Religion swallows some people whole

I was online looking for a good, clear photo of a cat scratch (can't tell you why - it's a secret for now) and came across a picture of a hissing cat wearing a yarmulka with a Star of David embroidered on it.

Egads.

Aside from being a very bizarre photo, it was yet another example of how some people seem to be completely consumed by their religion. They eat, breathe and sleep it, and they still can't get enough. Why would someone go to the trouble of making a tiny yarmulka for a cat and taking a photo of it and putting it online for all the world to see? It just does not compute for me. 1+1 does not equal 11.

I may be wrong, but it seems like Jews, Christians and Muslims are the most common victims of this phenomenon of religious submersion. And I'm not talking about clergy...I'm talking about lay people. People who get up and go to work and go on vacation just like the rest of us. But for some people getting up, going to work and going on vacation are all actions that are heavily charged with religious significance. It's almost like they have a different kind of substance in their brains that absorbs and secretes religion in massive, unlimited amounts, and is impervious to the typical stuff the rest of us experience as normal in our day-to-day lives. And in "the rest of us" I include the vast majority of the world for whom religion is a part of their life...but just a part.

I'll use Jews as an example. I've seen Jews for whom religion is not just a part of their life...it's their WHOLE life. Whose entire life, every moment of it, seems consumed by the pursuit of all things Jewish. They "think Jewish." They pray frequently. If possible, they work in industries that attract a lot of Jews, or in jobs that allow them to work with other Jews or directly for the Jewish community (what a coup THAT must be!). Their hobbies are collecting Jewish stuff or travelling to Jewish landmarks or creating art or crafts with Jewish imagery and themes. Their dreams are filled with visions of Jerusalem and praying at the Western Wall or working on a Kibbutz for the summer. All their charitable donations or volunteer work are for Jewish causes. They live in Jewish neighbourhoods (they have to...they gotta be able to walk to synagogue on Saturday mornings!). They flock to any movie or read any book that features Jewish themes, or characters or actors. Of course every morsel they put in their mouth is kosher. All their friends are Jewish. Their frames of reference for everyday things are peppered with allusions to Jewish, Yiddish or Hebrew things.

They gobble up everything Jewish, even if it sucks. If it's Jewish, it must be good, as far as they're concerned. The little critic in their brains doesn't filter out anything Jewish...just sucks it up through a straw and sighs "ahhhh" when it's done. I could probably make a mint by writing novels with Jewish (or Christian or Muslim) characters and themes, even if they were crap.

There's even a Jewish accent, believe it or not. It's got nothing to do with a foreign language either, and I'm convinced it's usually affected, rather than picked up naturally in childhood. I'm talking about native-born, Anglophone Jews from Canada and the U.S. who have a very distinctive accent that is not found in any other social group, except perhaps Anglophone Montrealers...most of whom are Jewish anyway! (I exaggerate...maybe.)

I guess what I'm saying is that every atom of these peoples' lives comes to them and comes from them through a filter of Jewishness.

They live among us, yet it's as if they exist in a completely insulated, separate world from us, which we can never penetrate. It's like they're a completely different breed, a different race...but most of them are not. They're just as Canadian, just as caucasian, as I am. But it feels like they're from a different planet.

I really don't get it. I don't get how someone's religion can so completely consume a person's life in every imaginable way. There seems to be no room left for anything that isn't related somehow to Judaism (or Christianity, or Islam). It seems they must be missing out on so much. They put these blinders on and go about the world, only seeing a small part of it -- on purpose! Why? What's so great about it? What's so bad about everything else? Why is there no balance? Is it because the rest of the world is considered to be evil or dangerous or, dare I say it, uninteresting?

Ever since I was little, I've had this unshakable sense that it's odd for grown people, especially grown men, to go about the world so completely obsessed by something, the existence of which they literally have to take on faith and have never been able to show any solid evidence for. It just doesn't seem very masculine to me. Men are usually so literal. I can kinda see how women fall for it...we're much more the dreamy type. If we don't have a fantasy man given to us we'll make one up. I've always wondered about the mental merry-go-round a supposedly intelligent, mature human being has to put themselves on in order to accept the "facts" of their chosen religion. Talking snakes anyone?

I just don't know. It's all incomprehensible to me.

Then again, so is football.