December 13, 2005
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I RANT THEREFORE I AM
I feel a rant coming on.
Are there certain “catch phrases” that drive you crazy? My wife knows what phrases set me off and every time we hear someone use one she looks over at me admonishingly to make certain I’m not going to make a jackass out my self in a social situation.
I’m usually pretty good at shrugging them off, but there are a couple of statements that I’ve heard bandied about with such increasing frequency lately that I must speak out, lest I explodeth.
Here are two things I hear people say that make me want to beat my head against a large, immovable object (like Rosie O’Donnell):
“Everything Happens for a Reason” How you can acknowledge the existence of genital piercing jewelry, Furbies, and John Tesh music and possibly defend this philosophy? I actually heard this phrase uttered three times during the “Survivor” season finale. I find it mind boggling that people can have a fatalistic attitude about reality TV! Seriously; to believe that everything happens for a reason is to believe that we are nothing more than marionettes being yanked about by the calloused hands of a sick, twisted God.
When I was seven, my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I watched her deteriorate over the years until she lost all grasp of reality and died in the mental ward of a local hospital. I actually had well intentioned individuals at my church tell me that God had a reason for my mother’s illness, and that I couldn’t understand it because God works in mysterious ways. If that’s true, God’s ways are pretty fucking creepy.
I do believe that positive things can happen in the midst of even horrible circumstances. I certainly have a very healthy degree of empathy for people who are suffering from a mental illness, and I acknowledge that I might not possess that empathy had my mother not been mentally ill. Do I think God made her nuts to teach me a lesson? Trust me, I’m not that important, and God isn’t that cruel.
If you have to believe that everything happens for a reason, it simply indicates that you are too insecure to live comfortably in a world where random, horrible things happen to good people.
“Our Nation Was Founded On Religious Principles” Please, please, for the love of God, I beg of you…read a history book.
People seem to believe our founding fathers were all Baptist Deacons who regularly attended tent meetings and prayer breakfasts, and sent large sums of money to televangelists. It’s simply not true.
Thomas Jefferson; the writer of our Declaration of Independence, along with other important founding fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, James Monroe, and outspoken thinkers like Thomas Paine were deists who believed that God created the earth but has no interaction with mankind. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or the resurrection of Jesus, the miracles of the Bible, or the divine inspiration of scripture. In fact,
Our founding fathers did believe in religious liberty, however, and that everyone should be free of religious persecution and have the right to worship, or not worship, as they please. In other words, our nation was founded on principles that were religion friendly, but not on actual religious principles. That is a huge difference.
My warning to the religious right: If you keep screwing with the concept of Separation of Church and State, it will eventually come back and bite you in the ass. If you don’t believe me, ask most of the everyday citizens in
Ok, I’m taking deep breaths now, and I feel better. Being a good Democrat, I will defend your right to believe that the constitution was actually written by Elvis and that God is coming to get you on the alien mother ship, if that is where your beliefs lie. I just ask that you let me know when you’re stopping by so that I can up my blood pressure medication. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go inside my pyramid and get ready to receive a message from the overlord Zorlox.
EDIT: I realized after reading what I just wrote, that I probably come off as being very anti-religion. That really couldn’t be farther from the truth. Those of you who have read my blog for awhile know that I attended
I find it interesting that both the extreme left and the extreme right love to use the word “freedom” in reference to religion. In reality, the extreme left wants freedom from religion while the extreme right wants freedom to make religion an integral part of our corporate existence. The answer lies in tolerance; tolerance for a spoken “Merry Christmas” and tolerance for not forcing a Jewish Child to participate in the observance of a holiday they don’t believe in, simply because the majority of their classmates do. It’s a very difficult middle ground to find, but one I hope we can one day stake a claim too.
Comments (22)
Amen on both points! I’ve always been mystified by people who believe God harms some people to teach some sort of lesson to others. Why would they willingly worship that kind of deity?
well said.
“Everything happens for a reason”. You know how many times that was said to us after we lost someone? PULLEEZZZZZ! How can illness and disease happen to someone for a reason? If that happened for a reason, to teach my husband and me something, or to make us better people somehow for enduring the pain, I’d sure like to know. I was ready to scratch their eyes out.
I do agree with you on the religious liberty front. I also must say I don’t want it to swing so far to the other direction, that I’m unable to even use the word Christmas, or celebrate in the religious way I choose. I have friends of many faiths, agnostics and athiests as well, and I respect their right to their own beliefs and their own rituals. I actually learn a lot from them.
