Alone
Today in my honors class we were discussing the new play we were starting (merchant of venice) and my instructor likes to be controversial when discussing issues.
He told everyone who agreed with him to stand at the top of the stairs, and everyone who disagreed to stand at the bottom. Here was his question:
"Do you believe that only Christians who believe in Jesus will get into Heaven."
Surprisingly, the class split roughly equal (there are 50 in the class), and when we started discussing our issues amongst ourselves before debating the other side, here was all i heard, "Jesus loves everyone and it doesn't matter blah blah" "my religion still believes in heaven .. so its the same" "as long as you believe in god you'll be saved." "It's just a different version of heaven."
When i interjected that some of us don't believe in ANY Gods or heavens, everyone in my group paused.. and our spokesperson said, "oh.. i forgot about atheists."
When we had our debate i tried to talk from my point of view, "how is your religion different from the ones that came before it." "Faith is a broken concept: here is why"
But the entire time i felt aliented, the people in my groups arguments were all biblical based, all started by saying, "Well, im a christian too, but i think people like in africa will go to heaven, and babies.."
I realized that in the entire honors class i was the only atheist. I felt like i had alienated myself from my peers and that i was the only person who had stopped believing in fairy tales. I had a few people come to me after class and say, "If you ever want to talk..." I politely responded all the while feeling more and more depressed that there is nobody who is like me.
|
Threaded Mode
