Feeling Badly

I think I did a bad thing today.

I joined a yahoo group last winter when I got Hannah. Of course, it was a poodle group. I liked this group because they did things a bit differently than some other groups; they had one day a week for people to share jokes; another day specifically set aside to share pictures. It cut out a lot of crap in the way of emails, you know? You could plan for the days to read jokes or enjoy pictures - no more of having to slog through tons of chaff to get to the wheat, if that makes sense.

Then, today one of the members sent along a forward that Andy Rooney apparently opined; it dealt with the fact that there are several places in government buildings where the Ten Commandments are prominently displayed. At the end of the opinion piece was something said to the effect that 86% of the country is Christian and the majority should tell the other 14% to shut up.

I thought I'd written a nice letter stating that I was in the 14% and I thought that a poodle list should be about poodles and not try to shove religion down anyone's throat.

As a result, one person wrote a huge "I'm offended" and "I love Jesus Christ" letter to the group, berating me for hurting the feelings of the person who sent the original forward along and snipping that they sure hadn't seen many posts from me.

The moderator just sent a letter along stating she didn't have time to babysit for a bunch of adults who should think before sitting down at a keyboard. So, she's dissolving the list. I wrote to the list begging her not to dissolve the thing and telling her I'd unsub, which I will as soon as I see the my letter come across.

Maybe I shouldn't have responded, but dammit! We live in a country that's supposed to be about Freedom of Religion. Yet, there is a huge percentage of Christians who just cannot accept other beliefs as valid.

I have a co-worker who doesn't have time for me since finding out that my faith wasn't necessarily hers. Now, when having a conversation with her, she says her piece and then adds, "Praise Jesus". She never did that before when she thought I was a Believer. Now she brings books in to read...all dealing with a religious theme, of course.

Every so often some idiot does something and gets arrested; the police put out information that says the person was a Satanist, or it was part of some witchcraft ritual. And many Christians go berserk because the heathens must be converted or die! Yet, when church-going Christians commit crimes, they don't get the same kind of press over their sins. In fact, in many cases, the religious aspect never even comes up. Did Scott Peterson kill his wife? Probably so. But, did you ever hear anything about Scott being a regular member of XYZ Church? I didn't think so. Yet, if Scott would have been a Pagan, the press would have been all over that.

We had a mass murder in our city last week. A man killed his wife and four kids before committing suicide. He'd committed a crime and would have probably been put in prison for a short time. There was a huge funeral. The Bishop even was part of the service. Fred Phelps even showed up to make his demented point that these people had died because our city is liberal and gay folks live here.

But, this Christian man was able to embezzle money, bludgeon his wife and kids with baseball bats until they were dead, then kill himself. He broke a lot of commandments there. But, he was a Christian so somehow that was more okay than it would have been for those of us in that other 14% minority.

It's appalling.

And in some ever widening circle, I come back to the original list message. I did a bad thing today, I think. A list enjoyed by many gets dissolved because the actions of a few. And, I'm one of the few. I feel badly.