We went to the carnival today. Actually, it was quite good. Quite colourful and with amazing music, and I even saw a few of my friends playing amongst the marching bands.
But one thing that really annoyed us was the whole religious float that came along, and its followers; random women walking around handing out flyers saying ‘JESUS IS OUR LORD!’ etcetc.
Now I may be an atheist, but I’m not religious-ist. People can believe what they want, and hell, I ain’t gonna critisise or offend anyone reading this who believes in some kind of faith. It’s perfectly fine, but obviously I won’t say that I completely understand why some people choose to believe in such.. nonsense. =P Again, no offence.
Seriously though, this woman would not leave us alone. Two of them came over to us trying to give us leaflets. The first walked away quite happily when we told her that we weren’t religious, but the second just.. argh.
First she called my mother ignorant for being an atheist. Then she started saying that ‘the whole world is God’s creation’ and ‘you are God’s creation’ and ‘ignoring God’s existence is like ignoring your father’s existence’. We were like, ‘yes, thank you’ very polite, I must add, but still she waffled on. ‘You should be ashamed of insulting God’, ‘we are all God’s children and were brought up to believe in him’ and the very famous ‘Jesus is our Lord and the son of our almighty God’. Yeah. It wasn’t until my mother bent down and said very loudly in her face ‘thank you, but we-are-not-religious!’ that she walked away, still muttering things under her breath. She then went off and started screaming at other people who refused her crap.
So I still ask to this day why some religious people think it’s wrong for others to not believe the same things as them. We still have a faith - it just ain’t the same as theirs. It’s practically an insult trying to force religion onto us when we quite clearly state that we are atheists. I don’t think having a religion is wrong, but i do think that advertising any religion in public - especially in a city were there are many, many different races and religious groups - is just wrong and uncalled for. The church or whatever place of gathering should be the only place where religion is spread amongst people. People who do not wish to get involved should be left alone to make their own minds up, not have crazy women come up to them insulting them just because they refuse to believe in something which they think is a total lie!
I also hate religious education in schools. Okay, it’s good to learn about all the different religions around us, but the fact that all we’ve been doing since the start of 4th year is Christianity just makes me mad. I like to learn about other religions and their festivals etc, but not ‘what would Jesus do’ and all that pointless-to-atheists stuff. I’m glad I’m failing in maths because I have the option to drop RE and do extra maths lessons in a decent class. I would usually turn down extra maths lessons, but if all they’re going to do otherwise is teach us silly stuff about one single religion when clearly there are other religious groups in our class, then I’d run a mile to do it. Seriously.
Opinions?
I don’t know to what intensity you’re learning about Christianity in school, but if it’s just history and belief systems, then I don’t really see what the problem is. (On the other hand, if they’re pushing “Jesus is Our Lord” and “You all must believe” kind of crap, then complaints are necessary.) It’s true, it would be much more interesting to learn about other religions and traditions, but that’s what World Religion classes are for. Western education is geared toward Westerners, ie, a population made up of mostly Christians and related religions. Thus, you learn more about that in your history class. Education boards think it’s more important for you to learn the history of your area - whether it be political, social, religious, or agricultural - rather than the history of the world. They might plan to teach you more, but they’ll put the Western stuff in first just to be sure you learn it (hence why in high school I studied Vietnam in almost every World History class, and not much WWI - but I’m American :p). I’m not saying I agree with that, but there’s an explanation. It’s not because they want to push Christianity on to you, it’s because it’s part of your regional history more than, say, a South American religion.
Secondly, my opinion is that it’s okay for religious folk to go about public places handing out flyers. As long as they’re not so over-zealous like that woman you met, to be completely rude about it. To say that “religious people” shouldn’t promote themselves at public events is like saying “record companies shouldn’t give out free CDs at concerts,” “vegans shouldn’t hand out animal rights flyers in the city,” “party promoters shouldn’t put stickers on sign posts” … etc. Sure, there would be a lot less trash on the ground, but how else would we learn about anything outside of popular media if people weren’t allowed to spread the news by other means? My complaint is more about “rude people” in general than it is about religious people. That woman was religious, yes, but so was the first woman who happily walked away from you. It’s not because she was religious that she was pushing herself onto you - it’s because she had no manners.
I agree with what Michelle said actually, the second women had no manners, it’s just her bad attitude to force people into doing something that they wouldn’t do.
LOL I can’t think of anything right now o.o”
Say, if she was someone who was against abortion, she would push people not to do abortion and even insult them if they do, I’m not saying that abortion is right, It’s just an example
I think I’m just too excited because I caught a Coelacanth on ANIMAL CROSSING XD!!
(and I just bought a K.K. Slider keychain
) wooo 
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