We’ve all seen it before – People sitting at a local establishment, watching the big game and enjoying a glass of their favorite beverage. They talk, cheer, and discuss the game with the others with passion and vigor; they feel as though they are a part of their team. Sometimes, fans of different teams can end up in a debate about who has the better team, who has the better uniforms, or even who has the better looking fans. Hardly ever ( depending on the amount and variety of beverages consumed ) does this become a heated argument to the point that these people will feel a physical response in such magnitude to border on rage. It’s only a sport, and we can all have different opinions on it, right?
Now, let us take that exact same situation and replace the sport in observation with a religious topic – many times, this situation will be much more volatile. Why is it that we can all have different opinions about so many subjects without trying to force others into our mindset, yet when it comes to religion, it is very different.
Some may say that the main reason these two examples are inherently different is due to the self-centered view on religion. When we are commenting on a movie we like or a team we are a fan of, it is not really us that we’re supporting – it’s something ( or someone ) outside of ourselves. The religious views, however, are so engrained into a person’s belief structure that for someone to discount them might make them feel that their entire life is based off of falsehoods – a feeling that nobody would like to share.
Imagine that you were sitting in the crowds of spectators at a Roman Colosseum, sharing in the sports activity that was so popular a couple of thousand years ago and the subject of religion came up. Imagine that the people in the stands started fighting over who was more right – the Greeks or the Romans. Now, with our current culture, many people can draw comparisons to these two similar areas of worship. It would almost seem silly for them to be arguing over the finer points when it all came down to details and what name to use when you’re worshiping, wouldn’t it?
So, if two people can agree to disagree about sports, wine, food, and taste in members of the opposite sex, why is it that they cannot reach a common ground when it comes to worship of a deity? Why is it that people feel the need to defend it so much more than anything else? Why is it that speaking up against a religion ( or all of them ) is seen as such a negative thing – one of which people feel that there are no boundaries they can’t cross in response to?
Maybe we should all just agree that the Greeks and Romans had it all wrong. How could they possibly think that there were hundreds of invisible men in the sky that they had to pray to every day? How barbaric – don’t you agree?
Oh wait… maybe I shouldn’t say anything about that – I wouldn’t want to start an argument.