I was raised in the religion of Christian Science. Now a Christian Scientist doesn’t exactly believe in faith healing…but they really do. Basically if you “know the truth†you’ll have a healing. And by “know the truth†I mean you see that God made everything good; so you really can’t be ill.
Now to a Christian Scientist surrounded by other Christian Scientist this all makes sense. You pray “know the truth†and you get better or your situation gets better. This is proof that the prayer worked. You never stop to question this evidence, you pray and you get better. If you don’t get better then you don’t see things clearly enough, you don’t know the truth yet.
This all seems very silly to anyone outside the religion. Just because you pray doesn’t mean you get better. If you do get better it doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it; because sometimes people get better without prayer or doctors. But as a Christian Scientist you’d never see it as a spurious correlation.
People at work have been bitching at me for being too nice when I’m working on resolving a problem. It’s the “squeaky wheel†religion. That’s how I see it now. If you bitch enough about a problem other people will take notice and fix it for you. But just as the Christian Scientist never stops to consider that people heal without any prayer the SW people would never consider for a second that problems get solved every day without their bitching.
The “squeaky wheel†people bitch and the problem is solved, that’s all the proof they need. You’d have just as much success in getting a CS to go to a doctor as you would to convince a SW not to bitch. The CS and SW alike “know†and pity you for not having the understanding/superior knowledge they have.
Neither would ever consider that their actions (or lack of action in reality) only makes the problem at hand worse. That bitching or prayer is really avoiding dealing with the problem directly.
If you are chewing someone out about an issue its probably going to take even longer to resolve than if you’d just asked for an update. The person you just bitched out will need to take a break to get the SW religion out of their head. You’ll succeed in getting their focus off the issue and onto what an idiot/asshole/dumb-ass, which you are.
In conclusion – address the issue at hand with a logical approach. If you are frustrated, express the frustration…but don’t equate the expression as a step in resolving the problem.
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