Pulped it

Something to which I should have devoted more attention during the tail end of a recent ride home (but only vaguely followed a little while still having my headphones on):

A young man, probably in his 20's, came walking down the aisle of the train, saying aloud how it's good to have a relationship with God. No one seated in the car gave any acknowledgment of his statement. He wandered back away for a while but eventually re-appeared, and began reciting his message again.

An older gentleman in an orange sweatshirt and blue Denver Broncos cap started to speak back to the young man. The two stayed at least 10 feet apart, as the young man stood in the front area of the car and the gentleman remained in his seat, so they spoke loud enough to hear.

The gentleman did not accost him or tell him to shut up; at no point was there any yelling, nor any confrontational tone. The gentleman even quoted the Bible a couple of times. And what he did, ultimately, was to point out that the young man was merely spouting dogma rather than describing a genuine relationship with God. However, he did it without belittling the young man (well, without overtly belittling him); he posed some questions, such as asking if the young man knew the difference between a pastor and a minister. (I didn't hear whether the young man answered that well or not, but I do recall that he did appear to struggle a bit when having to go "off book," as it were.) The gentleman's tone was not condescending; he sought only to get the young man to really think about the words he was espousing.

The gentleman did eventually go into a bit of detail about his issues with the situation. He had no disagreement with the message about having a personal relationship with God, but he did note having a problem with religion; religions were about rules to be followed blindly, and if others did not follow those rules it was declared that they were going to Hell. What about that was establishing a personal relationship with God?

This he used to explain why no one was listening to the young man. He even offered advice of a sort: He recommended that the young man work on his personal relationship with God, and get that ironed out before going out and talking about it with others.

When the young man's stop came, he couldn't get off the train fast enough. I don't think he even offered the cursory "God bless you" to the gentleman.

Not only did I more or less agree with the gentleman's thesis, I was delighted to see what amounted to the victory of intelligence over… well, I don't want to call it ignorance—that's not accurate. (Over the indoctrination?) It didn't get reduced to name-calling (at no point was "douche bag" uttered) or either side saying the other was "wrong"; it relied entirely on discourse rather than yelling.

I said nothing to the gentleman when I departed the train, because I didn't feel as though I'd participated enough to say anything, but I like to think that thinking about him here counts for something.

~

A personal relationship with God cannot be forced on others.