Thursday, June 11, 2009

The evening prayer

It's happened to the best of us. You're sitting at the dinner table at Thanksgiving or something, and all of a sudden (you'd never have guessed it!) some douchebag suggest that thanks be given to the "lord" for the "bountiful harvest he has bestowed upon us."

I can't freaking stand it when this happens. If I object then I'll inevitably draw attention to myself, which I don't want to do. On the other hand, I hate participating in the idiocy of closing my hands and talking to myself. It's no different than giving "thanks" to Zeus, or to the stupid Wicca gods, or to the Mithras (the religion that was stolen from to invent Christianity).

Most of the time I'll just look down in shame, without closing my eyes or hands, and think about how silly the whole spectacle is. It's just flat-out bizarre, is it not? We're grown adults praying to dumbass folklore characters that a bunch of dickweed storytellers just pulled straight out of their asses a couple thousand (sometimes hundred) years ago.

But we're the strange and unreasonable ones! Crazy, man.

Here's a few things we can do when theists demand we stop eating for their inane "prayers:"

1) Sigh heavily and roll your eyes through every word of the prayer. Stare at your watch even if the prayer is extremely short. Yawn loudly. Do a "bullshit" cough in the middle of it. (Back in high school, my brother and I did this kind of stuff all the time. It was very entertaining.)

2) Quietly begin eating during the ridiculous "prayer." If there's any food on other people's plates that you want, now is the time to load up. Replace the food with the stuff you don't want.

3) Participate in the prayer, but secretly acknowledge, deep down, that the prayer is really going to George Carlin.

4) Take a "bathroom break" before the prayer, in hopes that they'll be done blathering by the time you get back. Unfortunately, sometimes the numbnuts will actually wait for you, then stare at you when you return. This can be a big pickle. It can be solved by saying that you already prayed on the can.

5) De-convert your family (fat chance!) and never go through the ordeal again. It's the best, but the most unlikely solution.

4 comments:

  1. Well, except for my Dad's Born Again period, my family as a whole are a bunch of heathens (thank God, LOL), so Thanksgiving and other holidays have generally been prayer free.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yup, being from a family of atheists, this was not the norm when I was growing up. I've only ever been subjected to it a few times, and my method of dealing with it is the same as it is when I'm forced to be in a church (weddings, christenings etc). I simply remain bolt upright, eyes open, head up, looking straight ahead and don't join in at all. If the holding hands thing comes up, I push my chair back so the people either side of me can join hands with eachother.

    Whilst I never have and never will understand organised religion, I recognise other people believe in it so I'm not going to try to get in the way. I'll respect them as long as they respect me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, most of my immediate family is non-religious too and the ones that aren't save it for when they're in church.

    "It can be solved by saying that you already prayed on the can."

    Praying to the porcelain god perhaps?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I grew up in a stepfamily that was religious, though not hyper religious. They weren't the type that would drag me to church against my will, for instance.

    My biological mom never went/goes to church at all. She obviously thinks it's silly.

    ReplyDelete

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