From whence the rant came....

Normally my blog is just a big vent for stay-at-home mom stuff. Nothing too heavy here, so my political/religion rant was a little out of context.

I seem to have a history of saying or emailing something that I consider pretty neutral or innocuous but which starts a big ole honking chain reaction of hurt feelings. And so this story begins.

A friend/neighbor sent me (and a bunch of other people whom I later learned were her church friends and family) an email about Obama being the Anti-Christ according to the Book of Revelation. Now I am certainly no Bible scholar...because as anyone who grew up Catholic knows, Catholics know only 2 of the three Bs---beer and bingo, not bible....but I also suspected it was a lot of false information.

So I replied to all and provided 2 links (one from snopes.com) that explain that the whole Obama as Anti-Christ thing is bunk. All I said was, "Here are 2 links for anyone interested in a different perspective."

I figured since I am not a practicing religious anything and received this email, there may be others like me on the list. And unless I'm mistaken, I don't think anyone's GOP radar goes off when I am in the vicinity.

Apparently not.

Soon after, I received an email from 2 people on the list. One told me that her family doesn't get their biblical interpretations from snopes.com. The second told me, and I quote, "people like you shouldn't be allowed to live in this country," and that I should go move to the Middle East and wear a towel on my head.

Anyone who knows me even a little can see that this has been fodder for a whole lot of late-night stewing and festering.

So what is bothering me about the whole thing? Oh, where do I begin?

Both replies I received had a tone like, "How dare you reply to us believers with your snopes.com information?," which made me wonder whether I violated some code of email ethics by replying to all.
But I figure that
1. if I am sent an email, then I am allowed to reply to it.
and
2. if I, a heathen, was on the list then perhaps other heathens were too who wouldn't necessarily subscribe to the beliefs laid out about Obama/Anti-Christ.

And the second email was littered with misspellings and poor grammar....it made the Language Arts teacher in me cringe. Lord knows I have my prejudices and stereotypes which I fight within myself on a regular basis, but I know many Christians who are educated, kind, thoughtful and eloquent. Unfortunately for the sender of this email, I couldn't help but be reminded of the stereotype of strong Christian believers as illiterate, po-dunk yahoos.

And then just the fanaticism of the whole thing. The Bible is a good guide to life, but so is the Koran and a variety of other religious texts that espouse being kind and loving to others. I just can't help but think people who base their whole entire existence on 1 book or piece of writing, irregardless of the book or writing, are narrow-minded. Wouldn't people think I was a little screwy if I based my whole outlook on life on the Betty Crocker cookbook? Or Lord of the Rings? Or the Bill of Rights?

Anyone building a house wants a good, solid foundation, and the Bible can be part of that, but doesn't a sensible, educated, wise person want concrete and rebar and every available strong material he/she can find to build the foundation of the house. The 3rd little pig used brick, but he also used mortar.

So there it is.

This is the 2nd time in less than a year that something I've done or said has bothered a neighbor. So either I am the problem or I happened to move into a neighborhood of people more sensitive than me. Who'd a thunk it?