inequality of respect

From one of my local blogging friends:

So I have been promising this post for a while, and to those of you I promised it to, I apologize for it taking so long. If you've noticed there hasn't been too many posts written "from my own pen" lately, but it's been really tough to come up with a complete thought these days.

Last I posted about my son, we were headed to Florida for a treatment. I will start off there.
We headed to Florida and received 2 weeks worth of treatments before our insurance ran out. We decided we wanted to finance but we had to pay a percentage in down payment. Unfortunately we didn't have the money for the down payment. In talking to Softcurves, she belongs to the same sub-culture as I, and she suggested I talk to my pastor. I did and they were able to help, but only very little and not enough. So the kids and I decided to pack up and go. This was on a Friday. We waited until Monday but on Monday morning as I was getting ready to go, the hospital called me down, "emergency." I went and what did I find? A true blessing.

Now I don't show my "religious" side on here because I always believe there is a time a place for everything, but this served to further confirm my convictions and I choose to believe this is a true blessing direct from the God. If you do not agree with me, I ask you respect MY conviction and beliefs.

On Monday I went down to the hospital and found out that my down payment had been paid for by the local church of my sub-culture. Not only had they paid for the treatment but they paid for everything. EVERYTHING meaning that we would be staying for the entire 6 week treatment.

WAIT! THERE IS MORE!

They paid for 35 days in an apartment...ON THE BEACH. No phone or anything, but it is fully furnished. Light, gas and water is also paid in full for a full month.

WAIT! YES! THERE IS MORE!

They also gave us a $1000 gift card for a grocery store/gas station.

I couldn't stop crying! I AM COMPLETELY AWED BY THIS COMMUNITIES KINDNESS!

SO...the update. We are here for another 3 weeks. My son is doing AWESOME! and we are all doing well down here. We miss home but it is a pay-off for each of us to see how my son is doing.

Thank you guys once again for your continued support and extended friendship!

Pretty cool stuff, and I could almost use this as an example of why I believe organized religion is still a good thing (or that it has its uses at least).

As the skeptic, there are a few things I see in her post that bug me, although I would never in a million years want to diminish from her happiness by stating it in her presence. I will take the subject up here away from prying eyes though, and analyze my own feelings on the subject.

So first of all, I just can't see God's hand anywhere in this. I think it's awesome that she got the help ...it could not in ANY WAY have gone to a more wonderful person who was more deserving of the help. Let's face it though, this story tells a lot about the wonderfully giving nature that people are capable of ...and I don't mean to sound like an ass, but I not only don't see God anywhere in it; I see it more as a fluke than anything else.

Tell me for one second that if the pastor and/or committee holding the purse strings on this church board knew about her blog on AFF, and they were STILL this generous with her, then I might be a little bit impressed. I don't think it takes much of a leap to guess that if one of the Church folks "heard from a friend" about her blog site that the zeal to help their fellow man might have turned in another direction.

I just never quite understood the whole "life kicking the fuck out of you" ...but then when you catch that one well-deserved break, that it must somehow be "proof" of god. Forget where God was when all this kicking started,of course.

I really *am* one of those folks who tends to see the glass as half full, but the type of "logic" in using this case as an affirmation of belief really eludes me. If it helps her sleep at night, I'll give her a ride to church every Sunday personally, but it just isn't for me.

I have to admit, over the last 6 years I have heard something over and over that just pisses me off, and it really shows the dichotomy of Christian thought.

I can run into a random person, and they ask about the disability. I really can't tell you how often I get asked how often I pray about it.

I guess you really have to be an atheist to truly comprehend how offensive this can be at times. Sometimes I give a valid answer, but most often I just try to find an excuse to get away. If I had a little less tact, I might sometime like to ask a good Christian man with no legs how many times he's asked God to grow them back for him, then treat him like he's an inferior form of life for not having his legs.

You folks who feel like this is a justified kind of "witnessing" realize that it sounds EXACTLY like that don't you?!

When I was in my first couple of years with this, I can't count the number of people who I was in close contact with all the time who praised me on how strong my faith must have been to be dealing with my disability with such grace. I'm fairly used to the absolutely dumbfounded stares when I tell them I'm an atheist. It doesn't happen VERY often, but every now and then the exact same person praising me for the "faith" has swapped over to the "have you ever thought this may be a punishment" line of "reasoning."

One of these days I should ask if they ever thought it might be a punishment that god made them such a fucking clueless retard!?

What is really sad is they don't have a fucking CLUE what an idiot they sound like when they say it. Another one that happened to me once was a person (who I had know for quite some time) that assumed that I must have lost faith because of the disability. And yet again I would get the blank stare when I told them I had been atheist since the mid-80's.

You see, I seldom wear atheism on my sleeve and it will almost never come up in regular conversation with me ...I honestly just don't like the hassle of talking to Christians about it. They invariably decide they want to be some kind of "witness" and will ask questions, but then become utterly offended and often feign "persecution" if I actually answer them when they are the ones who brought it up in the first place!!!!

This can be a real fucking bitch for a strong Christian, because I am a hard peg to pound into their narrow little view of what atheists MUST be like. ...and they never fail to be completely offensive in trying to find a way to worm me back into their view of the world, while being utterly clueless to just HOW offensive they are being in trying to do it. I was on a multi-faith message board a while back looking at a thread about Messianic Jews; the Christian posters just couldn't fathom why in the world the Jewish posters were being offended when they said a Messianic Jew was merely a "completed" Jew.

And so ...here I write. I've got way too much respect for Karma to bring this up with her or on her blog (not to mention that I'm ecstatic they are taking care of her in such a wonderful way). Now do I really even need wonder if I were to do a blog (well, such as this) stating all the reasons why my own condition serves to confirm my disbelief that I would be given the same respect as Karma in saying to respect her belief even if I disagree?!

In the past I can't even count the number of times I've received that same respect on ONE hand even.