Religious Extremists and Offending People

Blog post #75 of 365

I offended the clerk at 7 eleven tonight. I didn't mean to I just said, "I missed the regular guy who worked there at night." I mentioned I liked being able to understand him. He told me that black people are easy to understand. I said, "No the regular guy was from Mexico." He said, "No he is black." I said, "The regular guy who worked from 3 to 11 was Mexican. He has an accent but I understand him perfectly while that isn't the case with the parade of guys coming through now" He told me he didn't know who I was talking about. I told him there was a different guy there every night and they all looked to maybe be middle eastern. Holy Cow! He said, "I'm Indian. Everyone who works here is from India. Middle Eastern people are Muslim and Indians are Hindu." He then went on to tell me how Hindu people are peaceful and not extremists. Really? I think that was the most racist thing I had heard in a long long while!

Okay, a little background here. When I was in my late teens I went exploring religion. This was long before the internet where you could just touch a few keys and find out everything you wanted to know and more that you didn't. Mostly I went visiting churches. Every kind of church I drove near with enough time to stop. I learned a lot about religion.

One church got all antsy and told me women were not allowed in the temple. Several churches were all about the fire and brimstone. Some churches had a back room where they showed me films about how bad my previous religion was. I thought this must be what propaganda looks like and wondered why they appeared so scared? They actually made me want to defend the people I had just left, because they had it all wrong. Some smelled musty and old. Some were loud and others quiet. I learned the basic premise to most of the ones I checked out but nothing rang true. None made me want to join. I later went back to my roots and I am happy here.

Through my studies I was intrigued with the Buddhist and Hindu religions among others. These two religions were to me most concerned with living in peace. Living naturally with the world. Not pushing ideas or anything. More knowing what they believe and being grateful. Now not all Buddhist and Hindu are alike but through my adventure in religious awareness those were the my impressions. I never encountered any Muslim churches on my quest but again there were no Google maps or GPS navigators to point out the nearest one.The clerk kind of made me rethink my position on the Hindu people. I know not everyone there is a Hindu because one guy gave me information on his religion. He is a Sikh. they are one I never learned about until recently. Again a let and let live group of people but willing to invite you to church any time you might like to go. These people you would notice because they wear a  'dastar' head wrap and almost always have an iron bracelet. Once they commit to their religion they never cut their hair, wear their hair wrapped up, carry a curved knife  and wear loose in the crotch 'battle' pants as well. They consider themselves warriors to their god.

Any religion can have extremists. I think the worst are the people who call themselves Christian but do not show it in any way. A Christian by definition is someone who follows the teachings of Christ, or one who acts Christlike. Most of the nondenominational Christians I've met are extremists. The kind of people who push themselves on you like there is no other options out there but to follow. My question is who do they follow? I believe God gave us a mind and the right to choose for ourselves.

While at the mall last summer I had a random group of young people ask to pray over me. I told them they can pray for anyone that they have a mind to pray for. Then they told me prayer only works if you ask permission of the person you wish to pray over and if they believe hard enough that God can work miracles. I don't think that is how it works. I believe God can heal anyone. I've read the Bible. If God can bring back Lazarus after he had fermented a while then He can heal anyone. So I let them do their thing. Afterward they asked me if I had been baptized to which I said I had and they offered to rebaptize me to make sure I have been baptized properly. I believe you must have the authority to baptize and would never have been baptized by just anyone so I knew I had "done it right" the first time. It was on many levels offensive. I left those people with such a bad feeling.

My point is anyone can be offended theses days. Any group religious or not can be extremists. Hate is as powerful as love and if you carry enough hate you can be very dangerous. Hide the hate behind religion and there is nothing worse in my eyes. I think the opposite must also be true. Carry enough love and also have a great deal of power. Though love and service you can accomplish anything!