Sunday, April 16, 2017

Christian Letters








So, my mother, who lives only ten minutes away, wanted me to stop by her house to check out our former neighbor's obituary.

"Mr. Tench" was a war veteran, and since the obituary had a lot of nice things to say about him, my mother thought I might like to see it. He and his wife, Ann("Mrs. Tench" to me), lived in the house next to us when I was growing up. They were there when we moved into our house, and I believe I was around six yrs old when we arrived. His wife died about ten years ago and their only son died sometime in the 90's. So, Mr. Tench has been there alone for quite a while in the same house. His only daughter in law and grandchildren live up North.

Sometimes I cut down my old street to avoid traffic, and about nine months ago Mr. Tench was doing some odds 'n ends in his yard, so I stopped to say hello. At 90 yrs old, he was pretty sharp, because, while he didn't recognized me right off, he instantly recalled who I was when I mentioned the family name. I'm glad I decided to stop, because that would be the last time I'd ever see him.

To back up a bit, I had already seen the obituary online but I dropped by my mom's house anyway because I had a few things to discuss with her. When I got there she had a bunch of stuff pulled out that she had neatly displayed on her desk..e.g...old photos of my grandmother's side of the family, some greeting cards, and some hand-written letters. The letters were from my grandmother to her siblings, or it might have been her cousins, or maybe both. No matter.

The reason my mom had this stuff pulled out is because her uncle had also recently died. He was one of five siblings, another of which was my maternal grandmother, also deceased. There is only one surviving sibling now, my grandmother's youngest sister. She is in her 90s, and all considered, she is doing well and still living at home. Of course, this is because her son and a few other family members are able to keep a close eye on her.

So, cutting to the chase---my mom grabbed a stack of the letters my grandmother(her mom) had hand-written to other family members. I started reading, and not even one paragraph in I noticed bible quotes with the verse/chapter in brackets..e.g...[2 Timothy 3:4], and the like.

So, quickly, I do a cursory scan down the page, and lo and behold, every single paragraph contained at least one bible quote. In this particular letter my grandmother was speaking about how we live in a fallen world, yadda, yadda. Of course, every generation says this, and I remember my mom telling me that in her day they thought Elvis was "evil" because he gyrated his hips, so, there you go.

But, regretfully, I had a knee-jerk reaction to discovering the bible quotes and I quickly handed the letters back to my mom. When she asked me what was wrong, I told her [paraphrased] that I don't want to see this because it isn't my grandmother speaking; it's her indoctrination speaking. Okay, fine, I might've thrown in a few expletives. I was both saddened and angry. I could see that this upset her, as her eyes watered up.

As nicely as I could, I told my mom that it was bringing back bad memories, because, as I explained,  Christianity stole part of my grandmother's identity.

Now, a Christian onlooker might be thinking, "Yeah? So, what?!?", as if not being your genuine self is a good thing. Or...they might being thinking, "Huh? Christianity didn't steal my identity!"

Okay, it's not only possible, it's beyond-argument-fact: When you set out to live your life in devotion to "God"(or to some other leader..e.g...North Koreans to their leader), you are sacrificing a part of who you really are to appease someone else. And yes, from within the Christian bubble this is seen as a good thing. Fair enough. But on the outside of that bubble parts of the indoctrinated person are absent, simply because the Christian philosophy teaches us to believe that we are "wretched", broken, and in need of fixing. We are no good, "as is". We can't figure things out. We can't be "good"; we need a Master. In fact, our own righteousness is like that of a "filthy rag", according to "God's Word"

How can internalizing such things not change who you really are?

In a lot of ways, it changed who my grandmother really was. But guess what? As kind and caring as she was, this side of her shined through her "faith". It was those rare times that she was things like judgmental or strict that things were the other way around..i.e..her "faith" shined through her.

For example, my grandfather was a carpenter by trade and he had wood-working shop behind their house. My mom expressed to me the day I was over there that my grandmother wouldn't allow my mom to go out to watch or hang around my grandfather because, "Little girls don't do those sorts of things".

Sure, this could be chalked up to society's gender expectations, yes, but the bible teaches that men and women are different, that they were "created" for different reasons, and that their roles are different.

But perhaps most sad of all was a part of the letter where my grandmother was going on about how the youth of their day was so messed up, saying that the reason was because people love pleasure more than they love God, with a supporting bible verse, of course.

I don't know whether this saddens me more or disgusts me more. Imagine, you're given a body along with the urge to seek pleasure, but you're told not to use that body for pleasure. Think about this: In the hierarchy of biological/physiological needs, sex is right up there along side food, water, and AIR!

Be fruitful and multiply, but don't you dare lust!!!!

But kidding aside, when my mom started telling me about some of the instances that my grandmother was critical of her and/or overprotective, I could see that she, too, was becoming upset and dare I say she had some residual anger. It was then that she seemed to actually understand why I was angry and where I was coming from.


