But, He Said He was a Christian.

Bertrand Russell:

“One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.”

My “Watch out for these people” antennae go up the moment I say, “Hi, how are you?” And they say, “I am blessed.” And they follow it up soon with, “I’m Christian.”  

I never quite know why they feel compelled to insert these life beliefs into their sentences because, in general, they are far from Christian, or any other of the major religions either. The minor ones are not considered either.

Frankly, I don’t care if someone is Christian or what beliefs they have as long as they are decent human beings; they don’t lie, cheat, steal, are kind to animals, and are free of bigotry and hatred.

Sadly I find these things that are the first and major tenets of every single religion lacking in the folks who loudly proclaim their beliefs. And I can’t figure out why.

Here’s the latest example: We visited some neighbors to drop off a loaf of fresh baked bread the day before Christmas.  They are new neighbors and we really didn’t know them well at all. They announced their Christianity when we entered the front door.

As we made idle chit chat and learned a bit about them, we found they cheered the confederate flag, were staunch haters of anyone different than they were. I’m surprised they let two lesbians in the house. Maybe they thought we were something else like sisters. Anyway, they emphasized their religion as they described their hate.

And they the wife continued with, “Did you see the letter in the paper from the ignorant atheist Yankee idiot who objected to putting ‘in God we trust’ on our police cars?”  I had to answer her by saying, “That was me who wrote that letter.” She just wanted anybody who came from somewhere else than Arkansas to stay where they were born or at the very least, go back there.  There was some silence after I said I was the one who wrote the letter.

Another example of people announcing their Christianity happened just a few days ago. We are selling our RV. A prospective buyer said he wanted it and would be here before yesterday to pick it up and have a check in his hand. He announced he had to go to church because, well, you know, he’s a Christian and all. And he blessed me every time we talked.  You know I was impressed with that.  

You already know the end of this. The man never called and never showed up. He hadn’t the balls to tell me he changed his Christian mind, so decided to lie by omission and just not show up or let me know he changed his mind.

That’s what good Christians do when they can’t face telling the truth: Just running away from a simple thing that could have been done with email, so he would not even have to talk to me would have been better than just ignoring what he had promised through many exchanges and phone calls.

But he’s a Christian and announced it. Why should I expect anything different?