Innit funny, how when speaking to a colleague and they ask "are you religious?" you know you will have the dubious joy of that old debate we all know and loathe, but when a colleague asks directly "are you Christian?" you know you are going to be fixed with that look (the one that says "I love you and will sacrifice all for you, as Jesus did for me, but deny him and I'll cut your balls off") and told that the world is too amazing to not be the sole creation of a vindictive chauvanist spoiled brat of a deity, petulant and selfish, spreading spite and bile wherever he goes. Nothing helps when you get asked - no fight, no flight... only 'coping'.
I cope by turning into Hugh Grant, a sputtered "Noooooooooooo, nonono. I... well...." in answer to the "C" question, right before they launch into their "Look at it all - how can he not be real?" script. I know exactly why I do it as well - these fruity bastards are dangerous and malign, I don't think they should be working with the sort of people we work with. Such people need to be responsible for themselves and such beliefs as these cults follow are no less that fundemental (either sense) abdications of personal responsibility. People have plenty of spurious justifications for their addictions without the danger of 'it being God's Will' seeping into their fragile worldview. I would be more supportive of my clients were I to be actively ridding the world of dangerous occultnik delusions like the Abrahamic monotheisms - a premise that actually needs human suffering and all the fun that goes with it (smack, whoring, shitting your pants and your bed in a squalid corner of a forgotten welsh suburb) in order to define and maintain itself.
"But Mike!" they say "...what about the hope that God brings to the hopeless?" well - why are they hopeless? A thousand years of culture dictated by the churches might have something to do with it. This society is full of holes and people keep falling through. The God-hope they feel when converted by the evangelical is simply serving to reinforce the same notions that put them in the gutter in the first place. I defy society to stoop as low as it can under Jesus when playing by pagan rules. Note the small 'p'.
I like/need my job and it is a good foot in the door for this work in this area, so I'm putting a good many things that are important to me at the back of my mind while I get on with proving I am a good employee in this sector. There's a few things in my way and a few things I should, morally, be dealing with now but the big picture I'm looking at has a horizon I need to reach beyond and speaking up about this or a hundred other nonsense irritations is only going to cost me. In the medium to long term so I'm saving it for a blog in the hope that I can grit my teeth until a shot at the hours and work I want come along.
Which should be any time, now....
