Pyat dumps on spirituality, while he's being dour.

[pyat]

Too many Protestants are stupid!

DO you hear me, Protestants? A lot of you are dumb. And annoying. And boring. When pyat calls something boring, you KNOW it's boring.

I can't have a decent religious discussion with anyone I know in the real world, except my wife. All the other Protestants I know are either poorly-informed about their own religion, or suffer from knee-jerk political conservatism that somehow has infected their faith, or both.

I cannot think of a single person at my church (who is not directly related to me) with whom I would want to spend an evening. Yes, many of them are nice people, but they are not any nicer than sitting at home alone with a burrito.

(Wait... wait. That's not true. I like Ron Sharegan and his wife. He was my boss when he I worked at the Soup Van, and he's well-informed, open-minded, devout, and puts his money where his mouth is in terms of adding works to faith. Aside from them, I can't think of ANYONE.)

Of course, to be utterly fair, I can't think of a single person at my church who would want to spend an evening with me.

Wiccans and Pagans of various sorts tend to be more fun to be around because they often seem to share some of my other interests, but almost all the really serious Pagans I've met seemed to have something very wrong with them.

It's as though you need a sense of humour to talk about casting spells and performing ceremonies, and the minute you lose that, you've wandered into The Land of Mental Illness.

And even then, I'd rather listen to someone natter on about... about... crazy... Moon... stuff... than listen to someone at my church give their opinion of the Book of Revelations.

And another thing, I really hate Praise and Worship quartets, even though I actually happen to like singing and clapping. What's up with that?

Comments

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

Heh. I think that's one reason I went back to being Anglican/Episcopalian. I don't consider it Protestant, regardless of the fact that in various (especially the more conservative) places the title of the church is in fact the Protestant Episcopal Church. Meh.

Most of the Seventh-Day Adventists took their faith to an intensity that indeed bordered on mental illness, and worse, inflicted on and fostered mental illness in others. I think every teen goes through times where "I just wish I didn't have to deal with all the junk that keeps piling on my shoulders any more. At least death isn't stressful!" but the times I was like that, I was very nearly actively suicidal, mainly because the biggest stress was the expectations of the people around me that I fit into their notion of a Christian (Adventist flavor) ought to be.

Anglicanism is much more relaxing. I still run into people who have expectations of what a Christian should be, and of what an Episcopalian should be, but they're fewer and further between, and usually milder about it.

I think that part of this is simply due to the fact that I'm not a teenager any more, but I still know Adventists who are far too intense for their own good or that of the people around them.

I agree with you that most evangelical Protestants are very definitely dumb and annoying and boring. *L*

[pyat.livejournal.com]

In the first version of the post, I started to make a list of exceptions I knew on LJ, and you were on it. But then I realized it would be safer to just talk about people I meet IRL more than once in a blue moon.

Speaking of which, you doing Gencon this year?

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

I sincerely wish I could, but that'll be right about the time we pay our car off and start seriously saving for a house.

[racing-girl.livejournal.com]

Why would you expect them to be interesting in anyway?

Not having been baptized, I spent my days in a french catholic school, and sundays either at a Baptist sunday school (my best friends father was the pastor) and a United Church sunday school.

I never got it and I never thought any of them had a sense of humour...especially about religion.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't expect that they SHOULD be interesting to me, I just want them to become so.

[racing-girl.livejournal.com]

LMFAO!!!

[anidada.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Don't get me started... :(

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Re: "Praise and Worship teams" - I can think of several reasons.

1) Lack of repertoire - there's about, I dunno, forty or so choruses/songs that are used regularly, as compared to the Song Book that has nearly a thousand. And those forty are often poorly written, questionable in their message, or just plain dumb.

2) Lack of rehearsal - in a church like the Army, they ought to be able to find people who can take a loose singing style and still make it sound good. It seems many of them leave their musicianship in the congregation when they come up to the mics.

3) Lack of connection to the service - let's sing a few rousing choruses! Now let's quieten our hearts before the Lord, lift up our hands in worship, really mean it as a prayer! Now let's go on with the offering, the songster selection, the band selection, the announcements that the band is raising money by selling meats again this year, and eventually, the real prayer and worship parts of the service. Um, hello? When I was a kid, the prayerful heart-searching choruses came after the sermon as part of the altar call. They lose a lot of their power when they're taken out of the context for which they were written.

It seems to me I've written this rant before. I wonder why?

As for the rest, I totally agree. I can sit through an evening with some "friends of the family," but I can't actually talk to them about anything except the kids.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

The last time I tried to talk to any of my family about this stuff, apart from my wife, it got pretty thorny when they found out I don't believe in God.

Actually, it got really, really thorny when they found out I *rejected* believing in God.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That might cause some problems. :) A part of me wonders what would happen if my faith swung any further from classic Protestantism, given that it's pretty wide by most measures already. I have a feeling my in-laws regularly pray for the state of my soul, but they're polite enough not to mention it if they do.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Wiccans and Pagans of various sorts tend to be more fun to be around because they often seem to share some of my other interests, but almost all the really serious Pagans I've met seemed to have something very wrong with them.

