Last night I called home to ask my parents a question. Once that was done, my mother hesitantly asked me a question. ‘What does D&D have to do with religion?’
A little background. I was raised Catholic, and became an atheist after years of searching and questioning and research. The decision was not well received. I have played D&D & other RPGs for decades now, starting when I was in grade school.
So apparently my mother heard from someone else at the hospital she works at that D&D can make people lose their religion. I spent a minute describing what D&D has to do with religion (very little), and told her that D&D does not, in fact, make people lose religion any more than anything else does. I have played RPGs with Catholics, Mormons, pagans, atheists, and ‘other’. I talked about the whole ‘D&D causes Satanism’ bullshit scare that went around in the 80s, and how a lot of Christian groups still oppose D&D because of it.
At this point she takes off on yet another ‘I don’t know why you abandoned your faith, you’re going to hell, how could you throw away everything you were raised with’ speech. I hear this about every other time I talk to her. Most of the time I can restrain myself and avoid an argument. Not tonight.
And of course, it doesn’t matter. She isn’t having a discussion, she simply wants me to accept what she’s saying and magically change my whole world view. I hear all the oldies: ‘But you’re going to hell’, ‘god exists, I know it’, ‘you have to have faith’, ‘I see god everywhere’, ‘why don’t you try praying, it might work’ and my personal favorite ‘I don’t know much about the bible, I hear everything I need at church’. But she doesn’t hear anything I say. She just waits until I finish talking and responds with either ‘You have to have faith’ or ‘I just don’t understand how you could have lost your faith.’, over and over and over.
So my questions don’t matter? The fact that you, and everyone else, can’t seem to answer them doesn’t matter? You expect me to believe this fairy tale that you can’t explain or even tell me why you believe it? I’m supposed to just shut my brain off and not question because you told me it was true as a child? You told me about Santa Claus, and at the time, told me he was real. But then, no, he’s not real, but this other guy who also watches you all the time and also knows if you’re good or bad and who you also talk to and ask things of in a special way and also has ceremonies involving food and drink, well he’s real. Right. That’s it? That’s the best you can do? And you sit there being sad over the fact that I don’t buy this hook line and sinker?
Well I sit here appalled over the fact that you do buy this hook line and sinker, and don’t even bother firing up a couple of brain cells to think about it for long enough to understand it. I don’t know why it surprises me. You included pennies in a box that had a knife in it you gave me as a gift. Why? Because you have to. You are a certified nurse practitioner, and I had to sit down with you and explain why those bracelets with magnets on them weren’t really helping the pain in your wrist and you were better off going to see a DOCTOR about it.
I’m tired of this mom. I’ve been tired of it for years now. I’m tired of you treating my beliefs as unimportant compared to your beliefs. I’m tired of you treating me like a little child that needs correction instead of a 35 year old adult that actually knows more about what you’re talking about than you do. And I’m tired of you expecting me to follow aspects of your fairy tale just to make you happy. I’ve been the nice one about this. I’ve been patient. I’ve listened to you. You haven’t shown the same courtesy to me. I’ve had enough.
