Rant time!

What do you do when someone just pisses you off?

I mean, just finds a nerve, grinds it, and keeps grinding it---even after you complain? I've had that happen to me twice in the past two weeks. The first one resulted in me 'losing a friend', though I should have known after the first time he dismissed my feelings that he wasn't much of one to begin with. My act of Christian charity in that case was not filing a protective order against him in the county he lives in. Am I overreacting? Probably, but he does know where I live.

The second incident was when someone decided for me my faith wasn't based in any part on anything but a disconnect between me and logic. When I proceeded to try and explain the logic behind my belief he dismissed it out of hand and all but called me an idiot. He even kept talking after I left the room. I want to be clear--I'm not persecuting this guy by blogging about this experience for being a "spiritual atheist"--and I could. I could have lots of fun with that. A whole lot. I'm talking about this guy in front of the whole world wide web because he's being a jerk.

I have a couple of rules I live by. The first one is to assume nothing about another person's spirituality. The reason I do this is simple--I have done it before and it has bitten me in the ass. I've been so far from right so many times in assuming I knew why someone was an atheist or a Hindu or a Wiccan that I can hear the whole world laughing at my naivete when I even think about it. The second one is that I try to never poke fun at people in a demeaning way about their religion. Why? Because it's been done to me more than once and it made me want to punch them in the eye.

Have I told ya'll I'm technically a pacifist? I know I should be, I just don't have the right amount of hubris to pretend I don't think it's impractical to not use violence against people who are basically evil. That and I don't want to look like a hypocrite the day I crack some unruly customer's skull with a chair because they decided to take a swing at one of my coworkers. It would be un-ladylike to pretend I wouldn't do that.

I really hate it when someone makes me want to punch them in the eye. For one thing, I never really look at them with any basic trust again. I think that's why the first guy-friend I dumped isn't bothering me so much. He'd already made me cut off all contact once. The emotional ties were severed. Sure, I started talking to him again but the damage was done. He'd already hurt me to the point I didn't trust him.

If I was good at this Christianity thing I suppose I'd be talking to him right now about the God Delusion and trying to come up with some pious response to it. Well, I don't have one. I don't respond well to rudeness. Not well at all. I just left the room. I do, however, want to point a few things out:

Part of the beauty of being an Episcopalian is that we believe our faith comes from THREE sources--none of which will do on their own-- Scripture, reason and tradition. Just because it would be nice if Jesus had a pet purple elephant named Co-Co doesn't mean I get to make it up and add it to cannon law. If it doesn't make sense, I don't have to believe it, period. That being said, I make it a point to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast. That's why the human race has things like airplanes, travels over sixty miles an hour without being afraid their faces will fly off and has gone into space. Some dumbass believed it might be possible when everyone said it wasn't.

The Hebrew god is outside his creation. There is no piss test for this deity. He isn't subject to the laws of nature because he is OUTSIDE his creation. Therefore, finding evidence of this god on earth would be RIDICULOUS. This part of the mythology existed before atheists found it annoying so it must not have been put in there simply to annoy them.

I don't have to check my brain at the door when I step into a church. He came to take your sins, not your mind. Please don't act like I have a disconnect switch between my brain and my faith. I don't. I also don't owe anyone a response if they're rude to me.

I just don't.

Just in case you want to know what I think of this kind of behavior.