![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ed_rexDon't worry, folks, I'm not about to test your patience with another 3,000 worder.
As a mildly ironic counterpoint to the unexpected phone-call from Laura on Wednesday, I had a date scheduled for Thursday. A lunch date, but still ...
One of the more striking smokers in the building at which I work, is a petite and very pretty Muslim woman, who usually spends her smoke-breaks on her cell, obviously talking business while gesturing animatedly with her free hand. I knew - or rather, I presumed with a high degree of confidence - she is a Muslim because she wears a hijab, though otherwise usually dresses in a casual Western style, including, sometimes, blue-jeans.
A couple of weeks back, during the depths of that viscious cold-snap, we got to talking (starting with the weather and how stupid we were proving ourselves to be by being out in it, sucking poison into our lungs - but I digress) and, very quickly, found ourselves sharing quickl and easy laughter.
She is Canadian-born, daughter of immigrants from India. She speaks the way she moves, confidently and with purpose, and I found myself quickly becoming taken by her wit and incisive intelligence. (Though not particularly witty in itself, her description of being witness to Janet Jackson's presumably inadvertent nipple exposure at the Superbowl a few years back was priceless.)
We ran into each other again, and yet again. The third time, on our way back to our mutual offices, I stopped and said, "I never do this, but, er, would you like to have lunch together one of these days?"
And so it was that she dropped by my office on Thursday at around 1:30, from whence we departed for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant just up Spadina (but the name of which escapes me - Sidra? Maybe you know it? It's on the east side, between Queen and Richmond?).
I don't know many people for whom religious faith is of much - if any - importance, let alone Muslims, so the opportunity for some cross-cultural study was almost as exciting as the fact that I had mustered the courage to ask her out in the first place. Too, it was strange for me to socialize without benefit of alcohol as a lubricant.
As it turned out, Saara seemed to find the fact of my atheism - and especially that both sides of my family were the same, going back at least 2 and 3 generations - just as curious as I found her decision to wear a hijab despite not apparently fulfilling any other Muslim stereotypes.
Long story short, it was a very good meeting, one that well over our allotted our.
We exchanged the usual family and personal histories, but politics and religion - sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted - were the dominant themes.
Saara told me she started wearing the hijab as a direct result of 9/11. She saw - and sees - making herself visibly Muslim as a political act, as a principled refusal to give in to fear of Islam that crime brought to the forefront of our society. In other words, she is a Muslim and she is not kind to pretend to be something else, simply to make non-Muslims around her more comfortable.
(Including, she noted, a lot of feminists. She said she has "often" been lectured by (invariably white) feminists about how the hijab "proves" she is oppressed and clearly not a feminist. And indeed, she said she considers feminism a strictly white, bourgeois phenomenom which does not speak to ethnic women at all. I disagree, but certainly find her position interesting - and depressing.)
And that decision certainly hasn't made her life any easier, particularly when crossing into the United States. Once, when she was refused admission (she made the mistake of telling the truth: she was going to New York to take a course in "activism"), she said the customs officers were litterally screaming at her, "Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist?"
"No, I work with troubled youth," apparently was not a good enough answer.
Saara has an admirable sense of humour about her trials and tribulations. She told me of when trip, with two of her sisters (who don't wear a hijab), on a trip to her brother's for a baby-shower.
At the border their car was - as it always is, she said - was selected for a "random" search.
"'Random'?" she asked the guard, while outlining her head-scarf with a dramatic swirl of her hand. "'Random', eh?"
At the interview, when ask, "If you're going to a baby-shower, where are the presents?"
"We sent them ahead," she said simply. "I knew we'd be stopped at the border. I knew we might not be allowed through at all."
Surprisingly, that time, she was.
* * *
Anyway, it was a more than enjoyable lunch and I hope we both make the effort to see each other again (although, it turns out she has a partner - story of my life, lately).
Nevertheless, between reading Dawkins' book and meeting a very attractive Muslim woman, I have been pondering religion quite a bit lately.
One thing I have come to realize is that I don't think I could get seriously involved with a woman of faith - any faith (and yes, I know how much that drains my pool of potential partners. Thank god (as it were) I live in Canada and not the States; and a pity I don't live in Europe).
