Has a Religious Person Ever Surprised You?
If there’s anything I’ve learned from this blog so far, it’s that no two nonbelievers are exactly the same. Each of us brings to the table so many different experiences, philosophies and opinions. Trying to generalize us is simply not possible.
Yet we nonreligious types have a tendency to generalize, too. I would love to do one of those free-association tests on atheists. I’d say “religious people,” and they’d say the first words that came to mind. What do you think the words would be? It seems more likely, doesn’t it, that atheist brains would produce words like “illogical” and “indoctrination” before words like “faith” and “dedicated?”
Unfortunately, tapping a well of negative connotations every time we hear the word “religious” isn’t just close-minded; it harms our ability to teach our kids tolerance.
The truth is, there are so many different kinds of beliefs and believers out there. They vary not just in the kind of God or prophet or world view they follow, but also in how they express, use, mold and justify their beliefs. What’s more, people may subscribe to certain religions for a host of different reasons, and prefer a pick-and-choose system of belief over a dogmatic one.
I know a Catholic who doesn’t believe in the virgin birth, and another Catholic who believes all good people — Christians and non-Christians alike — go to heaven. These are not exactly traditional Catholic ideas. In fact, they run directly counter to traditional Catholic ideas. Yet both these individuals are dedicated to their faith. They attend mass regularly; they have relationships with their priests. Both of these believers are true Catholics. It’s just that they also happen to be able to think for themselves.
My grandmother always said there are three things you shouldn’t discuss in polite company: sex, politics and religion. These days, it seems, people feel more comfortable discussing sex and politics at dinner parties. But religion? Not so much. When was the last time you questioned someone about their beliefs? Not out of anger or a desire to argue, but out of friendly curiosity and a desire to learn? I don’t think many people could answer affirmatively; as a result, we’re all left with far more assumptions than knowledge.
Through the last year, I’ve arrived at the theory that no two people on the planet believe exactly the same things in exactly the same way. That each person’s religion, like each fingerprint, is a one-of-a-kind.
I wonder if you’ve observed this, too. Has a religious person has surprised you? Why? What did he or she do or say to break the image you had formed in your head? Was the new information positive in nature or negative? Did it improve or damage the image?
And to encourage you [lazy bastards!] to answer: On Thursday, I’ll randomly pick a name from among the commenters and send the lucky winner a copy of The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer (either hardcover or Kindle edition — whichever you prefer.)
Now go!
Update: Seen your answers here!
Recently I started talking about religious subjects to a couple of people who I know from my time before deprogramming myself from the religious instruction that I received as a kid/teenager.
The first suprising thing was the talk in itself – it was possible to discuss “hairy” subjects without getting emotional, neither I nor my conversation partner.
Another interesting point was that the thing we talked about we actually agreed on (state funded religious education has no place in school). This conversation fueled my curiosity and I might dip into those subjects more in the future
On another note: I’d be careful with words like “true” in the context of “Both of these believers are true Catholics.”.
Who/what is a “true” Catholic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
GREAT point, Johannes. And thanks!
I have often been surprised by religious people. First, I have been surprised more than once to find that a friend of mine is a believer in god and a church goer. It’s sort of the reverse of knowing someone is religious and being surprised by the specifics of their beliefs or by something they say – in these cases I am surprised (perhaps this is my own judgementalness showing through) that a liberal san francisco dwelling hip and caring interesting person is religious.
I find it interesting that you lump ‘faith’ as a positive attribute. Faith by definition is believing in something without evidence- quite different than trust.
We are used to hearing that faith is a virtue. Staying away from whether it’s bad, I question whether it should be assumed to be virtuous.
Not positive, Rich, just neutral. I see faith as a descriptive word. Never meant for it to be taken as a ‘positive,’ but I can see why it was.
I was raised Catholic and my parents were very devout. We went to church EVERY Sunday, catechism – the whole nine yards. We were a little progressive: my mother believed in birth control and divorce – though she never used either. She would sometimes nap during the sermon and when nudged by one of her four children would say ‘I’m here for God. I can sleep during the sermon.’
I realized as an adult that my faith was always preceeded by a ‘probably’. Jesus probably rose from the dead. Jesus was probably the son of God. There is probably a heaven and maybe even a hell. I believed well enough but figured we didn’t really know what happens until we get there but I was let’s say 99% sure. I never vocalized this and actually wasn’t really even conscious that those were my thoughts.
Until one day our daily paper reported the death of a local politian, a female in her 50′s who had died suddenly. My mother remarked, without a tremendous amount of judgement actually, that she had become Jewish when she married her husband. We chatted about it for a little bit and then she took a moment and very thoughtfully and with a conviction that I could never have said ‘I wonder what Jesus is saying to her now.’ Her certainty that they were conversing was as strong as her certainty that we were. There was no hell, fire or brimstone…just that the two of them were sitting down having a civilized chat about how disappointed he was in her.
The surprising part, the part I never forgot, was the absence of the probably. I had never fully experienced that kind of faith before – the kind that my mother would never have described as faith but rather as knowledge.
My next-door neighbor has surprised me. She belongs to a huge non-denominational church here, and a lot of people who go there are quite vocal about their religion. She and her family go every Sunday without fail, she attends Bible studies (where they don’t actually study the Bible, but seem to read books by people like Beth Moore), her kids go to the church youth group every week, etc. She invited me to her Bible Study once, but I declined, and without ever having a real conversation about it, she has picked up on the fact that I don’t have a spiritual bone in my body. She is a wonderful neighbor and would do anything for me, so I was afraid her realization would hurt our friendship. To my surprise, she is just as sweet as ever, and never brings up anything religious around me. One day when her teenage son had some friends over from his youth group, and he invited my son to come over as well, my neighbor was quick to assure me that they wouldn’t be sitting around talking about church stuff. I think she goes out of her way not to make me uncomfortable in any way. She has also surprised me by being quite liberal, and sharing many of my political views. I’m sure we’ll get around to talking about religion one day, and I think it will be an interesting conversation. But right now, I am just glad to have her next door.
