Caught another episode of 30 Days last night.  This time they sent a nice atheist lady to live with a Christian family.

First off, I kind of think they could have picked a better atheist to send to the Christians.  This lady didn’t seem terribly well-informed or passionate.  In comparison to the Christian they sent to live with the Muslims, she just didn’t seem to care a whole lot about her belief system.  She seemed kind of quiet and meek, and I was really hoping for more fireworks from the clash of cultures.

But, it was still an interesting show.

The atheist lady seemed to have fewer problems dealing with the Christians than they had dealing with her.  They seemed to take her very existence as a threat.

At one point she took her new Christian friends out to meet some other atheists.  One of those atheists asked the Christians how they’d feel if their money was printed with “there is no god” – the Christian responded with “my money says In God We Trust.”  He said that over and over again.  He just wouldn’t or couldn’t process the question.  He couldn’t even contemplate what it would be like to carry around money printed with a statement he couldn’t agree with.  Eventually the atheist gave up and simply said “The difference is that I’m willing to respect your choice of religion, but you aren’t willing to respect mine“, to which the Christian suggested that if it really bothered the atheist that much he could move.

Why is that always the suggestion?  They were both born in the US…  The both pay their taxes…  They both get a vote…  Why is the atheist’s viewpoint any less valid than the Christian’s?  Why should the atheist move, and not the Christian?

There was another scene where our atheist lady was at a Bible Study group, and they asked her what documents she based her beliefs on, which I found bizarre beyond belief.  As if you needed some kind of external document to validate your experience of the world.  Like you need some consensus in order have an opinion.  Like  you can’t trust an individual human being to collect data and interpret it themselves.

And then they accuse the atheist of being anti-Christian.  There’s nothing anti-Christian about atheism.  Atheists don’t believe in gods.  Nothing supernatural.  How can you be anti- something that doesn’t exist?

Eventually the atheist’s family comes to visit her…  And the Christians express plenty of concern that the children aren’t getting “both sides of the story.”  The problem, of course, is that there aren’t two sides to the story.  If you insist on presenting both an atheistic and theistic worldview, then the story doesn’t end with Christianity.  You also have to talk about Islam, and Judaism, and Janeism, and Hindu, and Buddhism, and every other -ism out there.  Because they’ve all got equally valid claims to authenticity.  They all state “this is what my book says, and I choose to believe it.“  There is no objective reason to believe one rather than another.

It’s funny…  Because the Christians said they were eager to show the atheist what real Christians were like.  They wanted to tear down some stereotypes and show her what God’s Love is all about.  But the atheist didn’t really seem to have a whole lot of stereotypes to be tore down…  While the Christians had plenty of them.

BoingBoing | Adam Savage’s Speech to Harvard Humanism Society

I would love to see the MythBusters take on some religious myths…  But I somehow doubt if their lawyers would let them.  It would probably be too dangerous.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a religious guy.  So I don’t really care whether it’s Easter or not…  Except that it gets me a day off from work and it’s a good excuse to break out the candy.

So, Happy Easter!

This week has been painful, to say the very least.

My Grandmother died last weekend.  It wasn’t a surprise…  Her health has been failing for a couple years now, and she’d been in the hospital for several days already.  But it still hurt.

Terri is in the hospital.  I spent all day on Tuesday sitting with her in the Emergency Room.  Then she finally got admitted…  I ran home to pick up some things, and then spent most of the evening with her as well.  Didn’t get home until later and still had to come up with something for dinner.

Then I had to be up early in the morning, to get Christopher off to class before I went in to work.  Had to get the kitties to the vet.  Went right over to the hospital to visit Terri after work.  Left there around 8:00, stopped to buy some groceries, didn’t get home until about 9:00.  Had dinner and crashed.

And that day set the pattern for the rest of the week…  I’ve been up early every day to get Christopher off to class.  I’ve been working my ass off all day long.  I’ve been visiting Terri after work and getting home late.

I’m not sleeping well.  I’m stressed.  I’m tired.  I’m scared.  I’m definitely hurting.

And every morning, as I take Christopher in to class, we drive by a church with a sign out front…

Hurting?

Jesus understands better than anyone.

And it makes me angry.

They don’t know me.  They’ve never met me.  They have absolutely no idea what I’m going through.  And they smugly presume that their dusty old book is going to solve all my problems.

I’ll readily admit that it would be nice to have someone to talk to.  A sympathetic ear would be great…  Maybe a shoulder to lean on…

But that’s not what they’re offering.  I’ve heard the kind of answers they provide…  “God works in mysterious ways.”  “It’s all part of His plan.”  “Have faith.”

I can come up with more reassurance than that with a quote of the day!