Talking to a friend of mine last night

I was talking to a friend of mine and we eventually got onto the topic of religious belief. She is an active church member and I am, well, atheist. "God never leaves me without direction; If God wanted me to; I live, but this world is meaningless to me." I told her that I detected an indifference to human suffering and a dangerous passivity in her thinking. I told her about that attitude in context of WW2 Europe, saying, "If people felt that way in WW2, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin and their successors would still be in power." I also told her that that was the prevailing attitude during the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century.

The point is that this is the only life we know we have and we cannot afford to be as passive as that. "It isn't some bizarre wish to die." But in a sense it is just that. Of course, there is no wish to bring others with them, like in Islam, but such an indifference is a burden on the rest of us who want something better here and right now. Only 60% of the electorate voted in the 2004 elections. The passive 40% are indirectly responsible for George W Bush because they could have taken advantage of the rights that our country provides and prevented this madness.

Furthermore, this passivity has an odorous air that smells sharply of indifference to human suffering, as well as one's own suffering. Boy would any megalomaniac be happy if his people were Christian sheep! Disarmed with such passivity, there would be no move to improve the lives of human beings upon this earth. During the time of the Bubonic Plague, there have not been any scientific or technological advancement for roughly 500 years. Why? This passivity and secret wish to die, which was all any serf or peasant could hope for during that time, instead of making an effort, however small or however misguided or however ineffective. to improve their quality of life.

Even more striking is an indifference to the politicized nature of her religion. She expressed a political indifference to the theocrats who so tarnish the religion which she shares. It greatly surprised me that she feels that she has no stake in fighting for whatever shred of integrity her religion might still have.