I've never been so immediately turned off as when my Spanish started talking about religion. I don't remember how religion came up . . . probably in some discussion about Spanish cultures . . . but for some reason it went way off track and became a Q&A about his personal beliefs. Someone asked the inevitable, "Why do good things happen to bad people?" and he had the gall to say they don't! He said bad things only happen to people who deserve them. He said good people who died violent deaths obviously weren't good, and that they were probably pedophiles or murderers at some point in their lives, but no one knew about it. I was flabbergasted at this reasoning! Babies who have violent deaths were brought up, and I thought for sure he was caught there, but no . . . he said in that situation, the sexual act that had resulted in the baby had been a perversion, or a position that wasn't sanctioned by god (or something of that sort. I forget the exact wording). I was too timid to bring it up, but luckily someone else did . . . "What about Jesus? He died a violent death." The reply to that was an ugly look and the answer, "Well, obviously that was a special situation."
The fact that there were people in that class who were nodding and saying, "Yeah, that makes sense." still makes me shudder to think about it. Because of that experience, I'm very turned off when someone says "It's god's will, he knows best," or something of that sort. All I can think about is the assumptions some apparently make about the people who fall victim to "god's will," and my brain shuts down.
