Religion and Stuff.

Response/s to Facebook discussion.

I AM not a religious person but I have always been in/around religious people. My family, my culture (Catholic). The American white family that I live with pray a Christian prayer before each meal. I worked with mostly religious people (Christians, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto) as volunteer in calamity areas in Asia for many years in my past. 

       I am an Ananda Marga initiate, apprenticed for a Theravada Buddhist monk, my political ideology could be communism/socialism based on Confucianism as "religious" paradigm, dated a (Gardnerian) Wiccan for years, the lead singer in my rock band was Muslim who wore the burqa and prayed before shows, in high school I kind of preached The Bible (or “The Way,” a 1939 book on Catholic spirituality by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, and so on and so forth. 

       In essence, my point: I don't see the sense in so many anti religion (mostly anti Christian) jokes, insult, heckles etc in social media in America, which is majority Christian. America, being the world's self-anointed model of anything good, peaceful, sweet, correct and cool. Humanity is never immaculate/pure and that imperfection is (also) brought up by religious diversity and cultural differences. But there are ways to unite people given these divergences and "unparallel" ways. 

       We pursue the good in human interfaces because it is fun to do so. I experience/d those in real life long before the internet or social media was born. In fact, many pagans and animists and atheists and indigenous tribes melded beliefs with traditional faiths like Christianity, Islam, Taoism etc. They coexist.    

       I try to laugh when a joke that objectifies, appropriates or shames religion Christianity is told. But I couldn't because that'd mean demeaning the other person although he/she isn't there. 

       But I laugh a lot over silly stuff. I laugh like I am old, grownup, and a "child" by heart. I was raised not to make fun of the man in a turban, the woman dressed in a robe and veil, and the dude reading a Bible or praying on a mat on sundown. But I laughed a lot when The Three Stooges and Dolphy (Filipino comic) came on TV then. Primal cool. Easy and effortless to do so. ✝️☯️☮️

Photo credit: Learn Religions.