I’m definitely missing my camcorder today as this pointless, divisive kerfluffle over some redneck getting fired for pushing his religion on people on the workplace.  What a great topic for a video rant…

I find it hilarious that so many people get all het up and whiny about BOYCOTT HOME DEPOT THOSE ATHEIST EVUL COMMIES, but boy wouldn’t they feel differently if the guy expressing his religious views on his work uniform was a muslim, druid, or follower of Cthulu?  But no, it’s shove those noses in the air, start wringing your hands, and quick everybody get wrapped up in a my-god-is-better-than-your-god argument that solves nothing and distracts us from dealing with the very REAL and PRESENT and OBSERVABLE problems that we are wrapped up in.

A friend on Facebook linked to the Today show’s little fan page there, where one such conversation is taking place.  it’s hilarious.  “It’s not freedom FROM religion it’s freedom OF religion!”  Uh…same thing, Captain Logic  Freedom of religion by necessity includes the freedom to not participate in any religion at all without fear of persecution or discrimination.  And then it’s the same tired old arguments that have been shot down time and time and time again over how this is a ‘Christian nation’ (it isn’t and it never was) or how anyone who doesn’t believe in Jethro Bodine’s particular concept of “God” is unpatriotic and evil and should LUV IT ER LEEV IT.

Now there’s a proud American sentiment, eh?  You must worship according to our rules or be rejected from society.  Oh, hey, waitaminnit, that’s the whole reason we (well, YOU.  My people are native american, dutch, and black) left England in the first place, isn’t it?

What I can’t figure out is where all of these ‘good Christians' get the fancy bibles that are missing the first part of Matthew 6.  Especially verse five:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

This is one of the most important verses in the Christian canon, and one of the most overlooked.  In short, it says “you keep your religion between you and your god, rather than displaying it openly so that you can make money or impress people with your piety.  ‘God’ does not care if your friends are impressed with how holy you are, so STFU and keep it to yourself.  Anything else is stagecraft and hypocrisy.  I AM, that which I AM, and I do not need to pursue or convince my creatures of my power, nor need I for you to pursue or convince them on My behalf; they will choose to come to me.”

Used to see the same kind of crap at Nortel and other big companies I worked at, people decorating their cubes with their little holier-than-thou displays of bible verse and self-aggrandizing piety.  It made me terribly uncomfortable, afraid to express myself openly.  I even had people who worked there ask me what church I attended – love that assumption that I attend ANY church, let alone that it’s anyone else’s damn business which one.

(Sidebar:  One of the precious, self-righteous jerks I observed made the remark that one of HD’s competitors offers a standard military discount, so they were a better store anyway.  My first thought:  WTF lady you sent your husband off to die so you could get a good price on f’n gutters?!  How callous.)

I don’t have anything against believers, personally.  I’m a believer myself, I just don’t believe I can quantify or label that in which I believe…and unlike most people, it seems, I have no need to label or quantify it to believe in it.  I have no need for ‘faith’ – the evidence of the creator I believe in is all around me, in the sunrise and sunset, the soft curve of a woman’s hip, the smell of honeysuckle in the spring, the fury of spring thunderstorms rolling across the sky. 

I don’t believe that my beliefs give me the right to shove those beliefs down your throat.  If you believe differently, that’s fine, I don’t hold it against you, at least so long as you’r enot trying to shove your beliefs down my throat.    And I keep my beliefs “to myself,” in the sense that I discuss them in my own space (here) or socially when the subject arises.  I don’t try to convert people to my point of view; I don’t lean on my God to support political or philosophical positions that are illogical or at odds with reality.  You want to blog about Jesus and pray in your facebook status, that’s no skin off my nose in the least – that’s “your space” or “public space,” where you are free to do as you choose.  But keep it out of my face.  I don’t want to be prayed over at Home Depot or have my soul saved at McDonalds or get into a long discussion about my religious beliefs when I try to buy a slurpee.

I would like some hardcore christian to explain to me what christian principle is supported by wearing buttons and slogans on my clothing to push my views on other people when I’m at work.  That guy wasn’t being paid to proselytize, he was being paid to stock shelves or run a cash register and shut the hell up.  When I’ve had corporate jobs I haven’t decorated my workspace with political or social or religious messages.  Of course I have opinions, that much should be no secret by now, but I also have enough grace and respect for others to not make their work day uncomfortable by broadcasting them in that forum.  That’s not where they belong. 

Believe what you want.  I won’t hold it against you.  I don’t even hold it against people who are close to me that try to talk me into joining their church or whatever.  I won’t join, but I appreciate and respect that these people – assuming they’re friends and family, strangers selling flowers for hare krishna or going door to door for Jehovah are summarily dismissed with prejudice - believe they’re making a kind and loving gesture, and so I don’t go into long rants about why I think religion as a concept is a pretty destructive force, why I think about 95% of any religious text is pure man-made control mechanisms to keep everyone else in line (and the other five percent is common decency and common sense and just plain good advice and guidance), et cetera ad nauseam. 

Do I have things to say about these issues?  Of course…but not when I’m working for someone else.  If I’m stocking shelves or building databases or whatever, I’m being paid to do that, and all of my time save that which is necessary to attend to the necessities of human body function – i.e. eating, drinking, restroom, and a short step-away every few hours to ‘cleanse the palate’ and clear the head for more effective work function – should be spent doing that.

But more than anything else, what really chaps my ass about this whole thing is the smug tyranny of the majority, that obnoxious and distinctly un-christian attitude that so many self-proclaimed followers of Jesus display to the rest of the world.  You know, that condescending crap they wrap around themselves that screams to the world, “I am a member of a special club, and if you don’t do things my way you can’t join my special club, and then I and all of my special friends will make fun of you and not rent apartments to you and not let you eat at our restaurants or date our daughters or work for us, because YOU are not one of US, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it because GAWD is on MY SIDE.”

This root and its derivatives are, and have always been, one of the fundamental causes of human misery.

Isn’t it ironic that so many followers of the “Prince of Peace” will cheerfully do violence and wage war in his name?  Isn’t it ironic, that so many followers of the man who said “Be ye kind one unto another, ternderhearted, forgiving…” (Ephesians 4:32) are so cruel and heartless in their dealings with one another.  That the religion who gave us the concept of pride as sin should give rise to such pride-filled followers; that the religion which purports to teach us that judgment lies solely in the hands of the Almighty should generate so many adherents who incessantly judge others on their mode of worship, their sexual habits, or whatever else, rarely if ever exercising such strict judgment on themselves.

Every one of us – every one of us – has skeletons in our closet.  We are all human, we are all fallible, and we are all in this together.  Anything that separates us one from another in the greater sense, as religion unquestionably does, is by definition genocidal…if slowly.

Guy shouldn’t have had the pin on his uniform.  When the whole story’s out, it’s likely that he was asked/told/warned about this several times, and further that his decision to start publicly practicing his religion at work was intended to get him fired and provoke just this kind of self-righteous indignance, once again warming the fires that keep us from coming together as one people to solve our common problems, face our common threats, and improve our common state of being.

tl;dr:  deer xtians more cheekturning plz