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From: gnome@oliveb.UUCP (Gary Traveis)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Invasive religions
Message-ID: <517@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 14:53:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.517
Posted: Wed Jul 24 14:53:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 22:36:15 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 62

Is it my imagination or do most people need a religion
or other organization to tell them what to do with their
lives?


In recent years, I have been noticing a lot of friends/co-workers
getting in to what I call "invasive religions" - namely
evangelical Born-Again Christians (BACs) and Jahova's(sp) Witnesses (JW's).
I use the term "invasive" because they both have a built-in rule that
their members must always be in the process of pushing their religion
on non-believers.


I'm faced with three cases of this, one evangelical BAC and two JWs.
All three are married couples where one person from each couple has "found it"
and caused an undue amount of stress in their relationships.

When one gets into an invasive religion and the other doesn't, one of
three things usually happen.

	1) The marriage breaks up (either on paper or in their minds).

	2) The non-believer must convert.

	3) The believer must bend the rules to accomodate their
	   relationship.

#2 can take place over a long period of time.  Usually starting out
as a slow, tedious wearing-away of the person to be converted.
This usually happens through 5-8 hours a day of intermittent preaching
and nagging - 7 days a week.  I call it conversion by osmosis.

#3 very rarely happens because the religion is generally inflexible
and provides a support network of other church members that can
help the believer through these troubled times (see #1) and, if
possible, move their relationship towards #2 (conversion).


In one of the three relationships, the believer has decided to
work part-time (or leave work altogether) in order to further
spread the religion.  This leaves the non-believer to support
the family.  I am just waiting for the stress to build up and
hear the believer blame their mate's troubles on their lack of faith!

I've also noticed that the more an individual get into an invasive
religion, the less they can interact with other non-believers.
Hardly five minutes can go by without them quoting passage&verse
in relation to the weather, sports, politics, TV, color of hair,
and shoe size.  It's one thing to have a deep conviction to your
religion, but when it turns a person into a biblical mynah bird
I feel that there is something wrong.


Oh well, enough flaming.
Let me know what you think.

	Typed in without much forethought...

	Gary
(hplabs,ihnp4,allegra)oliveb!olivee!gnome