm stupid. Because I'm christian, I'm unoriginal. Because I'm christian, and anyone who believes in an organized religion is an idiot, I can't make worthwhile contributions to society and should just be shot because I am narrow-minded.

Discrimination is something that doesn't come naturally to me or to my way of thinking. When I was in college, I had two friends (Deana Draper and Dolores Gafney) who tried to explain it to me because they just couldn't believe I was that naiive. They would tell me that as they were walking down the street, they'd cross in a cross-walk with the walk sign & people would gun their engines as if they were going to hit them. I believed them, but it still wasn't real to me until one day when we were walking down the street together and it happened, not once, but 3 times.

Still, descrimination is not in my normal thinking parameters, so it shocks me when I encounter it.

And yes, I know it's naiive, but I'd rather continue to have descrimination be a foreign thought. I don't want to have to worry about it and I don't ever want to judge people on their race, religion, social class, or anything else. That stuff isn't important because it's not who you are. Who you are has a lot more to do with your ideas, thoughts and experiences, and that's almost always interesting.