Religion

I have nothing to really tell you about this week. It was a good week, but nothing I am really dying to tell everyone. In geography we are learning about other religions. I personally really like learning about other religion, but I get that some people don't. What I don't get, and cannot stand though is people mocking other religions. Some boys in my geography class make fun of some of the religious things, and it kills me how little they understand. It bugs me also when people make fun of the LDS church because it is so common here. I think that people want to be different and see things in a unique way, but making fun of someone's beliefs is not the way to do that. People will say things about Mormons, and it isn't always true. 

At space camp, most of the boys made fun of the LDS church. They taunted us with endless jokes about how we were supposedly polygamous, or, a two years ago, about us being Amish. The Amish jokes were strange to me, I had heard a little bit about the common belief the Mormons practiced polygamy, but I hadn't heard that we were Amish. The boys would ask us if we could go to public schools and if we had cars or if we just used buggies. The polygamous jokes got old, but the Amish ones were interesting to me; is everyone really that uniformed? I realize that this all was kind of extreme because these boys had, for the most part, never really talked to someone of the LDS faith, but it shows that people don't know enough to make a good judgement often, but that doesn't stop them from judging.

I was in foods this week when this topic kind of hit home. Some of the people in my group started making fun of religion. This girl was mocking an LDS saying, "Your body is a temple." She was telling us about how she had gone to an LDS dance, and when she was kicked out for immodest clothing she had made fun of that statement in a kind of offensive way. Now, Shelby has issues with that statement too, but she doesn't make fun of it in the same way. Shelby's thing is that it bugs her when she has writing on her and people tell her that her body is a temple. She tells them, "Yes, and these are the flowers," referring to the writing. The girl in my foods class perverted the saying though, which seems a little different. I guess they are both ways of saying, "Yeah, I don't really care," but they have a different tone.

What made me so upset about the mocking was (a) she was at a Mormon dance, she should respect their beliefs and standards when she is there, (b) she had no respect at all for what people truly believe, and (c) she knows nothing about what she is talking about.

I take religious persecution or even just making jokes about religion, more seriously than most, I think. It is what people believe, so why do we laugh at it? Saying a joke is about a Jew never had, and never will make a joke funny to me. What has the whole Jewish community done to you? You are making fun of not just one person, and it is just rude, not funny. You can't judge a whole belief system on something you heard or common rumor. The holocaust happened because everyone was so ready to blame the Jews. I am not saying that that is the only factor that created this mass genocide, but it is a great factor.

If you don't agree, then you can comment or talk to me, but this is a big deal to me. I take it maybe a little more seriously than I should, but religion is not something you can just ridicule. Thanks for reading, sorry if you are offended.