Preachy People

Do you know what I hate? I hate preachy people.

Wait... let me revise that. I hate people who preach religion while I am riding public transportation.

This morning while on my daily 90-minute ride of public transportation involving two buses and a subway train in the hogtown kown as Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I was sitting in one of the seats on the train with another like-sized man draped atop of me - IE sitting beside me. Basically, the seats are not wide enough to comfortably accomodate three average-sized men - and there were three of us wedged into the bench seating. Comfortable it was not.

Our ride, however, quickly went from barely tolerable to pain-in-the-ass.

Perhaps five minutes after myself, and three minutes after my new set of drapes beside me, a man in his late 20s or early 30s got on and stood in the middle of the car (we were in the first car where the driver does whatever it is driver's do - work on his electrical engineering degree, I suppose).

In a big booming voice he said good morning to the fellow passengers standing around him and then began to preach to all within earshot about Jesus Christ "our Lord and saviour".

I have nothing against religion. If it makes you happy to be happy, then be happy.

I just believe there is a proper time and a place for everything. if you need to pray five times a day - go ahead. If you wan to fumble with your rosary or whatever you do - do so quietly while respecting the rights of those around you. That's what you want and expect, isn't it? 

But the preacher man on the train? A part of me even thinks it's nice that he feels he wants to help people be as happy as he is here on Earth and later in Heaven.

Howver, ... if this loud-mouth is going to be up in Heaven - along with all of that incessant harp-music, I'm not sure I want to be saved.

I hate that this blow-hard preacher sermonized for the rest of my 25-minute train ride about how his god was great and can make you feel better about life. 

How dare he assume that everyone wanted to listen to him?! How dare he start preaching to people of different religions or beliefs or no-faiths that are happy the why they are? How dare he assume we aren't happy in our life!

Do you know what we aren't happy with? Having someone yell at us for nearly a half-an-hour!

All I want to do is do my crossword puzzle and Sudoku in ink while the drapes beside me adjusts himself to make me more uncomfortable with my heterosexuality and himself perhaps less so.

While the preacher man attempted to engage his captive audience by asking them person question about quality of life and happiness  - and some people stupidly answered him! - one brave woman told him that she likes what he is saying, but could he please stop yelling.

She wasn't rude, excited or angry. She asked in a very nice, polite manner for him to just tone down the volume - not the message. 

But like most self-rightous assholes, he ignored her pleas and the pleas of the 100+ other people loudly screaming within their own skulls.

He says he had a right to say and preach what he wanted and where he wanted.

He does.

But then again... we all have the right to not be offended by content, or noise or anything else as we all paid our money to ride the Toronto Transit Commission's subway train here in Toronto. We all have the right to a nice, quiet and safe ride on the way to work packed like sardines in a subway train. 

But does he have a right to start preaching in a train to a captive audience? Maybe. Is that ethically sound judgement? No. 

What the hell is wrong with people like this preacher man? Why do they think we all need saving? How effing arrogant are you? What? God wants you to go forth and convert the masses? Your god is lazy.

Will your god bring down locusts, cause a flood, have us go to Hell because we don't believe in him/her/it? Your angry, vengeful god is childish if that's what you believe. 

Why can't we just love and do as you will. That was a paraphrase of St. Augustine of Hippo. We don't need people telling us one god is better than the other. Can't we make up our own minds about god and religion? 

Can't we all just get along and do our book reading, crosswords or Bible reading by ourselves? Yes! One woman sitting near me was quietly reading her Bible while all of this was going on!

So... why didn't we all get off the train if we were offended by the preacher man's well-spoken speech? Why should we? Even though we were here first, seats on the subway are a premium! And why should we be further inconvenienced by being delayed getting to work because one idiot won't shut up about his god needing to be in our life. 

Look... if your God is so omnipotent and the creator of the universe and all that (Holy Trinity et al), then why doesn't he just enter us and make us realize how cool he is? Why does he need flawed vessels like human beings to tell other flawed vessels that they need this version of God? And, if God is so perfect, why did he create us to be imperfect? I guess he was afraid of the competition. 

Hey preacher man - your version of god seems needy and clingy while still offering love and support. I already have that in my life. It's called a family.

My family already costs a lot of money... and I'm pretty sure that the 10% tithe your god wants or expects ain't going to be enough for all the wonderful debt your god has saddled me with. 

Basically, God - you owe me. So... is it too much to ask you not have your preacher boys annoy the hell out of a whole trainload of people at 8-o'clock in the morning as we ride to work - or in my case - ride to get to another bus before getting to work? 

Hey! I have no problem with you sending around your flock of converters to my house. I can choose not to answer my door, or I can listen and say "yes, let's talk more" or "no, I'm not interested"... or I can be rude or polite or simply bored. At least I have a choice.

But to corner us like caged rats in a subway car and to start preaching? That's just low. That's actually evil.

Despite Toronto being a very tolerable populace when it comes to religion et al, do you want to know the real reason why we didn't all get together and give the preacher the bum's rush off the train?  He was 6-8" and maybe 280-lbs of solid effing muscle.

Whatever god was looking over me told me to suck it up or I would be squashed like a bug after a plague of locusts hits town... which given the low-level of cleanliness here on the train, bugs in the subway is always a topic I am itching to write about.    

Oh yeah... my god and the preacher man's god are the same - just so much different.

So... do you know what I hate? 

I hate preachy people. Especially those built like they could survive Armageddon.