Standing up for your beliefs

Over the next half hour, he had some comment to make about everything anyone else said, which could have been just a healthy participation in the conversation.

Then somehow the subject of religion came up and my wife informed him that I was a Christian, to which he announced smugly, “Well, as long as he doesn’t ram it down my throat…” His wife sat timidly at his side and smirked at her man’s brilliance and boldness. It was, no doubt, a subject she knew well from years of listening to him spouting his views on the subject, the essence of which was that religious beliefs were just so much mumbo jumbo and any intelligent person must automatically see them as such, and unbefitting the educated and the free-thinking. I was, therefore, an idiot.

I attempted to suppress an urge to put this guy straight, but the urge was too strong, and I stepped onto a long and perilous road with the assertion that he was out of date: nowadays the balance has changed and the believers are very much in the minority. It is, therefore, people like my neighbour who should be refraining from ramming their opinions down my throat.

The evening went from bad to worse as this self-appointed oracle of the 21st century went on to itemize a string of other things he also didn’t believe, from creation and the moon landings to what really happened in the World Trade Center affair. Nothing got past his razor-sharp perception.

Forget the “mainstream” and “traditional” media, he said. They were only telling you what governments wanted you to think.

But while listening to the “real” versions of these things, it slowly dawned on me that, perhaps for the first time in my life, I was a member of a minority group, not yet persecuted in this part of the world, but belittled, ridiculed and told to shut up.

So here I was, being berated for my beliefs by a similarly middle- aged, middle class Australian.

That’s a factor too: nationality. I’m British, which makes me fair game for snide remarks about people who think they own the world.

I thought about saying, but didn’t say, he would not have dared goad me about religion if I’d been a Muslim, for fear of having his throat slit as he slept.

So what do you do in my position? Personally, in this case I wasn’t in the mood to “turn the other cheek”, as the mickey-takers would perhaps expect. Sometimes respect has to be demanded, and to meekly accept the bully’s taunting is unproductive.

People such as my neighbour talk about religious intolerance as being one religion’s intolerance of another, while in fact they are intolerant of any and all faiths. But they tend to come down hardest on Christianity because, firstly, it’s the one they know a bit about (although usually only a bit). Secondly, to support their argument that religion in itself causes trouble, they must attribute blame where it is not necessarily due.

It’s the same principle that leads adults to scold both children in any playground altercation, on the grounds that there must be some guilt on both sides.

In the distant past we find the concept of the Holy War, including the Crusades, in which Christians fought because they believed it was what God wanted. But that was a long time ago, and for the “religion means conflict” brigade to bring it up now is like regarding all modern Germans as Nazis.

Back at the neighbourly get-together, the intimidated wife began to weigh in with some random ridicule, making fun of the goodygoody image Christians have acquired.

She smirkingly apologised for swearing, even when she was responding to my own exasperated, expletive-filled statement. But to simultaneously accuse someone of being a wimp and an aggressor doesn’t add up. She soon scuttled off to bed, leaving her brave general, who wouldn’t take a hint, to grind out his own war of words, when an armistice was the only viable solution.

He’s not a bad guy, as it happens; we shook hands and agreed to differ (at least I think he agreed).

There are as many different styles of Christians as there are human characteristics, and while drinking, smoking, swearing and fornicating may be nothing to be proud of, nor do they make someone any less sincere in their beliefs.

So, as so often, we come down to a saying that may be cobwebbed and corny but continues to exist because it’s true. It’s the old adage about conversation at dinner p a r t i e s : steer clear of religion and politics.

It’s good advice.