Conversion attempt

[sabotabby]

I forgot to tell the story of getting Marinetti to that last vet appointment.

So I called a cab. When I got in, the guy was on the phone figuring out Koran orders. As in he was bulk-ordering Korans but the other guy had sent the wrong amount or something. He had not been sent enough Korans. Anyway, there was a lot of traffic so we started talking. He said he'd been a vet back in Pakistan and was working on getting his license here, but he'd only been here two years and was working as a cab driver in the meantime. I said, "well, welcome to Toronto, good luck, etc."

He said he really liked Toronto. Previously, he'd been living for six years in Scotland and hated it. Apparently all there is to do in Scotland is drink, fight, and curse the English, and there is a pub every 100 metres*. I thought the latter bit sounded pretty good, but then I said, "Oh, I guess you don't drink."

Which was enough to launch him on the most hamfisted attempt to convert me to Islam ever, with my dying cat purring on my lap. It was the worst conversion attempt I've ever encountered. Like, I would have done a better job trying to convert me to Islam. He wasn't even being a dick about it; he just couldn't come up with one argument that made any sense. (Example: He went from being a cell to a fully grown human, isn't that a miracle? I told him that I'm pretty sure that happens all the time. Also, you don't start with the "alcohol is evil" thing. That's like the worst selling point of any religion.)

Anyway, the whole thing was quite good natured and a distraction. I left him with the story of the Prophet Muhammad and the cat, which I think is a better argument for Islam than any of the ones he provided.

He said, "I'm banging my head against a brick wall, aren't I?"

"Yep," I said. "But you distracted me from thinking about how my cat's dying, and I really appreciate that, so thanks. Salaam alaikum."

So that happened.

* Which led to a funny discussion later with the_axel about how I wanted to go to Scotland now. Because it has pubs and castles. He pointed out that it is not all pubs and castles. I told him I was disappointed because I was picturing "castle, castle, pub" all the way down the street and apparently it's not like that.

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Because it has pubs and castles.

On my only trip to Scotland, I remember how jarring it was to grab fast food at a local fast food place, surrounded by plastic pastel furniture, looking out a big window at a rocky, moss-covered cliff on top of which was Edinburgh Castle. The juxtaposition was disorienting.

[sabotabby]

That sounds completely awesome.

(Can you drink in the castles? Is there a castle that is also a pub?)

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

They're usually family-oriented tourist sites. So no, as far as I've seen.

[sabotabby]

Bummer.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

You get a lot of pubs called "The Castle" but not vice versa as far as I know. Though you get ruined castles you can drink/shoot up/shag in all over Britain. Or could if it were not so bloody cold!

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Please come to Scotland. It is more pub, pub castle than castle, castle pub but it is brilliant nonetheless. Come in September around the time of the independence referendum and celebrate with us...

[sabotabby]

Alas, if I am able to travel in September, it is bad news because it'll mean I don't have a job. :(

I do want to go to Scotland, though! I like both castles and pubs and also the accents are really great. I hear you also have some urban decay.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I am more strongly in favour of you having a job than you coming to Scotland because you don't have a job.

[sabotabby]

Not to mention that if I don't have a job, I can't afford to go to Scotland.

Eh, I am almost certainly stranded in TO this summer, so I can save up. I'll miss the independence vote, though.

[the_axel]

Stranded in TO except for the weekends when you travel to The End Of The World to terrify and be terrified, build Communism and fish.

[sabotabby]

There is that. I should be able to devote a lot of effort to DR and learning piano.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

How does one build a fish?

[firinel.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I was just going to say that rather than castle, castle, pub, that I thought it was more like pub, pub, castle.

[sabotabby]

That would work too.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the info I did not know, particularly that Muhammad's favorite cat was Muezza, which I read as Mewzza, of course. If we get a girl cat next, that name will be in the running.

[sabotabby]

I am always on the lookout for good cat names, though it will probably be a long time before I get another cat (grieving periods aside, Cocoa needs to lose weight and I can't put her on a diet if there's another cat whose food she can steal), and given my penchant for adopting older, fucked-up cats, it's always a toss-up as to whether I choose the name.

I was slightly disappointed that Lenin's cat's name apparently translated to "Socks" or something.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was удар (pronounced "Udar") which means sock as in clout or punch.

Looking this up lead me to толкать (pronounced Tolkat) which means push/shove and incite/instigate (yet in slang "sell/hustle"). Which seems like an awesome name.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I am really impressed that your reaction was to say, "But you distracted me from thinking about how my cat's dying, and I really appreciate that, so thanks. Salaam alaikum." That is very lovely.