A decade or so ago, I was involved with a woman - Harriet - who was a Christian, United Church style. On Christmas Eve I attented midnight mass with her, an event of great and medieval-feeling pomp and circumstance; censers on chains spewed perfumed smoke into the air, the priests decked out in their white robes. For me it was at once fascinating and tedious, and I was glad indeed when it was finally over and Harriet and I could return to her apartment to crack open a beer and then tumble into bed for some fantastic sex.
"Well," she said after we'd settled down around her kitchen table, "What did you think?"
I was silent for a moment or two, then finally replied, "Harriet, you don't really want me to answer that."
For the truth was, I thought the whole ceremony profoundly silly. Leaving aside the value of community celebrations; leaving aside the unquestionable virtue of cultural historical continuity, I could not escape the fact I held the basic concept behind that ceremony in intellectual contempt. To me, the idea of worshipping a non-existent god is simply, well, silly. It truly baffles me that intelligent people can take it seriously.
What I've realized, is that my contempt for religious beliefs would be a pretty serious handicap to having a serious romantic relationship with a woman of faith. I suppose I could just "agree to disagree" with a partner, but what if children enter the picture? What if she wants to indoctrinate them into her faith?
Major conflict, people!
"I love you and I accept that you don't believe, but I want our children baptised, and raised Catholic."
"And I love you and accept that you do believe, but there's no fucking way my kids are going to be taught to believe a fantasy!"
Shit. Is even 10 percent of the population of this country atheist? Welcome to the wading pool, Young Geoffrey.
As a mildly ironic counterpoint to the unexpected phone-call from Laura on Wednesday, I had a date scheduled for Thursday. A lunch date, but still ...
One of the more striking smokers in the building at which I work, is a petite and very pretty Muslim woman, who usually spends her smoke-breaks on her cell, obviously talking business while gesturing animatedly with her free hand. I knew - or rather, I presumed with a high degree of confidence - she is a Muslim because she wears a hijab, though otherwise usually dresses in a casual Western style, including, sometimes, blue-jeans.
A couple of weeks back, during the depths of that viscious cold-snap, we got to talking (starting with the weather and how stupid we were proving ourselves to be by being out in it, sucking poison into our lungs - but I digress) and, very quickly, found ourselves sharing quickl and easy laughter.
She is Canadian-born, daughter of immigrants from India. She speaks the way she moves, confidently and with purpose, and I found myself quickly becoming taken by her wit and incisive intelligence. (Though not particularly witty in itself, her description of being witness to Janet Jackson's presumably inadvertent nipple exposure at the Superbowl a few years back was priceless.)
We ran into each other again, and yet again. The third time, on our way back to our mutual offices, I stopped and said, "I never do this, but, er, would you like to have lunch together one of these days?"
And so it was that she dropped by my office on Thursday at around 1:30, from whence we departed for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant just up Spadina (but the name of which escapes me - Sidra? Maybe you know it? It's on the east side, between Queen and Richmond?).
I don't know many people for whom religious faith is of much - if any - importance, let alone Muslims, so the opportunity for some cross-cultural study was almost as exciting as the fact that I had mustered the courage to ask her out in the first place. Too, it was strange for me to socialize without benefit of alcohol as a lubricant.
As it turned out, Saara seemed to find the fact of my atheism - and especially that both sides of my family were the same, going back at least 2 and 3 generations - just as curious as I found her decision to wear a hijab despite not apparently fulfilling any other Muslim stereotypes.
Long story short, it was a very good meeting, one that well over our allotted our.
We exchanged the usual family and personal histories, but politics and religion - sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted - were the dominant themes.
Saara told me she started wearing the hijab as a direct result of 9/11. She saw - and sees - making herself visibly Muslim as a political act, as a principled refusal to give in to fear of Islam that crime brought to the forefront of our society. In other words, she is a Muslim and she is not kind to pretend to be something else, simply to make non-Muslims around her more comfortable.
(Including, she noted, a lot of feminists. She said she has "often" been lectured by (invariably white) feminists about how the hijab "proves" she is oppressed and clearly not a feminist. And indeed, she said she considers feminism a strictly white, bourgeois phenomenom which does not speak to ethnic women at all. I disagree, but certainly find her position interesting - and depressing.)
And that decision certainly hasn't made her life any easier, particularly when crossing into the United States. Once, when she was refused admission (she made the mistake of telling the truth: she was going to New York to take a course in "activism"), she said the customs officers were litterally screaming at her, "Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist?"
