Peace Be With You?

The actions of my fellow humans are most perplexing at times. Tonight I chose to enter a Christian chatroom, the name of which shall be left out of this blog out of respect for those who were there.

I entered the chatroom under the name “Samsara” which, in the Buddhist tradition, means to wander without end and/or to pass through the cycle of existence (birth, death, and rebirth). Very quickly I was set upon by the members of the chat room, apparently someone who should immediately be taken for a Buddhist is not someone who is welcome in a Christian chatroom. I found this reaction to be entirely unpredicted as Buddhists do not have a record for being hostile, aggressive, disrespectful, or in anyway intolerant of other people or other religions. The simplest summation of the Buddhist belief system comes from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: “My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.” Nonetheless Buddhism was torn apart as if it were a piece of meat set upon by pirañas that had not tasted flesh for many moons.

I acted in only the kindest manner of a practicing Buddhist, not once did I show any lack of respect for their beliefs. When my questions were misunderstood (though the members of the chat made no suggestion that they had taken offense to that which I had said) I apologized sincerely for having not made myself clear. It would seem that a religion, who’s holy book I have read and studied, that preaches kindness and compassion towards all other people has no  ability to actually function as such. It would appear that there is no tolerance amongst the people to whom I spoke for other religious or philosophical opinions. A few people found me worth conversing with and were open, kind, and patient in answering my multitudes of questions. Yet it was still horrifying to see how completely close minded these people could be. No matter how tenderly I worded my questions about Christianity someone in that chatroom told me I was going to hell for not believing in God or Jesus. When I made a decent point about expressing kindness as Jesus instructs people to do in the Bible I was still smashed like a small insect on the underside of a shoe. I quoted the Bible to these people and still, as an established non-Christian, I was met with harsh words.

Christianity teaches that one should love their neighbor, no matter who they are. Yet these Christians I found demonstrated no ability to love someone who did not love their god. Somehow I was able to converse for nearly half an hour before I was permanently blocked from the chatroom. Come to find out that these Christians are so close minded that the rules of the chatroom state (in bold font) that “You may not promote any cult or false religions such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Scientology, Wicca, etc… If you do there will be no warning and you will be removed from this chat.” Well I was removed from that chat with no warning so I guess I can say at least they followed that set of beliefs to the letter.

All-in-all people scare me. How is it that they can fanatically follow a religion that teaches peace, love, and compassion yet go around telling other people what to believe and that if they do not believe in what they’re being told to believe in they will spend all of eternity burning in the fires of hell?

Reader, please do not misunderstand. I have met many Christians, in fact most of my family is Christian (I myself gave it up years ago), and have found most of them to be the nicest of people but more often than one would expect I meet people who are like that entire chatroom. Why can’t we all just accept each other?