I had a revelation the other day while riding the train.
The reason Jesus doesn't want people to pray in the streets like hypocrites is because loud train preachers just drive people away from God.
It's like a plot of the Devil - "Go out and preach! And send people scurrying from that arrogant God-guy! Hee, hee, this is brilliant, the sillies will just think the message came from God, because it sounds like what he'd say!"
When confronted with a street preacher, I feel like my space has been invaded. I start to think nasty thoughts towards Christians and their perceptions of God. Given the huge range of Christianity there is, this is a bad sign.
And it's such an unpleasant experience that the odds of me stepping anywhere near a church, for reasons other than "getting home", are very slim indeed - who wants to voluntarily sit through hell on earth?
I may even, being in such a bad mood, go and do some minorly bad things - yell at Ana more, forget to say thank you, snap at people who speak to me in a non-prosteletyzing manner.
I don't think anybody's been converted via the efforts of street preachers. Even if some have, if my experience is at all typical, more people have been driven *away* from church than driven *to* it. It's not like going to church will shut the sillies up, after all.
And what's really bad about the whole experience is that street preachers seem to think that talking louder is how you win arguments. Talk loudly enough, and you can't hear the people who disagree with you!
Believe me, I know the feeling. When confronted with an angry, stupid, uncaring world, all I want to do is yellyellYELL until people are forced to listen, forced to understand what's so very obvious to me! And I've done my fair share of it. More than, even. And when people refuse to listen, I'm worse than many street preachers - I want to tell them how stupid, wrongheaded, hurtful they are. I want to hit them until they understand by force and by arms that I'm right, they're wrong, lalalala!
Of course, it doesn't work. They don't listen to me. They yell back. They convince themselves that yelling is going to work on me, even as it fails to work on them. They insult me back - instead of hearing how obviously right I am, they try to blind me to the truth of my own arguments. They leave, and don't hear at all.
Why should I expect it to work? It *never* works. I'm right, but I've hardly done any good with it.
I'm not a religious person. But I know a few people who are, and a few who have converted. It seems to me from what I've read that people are more likely to be converted when they see how absolutely wonderful and nice and driven religion makes their friends. They see people they know who really are committed to the idea of making the world a better place, and they see how their actions lead to that.
I'm told this is a good way to raise a child, too. Don't say "Hey, dummy, are you too stupid to understand that I don't want you to be mean? *thwapthwapthwap*" but instead show them by example how much better it is to be nice.
This is obvious, right?
Yes?
Okay. Then, in an open question to all of LiveJournal, I have only this to ask...
Why do you hate your own causes?
Why is it that when somebody says something you don't agree with, instead of ignoring it, or talking to them nicely about why you don't agree with it, or asking them why they believe that (and listening to them, because it's flattering to be listened to), or showing them how much better you are for believing as you do... why do you immediately tell them they're horrible, stupid, mean people for daring to be less educated, less conscientious.
Not only are you making yourself look bad, you're making everyone else look bad. Next time somebody's a little touchy, the insulted person (who's by now gone deeper into their pit of disagreement, and will hold their views more firmly for the challenge) will take it as a deep insult. And it just gets worse from there, until you end up with a simple "Gee, I don't do that" being taken as a grave "YOU IMPERFECT FOOL!" Why do you think so many people get offended at the thought that some children don't watch TV or eat fast food? All it takes is a few people being snotty about it, and all of a sudden *everyone* who's made this choice is considered to be doing it only to rub it in other people's faces. (They're reacting to their own feelings of guilt, of course, or else they wouldn't overreact as they do. But it really doesn't help that there *are* people who are snots out there, on every side of every issue.)
It's stupid, sure. But you can't go around insulting people for being stupid. They won't get any smarter if you do that. You have to lie, really. You have to act like you understand, even if you don't. Act like you don't want to insult people, even when you do. Act like you care about their feelings. Some of them will change their minds, if you go about it in the right way. (Heck, maybe you'll be the one to change your mind. Oh, sorry. I know it's a scary thought. Just forget I even said it, okay?) That's called helping people.
Or, I guess, you could opt to simply be right. Don't have to help people if all you want is to be right. And it's sure easier.
This really applies to any issue under the sun, though lately I've seen it more with parental types. Makes me annoyed. It's so counterproductive.
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