I completely understand. At minimum, a certain level of skepticism and self-reflection is necessary for any sort of serious spiritual practice [[1]]. I regularly play in the very deep and strange end of the occult pool and yet I also keep in mind how much of what I've experienced is either in the realm of purely subjective experience or could be chalked up to coincidence. People who lack that can be very odd indeed. Of course, I'm assuming that you aren't putting me in the nutty category and given some of my posts, I could easily see being wrong about that :)

[[1]] The most extreme example being the various cases where dubiously sane people guilty of various horrid crimes (typically murder) claim that some deity or other urged them to do this. If something is telling you to kill, the only sensible answer to this request is, of course, no.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Hello, sir!

While I have thought some of your posts were seriously weird, I've always found them leavened with the willingness to self-analyze. Plus, you are generally quite well-informed and thoughtful. So, you don't fall into my "Crazy Net Person" category. I may think some of your ideas are crazy, but not the person behind them!

[paka.livejournal.com]

Do I qualify as Wiccan and Pagan of Various Sorts, and if I'm not seriously pagan does that preclude me nattering on about crazy Moon stuff? I'm just curious about whether I come across that way.

And anyway, it's funny you should suggest unfun Praise and Worship quartets in the same discussion as pagans. There is, I think, a way to make any liturgical music unfun, and I've seen it really out there in force at Pantheacon...

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Dude, I don't know what you are. :) But you can natter about crazy moon stuff at will!

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I'm a Protestant. A little lapsy and unchurchy at the moment, but I can lingo the lingo, should you like.

One of the panels at Writercon 2 (Religion in the Whedonverse) had a Protestant minister and a Lutheran seminarian (among many others of various faiths). They were pretty darn cool.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have thought about more exceptions before writing, or limited to my church.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I think if you'd said Evangelicals, rather than Protestants, it would have been closer to the mark, but there are still exceptions, albeit ones who may have trouble speaking out.

[melstra.livejournal.com]

While I agree with you on the whole, I actually happen to be pretty lucky in my church. It's taken us four years to realize that there are actually cool people in our congregation. The addition of a new member (a new professor of math at the college where I teach) who invites us over to watch Dr. Who every Friday night was the catalyst. We thought at first that we'd be the only ones there (since we sniffed each other out of the pack as geeks pretty quickly), but soon found there was a small enclave of 5-6 others there as well. We've done a few social/game-type things since then and they're cool. Then there's the folks I knew back in grad school-- while I wasn't terribly interested in most of them socially, at least we had a lot in common spiritually-- the "United Church of Christ" (not affiliated with the "united church of canada" but politically and spiritually similar) is very liberal and I felt comfortable talkign about all manner of social issues, including homosexuality and paganism there, and we did get together for some fun activites, even if they weren't of the gamer variety.

I can't say much about the "praise and worship" band thing. Fortunately we dont' have a praise band at our services-- but I do sing in the choir so I'm party to many of the music discussions. There is a contingent that feels more included when we sing such things, so we sprinkle a variety of types of music into the service, often using the more "praise" oriented songs when the youth lead the service. It's a good mix of Amy Grant and Martin Luther. :-) And at least it's not done with powerpoint.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It is good that you've been lucky. I honestly can't think of another couple or family at my church whom I'd want to spent any time with.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

"Wiccans and Pagans of various sorts tend to be more fun to be around because they often seem to share some of my other interests, but almost all the really serious Pagans I've met seemed to have something very wrong with them. "

Oh my, I agree with you on that one. I can expand it in my experience that almost all the really serious (insert religion here)s seem to have something wrong. If (Deity of choice) wants you to live a productive and worthwhile life, why would you spend all of it focused on your creator instead of running around doing good in your habitat as was intended?

I don't mean to sound flippant about the topic, but I admit that I'm Not Very Serious either :)

I've gotta say, I think you two are a couple of the only Protestants I find interesting enough to want to hang out with (including much of my family)

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, I consider myself to be quite a serious pagan, in the Brit Trad stylings sort of way, of course.

Mind you, that means squeezing every ounce of joy out of life and living it to the fullest, of course. "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals," and all that. ;)

Joe

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

You're definitely one of the reasons I qualified my statement with "almost all" :)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I need a business card that says "Interesting Protestant"

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

Think about how us atheists feel! We can't even spell the label for our lack of belief with a cap A without looking like some kinda ... cult!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Oh, come now! We ALL know about that Akira Kurosawa shrine in your closet, Gline.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Maybe us Quakers are on to something with that whole SILENT thing.

;)

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting you're a Friend too..

