Nothing highlights diversity better than checking out your
Facebook newsfeed on a religious holiday – like Easter for example. That is, assuming you have a diverse group of friends.
I’ve been “blessed” to have a wide variety of friends on
Facebook. They range from
ultra-conservative to damn near socialist.
From people that are pastors or church leaders to extremely vocal
atheists. So it should come as no
surprise to me that my newsfeed this weekend includes a plethora of postings that
range the gambit. Not sure what your newsfeed looks like, so I’ll just post
some of the highlights:
Now, it should come as no surprise to anyone that reads my
blog that I’m not a religious guy, but I was literally born and raised in the
church; so I have a fairly decent understanding of the meaning of Easter (and
Christmas for that matter) to Christians.
Just because I don’t buy into the dogma and biblical story, doesn’t mean
I want to belittle the faith or beliefs of others. I always say – just because you “believe”
something does not make it “true.” This
doesn’t just apply to people of faith – but to those of us without faith as
well. I don’t pretend to have the
answers. My lack of belief is based
solely on a position that the evidence thus far presented does not correspond
to the world around me.
I could call the bible a fairy tale – Aesopian in the sense
that it tries to provide life lessons for adherents – however, calling the
bible a fairy tale will always be interpreted as rude or mocking to believers –
so I try not do so, since I don’t like offending people. See above – just because I “believe” it to be
so, doesn’t make it “true.” I try to play
by the same rules...
It’s against this backdrop, that I’m careful with what I “like”
on Facebook. Based on what I see, if I “like”
Einstein presiding over the Last Supper, I can expect several friends to tell me that I’m being callous to their beliefs.
God forbid (yes, it’s a pun) that I touch the Zombie Jesus postings in
any way lest they show up in friends newsfeeds with my name attached to it. I’ve already lost more friends than I count
based on the fact that I’m an atheist; however, I’ve also gained more friends
than I can count for the same reason.
My religious friends and family members that at least “tolerate”
my views and remain my friends are dear to me, so dear that I have no desire to
post things that they would find offensive – at least on their holiest of days…
That doesn’t mean I won’t “like” something on the other 363 days a year that will
sit wrong with them – but I figure they can do what I do when they post about
Jesus, move to the next story in the newsfeed…
No comments:
Post a Comment