You

I think there was a scene at the Crystal Palace in Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery (which starred Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland).  I would love to have seen it in its heyday.

Fortunately, Mr. Kung, we are not a Utopian community here at Reviews-and-Things. We — shockingly — have a diversity of opinion.

That dressing down by the church elders surely stuck in your father’s and your craw. I’m not exactly sure where the “craw” is on the body. But things get stuck there.

My own imperfect view is that there are things in the world that should be crawed and things that should be un-crawed. There are things to berate and things to praise. There are times when the craw should be full of grit so that things get stuck there. Other times we should be lubricated like ducks’ backs off of which the water flows easily.

In theory. In a perfect world.

I’m trying to think of the worst time when I was crawed by some religious experience or person. I have to admit, normal religious zealots don’t really get under my skin all that much. The religious zealots who do are the atheists. I just don’t like the dishonesty. If someone wants to believe that God is good, that the world has purpose, or even that they are better than me for believing what they do, all I can say is, “Could be.”

But those atheists. What a bunch of dishonest pricks. Not only do they think they are better than me (which I’ve already stated is not a deal-breaker necessarily), but they are dishonest. That is one thing that sticks in my craw.

I know many people are irritated by those who try to convert them, but not I. I believe I have mentioned that I find it somewhat touching that others might be concerned about the state of my soul and wish to help me find God.

It’s actually kind of a game. I had a very nice JW fellow bring me a plate of cookies as thank you for a job we did for him. And I got invited to come to his church. Did he want me to drop off a Watchtower?

Yeah. Sure. Fine. However, I told him I was already fairly familiar with it having grown up with a JW friend. And, yes, his mother tried to introduce me to their stuff.

For whatever reason, I’m just not easy bait. I’m not smarter. Faster. I can’t leap tall building at a single bound. But when I was younger, I didn’t see the point. And now that I’m older, I see that the sale’s pitch is just outside of my wheelhouse. That’s not the kind of stuff that appeals to em. “Join and you can be one of us.”

A better approach is to talk turkey about real things, not to try to rope me into your own Religious Reality Distortion Field. Sure, I believe in God. But I don’t believe that the social arrangements people organize and give themselves over to are necessarily a means to get closer to god, although such things I’ll admit can work well for them.

So, yeah, I’m a tough nut to crack for this kind of stuff. Because I’m not in the slightest tempted to become an overnight Scientologist, the pitches just don’t bother me much. Like you, I kinda see (despite some of the groupthink creepiness) that they do kinda-sorta have my best interests at heart.

Yes, that was a really nice quote from Debussy. Also, not to be confused with





It’s either that or cat pictures. I think you come out way ahead on this.



It’s very cool that you had the opportunity.