Interlude...

I have recently had the experience of having to defend my faith. I normally don't care about doing such things, no faith in the world is any more or less ridiculous than any other. All religions put faith in things that seem, from a logical perspective, to be flawed or even comically stupid, and ours is no different, but it often strikes me as comical or stupid to hear Christians speak about other religions and the very points they use to bash another religion are seen in abundance in their own.

I was having a conversation with a friend and the subject of a fast I was undergoing came into the conversation. I said that I was doing the fast for several reasons, and when pushed about those reasons I said that part of it was to honor the Gods. It was like I had told her I had murdered a child.

What Gods? She asked. I told her. Why do you pray to idols? She asked. Why do you pray to a cross? I asked. What kind of God would demand that you starve yourself? She asked. What kind of God would demand that you not work on Saturdays and not eat meat on Fridays?

That sort of took the air out of the sails for a second, and then showing a level of knowledge about Greek Myths that I wasn't expecting, she said that she thought it was silly that I believed in mythical Gods that had children with mortal women and that had stories like Jason and Hercules.

Herakles, I corrected, and then told her that she was being a little hypocritical. After all, God impregnated Mary, Samson destroyed a temple, and Moses parted a sea. If you want to look at the religions of others and find fault, try looking at your own first to make sure you aren't just as "silly" as they are in your own beliefs.

Truth is that we all do it, we all find certain aspects of other's religious beliefs to be silly or ridiculous, but unlike Christians, who en mass might be considered a threat to the religious rights of non-Christians, I believe whole heartedly in the idea that we are all free to practice whatever religions we want or feel the need to follow.