People–mostly my my family–used ask about my religious beliefs. Most of those people have not gotten the answer they’d wanted to hear.
Now, like a lot of fledgling fags, I started out pretty zealous. Unlike a lot of them, I got over it and fast, mostly because of my mom. (She’d blanch to hear that since she’s such a devout Baptist, but it’s true.) Whenever I’d poke fun at someone, mom would always stop and ask, “Well, Richard, how do you think they feel?” Mom taught me the importance of seeing people and issues from other perspectives, the value of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes–in short, the value of relativism. That relativism, in turn, made steadfast religious conviction nearly impossible for me. How could I possibly condemn someone else for her/his closely held beliefs when s/he could just as easily do the same to me?*
After that spiritual “awakening” (or “deadening”), I kinda assumed that most rational people would share my beliefs–which is the sad, naive way that everyone who thinks himself “rational” behaves. I was deep in the evangelical, Pentacostal heartland, and if any of my classmates or relatives or anyone else I knew was questioning religion, they weren’t doing it in their outside voice. All I saw was a lot of condemnation and negativity and belittling of anything that wasn’t normal.
To be fair, I don’t think it’s religious zeal per se that frightens me. Nor is it the fact of being staunchly opinionated. (I mean, hello, I’m a fag? Our demographic is one of the most opinionated on Planet Earth.) No, what grinds my gears, what really freaks me out, is faith: the ability that deeply religious people have to deny that the sky is blue, that water is wet, that George W. Bush is among the worst presidents we’ve ever endured. And they mean it. They aren’t afraid of a few pesky facts. They’re not daunted by a few Grand Canyon-sized leaps of logic and reasoning. They don’t care that the King James Version of the bible is a translation of a translation of a translation. If god said it–or if preacher said god said it–it must be true. Case closed.
Here’s a great example of that phenomenon in action. Grandpa makes two dollars and no sense:
See? Not only is it just plain stupid, it’s also…well, it’s just plain stupid. Maybe he’s happy with his blind belief, but I’m not.
*FYI, I don’t carry relativism to extremes. I do think there are some non-denominational moral codes by which we should all abide: Don’t hurt people. Be nice to others. That sort of thing. I’m not going much more specific than that, though.
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