But take this one step further: In school my daughter has learned about and celebrated Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and more. I think that’s wonderful. It brings a great human element to the melting pot community we live in and IMHO helps people become more tolerant and aware of our cultural differences so we can all live together in the community, instead of exist in our little corners. But they’re not even allowed to mention the word Christmas now in school, lest it offend? C’mon…
There. That’s my rant too!
The Constitution was really written by Elvis? I had NO idea!
“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. Jefferson really was quite reserved about his own religion, and was very much the advocate of keeping religion private and out of the government’s controls. But he didn’t mean to discriminate against any one particular religion; his reservations concerned ALL organized religion and not just Christianity.
Fabulous rant! Well said, and I completely agree.
just browsing thought i’d say hello
AMEN!
You’re anti-God, and anti-American. I knew it. Or at least, the RWNJ’s of the world knew it.
I DO believe that everything happens for a reason. I’m a determinist. But when I say “everything happens for a reason” I mean: events have some cause, and this didn’t happen out of mysticism. I will never, ever utter those words in an attempt at comfort. Anyone who’s ever heard them in that way knows that the correct response is:
Well-wisher: Everything happens for a reason, you know.
Griever hits them in the face with a 2×4
Griever: Indeed. God brought that on you for being a complete dumbass.
When I started reading this post, I was thinking, “Wow, this guy is really negative. He must have been really hurt by some Christians. He’s got it all wrong.” I must apologize now. After reading your WHOLE post, including the “EDIT,” I realized that you are a lot like me. I am a Christian teacher in a public school. I can’t force my students to celebrate Christmas and be Christians, etc. But I believe in tolerance. I believe that if I want to wear a cross on my shirt, I have a right to. I also believe that if my students want to wear Jewish stars, or even satanic stars, they have a right to….. even if it bothers me.
I just wanted to say I appreciate you speaking out. I agree with you. Our founding fathers were Deists, and that “religion” is NOT Christianity.
I’ve been a little negative towards religion myself lately!….
Once again you’ve proven that you’re my kind of guy. I only wish I were twenty years younger:)
I didn’t know Elvis was the King of Scientology!!! I learn something new every day! (Um, that’s not a catch phrase is it? I mean, I really DO learn something every day, and that was more of a statement than a catch phrase.)
I would like to add a “catch phrase” that I’m sure people mean good by it, but it’s so wrong….. About 20 years ago I was pregnant and lost a child. People would actually come up to me and say things like…”I’m sure it was meant to be, because he probably had something wrong with him, and you know…there will be others…you can have more.”
I wanted to say…It’s a baby…not a dog!!!!
Hurrah! Mark LaBouff for benevolent dictator! Your posts always have me saying “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say!”
Be careful my Koala-loving friend. Mark LaBouff lives by this mantra:
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it ROCKS absolutely too.”
RYC: Your wife was a ‘Cross-Stitch and Country Crafts’ girl, huh? A woman after my own heart!
At my sister’s funeral, the priest told us how happy we should be that she had gone to her heavenly father. Fuck her earthly father, I guess. And the rest of her family.
Once more, you’ve delivered a wonderful post.
And ryc ? Norm !!!
I know you can’t see me, but I’m giving you a standing ovation right now!
Excellent commentary! I believe, and one test I read recently confirmed just how much–more so for believers, though–that we’re pattern seeking animals by nature. I think that backs up how I prefer to explain the patterns we seek in our circumstances: “We find reason in every thing that happens.”
I believe VERY strongly in the separation of church and state and I don’t think asking for freedom from religion, at least any one specifically, within the government is asking too much. I honestly have never met anyone who thinks we should be shielded from religion in the private sector. And I’m not on the extreme left, to boot! I was actually a Republican (and still registered as such) until maybe 18 months ago or so.
Anyhow, thanks for this; it needed to be said by a believer like yourself. Many people simply won’t listen to evil heathens like myself.
“everything happens for a reason” can mean many things.
I thought I had commented on this entry before, but I see I have not. What you say makes a lot of sense. My kids were lucky in the early grade school years, that their school housed one of our district’s ESL programs. They had friends of many ethnicities and religions. The music programs always featured music from every area, and Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa songs were sung. During the holidays, their spelling words might be alphabetized on menorah candles or candy canes. No one seemed to mind, because everyone was allowed to “do their thing”.
Kathi
Well said.