A Funny Story

[Inertiatic]

My family and I go to Aruba every year for two weeks. Since we've been doing this for about seven years now, for the first week we didn't do any sightseeing. We just stayed around the hotel and the ocean.

But this year, on the second week, we brought up my grandmother and cousin (who had never visited the island before) to stay and vacation with us too. It's an idea I recommend strongly against. STRONGLY against.

But, towards the end of the week, we went to these extremely shallow "caves" on either side of a road that house Christian (or Catholic, I don't really know the difference) shrines/altars. Earlier in the week, we brought our pretty religious grandmother, though begrudgingly on our part, to a large church we didn't even go into- only her. She took forever, and we weren't very pleased. We didn't even set foot on the property.

But still we went to those "caves".

The man who takes care of the "caves" was riding on a bike and saw us pull over on the other side of the road. We met him last year. We sat in the car and my father asked him if we could just walk around the altars. He gave his reply and went off down the road. It was the last time we saw him.

My father undercut the moment by asking, bewildered, "What the hell did he say?"

Indeed, the man was unintelligible. We all burst out laughing, relieved to know that none of us knew what the hell he was saying either.

My dad put on a great show, nodding at all the right moments in the man's speech. He was flawless.

We sat in the car for a little while afterward, as if deciding on whether we should leave on that note or proceed with our self-guided tour. We decided to get out, which is when I said, amid my agnostic-yet-staunchly Catholic father and pretty religious grandmother, when I shrugged about our decision and said,

"Who cares? It's all just a bunch of religious malarkey."

Big- no, huge laughs from everybody except me. Even my dad and my grandmother, laughing.

I don't know why. I didn't get it then and I've never asked why.

But I know I'll remember that.

That's all religion is, perhaps even to the religious.

It's just malarkey.

Edited October 6, 2008 by Inertiatic

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Everyone thinks *other* peoples' religions are ridiculous. (You'd think they'd follow that thread of thought just a *little* bit someday....)

As someone once said, "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh."

[Inertiatic]

True.

The whole experience was unfortunately odd.

[01503]

As someone once said, "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh."

Robert A. Heinlein, Sci Fi writer.

[Jake]

Robert Heinlein also wrote this:

The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not recieve this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.