austin_tycho | (no subject)

Sorry, but these guys are really on a roll, and it's my journal so I get to put whatever I want in it. Another SDMB thread was talking about people with faith in a religion, praying for people, and atheists:

I sometimes think that not having faith is like being deaf. Most hearing people consider deafness a serious handicap, but curiously, a lot of deaf people don't seem to agree. For example, there was a Pit thread (or maybe it was GD) a while back about a deaf couple that was pleased that their kid had the same congenital deafness as one of the parents. Never having been able to hear, they don't see themselves as missing out on anything. I think not having faith is like that. People who've got it think it's the best thing since sliced bread, and people who don't have it don't see what the big deal is. They don't have it, they don't care that they don't have it, and even if you could give it to them, they wouldn't want it anyway.

To take the analogy a step further, imagine you're deaf. People who can hear keep coming up to you and telling* you how great this Beethoven guy is, and they go on and on about it. And you're thinking, yeah, I'm sure he's great, but I'm really not equipped to appreciate him, thanks anyway. But they keep going on about him: Beethoven Beethoven Beethoven. And then there's all the guys who are really in Mozart, and keep going on about how much better than Beethoven he is, like you (being deaf) could possibly give a shit. And then there's those really crazy dudes, the ones who act like it's your fault you're deaf, and sometimes they'll get violent about it. And you never know if the guy who just asked you if you liked Brahms is one of the normal ones, or if he's going to freak out about you being deaf like you just insulted his wife. Finally, you come home, and there's some woman on the internet telling you that she knows, just knows that one day you're going to learn to appreciate Beethoven, and you just want to grab her by her virtual shoulders and scream, "NO, I'M NOT! I'M FUCKING DEAF, AND I'M NEVER GOING TO LISTEN TO FUCKING BEETHOVEN! NOW FUCK OFF!"

But you don't, because it's not her fault she's the five-hundred and thirty-eighth person this week to tell you how great Beethoven is, and she's only trying to be nice, and if you chew her out, she's just going to go off wondering, "Why are deaf people so mean?" So instead, you write as polite and reasonable a post as possible, maybe make a little analogy and stretch it way too far, trying to make your point, which you probably don't because you're using far too many run-on sentences.

What I'm saying here, dreamer, is that while I know you meant well, it's a message we've all heard far, far too many times. I'm not a believer, and I never will be, at least not through human intercession. I'm not asking that you stop praying for me, because you're doing it out of compassion, and you can't have too much compassion in this world. But you don't need to tell me about it, because believe me, I've heard it all before.

*Okay, I don't know how you could know what they're telling you if you're deaf. Maybe you can read lips. Or they all happen to know sign language. Or something. It's an just an analogy; don't sweat the details.

It sounds like something