Church is mental
I ended up in a churchy situation last Sunday morn.
I understand that this needs some explanation. Me? In a church? Without smoke billowing off me and the building groaning in rage? Yep not a sausage of exorcist type occurances.
Anyway I was there as a friend had invited me to a christening. All well and good, happy to go and support friends. Apparently there is a nine in the morning on a Sunday now but that's ok too. It's an experience right?
So I wandered in and was handed a bunch of papers and a book. I found out later that one of the papers is the service, another refers to specific changes in that service, the book was just hymns. All sorted so far so instructions in hand I took a pew.
This is where is got a bit weird. There is a lot of chanting. Well not exactly chanting. The priest says some stuff then everybody around me responded by saying that same thing back while I rustled through my papers to see where we were and what the hell I had just missed. There was quite a bit along the lines of repeating this is our god, he's the best and the only one around matey.
As an athiest is seemed a bit creepy. In fact it seemed like indoctrination. Imagine listening to stuff like that every sunday (or more frequently if your family is particularly devout) from a really early age. No wonder a lot of people don't even consider questioning it.
Then there was singing, now I don't get involved with singing. It's for the best. Just trust me on this one.
There were some nice bits. At one point everything stopped so we could all shake hands and kiss those strangers sat around us. There was the baby head wetting bit which was pretty cute. There was the hot reverend. I like the idea of female priests at least it gives you something to look at.
Anyway it was fun in a Jane Goodall kind of way. It was quite weird being amoungst a lot of people who saw absolutely nothing strange about any of it.
Religion is odd. Nowt queer as folk.
I understand that this needs some explanation. Me? In a church? Without smoke billowing off me and the building groaning in rage? Yep not a sausage of exorcist type occurances.
Anyway I was there as a friend had invited me to a christening. All well and good, happy to go and support friends. Apparently there is a nine in the morning on a Sunday now but that's ok too. It's an experience right?
So I wandered in and was handed a bunch of papers and a book. I found out later that one of the papers is the service, another refers to specific changes in that service, the book was just hymns. All sorted so far so instructions in hand I took a pew.
This is where is got a bit weird. There is a lot of chanting. Well not exactly chanting. The priest says some stuff then everybody around me responded by saying that same thing back while I rustled through my papers to see where we were and what the hell I had just missed. There was quite a bit along the lines of repeating this is our god, he's the best and the only one around matey.
As an athiest is seemed a bit creepy. In fact it seemed like indoctrination. Imagine listening to stuff like that every sunday (or more frequently if your family is particularly devout) from a really early age. No wonder a lot of people don't even consider questioning it.
Then there was singing, now I don't get involved with singing. It's for the best. Just trust me on this one.
There were some nice bits. At one point everything stopped so we could all shake hands and kiss those strangers sat around us. There was the baby head wetting bit which was pretty cute. There was the hot reverend. I like the idea of female priests at least it gives you something to look at.
Anyway it was fun in a Jane Goodall kind of way. It was quite weird being amoungst a lot of people who saw absolutely nothing strange about any of it.
Religion is odd. Nowt queer as folk.
posted by Student at 12:01 pm
5 Comments:
it is odd isn't it? I always wonder to myself, if I were God... what I would think of all this stuff they do? was there any stand, kneel, stand, kneel?
does that make God happy? Why would he care about any of that.
Havent been to church in a long time.
How awful.
The only good that's come out of religion is some nice architecture and paintings.
tu s.tin
So imagine how it looks to an athiest! It smacks of reinforcement to me. Keep banging the message home with prayer and song.
As andraste says though they have beautiful architecture. I'd love to buy an old church and convert it into a house.
People don't need religion to be good or bad. Some people are wankers whatever they believe or dont believe.
Not that I'm judging or anything, but it seems a bit ironic to me that you "love Christmas" but find the rest of the religion thing weird.
Afterall, couldn't some observers think it a bit odd that people sacrifice a live evergreen, stand up its corpse in the living room, and festoon it with shiny plastic doodads?
Judge away mikep it's what the web is for (and porn). Although I love xmas not christmas. I make sure that I cut the religion right out of that bad boy.
I also go for the plastic tree, it's kitch all the way. I can't argue with the oddness of decorating a plastic tree though or hanging a lot of shiny crap off it.
I also changed easter into 'chocolate egg couple of days off work time'. There is no need to sully these fantastic events with religion. In fact religion can make them suck, who the hell needs to get up early with a hangover and sit in a draughty church?
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