I'm doing 4 bathrooms in this big country house near here. The young couple that live there are ultra religious. But they aren't Like Catholic or Protestant or any of the normal religions where people don't generally let it beome pathological. They're in the weird, holy roller, proselytizing kind of shit, constantly being pressured by the "pastor" for dnations to fund the dubious 'missionary work' supposedly taking place in Africa....there's photos ! There's a Christian rock band (like getting clubbed with a fckng brick). It's all revival, being born again, jumping around saving souls and healing the sick...and then there's me - Legion.
It's fucking annoying. I hate going there. The shit's taking forever because I'm cutting at home and working there for two hours locked in a bathroom because I'll do anything to avoid them and their children. Here's why: I have to affect my behavior to accommodate what I percieve to be their bizarre puritanical bullshit framework for judging others. It's not like I want to swear or spit on the floor. I'm polite as hell. I just don't like people assuming that I subscribe to their beliefs and want to be talked to as if I do.
I'm a fan of Christians, I've made that clear. I'm a Christian. I assume most people believe in some God and I think generally (except for islam) it's a positive thing. I believe Jesus existed. I believe he was an exceptionally intuitive and wise man that crafted what is the most influential, inspiring and easily understandable philosophy in all of history. I have read extensively about him and I've actually been to all of those biblical places. My take is that he was a self-styled and kind of 'new age' Jewish rabbi that either ran afoul of the Jewish hierarchy and/or the Romans and was executed - in the same way potential threats are dealt with in that region to this day - sectarian treachery.
The part where my understanding digresses is the bit about him 'dying for our sins' - already commited by us in the modern era - by him 2000 years ago. Also the part about being resurrected and now alive in spirit and omnipresent. It is too much for me to accept that God plans every single thing that happens in a person's life and loves us beyond our understanding, yet life sucks for 99.999% of all humans that have ever existed and do exist. Then there is this incredibly complex regime of behaviors and expectations we have to follow - none of which is actually mentioned in Jesus's very short body of work but is rather the third hand interprtations of people we know nothing about, had zero understanding of science and were guided by their own bias.
Again - all the matter in the universe - including us - had to come from somewhere originally. And our 'spirit' ...psyche...our conscious being and our accumulated sense of who we are is so etherical and hard to define in tangible terms that it leaves a giant gap in our understanding that had to be filled by magic and superstition before there was science. But the gap is still there. Now, being as intelligent and pragmatic as we have evolved to be we should face up to the fact that we just don't know and may never know.
Anyhow, the bottom line is, those people I'm doing this work for are very nice, good people. However, they make me uncomfortable because of their almost militant subscription to fantasy. A fantasy that they are so convinced of - that they think anyone that doesn't share the delusion is somehow, to some degree, wicked. It's the same reason I avoid 'trans' people - and even more so, the non-trasn people that are exploiting them as their self-appointed champions. I don't want people foisting their mental illnesses on me.