“You should
really come to one of the services at my synagogue some time”
Christ, I
knew I’d made a mistake. It was hour five of an eight hour shift of
lifeguarding at my local JCC, and I was at the point where my nervous, frantic
pacing was growing arrhythmic. Long step, long step, short step, long step,
double back, etc. My mind had reached that fever pitch of isolated thought
where all hope has been systematically crushed into the ground, and yet the
thoughts still whirred like a wheel shooting sparks on its rims and getting no
where. At that point just seeing a familiar face was enough to turn me into a
twitchily energetic puppy, nipping at her heels for a belly rub. This was in
spite of the fact that she was the sort of person who I usually go out of my
way to avoid. Cheerful and positive and hygienic. Such people make me
uncomfortable. Also they’re just plain rude. Everyone likes feeling good about
themselves, and of course ‘good’ is a relative term based on context. So by
behaving in such a way, all a person really does is selfishly rob you of your
self worth. Sit next to me sometime. It will have been days since my last
bathing and my face will be covered with the patchy tufts and fuzz of a
pedophile. It will be the worst experience of your day, and you will feel
infinitely better for having done it.
But unlike
me, Cara lacked such Christ-like meekness. We were on friendly terms, I suppose, based on similar situations
having arisen in the past, and so when I sat down next to her she
good-naturedly teased me about the strange mix of cigarette stench and some
other smell that she couldn’t quite put her finger on (dried semen stains) that
I exuded.
I must say
that such extended isolation does remarkable improvements on my social
interactions. Having spent six hours with myself, I was really fucking sick of
that guy. I wanted to know how she was doing. What had her day been like? Had
she seen any good movies recently? How was her family? I found myself asking
questions, but more astoundingly I found myself actually listening to her
answers, rather than waiting for her to shut the fuck up so that I could say
something clever, which is my usual mode of conversation. As it turned out she
was in a great mood. She had recently seen the Avengers, which had been a
terrific mix of action, creativity and humor, and her aunt and uncle were
visiting for the weekend from Illinois. That day she had been organizing for a
function with her synagogue group at the JCC.
She was a member of a sect of Judaism that held the belief that Jesus
Christ was the Messiah (I’m pretty sure that that particular strain of Judaism
is called Christianity, but whatever), and she began telling me about her
synagogue. So great was my need for social interaction at that moment that I
became totally unaware of the deep-seeded revulsion I feel toward religion.
That is, until she asked me if I belonged to any church.
“Well, no”
I answered diplomatically “I’m not really a very religious person”
“Oh, but
why not?” she asked with heartfelt interest in me as a person
“Well, I
could never just get behind any particular faith”
“Have you
ever tried?”
It went on
like this for a while. Her having genuine interest in my spiritual life, or lack
thereof, me deflecting her interest with a vague and uncommitted answer, and
then her asking another question indicative of her genuine interest. I was
determined to avoid a discussion of religion. See, a discussion on such a
subject where people are usually firmly set, is not so much a discussion as it
is a debate. It’s not that I have anything against debates in general. Usually
they’re quite fun, especially when they get heated and needlessly personal. But
the object of a debate, at its root, is to convince the other person. To win,
in other words. That win has usually has two parts. There’s the first part
where you take something away from the other party, and the second part where
you replace it with something that is, in your view, better and more nourishing.
For example, if I’m having a debate with someone about gay marriage, I aim to
take away the tradition of their longstanding religious definition of marriage,
and I aim to replace it with compassion and understanding for those who are
different than them. It is the second part, the aim to replace a belief that,
in your view, is narrow-minded with one that is more nourishing that allows you
to feel like the good guy. But a debate on religion is a strange experience. In
it you aim to reveal the fallacies and immorality of something that brings the
other person true happiness, so that you can replace it with a big heaping of
nothing. No, no, let me explain to you
why you should be as miserable as me. From the conversations we had had, I
knew that I was more well-read than Cara, even on the subject of religion, and
could probably beat her in a debate. And yet, every time I felt an argument
come to my lips, the feeling that I was punching a child in the face on
Christmas morning kept my mouth shut.
And in case your taking this as
some affirmation that faith or God is the path to happiness, just realize that it’s
not that religion is what matters. What matters is believing in something.
Atheism, if believed in strongly enough, can serve the exact same purpose to a
person’s happiness as religion does. When I was a small child I held absolute
belief in my parents; at 16 I believed punk rock had all the answers; at 17 I
believed that Kerouac and Thoreau and Henry Miller had all the answers; at 18 I
believed that LSD had all the answers. At a certain point I came to realize
that nothing and no one could be believed in absolutely, that there were no
absolute answers. It is only natural that when confronted with a person of
faith, in whatever form, one will feel a certain yearning and nostalgia. Not
toward Christianity (or Christ-y Judaism), but rather toward that wonderful
sensation that comes with the illusion that there are answers to be found and
grasped. And so when she finally offered her invitation (after what could have
been four or forty minutes) I knew full-well that her synagogue had nothing to
offer to me. The vague feelings of envy that I felt toward her meant nothing.
After all, an impotent 65 year old man may look back fondly on the radiant days
of making love to high school girls under the bleachers, but that does not mean
that he is under the illusion that going down to the Soph-Hop to chase pussy
would recapture anything other than a general feeling of disgust.
“But I
really think you’d enjoy it… I just don’t get why you’re so opposed”
She
wouldn’t let up. No matter how many times I politely declined her offer and
told her that religion “just wasn’t my thing” she kept pressing.
Fine. I
hadn’t wanted to do this, but the gloves were coming off. I was going to lay
into her with both barrels.
Watch out…
No wait, be
cool about it. Don’t be too aggressive, just simply and calmly state one
argument against religion.
I cleared
my throat. “Well”, I said casually “given the vast number of religious belief
systems that have existed since the beginning of man’s history, it seems absurd
to believe that one belief system could hold a monopoly on truth”
She looked
at me for a moment with the same friendly warmth in her eyes. “Hmm, I’d never
thought of it like that.”
Just as she
said that the friend that she’d been waiting for arrived. Still beaming, Cara
introduced me to her friend and then they jumped into the pool and began
splashing eachother and laughing.
I sat
dumbfounded watching her. I had just trounced her in the debate. Was she not
properly crushed? I mean, she had had her belief system underminded by the
presentation of a new argument that she could not answer to. Why had she not
responded like a normal person? Why had she not filled with barely concealed
contempt for me? Why had she not rushed home to look up the newly presented
argument on the internet so to find a proper rebuttal and then spend the night
theorizing ways to rekindle the debate at a future time before realizing how
absurd and pathetic she was being? Why did she then not realize how all-consuming
her subjectivity was on the subject, so to come to the conclusion that with
such an unavoidable subconscious bias, any opinion that she could come to would
be invalid?
I watched
her closely. Her hair floated out in the water into a perfect semi-circle. Her
laughter could be heard echoing throughout the pool deck. And no matter how
closely I examined her smile I could find nothing underneath.
I was torn
between wild envy and pitying condescension toward her simplicity.
I chose the
latter. It’s more comfortable that way.
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