"No, I work with troubled youth," apparently was not a good enough answer.
Saara has an admirable sense of humour about her trials and tribulations. She told me of when trip, with two of her sisters (who don't wear a hijab), on a trip to her brother's for a baby-shower.
At the border their car was - as it always is, she said - was selected for a "random" search.
"'Random'?" she asked the guard, while outlining her head-scarf with a dramatic swirl of her hand. "'Random', eh?"
At the interview, when ask, "If you're going to a baby-shower, where are the presents?"
"We sent them ahead," she said simply. "I knew we'd be stopped at the border. I knew we might not be allowed through at all."
Surprisingly, that time, she was.
Anyway, it was a more than enjoyable lunch and I hope we both make the effort to see each other again (although, it turns out she has a partner - story of my life, lately).
Nevertheless, between reading Dawkins' book and meeting a very attractive Muslim woman, I have been pondering religion quite a bit lately.
One thing I have come to realize is that I don't think I could get seriously involved with a woman of faith - any faith (and yes, I know how much that drains my pool of potential partners. Thank god (as it were) I live in Canada and not the States; and a pity I don't live in Europe).
A decade or so ago, I was involved with a woman - Harriet - who was a Christian, United Church style. On Christmas Eve I attented midnight mass with her, an event of great and medieval-feeling pomp and circumstance; censers on chains spewed perfumed smoke into the air, the priests decked out in their white robes. For me it was at once fascinating and tedious, and I was glad indeed when it was finally over and Harriet and I could return to her apartment to crack open a beer and then tumble into bed for some fantastic sex.
"Well," she said after we'd settled down around her kitchen table, "What did you think?"
I was silent for a moment or two, then finally replied, "Harriet, you don't really want me to answer that."
For the truth was, I thought the whole ceremony profoundly silly. Leaving aside the value of community celebrations; leaving aside the unquestionable virtue of cultural historical continuity, I could not escape the fact I held the basic concept behind that ceremony in intellectual contempt. To me, the idea of worshipping a non-existent god is simply, well, silly. It truly baffles me that intelligent people can take it seriously.
What I've realized, is that my contempt for religious beliefs would be a pretty serious handicap to having a serious romantic relationship with a woman of faith. I suppose I could just "agree to disagree" with a partner, but what if children enter the picture? What if she wants to indoctrinate them into her faith?
Major conflict, people!
"I love you and I accept that you don't believe, but I want our children baptised, and raised Catholic."
"And I love you and accept that you do believe, but there's no fucking way my kids are going to be taught to believe a fantasy!"
Shit. Is even 10 percent of the population of this country atheist? Welcome to the wading pool, Young Geoffrey.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-25 07:22 pm (UTC)Religion is still taught in public schools here, too, though which religion depends on which state. It boggles my poor raised-atheist mind.
Wow ...
Date: 2007-02-27 01:44 am (UTC)My first thought on reading the above was, "I thought Hitler was dead!" But then I realized that, as an immigrant, I suppose that sort of thing isn't quite as shocking as I first thought. But the question about religion still surprises me - were they okay with "Nichts" as the answer?
Re: Wow ...
Date: 2007-02-27 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-25 07:52 pm (UTC)i know this girl you went on lunch with. i've never met her, but she's been on my LJ friend's list for years and years and we occasionally email each other. everything you've said about her matches exactly what i know about her, so it must be her. haha. that's funny.
Oh Bloody Hell ...
Date: 2007-02-27 01:47 am (UTC)It is a small world, isn't it? Or maybe not - we do self-select who we meet and even who we deal with online, don't we? So the odds aren't quite so imposing as it seems at first glance.
But it's still funny.
Re: Oh Bloody Hell ...
Date: 2007-03-02 01:16 am (UTC)Re: Oh Bloody Hell ...
Date: 2007-03-02 04:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-25 10:15 pm (UTC)In any case, the rate of atheism in the city is much higher than the country in whole, so at least you're in the right place!
Thanks, That's a God (ahem) Point
Date: 2007-02-27 01:49 am (UTC)Thanks for the reminder that my odds are a little better than I'd feared. And yes, on first meeting, she is amazing, despite our theological differences.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 01:32 am (UTC)One secular Muslim friend of mine (by which I mean that he identifies as Muslim in the way that I'm Jewish; culturally, but not religiously) started growing his hair long after 9/11; another friend started dyeing her hair all sorts of colours because she found that looking like a Western punk made it easier to visit the States than looking like a straight-laced Iranian. I wonder if those sorts of coping mechanisms (not that both of them don't look good, but they shouldn't be having to base their hairstyles on what Homeland Security thinks) and Saara's admirable defiance are/were common reactions.
