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You can’t mix and match religions. You just can’t.

Last night at the bar I met a woman who was, on first impressions anyway, perfectly normal and seemingly quite sweet. By met, of course, I mean I was eavesdropping on a conversation she was having with Trish. She said she worked at a nursing home, a profession I give her a lot of credit for choosing because, frankly, old people bug me out even when they’re healthy. Trish asked her how she handled the stress and emotion of being surrounded by the sick, dying, and occasionally dead and this is when the conversation got heavy and I had to chime in. The woman stated that she wasn’t bothered by the disease and mental illness eating away at her patients because “they chose it for themselves.”

That’s a bold statement. After all, Alzheimer’s (one particular disease e she mentioned) isn’t an illness you choose or even acknowledge as an acceptable risk as does a smoker with lung cancer. In fact I’d imagine that, given a choice, many of her patients wouldn’t choose to live their final days suffering the indignity of having someone else wipe their assholes, let alone the pain and confusion of forgetting the faces of one’s own children.

So why, pray tell, does this woman believe that these patients choose their afflictions?

According to her when a person dies their soul is given a choice between being reborn in order to learn new lessons in the physical world, or moving on to their final destination. Many of us are born hundreds of times, she claims, until we decide that we’re enlightened enough to leave the Earth. The interesting point to me is that we actually decide our own fate, as though anyone would choose to be diseased or handicapped. Personally if I had to choose my own reincarnation I’d come back as a pair of Jessica Biel’s underwear, not an Alzheimer’s patient.

The real icing on the cake is what she said when we asked her religion: METHODIST.

I calmly said to myself: “no, no you’re not fucking Methodist you ignorant hag.” I really don’t care what people believe so long as they don’t push it on me. (Yes I know I’m a bit of a hypocrite since I’m more than happy to tell folks I think their beliefs are bunk.) But my point is this: why claim any religious affiliation if you’re going to mix and match totally incompatible philosophies to suit your own tastes? What makes this hodgepodge spiritual melting pot philosophy any better than my own secular outlook? The religious claim I simply conjure my morals out of my own ass, while good-hearted folks like this woman are force-fed theirs from assholes like Silvia Brown.

Did I forget to mention that part? The woman I’ve been discussing follows Silvia Brown, the Montel William’s weekly quack psychic guest who claims occult knowledge on such issues as telekinesis, life after death, angels, ghosts, UFOs, and magical leoplorodons from Candy Mountain (I am making that last one up). Personally I tend not to believe the teachings of anyone quoted as saying “Screw ‘em. Anybody who believes this stuff oughta be taken,” but I guess that’s just that crazy brain of mine talking again. It does, however, make me wonder what other holy men and women have said out of earshot of their flocks.