azurelunatic | I'm sure they improve with age

Today on the bus heading Sam's-ward with Marx, one of those dudes popped up. You know, the ones asking everybody on the entire bus have they accepted Christ into their heart yet?

Well.

What have we here? Two people with the five-pointed star on. Hmm.

He mostly confined his chat on the bus to the two ladies across from us, who had, evidently, been "saved". He approached us at the bus stop, however.

It was one of those conversations (I did the talking for the two of us) where unless somebody's got a recorder going, the conversation isn't preserved. It started out as one of those edgy conversations, where he Knows His Duty, however unpleasant, is to Awaken The Heathen... only to find the heathen wide awake and staring right back at him and smiling.

I remember tossing the line "Oh yeah! Jesus is cool. Such an awesome witch," and the thumbs-up off.

"Witch!?! You mean priest."

"Priest, whatever system you're working in. ...I think he would have been Kabalistic."

"...??"

"The Hebrew mysticism."

"...??"

"...Jesus... was... Jewish...?" Some people. You've got to spell out their own religion to them. He agreed with that bit, at least...

We got a little into the idea of the Accepting Jesus As Lord & Savior thing. I explained that I thought that dumping all my sins onto Him was rather a cop-out; that I was rather of the opinion that I needed to accept all the fuckups I'd made to myself, as well as the fuckups of others, for He was meant to be emulated, not pawning my problems off onto.

This wasn't exactly what the guy was expecting to hear; I gather it came as a bit of a pleasant surprise. The tension receded into an interesting silent glow. Even in metro Phoenix, there are certain moments when the silence of the late afternoon overwhelms the world, and birds and the wind through the leaves may be heard.

He reacted.

He eventually said, "God bless" to me, and I, "Blessed be," to him; he wandered, somewhat refreshed for the friendly exchange.

...Marx and I waited until we were on our bus before we broke down giggling. He's only nine months into his newfound salvation; he'll get used to finding knowledgeable souls in some of the most unusual places after a while.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

what a cool conversation? I've had the "I Will Convert You, heathen" speech come on me too many times. It's a shame no one here bothers to count the points on my star (or maybe they can't see it with all the other things that hang from my chain) or they don't know what a pentacle stands for.

Good for you!

His pitch would have been the I Will Convert You, Heathen -- I just subverted it.

At least he asked me what I used the star to stand for... I'm not entirely certain that he counted the points; those lines weren't in the conversation; I'm just guessing what was in his head from what was on his face.

Lots of people use the geometrical figure, pentagram, the five-pointed star, to mean many different things. Means different things standing different ways. I combined all those things that I believe in into one lump package, which I translated into something approaching his language and tossed at him.

Kind of flattened his initial pitch.

I hope I left him with new thoughts.

rock on.

that was awesome.

I'm sure you did. If he was polite enough to ask and hold a conversation with you, then he's smart enough to process what you told him.

Hopefully he will have picked up on the fact that I called his Personal Lord and Savior a witch and apply that to what he knows I must be, because I never explicitly stated my own religious orientation.

Finding a nice, willing-to-listen-and-think Convert The Heathens type is a nice change.

A possible thing to point out along when explaining that Jesus was Jewish: it'd be pretty arrogant of him to be Christian, wouldn't it? As well as oddly self-referential.

Pasadena is the city of churches and has a booming nightlife, so there are often Christian group(s?) on the sidewalk in Oldtown actively trying to convert people. I tend to ignore them, but I couldn't resist the straight line one of them threw out:
Q: "Who brought you into this world? Who gave you life?"
A: "My parents"

He grokked "Jesus was Jewish" all right; it was "Hebrew" that he had a little trouble with. Dammit, I'm not used to talking to people who need a thesaurus to keep up with me anymore.

I haven't had one of the "Jesus was Christian!" people yet. I welcome the day.

...I don't think his mind was really open; I just happen to have been tossed a set of keys. He was in that mindset you get when you're talking to people who you know aren't going to be listening, just because you feel it's your duty, only you're speaking Spanish and they only listen to Japanese... and you're still expected to try to communicate... only they don't speak your language, so you're forced to try to pack it into the simplest common words you might have... and then to run across someone who actually speaks both languages...

No wonder he wandered off dazed.

I managed to get out the key phrase "Harm none; do as thou wilt" at him. Maybe the next time he hears it he'll remember me.

He hadn't heard the word "Hebrew" before? Eep.

I haven't explicitly heard "Jesus was Christian" before (or if so, I wasn't listening. I try not to listen to proselytizers.). It just seems to logically follow from the twin beliefs that the only good/cool/proper/worthy people are Christian and Jesus was good/cool/etc.

Sadly, I now seem to recall something about my ex BJ's family, and their beliefs about Jesus.

...Suffice to say that they're not among my top people to be talking to. You may talk to Dad about TV shows; he will have a nice intelligent discussion. You may talk to Mom about crocheting and craft type stuff and cats. Nice intelligent discussion. You can ask either parent about old days in Alaska, and get wonderful bush stories. You can talk to Danny about Star Trek. He will reward you with your stereotypical Screaming Fanboy Rant. BJ is best avoided.

My favorite was when one of them (a trainer, even, out with his young padawans!) told me that the modern Jews (as I had already said I was) were decent people, but those Pharisees, man, they were bad Jews.

Whereupon I explained to him that and that at the time, there were three types of Jews (Pharisees, Saducees, and Zealots) and that modern Judaism was a direct descendant of Pharisaiac Judaism. That confused him.

The whole story is at http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=technocracygirl&itemid=22021

I'm afraid I wasn't as nice or as successful as you seem to have been.

I've had quite some time to plot this speech over in my head, and I've had a few flubbed attempts at it. Quite simply, not everyone was gifted with my <ego> excellent way with words </ego> ... all it takes is practice, sometimes. And patience. Did I mention that I used to be a phone survey person?

It was a clergy moment. I was given the words.

couldn't help but smile at this one.
It took me a few years to get over my initial nastiness to conservative christians (my "i'm always right teenage years". i found that i was so open-minded i was the one that became close-minded.
It's nice to see educated "heathens" like you setting a good example for me. :)

A lot of people I know have an innate hostility towards conservative Christians, mostly because of verbal (and/or physical, et cetera) abuse at their hands when they were too small or too outnumbered to defend themselves and their beliefs properly.

Since I never had any really really bad experiences like that, I do better than some people at being not only Holier Than Thou at them, but also Nicer Than Thou. Really takes some of them aback, especially because I mean it when I say it.

...Plus, I've got experience in standing up to myself with my Elder Roommate, who is one formidable witch. Usually we're in agreement about something, one of us is neutral, or we can reach a compromise. When we can't? Bystanders see sparks. Occasional hurricanes.

I'm sure they improve with age

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