7 comments:

Robert said...

Always a razor's edge interacting with family who have a deep investment in the basket they "chose" to put their eggs in ... both religiously and politically. I find it equal parts amusing and sad watching family members twisting themselves in knots trying to remain conservative while justifying President Kushner's Court Jester.

Most of my family is pretty far down the right side of the political spectrum and similarly on the religious spectrum - I wouldn't put my family members half as far down the theism rabbit hole as yours but they are in there far enough to not see the light of reason.

I tend to follow the "When in Rome ..." mentality during visits and holidays ... and unsurprisingly, my tongue is riddled with scars from all the biting it receives. But my facial expressions can often convey the words I suppress in such situations. Thankfully, during the most overt religious ritual - the pray of grace over the meal - my head is dutifully bowed as is everyone else's ... although my GF occasionally steals a side glance to watch enjoy watching my eyebrows dance across my face during the ritual. I can tell she enjoys the private show by the subtle, yet knowing smile :)

It can be hard to not just stand up and call "Bullshit!" but I hold my tongue and remind myself that no god should divide family and that they have the right to believe should they choose (and they do) so when I question, it's usually from a non-confrontational, indirect and passive way that usually gives them pause ... I think they "know" the path ends in an indefensible cul de sac but they've long been conditioned that they need to "trust in god" when they can't adequately respond to my query.

I considered it a substantial win when my niece tried to define my atheism as "knowing" god does not exist and it offered me the opportunity to plainly declare that I can't "know" and neither can she, one way or the other - to see those gears grind and to see the full weight of those words be realized was delicious. She maintains her belief - and that's fine but she doesn't "fear for my soul" like she did before that. There was more to the conversation but I don't remember all the particulars ... I just know that after my correction to the definition of the word "atheist" and a fairly substantial pregnant pause, all she could stammer out was "I'll pray for you to see the light" to which I responded something Matt Dillihunty-like, like " Good, god should know precisely what it would take to convince me of his existence, but to date he hasn't decided to share it with me - I don't think that's a coincidence"

All the best to you and your family :)

boomSLANG said...

As usual, I appreciate the feedback, and thx for the well-wishes. I will address a few things in the upcoming days. I'm all too familiar with when theists try to tell us atheists what we believe, so I definitely want to touch on this a little bit.

boomSLANG said...

I considered it a substantial win when my niece tried to define my atheism as "knowing" god does not exist and it offered me the opportunity to plainly declare that I can't "know" and neither can she, one way or the other

When the discussion moves to atheism and its meaning, I always interject that there is a difference between the two proclamations, "I believe X does not exist" and "I don't believe that X exists".

There is a subtle but meaningful distinction there. If the person or persons with whom I'm discussing this with cannot/will not accept that the two statements have different implications, then I would be skeptical about continuing to try to find common ground with them. If they happen to accept this distinction and seem genuinely interested in knowing what I believe and why, I then ask them to define what they mean by "God", which of course nearly always leads to the Christian deity.

From here, we can simply go down the roster of said character's various "omni" attributes, and if the person accepts the colloquial definitions of "omniscient", omnipotent", etc., then it's more or less a check-mate. This is not to say that they won't attempt to get out of check. For example, they may employ special pleading..e.g.."God is not bound by human reasoning", and the like.

Minds are rarely if ever changed after one conversation. But it can plant a seed for any person out there who happens to value reason enough to change their minds if presented with good reasons to do so, and even if doing so makes them uncomfortable.

Robert said...

" I always interject that there is a difference between the two proclamations, "I believe X does not exist" and "I don't believe that X exists".

There is a subtle but meaningful distinction there."


This was the crux of the conversation with my niece ... and the big "aha" moment for her. From that point she defaulted to the "That's why Faith" and I defaulted to the "I need evidence" positions. The context of the conversation included minor children in the room and a fun family atmosphere so I didn't want to drag it out - I wanted it to remain a light fun non-confrontational moment. But it was clear that the light bulb went on for her that without evidence, I wan't coming off my position ... AND ... she KNEW she couldn't produce ANY evidence!

The additional "Aha" for her was that her uncle was not the caricature that her church leaders made atheists out to be - a baby eating satanist, no doubt - as no babies/children were consumed during this visit ... nor even nibbled on or salivated upon :D ... my niece saw the same old loving caring uncle she always knew, just voicing a difference of position - nothing more, nothing less ... it was reassuring to her and I think it left a pretty big chink in her Xian armored coating

boomSLANG said...

as no babies/children were consumed during this visit

Smart move. You don't want to rush into something like this. Maybe the next visit, or even the one after the next.


:P

Robert said...

"You don't want to rush into something like this"

... that .... and I didn't bring my good BBQ sauce ... every atheist knows a baby ain't right if not prepped with a good BBQ sauce :D

boomSLANG said...

And besides, there's no prohibition of cannibalism in the Ten Commandments. So, grab ya some Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce(pun fully intended) = P