I read a blog by a Christian missionary that catches me off-guard on a regular basis. Throughout my life I’ve always thought of missionaries to be fairly self-righteous and all “let’s save all the heathens”… but this particular woman admits her shortcomings and drops a swear word here and there just like the rest of us! She worries about money and her kids’ football injuries, and fights with her husband and does not condemn non-believers. Check her out
http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com
In a Very short time i have gone from New agey spiritual to complete Atheism.
I’m actually still in the middle of this process of sorting everything in boxes. They don’t wanna stay in their boxes. I went from ” Oh Gawd those atheist assholes are just as mean as those Christian assholes” To being one of the Atheist Assholes.
I’ve basically been jumping around cleaning house in the beliefs or non beliefs part of my brain, and I haven’t found a good fitting box for myself yet, which is why I read your blog, and also some less “nice” atheist/ non-religious blogs.
When it comes to friends who are Christian, I lost a lot of them along the way. Most good riddance, some close family members hurt severely, and none of that should have been surprising in the least.
The religious who have surprised me are
1. 2x Mormon friends, who continuously support me, in every way. Who give me space to even discuss and ridicule their beliefs. Even though their husbands are not too fond of me. Both of them in my eyes are living what they believe.
2. One Buddhist friend who has let me know that she looks forward to me challenging her beliefs, as she will never get offended by my questioning.
3. One conservative old school friend, who is from the church I attended as child, Dutch Reform, who really don’t allow for much leeway, and interpretation, But who has told me she loves the fact that I know more about her bible than she does, and that inspires her to learn more about her own beliefs.
All of these are friends I expected to reject my questioning, reject what I want to teach my child, and reject me. But they didn’t. They are the only ones who make me think there is hope for the human race.
(please excuse spelling and grammar, gotta run to pick up daughter from school)
I’m active in church/state issues where I live. One of my recent escapades was confronting a particular community regarding religious prayer at City council meetings that attracted a bit of media attention. A local youth pastor took interest and emailed me to see if I’d like to have lunch.
I had the presumption that he’d be on a tirade to “convert” me. On the contrary, he surprised me by genuinely wanting to understand why I do what I do, and what led me to not “believe”.
We have since met several times, and the conversations are always interesting.
A long-time friend and I would always have interesting conversations about religion, I knowing he was a very devout Christian and he knowing I was an atheist. I thought it was great that he was interested in learning more about evolution. And understanding the viewpoints of non-believers. He moved on to Texas for school and I to Montana, and we stayed connected through Facebook, chatting all the time and commenting on each other’s posts. In 2010 (I think), when the National Day of Prayer was big in the news, I had made a comment about it on his page (responding to something he posted about it), and he basically said “That’s it, Michael. We’re done.” And I haven’t heard from him sense. It hurt. We had known each other for over a decade.
My mom, who is Lutheran, and a conservative t-totaler, but who doesn’t attend services frequently, surprises me once in awhile. My favorite was when we were walking by the toilet paper in the grocery store and she said, “look, 200 shits per roll” (they had abbreviated sheets as shts).
I agree that we should generally treat people as individuals. Stereotyping in any form is problematic, but I am still concerned with what religions do as large groups. Although I feel that individuals should be free to believe as they wish, I also feel that they must take some responsibility for what religion does in their name. The fact that they don’t take everything in their religion literally doesn’t absolve them of this responsibility. They should be encouraged to take personal responsiblity for actions they take based on faith? For example, if they vote to deny same sex marriage, they should know that they bear personal responsibility for interfering with other peoples happiness. It doesn’t really matter that they think it is what their invisible friend wants. I live with this issue every day. My Catholic wife is always telling me that I should stop focusing so much on the negative things the priests say but I am concerned that my children hear all the bad things too.
I’m enjoying your blog by the way. We need more like you Wendy.
I love this post! I’ve often felt a bit at odds with most of the atheists I’ve read online and heard in the media – even when I think they have valid points. We atheists often come across as the very villains we’re characterized as when the subject turns to religion. Indeed, we often sound like religious zealots. The two most religious people I know are both people I respect: my father and a colleague.
I respect my father because of the consistency of his belief. He set up a foundational belief that God is first and the Bible is his word. Everything in his life rises and falls on that. Of course, I see this as a house of cards, but I admire his dedication and conviction.
I respect my coworker for the humanity of her faith. I’m not sure about the specifics of her stances on doctrine, but she describes herself as a fundamentalist (Pentecostal) Christian. In spite of her conservative bent, she consistently surprises me with her tolerance and concern for others. She’s strange sort of fiercely religious humanist and while we arrive at most of our opinions from opposite directions, we often agree when we get there.
Just a note: I don’t think “faith” would really be a good connotation for “religious”. Faith that means “confidence or trust in a person or thing”- ok, sure, I have faith that my chair will hold me up- that’s a good thing. But religious faith is more “belief that is not based on proof”- and that in my mind is the same as “illogical” and “indoctrinated”.
I love this so much, and agree with you completely. I always cringe when I hear atheists stereotyping religious people based on assumption. I have absolutely been surprised by religious people, which shows that I’m not as far along in my nonjudgmental thinking as I’d like to be. One instance I’m thinking of specifically is a guy who had a religious tattoo. I later found out that he doesn’t believe in church — only in faith and personal study — and I couldn’t have been more blown away. Shows what I know.