Oh dear.
I've committed myself to participating in
therealljidol and already I want to bail. See, the very first topic is "When you pray, move your feet." Now, I understand that this is a proverb and that it shouldn't necessarily be taken literally, but ... ugh. I've been single for a little more than two weeks now and one of the great things about no longer dating a religious person is that I can shovel all of that God-type-stuff right out the door. This morning (as an example) I realized that I no longer had to keep my iTunes crammed full of Matisyahu. I am now free to admit that when I hear him say "the eventual building up of the third temple that we're waiting for," my gut reaction is "are you SERIOUS?!? You really take that crap LITERALLY?!?"
So when I pray ... well, I don't. And when I hear other people talk about praying I think that they're mentally ill. It's mythology, people. It's not real. And when you indoctrinate your children to believe that it is real (like I'm sure all those wig-wearing, baby-bearing, Orthodox ladies that I see at Target are busy doing), in my opinion it's a form of child abuse. You're teaching your children to waste their lives by focusing on a bunch of arbitrary and ridiculous rules designed to keep some invisible boogeyman in the sky happy. The fact that otherwise intelligent (I'm looking at you, Dr. Sharon Moalem) people fall prey to this superstition just boggles my mind.
So move your feet, sure. But pray? Thanks, but no thanks.
I've committed myself to participating in
therealljidol and already I want to bail. See, the very first topic is "When you pray, move your feet." Now, I understand that this is a proverb and that it shouldn't necessarily be taken literally, but ... ugh. I've been single for a little more than two weeks now and one of the great things about no longer dating a religious person is that I can shovel all of that God-type-stuff right out the door. This morning (as an example) I realized that I no longer had to keep my iTunes crammed full of Matisyahu. I am now free to admit that when I hear him say "the eventual building up of the third temple that we're waiting for," my gut reaction is "are you SERIOUS?!? You really take that crap LITERALLY?!?"So when I pray ... well, I don't. And when I hear other people talk about praying I think that they're mentally ill. It's mythology, people. It's not real. And when you indoctrinate your children to believe that it is real (like I'm sure all those wig-wearing, baby-bearing, Orthodox ladies that I see at Target are busy doing), in my opinion it's a form of child abuse. You're teaching your children to waste their lives by focusing on a bunch of arbitrary and ridiculous rules designed to keep some invisible boogeyman in the sky happy. The fact that otherwise intelligent (I'm looking at you, Dr. Sharon Moalem) people fall prey to this superstition just boggles my mind.
So move your feet, sure. But pray? Thanks, but no thanks.
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Comments
From poking around the work room post, it looks like this first entry is generally read as an introduction. You're writing right there about yourself, where your head's at, etc. I think you could expand on that and have a very presentable entry post.
I personally have no idea yet. :)
ETA: Bahaha! Sorry for not realizing you had tagged this one as your entry. I'm glad you did.
Edited at 2011-10-18 06:46 pm (UTC)
So far I'm not sure how I feel about this thing. The bulk of comments seem to be saying that I should change my personal beliefs if I want to win a LJ contest. I'm sticking with it for now, but thus far, I'm not loving it. Also, it's weird to get so many comments from people I don't know (or at least "know").
;)
What I want to know is, why in the world were you dating a religious person when you despise religion and "god-type-stuff"? (That's me being nosy. You don't need to answer if you don't wanna.)
It's a long story (as these things often are). One of the big factors was proximity: When we started dating, it was long distance, so the day-to-day stuff like keeping a Kosher kitchen, or worrying about the "appropriateness" of my neckline, weren't really factors until we were already committed to one another. Also, we'd known each other since childhood (it was one of those facebook reunions -- Newsweek coined a term for the phenomenon, which I no longer recall), so I already had (strong, positive) feelings for him from the beginning.
tl;dr
I thought I could live with it but discovered that I was wrong.
I don't think you need to change your beliefs to win this contest (and if you did, would you want to win?) but you're already more than aware that this is a pretty controversial opinion. As someone who had an incredibly secular upbringing, I'm massively thankful not to have to lose any religious hangups, but at the same time, I can't say that I agree with your opinions as you express them here. Still, you are more than entitled to them :o)
Good luck in the contest!
Remember that there are many people from many walks of life participating in this competition, and that you have just called some of them mentally ill child abusers to their faces. Is that really the way you want to start out?
That said, while your views are certainly controversial I do appreciate that you stayed true to yourself and didn't fall victim to playing into something you don't feel, just in hope of some votes. I'm going to be interested in seeing what you have to say in the weeks to come. I feel like it'll always be honest!
Just a small bit of advice from a veteran:
You have until Monday to put out an entry. While I see your frustration with trying to tackle this topic immediately, you don't have to put up your entry right away. You may find that you're able to produce a work more reflective of your tastes and abilities if you give yourself a little time to develop your ideas.
It's perfectly acceptable to use the prompt as a starting point to explain why you don't pray. (Though I would not recommend labeling the over 90% of the world's population that is religious as 'mentally ill'. ) But when the topic says nothing to me, I usually play with word association or take just a part of it. It's not like your entry can get rejected because it's not topical enough, so how much the prompt matters really depends on you.
The thing, to me, about writing about a really hot button viewpoint is that you're either preaching to the choir or there's the burden of your opinion - not converting your audience, but convincing them to entertain your view as worth their time. You're showing about as much knowledge of the wide, wide range of religious belief and practice in the world as you are of the wide range of mental illnesses. Meanwhile, I have no idea why you'd not consider even slightly deviating from the most traditional interpretation of the quote.
If there's a reason what other people do regarding this topic sparks so much anger in you, maybe you should write about that. Otherwise I'm not really sure why I shouldn't write you off as ableist and bigoted the same way you've written off most of the world as abusive and insane.