[sabotabby]

He was a nice guy. Completely inept and barking up the wrong tree, but nice.

And it was true. I needed a distraction. And I can always use a chance to practice one of the approximately five phrases I know in Arabic.

[ironed_orchid]

The medieval Egyptian zoologist Al-Damiri (1344-1405) wrote that the first cat was created when God caused a lion to sneeze, after animals on Noah's Ark complained of mice. This is the best creation myth.

He sounds like a nice guy. A lot of nice people I know have tried to convert me to Islam, it never seems to stick.

[sabotabby]

This is probably a factor of me being overly PC (or just my fetish for Islamic architecture), but I get less annoyed at people trying to convert me to Islam than people trying to convert me to Christianity or make me into a better Jew. I dunno. They're less pushy about it, I guess. Short of an actual deity appearing, proving itself to me, and giving me a convincing argument for why I should worship it, it's not like I'm going to ever be religious. But I appreciate manners.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I think that having contact with an actual deity (or deities), or at least having had some kind of spiritual experience, is really the only good reason to be religious. It doesn't have to be some hugely dramatic thing - in some cases it's just a subtle dimension of experience that's always been there for that person, but I think it needs to be experientially grounded in some way to be valid.

You can't just argue someone into believing something that is outside the realm of their personal experience, because (a) if they are any kind of rational person it's not going to work, and (b) what would be the point anyway? Blind faith is not a virtue. I know I'm probably atypical, but I'd see someone paying lip service to a deity I liked without having any real personal connection to them to be almost insulting to the deity.

Although, having just written that, I guess it's not that black and white. Some people haven't had any kind of spiritual experience, but would LIKE to, and get involved in religions hoping to make a space for that to happen, and I don't have any problem with that. It's just the idea of blind faith, or people treating religion as something they can somehow argue or debate someone into, that kind of makes my brain explode. It's like trying to argue someone into falling in love with you: it doesn't work that way. The feeling's there, or it isn't.

[sabotabby]

I have a thing for ritual and belonging and community. But I'm spiritually empty. No one believes this; I don't think it's possible for someone who has felt a spiritual experience to ever really grasp what it's like to not, and vice versa.

This means that "come to my X, I'm having Y ceremony" will work for me, but no argument ever will.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Ooh that's interesting - I see it as the other way round, in that I am capable of "spiritual" experience but think it saner to put it down to neurology, while personally I would need persuading with metaphysics to believe in a god or a religious world view. I am too tired and brain mushed and busy in life to have time to study metaphysics, though, so have not got far in working out exactly how I stand...will have to be agnostic.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I would need better philosophy and logic than the "look how amazing things are therefore there must be a main man/big fountain/one thing creating it on purpose" argument though.

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno why either, but I also find it less annoying. The VERY worst conversion attempt I have ever had was when two Jews for Jesus followed me down a city street yelling after me. It was simultaneously annoying, unnerving and hilarious. Nobody trying to convert me to Islam has ever done that, anyway.

-- kore on DW

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I have not been to Scotland yet, but I have been to England and I did drink in a lot of pubs and see a lot of castles. Alas, there were no pubs in castles, but I did get to sit in a gorgeous pub, drinking a cider, while looking at Windsor Castle. Which is fucking gorgeous.

[sabotabby]

That will do. Though I think they should put at least one pub in a castle, to optimize the experience.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Even better, put a pub and a B&B in a castle, and then you'd never have to leave. Except to go look at other castles. And cathedrals. And crumbling ruins. All of which England has a lot of.

[sabotabby]

I would just move there. I mean, it's cheaper to travel to most places from England, and what else do you need?

I guess the weather is shit, and the government is as bad as ours. So there's that.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Not quite as bad as yours yet and we might replace them soon with one still crap but not quite as bad...but Scotland and Wales are a bit nicer politically, though admittedly not so good transport wise. Where I live you can walk down the road and get the train to Paris but I have never felt the urge to do so. Maybe because I know I can if I ever get the urge?

Also, in Edinburgh there is actually a chocolate cafe, which is better than a pub. It has lots and lots and lots of chocolate things. I want to visit it again.

[sabotabby]

That sounds appealing. Though chocolate agrees with me even less than booze does.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

You are a beautiful and tolerant human being.

[sabotabby]

I'm usually not. I must be getting soft in my old age.