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Hey now, it might be a second cousin twice removed, but Quakers are Protestants. Then again, my sister barely got a job at a Christian Academy because United Church of Canada aren't real Christians, so YMMV ;)
But I fully and totally know what you mean

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I like all the Quakers I've met. But then, all the Quakers I've met have been very odd, in good ways. :)

You need to meet my wife

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

You'd probably bore each other on normal conversation (she avoids most of the nerdly arts) but she is of the similar school of "deeply religious Anglican without a hint of wingnuttery about it".

[wytetygryss.livejournal.com]

I imagine you'd find some of my beliefs on the nuttier side of things, but I'm willing to admit that a lot of people would. Like heron61, I realize some of what I've felt or seen or done could be purely subjective or coincidental... but that can also be said of many faiths, can't it? :)

I don't mind discussing religion with people of any faith, so long as they don't try to make me think they way they do.

And yeah... I do agree a lot of Christians that I've met just don't share many of my interests.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Whereas most of the pagans I meet are quite interesting!

[racing-girl.livejournal.com]

I always liked the discwold theory. The discworld is basically a big chess board and the Gods use us as play pieces. Who's to say Allah, Budha and God aren't all sitting around laughing at us. A giant roll playing game if you will, and if you don't follow the rules...

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

I've met some very serious paganish types who weren't spooky. They understood that the rituals and spell like things were really manipulations of symbol systems(to use my old anthro-speak) to achieve certain states of mind and gain insights. I guess you could see them in the same light as Catholics or Episcopalian in that respect. I just hate it when someone who seemed reasonable and cool at a con or the local gamer shack turns out to believe they have powers beyond the mortal ken.

I think the loss of a sense of humor has happened to Christianity in North America big time. The mainline churches I've ocasionally been too have seemed stiff and uninspiring; like the parishioners were just going throug the motions. I've been to a few black churches in Watts and its environs and those places really seemed alive both in terms of the service and the belief of the the parishioners. There was a lot of unconditional love in those places. A big part of the problem with faith here in 'Merica(say it like George does) is the mainline churches have lost their way, becoming serious in manner, but not so serious in faith or in putting the values of their faith into action. A lot people leave those churches searching for a thing that feels more real and they fall into Evangelical and Fundamentalist groups because they find the intensity appealing. Based on what I read and see through videos some of those services might compare to one's first rock concert except it's that way every time. And then, as sick as their values are, Fundamentalist churches are very good these days at putting their beliefs into practice. They actually walk the walk and a lot people appreciate that kind of integrity. I don't think this kind of intensity can be sustained. At least I hope not because these groups are authoritarian in the extreme and just plain nasty. I think mainline protestantism has got to find a way to put their beliefs into action, and put some life into their culture if they are to survive. Otherwise they'll continue to see their followers choosing more exciting, if terrifying alternatives, or simply opt out of religion altogether.

[tanela.livejournal.com]

I cannot think of a single person at my church (who is not directly related to me) with whom I would want to spend an evening. Yes, many of them are nice people, but they are not any nicer than sitting at home alone with a burrito.

That's why ever since our home corps died a strange soap opera of a death, my family and I haven't been able to find another church. No church around here seems to have any people in it -- real people, I mean. Lack of people-churches around here is the only reason I can think of that I might want to move to Newfoundland to stay. :P

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

It's as though you need a sense of humour to talk about wanting things and having opinions about stuff, and the minute you lose that, you've wandered into The Land of Mental Illness.

...

I seem to have lucked out in the early years with a church who's members, at least, encouraged introspection and more intellectual views of... well, stuff in general. I think this has to do with what kind of people they were–I can still remember the minister, when I was about eightish, recommending the Uplift series to me–rather than specifics of the denomination or whatever.

Think of the reasons they have for being there.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

chronovius was an Educated Lutheran. He's not Christian anymore, but he don't diss them what are... I really need to sit you two at a coffee table and see what happens.

[neosis.livejournal.com]

I think it's very difficult to be both a devout worshipper and interesting (at least within Christianity as I know it). Devout implies surety and unwavering belief, because that's what a "good Christian" is. That leaves no room for debate. Everything is as the devout believes believes it to be, how can it be otherwise without jeopardizing his faith?

Wow. Flashes of Pride and Prejudice there.

My prejudices also say that religion offers a host of consolations to the small-minded. It solves most questions and allows you to bring your difficult questions to someone else to solve for you, allowing you to avoid actually thinking about any of the big questions. Actually, I think that's might be a property of all authoritarian religion and philospohies, whether it's fascism or mainstream Christianity. I suppose it's the boring people who actually like being told what to do.

Mind you, my cousins are Protestants (I think), and I think you would have liked them. They haven't let their "Christian duties" suck the joy out of life. I wonder if you remember what I wrote about my Uncle's funeral? The priest actually conducted a sermon on how to reach heaven, you had to make sure your life on earth was full of suffering. Specifically he said you had to hate life to get to heaven. Anyone who takes that message to heart is bound to be dull and lifeless.