Rant

This has nothing to do with triathlon. I just can't air this anywhere else because it would negatively impact my business. I have no intention of pissing anyone off with what I'm saying here, I'm not throwing down the gauntlet, I am not criticizing anyone's beliefs and I am not inviting debate. I have absolute respect for what anyone else wants to believe - so much so that I took a course on major world religions just so I could understand them better. And I'm sick and tired of not being accorded that same respect.

I belong to several business organizations. I have become heavily involved, and am in leadership roles in two different groups. I am there to conduct business, to meet potential business contacts and to learn techniques for improving my business. To my dismay, from the beginning I have been bombarded with what I regard as aggressive Christianity. One networking group even proposed that we pray in every meeting! Thank goodness one other member was also willing to stand up and say no... I'm very new to the whole thing and was afraid to singularly offend the people who can so dramatically impact my client referrals (these people can literally make or break me at this early stage in my growth).

And at another group, of which I am now co-chair, the very first meeting of the year got completely derailed by 'God-talk'... my co-chair was leading the damn march, and even as strong as my personality is, my attempts to restore the actual topic were futile as he ran me down (insurance salesman) and kept right on going. The ultimate irony is that it was a presentation on time management, and that little tangent wasted about 10 minutes. I was helpless to do anything, because I've already learned the hard way that indicating in any way that there's a slight chance I might not agree with them is an invitation for disaster.

Let me say again - I am there to conduct business, and last time I checked the Chamber of Commerce was not in the business of running a church, so what the hell are they doing talking about it at every opportunity? It's not like there aren't ample opportunities for the average Christian to discuss their faith: they can talk about it at at church, at home, at bible study, with like-minded friends, they can blog about it... why on earth must they bring it into business too?

Now I've started to get those irritating chain e-mail "forward this prayer" messages. I despise chain e-mails in the first place, and to get these in my business e-mail account, from people I don't even know well enough to give my personal e-mail, is infuriating... but I don't say anything because the sentiment (I like you, here's a prayer coming your way) is genuinely sweet. But this morning it got elevated to the next level and I blew my top. It went from 'I'm assuming you subscribe to my personal perception of the almighty' to 'I'm assuming you subscribe to my personal political beliefs'. It was from my co-chair. I lost it and sent him back a rather curt response, which I'm sure will open a can of worms I'm probably not prepared for, but I've fucking had it. We've been a team for all of 4 weeks and he's already pissed me off bad enough (for actual business reasons) I'm scouting locations to hide the body. (For the record, we were appointed co-chairs, I did not and would not choose to work with him.)

I went to two huge, culturally diverse colleges. Then I worked for two huge, culturally diverse corporations. If you were in a room with ten people, there's a good chance there were ten different belief systems in the room. To bring up politics or religion in casual conversation, let alone in a business meeting, was unthinkable. To do so on the assumption that not only do they all agree with you, but that they wanted to discuss it and not, say, the actual topic of the meeting - ludicrous. And this is what I am seeing, week after week.

For the record...

I don't subscribe to either of the major party platforms, though there are individual elements of each that I happen to agree with, in varying degrees. Just for fun I took the Political Compass test to see if any label applied to me. I learned that I am moderate liberal and fall pretty squarely in the Green Party. I was particularly proud to see my dot on the graph falls beside Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

I am an atheist. I believe in kindness for the sake of kindness, and in doing the right thing simply because it is the the right thing to do. I don't need the threat of eternal punishment to make these decisions, nor do I believe there is an omnipotent deity doling it out. I do believe our souls go on somehow after death, but I'm too busy living the best life I can to worry about it much.

I am not a bad person, and I am sick to death of the implication that I am simply because I don't believe the same things as some others do. In fact, last time I checked, that kind of thinking is the source of our troubles with the Middle East.