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Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus
One thing about Rockville I noticed is that there are very few seriously religious or openly religious people. There are plenty of families that show up to church every Sunday, but speaking in sweeping generalizations it seems like they do it in a Simpsonian sort of way; the only reason they go is because they've always gone. The faith in their hearts is long gone or in some cases never really existed. And then there's the Holiday Christians but everybody's got those. Point is everybody's just too busy with one thing or another to truthfully worry about the prospect of eternal salvation or damnation as the case may be. A lot of things changed socially for me when coming to university but the religious aspect is probably the most notable change in the company I keep.
I still haven't set foot in a church during a worship service since 1997 or 1998 and only crack a Bible once in a while to find Ezekiel 25:17. But the number of even moderately religious people I've met since August has skyrocketed. With the combined factors of Athens being nestled in western Appalachia and people from all over the region descending on OU to drink and maybe receive an education, I suppose it makes sense that the town would have a raging hard-on for the Lord. And then there's always the fervently anti-religious. I haven't run across very many of them but they are out there. I can understand their disdain for organized religion in general but it seems very juvenile to me to single out one faith for verbal abuse. I'm an equal opportunity offender; I'll dump on anyone for anything but always in good fun, and I think that's the thing that realy sets me apart from them.
Really the only thing I wonder is how long the religious people I've met will stay religious as they declare their majors and begin to focus their fields of study. Courses will get harder and command more of their attention and time. I haven't met very many religious or even churchgoing upperclassmen compared to the numbers of freshmen and sophomores that identify as such. College is a place where education, Jesus, and Anheuser-Busch all compete for the time and attention of the young and impressionable. A lot like the rest of America, really.
25 Manifestos:
And the majority of them subscribe to a bastardized strain of a bastardized strain of Christianity. I believe the true teaching of Christ can be found in the writings of the ancient Nestorian and Jacobite churches that dominated the Christian sphere of influence in the first several centuries of the movement. Not that I have any faith in them mind you, but if I were a believer I'd definitely be a Copt.
"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
There is hope for you, Omar.
I'll keep praying.
oh, this sorta helps to explain sitting around wasting a perfectly good hookah on.. what was it...."night train"?
sorta
I do find the whole shebang rather fascinating, but I'm afraid adherence would require an actual house call from the J-man himself. Or at the very least one of his high ranked officials. I'm usually available afternoons..
Thimscool: Oh, you <3
Uno: lolwut
We were listening to some of the gayest music in existence, not instrumental blues standards.
That's the thing about uni, it's a cross section of society, albeit a priveleged portion of society who can a) afford to go and b)have the desire to go.
Probably the younger students are still living the rules the way their parents taught them, as they grow through their uni career they start developing their own versions of right/wrong and the degree to which that's part of organised religion is personal. Many of them may return to organised religion after uni, after that developmental process.
Good post, lots to think about.
i'm sitting beside jesus in the manger right now.
if he's good i'll give him a biscuit. if he's real good i'll give him something to smoke.
SNC: Believe it or not I almost scrapped this post, thanks for the words of encouragement.
BP: Vanilla tobacco?
lewis, you are becoming....wry
Thanks?
well u know, eventually it's gonna narrow your audience and circle of friends to a certain bandwidth of cognoscenti, but as long as you combine wryness with endearing drollness, you'll most likely keep an even keel on the choppy waters of friendship and sanity.
Funny that, I noticed it too while in University. I suppose being away from home for the first time makes students view religion differently, plus the religious societies also offered plenty of opportunities for socialising, which I guess made it appealing.
I am curious to know the whys and wherefores of the retraction of impulses involved in the above retraction! Talk to me, big fella..
religion doesn't take that much time of your life. It's just part of you, like a guy, or gay, or blind or dumb.
Anyway, University campuses are a perfect place to find yourself, religion included.
Air Force One has just arrived! I shall be dining on a Pacific smoked salmon with avocado sandwich for lunch to mark the occasion. Coffee or tea? Decisions, decisions..
omar, i made a vow not to delete comments on the morning after, so i have started deleting them before bedtime, which implies a degree of somnambulism. hence, i cannot answer your question.
And I'm the wry one!
Good post.
The town I grew up in, the oldest buildings on the main street were either churches or places to get a hard-on (strip club, adult video store). There was always this movement by the churchfolk to oust the strip club.
Today, the old United church still stands and the strip club has been knocked down in favour of million dollar condos.
I guess, in the long run, the church comes out on top.
I think a lot of college kids eventually get won over by Anheuser Busch. I am looking for religion in my life since I have avoided pretty much since college but I need to get over my disdain of organized religion. Any suggestions?
Uno: Probably, yeah. My intelligentsia tendencies come out a lot better in writing and through the internets than they do in person-to-person conversation but I do have quite the affinity for the funny. Wry drollness is my business and business could be better but it's getting me by.
TS: Yeah, when I first got here I kind of tried to force the socialization but after a while it delivered itself. I meet a lot of new people here pretty frequently. But I suppose with a pool of 20,000 students versus 2,000 in high school I'm bound to meet more people.
Slop: Aside from the two hours or so a week you put in at church, you're right. But I was talking more about the religious folk that spend time reading and deeply contemplating their respective books of faith. You know, taking their involvement in their faith past reading a few verses every night and walking to church on Sundays.
Omar: Tea. Coffee tastes like ass and bitters the semen. You cannot subject the wenches of Nova Scotia to bitter semen!
wigsf: Just give those condos a chance; if your hometown is anything like mine they breed like rabbits and never die. Rockville doesn't even have scenic views!
Mr. Shife: Well as the post mentions I've never been religious at all so I'm probably not the best person to ask. But I'd recommend just going to a church once in a while. Not necessarily a service, just go into one and walk around a bit or have a chat with the preacher. Sit in the pews and listen to someone dicking around on the organ, or something.
You didn't say "fuck" once in that entire post. What the fuck is wrong with you?
If you discount damnation like I do, this is the first post in months where I did not curse once. I should be ashamed!
People don't need religion. They need belief in abstract ideas and concepts. For some, it is patriotism or a belief in some Platonic ideals of justice or love. For others, it's a fabulous mythology where your fraternity gets to live in mansions in the hereafter and the other fraternities get to see forever and ever that they chose poorly.
No one is ever satisifed with a completely earthbound life. And really... I don't blame them.
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