Why Sleeve-Wearing Christianity Annoys Me

So I saw this today: http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos.....06790925_n.jpg ...And I couldn't help but be reminded just how annoying it is when Tim Tebow or anyone else exalts their own religious beliefs as often as they can. It just got me wondering if I'm a bad person for feeling so annoyed at this, so let me try to make my case as to WHY this is just plain wrong. And, despite me not being into football, I'm going to be using what little I know about Tim Tebow and using him as an example.

Giving Due Credit--The Real Story of a Person's Life

Tebow praises Jesus seemingly all the time in his career, and the first fault I see with this is giving undue credit. I mean, how many Christian football players say something like, "Yeah, we were doing fine until Jesus made me fumble. Christ must really hate our team this year." There's SO MUCH going on with Tebow's performance that he should give credit where it's due. Consider genetics, for one. Tebow had to have the right genetic code to be predisposed to being athletic, to not having any severe mental diseases or maladies that would alter his world perspective to the point that he would never rise to where he is today, AND to have the right facial structure so the NFL would pick him up (since the media would be plastering his image everywhere, and the media is shallow and cruel towards anyone who is physically unattractive, unless you're a comedian, and there are boundaries even there as well).

What's more, Tebow had to be born into the right family and society so that he would have the opportunity to play football enough to develop his skill. If he had been born unto a crack-addicted whore living on the streets of Santiago, Chile, he likely would have never had the opportunities for his skills in American Football to flourish. He also had to have the right life experiences to develop specific perspectives and conclusions on the nature of the universe in which we live that would result in the values he holds dear, including the high level of work ethic required to make it to the NFL.

An Unfair Advantage With an Unrealistic Argument

Now, Christians might make the argument that Tim's praise of Jesus still fits here, because Jesus (a.k.a. the Christian God) dealt Tim all these wonderful, high-scoring cards in the poker game of life. To me and many others, all that goes to highlight is how UN-caring God must be towards all the billions of people who are starving; impoverished; born into third-world countries with little-to-no access to resources required to even physiologically survive; the billions of children born who die in their infancy; the billions more who are born with maladies and disorders that hinder their lives, including a variety of mental disorders or diseases that alter one's perspective on life to the point that one cannot function properly or make the most of one's life; the billions of people who, through no fault of their own, never experience the external circumstances necessary to learn crucial life lessons and develop their own character; the list can go on.

Christians might counter this point by emphasizing the necessity of missionary work and witnessing, but let's be realistic: if you go to a country like Somalia to spread Christianity with the idea that people who believe in Jesus just plain do better in life, you're ignoring the flagrantly obvious problems of economics specific to that culture. People who are starving, dying of thirst or infectious disease from poisoned water aren't going to rely on the Bible to feed, water, and cure them. These people need pragmatic solutions, not some empty promise from someone claiming to speak on behalf of an invisible, absentee deity that things will get better if they just sit around and pray. You can't make something from nothing. Even if we want to go by the Biblical account, God Himself hasn't made something from nothing for quite a long time, and there's no evidence any of us have seen in our lives that should allow us to believe that He has plans to pick up that hobby again in the near future. This is the God that Tebow praises on a daily basis, that he says is more important to him than anything else.

Representing Tyrants, Madmen, and Warmongers

Despite Tebow's own personality, his insistence on praising Jesus ties him to the same post where we find a variety of atrocities committed all throughout history in the name of Jesus and the Christian God. The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, arguments against abolition, arguments for segregation, arguments against Women's Suffrage, arguments against gay rights. In fact, any and every instance of incorporating more people into our society and granting more people rights and showing more people compassion has been met in our nation's history by arguments from Biblical scripture. Christians tell us to love thy neighbor, but then try to define thy neighbor as only referring to specific people instead of everyone. Christians bomb abortion clinics, murder gay people, and light crosses on fire in the yards of Black people. And while many Christians today might look at all these acts I've listed and say that the guilty weren't TRULY following Christ or the Christian scripture, the rest of us just see that as a "No True Scotsman" fallacy, especially when you consider the prickish nature of Old-Testament God combined with Jesus himself talking about "bringing the sword," "leaving your families," and "selling the shirt off your back to buy a sword." This is the God that Tebow praises on a daily basis, that he says is more important to him than anything else.

I Can Prove Your Wife Exists

In that article, Tebow compares his expression of his devotion/relationship to Jesus as being similar in significance to one's devotion/relationship to one's spouse. The problem with this analogy is that I can prove that your spouse exists, and we all accept that your wife isn't divine in the way you see Jesus as being divine. When you rub your faith in the noses of everyone around you all the time, you're coming across as arrogant, that you're just SO SURE of your convictions because of the emotions you feel. The truth is that subjective certainty does NOT equal objective reality.

Those of us who don't feel the same way that you do would just like to hear you talk about something else for a change. You're a broken record. We get it--you're happy, and we're GLAD that you're happy. No, really; we honestly WANT you to be happy, and truth be told, a lot of us who aren't Christian don't CARE that you find happiness and peace in your own religion, as long as you keep it to yourself. We just don't want you to miss out on everything else the world has to offer. Music makes me happy, but I don't talk about it 24/7 because I also find happiness in ice cream, salmon, video games, fantasy literature, philosophy, politics, economics and investing, mathematics, the sciences (both natural and social), learning in general, trivia games, tennis, Dr Pepper, caring for animals, caring for the mentally handicapped, travelling the world, roller coasters, water slides, movies, stage make-up, and (far from being least of all) my boyfriend. Talking about Jesus ALL THE TIME is no less annoying than talking about any other one thing ALL THE TIME, especially around/towards people who just don't find it compelling.

Being Mr. Football Doesn't Make You Mr. Know-It-All

One more thing I find really irritating isn't entirely the fault of Tebow himself, because the media's treatment of Tebow's talks about Jesus is also largely to blame. It's known as the Halo Effect: it's when we as a society see someone excel at one given thing (usually entertainment-related for our society), and make some false connection in our minds that this individual MUST also be good at a variety of other things, so we end up listening to them for advice on areas outside of their specialized focus of achievement. Tebow is no different. Since becoming Jesus' Quarterback, the media has gone to Tebow for his opinion on non-football-related issues such as abortion, because apparently having a good throwing arm means you're qualified to tell a woman what she is and isn't allowed to do with her own body.

People want to watch football to be entertained and, perhaps, to see certain values they praise enshrined in the accomplishments of others. But those values are often things like exhibiting a strong work ethic, being a team player, and knowing how to strategize effectively. People don't want to watch football to hear a sermon--they go to church for that. I'm sure your pastor doesn't want you watching the game while sitting in church listening to a Sunday sermon, so do the world a favor and keep your church out of a playing field wide enough to accomodate people of all faiths. And for the rest of you who wear your religion on your sleeve, just keep in mind that while most of us respect your decision to follow and believe whatever you want, we just ask that you respect US enough to not continually rub our noses in it. At the end of the day, we judge each other by what we do, not by what we express as our creed, and Christians and other religious folks would have a far less hard time of it all if they practiced more humbly and lived more thoughtfully.