Tuesday 6 December 2011

Not listening....La La La

One aspect of my personality, my beliefs, that I'm definitely not closeted about is my atheism. I'm well aware that such a stance is considerably easier for me to sustain in the UK than it would be in many parts of the US, but I'm not shy about telling anyone of my non-belief, if it comes up in conversation. I've had one or two interesting conversations as a result, perhaps the most notable being with a chaplain attached to my industry, who walked into a place I was working at in the mid-1980s, and not only got a pretty forthright answer when he asked if I had connections to any churches in the area where I was working at the time, but was also very surprised to find that my reading matter (it was a one of those quiet one-man locations I've worked at over the years) was Heimskringla, the Icelandic history of the kings of Norway (in translation, needless to say, my talents, such as they are, don't extend to fluency in Icelandic), and even more surprised when I pointed out that my working in a relatively lowly role didn't condemn me to illiteracy.
My wife, on the other hand, is a Christian. We were both well aware of our ideological differences more or less from the outset of our relationship, and, until fairly recently, I'd been under the impression that it was one area where we'd agreed to disagree, the only serious difference of opinion we'd ever had on the subject being when I wanted to withdraw our daughter from religious education classes when she first started at primary school, as parents have the right to do in this country, not because I wanted my daughter to grow up as an atheist (she hasn't, incidentally), but because I objected to very young children being taught religious, predominantly Christian, tenets and Bible stories as facts rather than what I would describe as opinions or allegories, children of that age obviously not having the mental architecture in place to be taught in any sort of nuanced, 'shades of grey' fashion. Of late, though, perhaps for the last year or two, my wife seems to have decided that my views are unacceptable, but rather than discussing the issue, she just refuses to listen to anything I have to say on the subject, and won't even put forward any counter-arguments to lend support to her own case. It's just a closed-minded 'I'm right, you're not, end of story' kind of attitude. This evening has been a case in point. We'd received a Christmas card from one of her long-standing friends from her home town, which had an 'our recent news' kind of insert with it, amongst which was the news that her friend's family had started attending a different church, to which my wife expressed her surprise - she met her friend through church, and he'd been attending the same one for over twenty years. I asked her, lightheartedly enough, if it made a difference, because, to my mind, they all espoused the same mythology, but, rather than saying 'no, you're wrong, because of a), b) or c)' she walked off and started talking to our daughter about something completely unconnected. If I'd ever made any effort to 'convert' my wife to my way of thinking, and she'd found such an attempt unwelcome or offensive, I could better understand her attitude, but I'm quite happy for her (and anyone else) to believe whatever she wants, as long as I'm not expected to dance to the same tune. In the overall scheme of things, it's a minor issue, but still something of a disappointment.
Some more steam - metaphorical, at least - issued from unmentionable places during the day, as I finished my story for 'Nephelokokkygia'. I'd like to think it's got marginally more depth than simply being a 'masturbation fantasy', but I would say that, I guess. It's got one good character, at least. Cherchez le garçon. He's a cutie!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

2 comments:

  1. Now imagining you are illiterate is a laugh! But I understand what you mean. Some of the smartest people I've ever met (and socially engaging, friendly, accepting) have had "lowly" jobs that many people might consider beneath them. They were almost always some of the happiest people I've ever met.

    As to the religious discussion, I won't go there. But I tend to agree with you. Especially about kids being indoctrinated.

    Peace <3
    Jay

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Jay
    Discussing religion is always a minefield, I guess, but closing your mind and refusing to think about its implications at all isn't, in my view, the way to go. And as far as education goes, I really don't think children should be taught anything about religion, or 'belief' in its broadest sense at all, until they're intellectually mature enough to understand the difference between established facts and those things that rely on 'faith', so that they're then equipped to hear both sides of the story, and make their own minds up. Richard Dawkins has described religious indoctrination of children as a form of abuse, and while I perhaps wouldn't go quite that far, it certainly seems to me to sow seeds that lead to subsequent prejudice and bigotry. Prejudice and bigotry, of any kind, are learned behaviours, in my opinion, passed on to children from parents, teachers and other authority figures. And prejudice and bigotry, I suggest, are phenomena that the world would be far better off without.

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

    ReplyDelete