warning: rant about contemporary evangelistic religions

One more comment about my hiking trip, not about food or bodily functions:  The Christians are getting alarmingly thick underfoot out there.  There's always been a contingent of religious folks out there.  There's an obvious relationship, God's great works and all that.  Of course, I don't care about that...as long as I don't have to hear about it.  I see religion as being very private and therefore proselytizing to be phenomenally rude.  Whatever your relationship is with you and your God, it's your business.  Whatever MY relationship is with God is MY business.

Here's the problem:  Somebody is attaching these little "Have You Heard the Good News" pamphlet thingies to all the trail registers.  They are also writing little sermons in there every day.  

Trail registers are supposed to be about the trail.  Sometimes they are fun and goofy, often there's notes for friends behind you, sometimes there's notes about marauding wildlife at that shelter and sometimes about a lack of water somewhere ahead where there's supposed to be water.  In any case, the entries are for communicating information about hiking the Appalachian Trail.  They are not for evangelizing any more than they are for pasting in classified ads to sell your car.

Furthermore, the little pamphlet thingies cause the registers to often not fit in the waterproof and rodent-proof box that holds them.  I did not take them off, even though I felt like I would be doing a public service for doing so.  I felt like I was left in an awkward position on the right thing to do about that.  I prefer to err on the side of live and let live, but it's continued to get on my nerves.

It continued to bug me that when there was an actual bible present...it wasn't.  It was a New Testament only.  That's only half the story, kids, and the second half at that.

I'm baffled by evangelistic religions.  I understand faith.  I understand reverence for God, but I do not understand pushing your view point on people as the only right path to "salvation."[1]  This seems to require a suppression of reason and thought to accept.

My annoyance was enhanced by my inability to find anything on the radio dial around Charlottesville and Waynesboro that wasn't contemporary Christian music or outright preaching.  Don't people down there listen to classic rock?[2]  I mean, there's all those mulletized individuals.  They like classic rock, if not something I'd actually like, don't they?  Or are they all driving cars with the truth fish eating the Darwin fish and rocking out with God?[3]