Only in Religion

[f3lix]

I posted the following in my poker blog, because it was on my mind and wanted to share it with nubblies, as well.

This post is going to ruffle a LOT of feathers. I know this going in, but I need to discuss this matter and knowing the following of this blog stretches a wider variety of people than I encounter during my in-person life, I bring it to you here.

A colleague of mine (we'll call him Adam) had something pretty serious accused of him (correctly) and in the middle of the chaos, he receives a phone call at 6:00 AM from a mentor who tells him that he (the mentor) was praying and kept seeing his Adam's face. He didn't know what it meant but told him that the message to send was that "Today is the day of salvation." Adam decides to go to church that day, which just happens to be Easter and the preacher's message is about addiction. Adam relates this to his own life about his weed addiction (which includes masturbating and sleeping for 3 hours following) and has come clean and no longer smokes weed and his life has been great over the past two weeks. He admitted his wrongdoings to his accusers and they penalized him with a temporary probation of sorts instead of firing him. Adam is now praying every morning and feels all his former problem peers are now his savior friends and all is good in his life.

Let's step back a moment and think about what I just posted. Some of you are probably religious and are going to react in all sorts of ways to what I'm about to say, but first I shall warn you with this. I am not religious. I don't believe in any kind of a God and I accept that some people are religious just to cope with the struggles of their lives (including hardships with death, unemployment, family problems, etc.) To each his own. Please don't try to save me, think you'll change my mind with some life experience, or any other religious movement that has changed others. I'm not interested.

With that said, here is how I interpretted what was told to me.

I screwed up. I lied about it, but realized I was f*cked no matter what I did. I received a call during non-courtesy hours which was actually really creepy, but I went with somebody trying to help me and decided that since today is the celebration of Jesus' rebirth, I should go to church. A preacher, knowing he had an audience three times the size as normal, made a strategic business decision to preach about something that everybody has; addiction. Every person in the congregation, including myself, connected with this message and applied it to their own crutches in life. The preacher is a smart businessman and is assured to get a 10-15% raise in his attendance over the next month until the sheep realize they only quasi-care about religion until they are on their death bed and are afraid of what will happen to them in the "afterlife." Since that message was clearly from God to me about me smoking weed (which is only actually considered a "sin" in some cultures) I decided I needed to stop smoking and stop linking masturbation (which is actually a healthy and normal practice that humans have for some reason considered taboo (I blame religion for this, too)) to it. My life is now great, because I am reborn and pray every morning, even though all I am really doing is just controlling the aspect of my life that I was letting control me, because I enjoyed it. I like people more now, but it's likely just because I consider myself a new person and everything sh*tty I've done to them doesn't matter anymore, because everybody loves a feel-good story. I'm "saved" because some people above me felt I would learn more from punishment than execution and I am forever grateful that they didn't bring the guillotine on the last two years of my life. All is great, since I enjoy my new life, at least for these first two weeks.

Now, we have the dilemma. Surely, I am outspoken on what I think/believe, but I am a good person, too. I want to help people become better. There are two ways to go about this.

1. Encourage this new life and hope he has actually changed and support him with it.

OR

2. Tell him it's all a bunch of bull sh*t and he's in denial over his mistakes and has found an escape: religion. Religion is the only excuse people ever accept when this situation comes up and they now claim to be better. Personally, I think I'm a better friend by telling him he's living a facade and needs to snap out of it and ACTUALLY overcome his problem, instead of using a coping agent (prayer) to create some kind of personal acceptance. I feel he has actually overcome his "addiction" (though I don't think it's an addiction at all since weed, masturbation, and sleep are all quite normal) but is hiding behind religion instead of just saying "I won't do this anymore because I don't want to." I feel he is setting up for a breakdown when he decides he wants to smoke weed again and won't know how to cope with religion not being able to be the answer to his new (refound) "problem." If he just takes control of his own life, he only has to answer to himself and not a guy asking for 10% of his wages on a weekly basis to provide the same answers a true friend could provide for free.

[Mr. Mistoffelees]

#1, no good can come from #2

What was the serious thing he was accused of?

[f3lix]

academic fraud on a graduate comps exam.

[vaga1220 *]

#2 for sure.

"Always tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better."

[vaga1220 *]

Fuck

[Fruitacious B]

Originally Posted by f3lix

weed addiction (which includes masturbating and sleeping for 3 hours following)

I didn't read anything after this.

[DDTempest]

I think this depends on how much you respect Adam intellectually. Is he normally an intelligent person? Because this all makes him sound like he is retarded for the most part ...

If he is fairly retarded, let him be. He is doomed to repeat the cycle of "I can't help myself, Jesus give me the strength to carry on" no matter what you do or say.

If he is normally an intelligent man, he wouldn't have fallen for that "I was praying and saw your face" (right after I saw a bad status update on your facebook) bullshit, so go back to the first one.