The Christian Stigma

As Stacey alluded to in her last post, there is a stigma that comes with being a believer. And in my experience, I think the stigma is strongest during college years. Before college, it's okay to be a religious person because you have parental influence. After graduation, you get older, wiser, and start to think about a family. A trend appears for parents to become re-associated with their faith because they have children. That leaves this middle time. The hard time.

Religious college students must be weird, uneducated haters who judge their peers who drink, smoke, and have sex. This is false. Being religious, spiritual, or faithful has very little to do with others. In my opinion, my relationship with God, or a "higher power" has nothing to do with how my peers live their lives. And my peers should not judge me for my relationship with God. I don't make a show of praying for people and telling my peers that God will take care of them. If they don't believe, they don't want to hear that. I respect their beliefs or lack of beliefs. I wish they could respect mine.

I think this stigma comes from ignorance on the part of nonbelievers. Many (but not all) don't take the time to understand belief. They simply assume all believers hate gays, are pro-life, and condemn atheists to hell. Again, false. I can't blame these people for their assumptions however. I know many assumptions come from personal experiences with overly conservative, and unloving individuals. Other assumptions come from exaggerated media.

It's unfortunate that so many people believe this. Sometimes I even find myself believing these types of generalizations. I haven't attended any of my school's Christian gathers because I've judged the people involved. They all seem uptight and many of them are members of the anti-drinking/drugs club. I don't want them to judge me for my participation in such activities. So I lay stuck in the middle. I want to connect of the religious community because others judge me for being religious, but I won't connect with this community because I am afraid they will judge me for my "wild" activities. I don't know what to do.