I went home over the weekend to visit the family and basically recharge the batteries. Every Sunday, regardless of what state or part of the world I'm in, I go to Starbucks for my coffee. Yesterday I went with two of my best friends to get coffee and one of them picked up the Times and started to look over the cover as we were waiting in line. There was something on the cover about Buddha or the caves of Buddha and friend number two asked something about Buddhism and directed the question towards me. I answered it and thought that was the end of the matter. But there was a husband and wife standing in line behind us and we heard them start whispering to each other and I could feel their eyes on us. All I could make out was the husband whispering something along the lines of, "Isn't that the terrorist religion?". Then, the wife, without any kind of warning, starts talking to me about how my "kind" of "idiot terrorist radicals shouldn't be allowed in the country," amongst other things of that nature. Before I had a chance to say anything one of my friends went off on the wife and that caused the husband to jump in. So now it's a bit of a loud arguing match between our two groups and the rest of the Starbucks junkies are all taking notice of this. Someone brings what's going on to the attention of two police officers who happened to be in the same shopping center. By the time the cops actually get into the store, it's the five of us arguing and an older Muslim man getting involved. I probably did the least amount of arguing because I just plain didn't see the point in saying much. I don't feel the need to defend my beliefs to anyone. But I have been thinking a lot about the whole thing. I don't know what irks me more - that he had no clue what he was talking about in the first place, or that anyone could be that stupid to assume that just because someone believes in a certain religion (and it's not even actually a religion), they must be a terrorist. Not to mention he stated several times that I shouldn't be allowed in the country I was born in. I don't know why you would just go off on somebody like that. They weren't provoked at all.
Eventually, the cops threatened the couple with arrest and they backed down and were escorted out at the request of the Starbucks employees. The Muslim gentlemen apologized to us for having to even put up with that guy and I don't know why he did. It wasn't his fault and I think he had every right to jump into the fray the way he did. We got our coffee and headed out of the shop and on the way out, a woman handed me some kind of pamphlet or magazine about Jesus and then asked if she could introduce him to me. Slightly taken aback, I just told her we'd already met but thanks for the offer. Who asks to introduce someone to Jesus at a Starbucks? I guess it just served to prove to me that not everyone's as open-minded as I wish they were. I live in New York, one of the most diverse states in the world, and I've never had anything like this happen before. And I didn't expect it to happen in my home state either, since it is also very diverse. But we were closer to the burbs and further from the city, so maybe that has something to do with it. The whole situation was ridiculous and the lady offering me "salvation" at the door just topped it all off. Then, this morning I saw a story on CNN about South Carolina wanting to offer Christian license plates to its citizens. The network took calls to see what their viewers thought about the idea. A few said that it was a violation of the whole church and state separation and that if they're only offering plates to that one religious group, than it shows a bias that shouldn't exist. I agree. One lady called up and went on a live on the air rant about the separation of church and state being the problem with our country and that there should be no separation and if all of the people who don't believe in God would only read the bible, than they would know that it is truth and America could be a Christian country again. Even the news anchor taking the call looked shocked at the rant. Unfortunately, I wasn't. I expected someone to call up and say something like that. She's the kind of chick that gives people the illusion that all the people who share her faith are just like her and I know that's not true. That's part of why this country is great in the first place. You can worship or not worship whatever speaks to you freely, even though it doesn't seem like that sometimes. I don't have a problem in the world with any other religion but I do have a problem when people try to force their religion on me or take on the philosophy of "find God or go to hell". I've actually been told that before. Fortunately, I don't believe in the Christian version of hell so it didn't really offend me. I think one's faith should be their own thing. If someone wants to know more about yours and asks you to have a conversation about it, cool, let's talk. If they want to just assume and call you names, don't waste your time or your breath. That's the view I took in this whole thing. The sad thing is that this guy is just gonna keep walking around with his views and then likely pass those on to his kids and the cycle could just continue that way. That's unfortunate.
