by Despanan » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:20 pm
Unexpected side-effect of being religious: street preachers don't piss me off like they used to.
Like, I have to walk the "gauntlet of crazy" at the 42nd street subway station every day on the way to work. There's a tunnel that works like this:
Before the tunnel you have the Jehova's Witnesses. They sit there with their signs and smile, but don't say anything unless you engage them.
After the Jehova's witnesses, there's the church of Scientology. They hand out flyers and offer "free" "stress-tests" - they're probably the worst but rarely get up in your face so I rarely have to confront them.
After the $cilons there's usually a befuddled old white man, or old Korean Ladies handing out pamphlets titled "Don't receive the mark of the beast!" they just stand there and are easy to ignore.
Halfway down the tunnel is a Latin preacher who walks up and down yelling about Jesus and holding a bible. He's medium crazy. I have confronted him several times, usually if he said something particularly egregious, but he's not the worst offender.
All of this leads up to the real nutjobs: lines of signs about how you're going to hell. Chick Tracts, May 21st Judgement day people. This is where I've had enough and when they would get in my face, or stand in my way I would lay on the Blasphemy as thick as I could.
Anyway - Zealots gonna zeal. I find though that their shit is more "odd" or "funny" or "sad" now that I'm a Buddhist, where before it was sometimes rage-inducing. I think this is because I always felt a decent amount of social pressure to have a religion and these guys represented not only awful aspects of it, but they were a reminder of that pressure. Like there was some sort of hole of crazy you could get pulled into.
But now that the box is checked? Unless they do or say something really shitty, my commute is easier emotionally, and I can appreciate the days that they are replaced with a Peruvian pan flute band, or violinist, or even Hari Krishnas, since those guys are basically a musical act on their own.