Logtar wrote an interesting post about Religion and Sex. He likes to brag like that once in awhile. While he is being slaughtered by well-meaning fans in comments and since I don’t have sex, I’ll write about something else – baseball.
As I mention in every other post, I lived in US for the past 15 years. And one of the unsolved American mysteries to me is why is this boring, unwatchable and convoluted game is so popular here. When a person who has never seen a baseball game walks into a baseball park, he sees a guy with a bat trying to swing at a small ball thrown by another player. One more player is trying to catch the ball dressed up in the apron stolen from the dentist office. The rest of the people on the field are busy chewing, spitting, walking around, scratching their asses and aimlessly swinging their arms, pretending to catch an invisible ball. Once in awhile the field players run really fast to prove that they are actually part of the game and not just standing there killing the lawn. The game goes on for hours with no time limit and only gets more boring before becoming unbearable to watch. My co-workers and friends tried to fill this gap in my Americanization by inviting me to baseball games. So I went to 2 Royals’ games and one T-Bones game. I know what the game is about, I read the rules. I still don’t get it. It’s dreadful and excruciatingly painful to watch. No quantity of certain beverages can make this game fun to watch. (Note: I do like football – it’s fast and straightforward, easy to understand game).
The same goes for religion. If a person walks into a church/synagogue/mosque/whatever he would see grown-up people begging an invisible imaginary entity for various things i.e. health, wealth, good weather. They would read a book or books “given” to them by the entity and act like all of the life’s questions are answered in the book. They would thank the entity for the things they already have. And they always collect money or kill small animals in the name of that entity. Some of them would pretend to like people who believe in other entities, but secretly hope that they will burn in hell or be left behind during rapture and suffer in pain. I know what religion is all about, I read the bible. I still don’t get it.
After I lot of thought I gave up long ago trying to convince people that baseball sucks and that religion is a scam. You have to grow up playing it in order to like it and believe in it. And both have a purpose in life, I just don’t know what it is.