She Might Be
Date: 2007-02-27 01:54 am (UTC)You probably would. I think the idea person to talk to is someone you are basically sympatico with, but with whom you nonetheless have some points of serious disagreement. Sparks can fly, but one's fingers can remain wrapped 'round one's beverage rather than curling into themselves, forming a fist.
I wonder if those sorts of coping mechanisms (not that both of them don't look good, but they shouldn't be having to base their hairstyles on what Homeland Security thinks) and Saara's admirable defiance are/were common reactions.
"Coping mechanisms"? I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's an interesting way of looking at it. I took Saara's response as something more pro-active than one I would describe as a coping mechanism.
Hmm. Gotta think about that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 03:52 am (UTC)I couldn't date anyone who didn't understand exactly where I am coming from when I say that you need a reason to think something, rather than reasons not to.
Most people I know are atheists though, women included. I think we're more plentiful than all that.
You could stand to get to know some more thinking theists!
Date: 2007-02-26 04:38 pm (UTC)Not true, my gods demand that I take the time to question myself, the world around me and not just "follow orders" as it were.
Implications
Date: 2007-02-27 02:05 am (UTC)Leaving arguments about how the children are to be raised out of the equation, it is the implications that I think preclude that kind of relationship for me. That said, I have have known religious people (and I feel confident Saara in one of them) who are, in fact, self-analytic. I certainly didn't get the sense that she is blindly following someone else's words, but rather - for whatever reasons you and I might find inexplicable - she is following her own self-exploration.
She did tell me that one very important element of her faith is the constant struggle with doubt (and my friend John used almost exactly those words to describe his own faith).
I couldn't date anyone who didn't understand exactly where I am coming from when I say that you need a reason to think something, rather than reasons not to.
Of course, thinking deists do have reasons to believe what they believe. You and I may deem them bad reasons, but they are not the same as those of deists who simply spout "the truth" as they have been taught that it is by some authority. But you're right, I still wouldn't want to marry one.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 04:17 am (UTC)"I love you and I accept that you don't believe, but I want our children baptised, and raised Catholic."
Uhmm, you sound like you just read my mind. Chalk up another topic we can discuss over beer.
We Do Indeed
Date: 2007-02-27 02:09 am (UTC)Although, having typed that and considering the stress at work lately, maybe I'll make two trips to Sudbury this spring.
Regardless, I'll give you fair warning.
I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-02-26 04:35 pm (UTC)The issue I have with fundies and antitheists is the tendency for members of both groups to think that anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid, delusional and just needs to be preached at in order to get them to change their mind. You have your reasons for believing as you do, and I have reasons for believing as I do.
I agree with you on one very important thing: Children shouldn't be indoctrinated into any religion, far better to teach them to think for themselves and find their own faith, or lack there of.
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-02-27 02:21 am (UTC)You see, this is the sort of statement that requires evidence for me to take seriously.
I freely admit that most, if not all, of my reasons for believing are based on evidence which can not be shared.
Why can they not be shared? (You can - I think - understand why I am unlikely to accept your gods given those two statements, can't you?)
You have your reasons for believing as you do, and I have reasons for believing as I do.
The difference between my reasons and yours, of course, are that mine are out there, for anyone to put to any test, at any time. And if my cherished beliefs fail a test, I have no choice but to re-think my beliefs.
Just as an example, I used to believe that the "oscilating universe theory in cosmology (Big Bang, expansion; expansion slows, stops and everything falls back in on the centre, to the Big Crunch, only to start all over again). I liked that theory a lot - it allowed for an eternal, recurring universe and dispensed with the need to explain how it started in the first place (or so it seemed to me).
Sometime within the past 5 years or so, though, scientists have discovered that instead of being slowed down by gravity, the expansio of the universe is in fact speeding up.
So much for my favourite theory.
Being wrong hasn't made me a deist, but it has made me put a giant question mark in a place where I had had a tentative answer.
Which is why I am so fond of the scientific method. When a theory is wrong, someone is going to come along with a better test or a better idea and show that it's wrong, sending us all back to the drawing board to try again.
