In which Liz discusses her religion - if you don't like the fact that I believe in God and/or don't want to read about it, proceed no further. This entry also discusses my frustrations with my job - if that's not something you care to read about, proceed no further.

Today at work I had a fairly heated discussion with William over whether Halloween is Satan's holiday or not, and whether I'm a bad mother for taking my child trick-or-treating or not.

It is NOT Satan's holiday - the holiday in fact has Celtic roots - marking the end of harvest and the beginning of winter. Since the Celtics believed the winter was the seasonal equivalent of human death - they believed the deceased ghosts could return to earth on this day - yes, slightly supernatural beliefs, but ghosts do NOT equal Satan. THEN - in the seventh century, the Pope (can't remember his name now) designated Nov 1 as All Saints Day - a Catholic holiday - and celebrated it in very much the same way as the Celtics celebrated - just threw a Catholic spin on it. And it's Satan's holiday.. how? It has NO roots in Satanism, not even a tiny little bit. Celtics believed in God in a Pagan way - last I knew, Pagans don't even believe in Satan, so how could they be worshipping him? Short answer - they can't. To be sure, the holiday doesn't have Christian roots, but that doesn't make it evil.

But it's not even the Halloween thing that bothers me about William, and Memrie for that matter. It's the fact that they've taken their Christianity to the extreme. Now, I'm a Christian too, but the Bible has a verse, and I can't remember where in the Bible it is, but it says "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I fail to see why, if William is so intent on taking the Bible so literally, he ignores that verse. He takes it literally to the point that his daughters are NEVER allowed to cut their hair, and I've been informed that God looks down on me because I've had my hair cut in my lifetime. Well DUH God looks down on me - He's all the way up there, and I'm all the way down here. All joking aside, I just don't understand why the verses that allow him to be so extreme in his thinking are so important to him, but verses like the one I quoted above, or the "Love thy neighbor" verse aren't as important. Not to him, not to Memrie. It bothers me because people like them are the reason people automatically write me off as a judgmental asshole when they find out I'm a Christian. Nevermind the fact that I don't believe God hates anyone, nevermind the fact that I believe there is more than one way to God, subsequently, I don't believe I'm better than the Jews, or the Muslims, or the Buddhists, or the Pagans, or any other religion I can't think of right now. I further don't believe they're going to hell because they believe in God differently than I do. Ultimately, I believe all religions worship the same God, just in different ways. I believe this way because I refuse to believe God would create 6 billion people, knowing only 2 billion of them would be Christian, and then say anyone who isn't Christian goes to hell. I just won't believe that. I REFUSE.

And it really makes me realize how we get terrorists blowing people up in the name of Islam, when Islam is a religion of peace. The terrorists are not representative of Islam as a whole - just as William and Memrie are not representative of Christians as a whole. Anyone can take their religion, read their religious book, and pervert their religion into something it was never meant to be. This is how we get terrorists, this is how we get people demonstrating at soldiers' funerals. And unfortunately, the crazies are louder than the sane people, and consequently make the sane people look crazy too. At a recent rally for Senator McCain, someone shouted out that Senator Obama was a Muslim. McCain said something to the effect of "no, he's a good family man." Well.. okay, well, nearly all Muslim fathers are good family men. I understand that McCain was saying that because anymore, people automatically equate Muslims with terrorists - again, because the extreme minority is an extremely VOCAL minority - and that's an equation I hate. It's ridiculous.

I'm sorry, I've written a novel worthy of JK Rowling here, it just bothered the hell out of me at work today and I needed to get it off my chest.