At any rate, I'm glad we agree about the indoctrination thing. I really do firmly believe in the right of an adult to believe whatever their experience of life tells them is true - and really don't believe that telling children "Because I say so!" is a legitimate answer to anything (with the obvious example of telling a 2 year-old not to play in traffic and other age-dependent concepts).
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-02-27 03:05 am (UTC)The difference between my reasons and yours, of course, are that mine are out there, for anyone to put to any test, at any time. And if my cherished beliefs fail a test, I have no choice but to re-think my beliefs.
I have yet to see any compelling evidence for the nonexistence of god(s), nor have I seen anything approaching scientific proof that they exist- merely enough subjective and anecdotal evidence to indicate that there is more to the universe than can be explored through the scientific method.
A lot of antitheists mistake absence of proof for proof of absence.
Oh, and I like the oscillating universe idea too- pity the evidence supports a different model.
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-02-27 03:29 am (UTC)Well, you can understand why that doesn't do much to convince me, I hope.
I have yet to see any compelling evidence for the nonexistence of god(s)...
And as I've been trying to explain repeatedly to SCK5000, I'm not saying there is any evidence for the non-existence of god/gods/goddess/goddesses. You can't disprove God any more than you can disprove Bertrand Russell's suggestion the universe was created by a tiny tea-pot orbiting the sun somewhere in the asteroid belt. All you can do is say, "I see no reason to accept your hypothesis; if you believe it is true, please give me some evidence that what you say is correct."
To reiterate: If you want me to take seriously your assertion that your deity is real, I need evidence beyond your say-so.
A lot of antitheists mistake absence of proof for proof of absence.
I am not one of them. But the absence of evidence means that an idea is only an idea, not a theory.
And I'm still a little pissed about that bloody dark-energy!
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-03-01 01:30 am (UTC)I honestly believe the only logical theistic belief is an agnostic one, since nothing can be proven either way. I also believe that any being capable of creating the world would be capable of convincing people of it's existence without the need of followers who wouldn't know logic if it came and bit them in the ass.
Well, you can understand why that doesn't do much to convince me, I hope.
If it was enough to convince you I wouldn't think much of your intelligence! I'm not like those twitiots who think all it will take to convert people is to tell them that a being they don't believe in will send them to a place, which they also don't believe in, to suffer for all eternity.
Re: I wish I Could be an Atheist Sometimes
Date: 2007-03-03 06:42 pm (UTC)I you don't expect to convince anyone of the validity of your beliefs than "anti-theists" should leave you alone in return, I agree. But the moment you try to convince me, I'll be demanding evidence! Dawkins' book, of course, was written, first, to argue that what evidence there is supports a purely mechanistic universe as more likely (I think in another comment you suggested the most reasonable opinion is agnosticism, which is an argument Dawkins addresses directly and, to my mind, convincingly) and, second, to counter those deists who do run around proseletyzing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-28 07:36 am (UTC)deja vu
Date: 2007-03-04 08:33 pm (UTC)What i don't understand is, why would they end up accepting invitations to lunch, flirty conversations (my situation) or the like if they are already involved with someone else. It's almost as if you were an available option, but somewhere during lunch or earlier conversations they had decided that it would just seem fun to see you try to woo them only to come to an end with the "I'm with somebody" argument. Hmmph. Women, believers or not, are something I still have to figure out.
Re: deja vu
Date: 2007-03-05 12:53 am (UTC)Because there are in fact such things as platonic friendships between men and women, whether or not there is also a component to those friendships which include some amount of sexual tension.
In my world, at least, an invitation to go out for lunch - or even to get trashed at my apartment - is not quite the same as an invitation to join me in bedroom acrobatics. Although its true that such acrobatics are often at the back of my mind as a possibility.
It's almost as if you were an available option, but somewhere during lunch or earlier conversations they had decided that it would just seem fun to see you try to woo them only to come to an end with the "I'm with somebody" argument.
Well, this particular woman alluded to her partner before I suggested lunch, so what you're saying doesn't apply, I don't think.
Hmmph. Women, believers or not, are something I still have to figure out.
Rightly or wrongly, I operate under the assumption that women are people first, no more or less complicated and self-contradictary than men. It is Desire that makes the relationship between a straight man and a straight woman more complex - and which makes the opposite sex (because women say the same thing about men, I've noticed) seem so "hard to figure out.