For most every religion, there are groups of people who openly and freely advocate the murder of people just because they adhere to that religion.
It’s not just Jews. Just pick a religion and there are millions of people who would like to see all the members of that religion exterminated.
Certainly Jews have had the worst of it. But Muslims sure do get their share of hatred as well.
It’s difficult to pick and choose among other religions. How would one even begin? I wouldn’t want to wade in that shit for fear of getting my feet all covered in shit.
May I just say that anyone who advocates the murder of a group of people just bcause they are members of a particular religion do not seem to be a good choice for friends of mine.
I made a stupid joke here about Scientology. But this issue is nothing to joke about. It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to joke about and anyone who tells any stupid jokes about people and their religion should defintely be publicly rebuked IMO.
In your house, you can say any damned thing you want and I will not insult or call you out on it. If I don’t like it, I will leave. Knowing your opinions, I will not deliberately say provocative things that upset you.
The exact same thing applies in my house. If you walk through my door and start spewing racist and offensive things, I will ask you to either shut up or leave, but I will not tolerate it. I expect you to know my opinions and sensitivities and to respect them within the walls of my house and my yard.
On neutral ground, I will call you out, and you’d better respect my right to do so. I expect the same of you, but I expect it to be reality/fact based, not some bullshit you made up, decided to think in contravention of all reality, or something your favorite shill said.
If someone starts spewing racist comments in public, do you not think it’s right and important and indeed necessary to publicly rebuke them?
I never used to think that. But now I do.
If I’m sitting at a table with a group of people from work or from a bowling league or any other group and some of them start telling jokes about fat people or black people or Jewish people, I think it’s very important to stand up (figuratively speaking) and rebuke them. That kind of conduct must not be tolerated in a group. Absolutley not.
This is very important. This is where serious shit starts and this is were it must be stopped.
This is pretty much my attitude, except that I can’t really abide people who spout stuff as fact that’s completely and totally wrong. Stuff like young-earth creationism, anti-vaxxer nonsense, etc… It’s not so much the belief, but the reason for the belief, which is a lack of critical thinking and anything more than superficial thought.
No, I don’t think. It’s not my job to save the world or to educate grown folks. I may get up and walk away when egregiously bigoted comments are made, and certainly I’ll require they be stopped if they’re happening in my house or office, but starting fights in public with people whose minds I won’t change is not to my benefit.
Ah! My favorite kind of story: no good guys! The amoral, but highly skilled, drifter versus the regionally powerful villain…it cries out for the inevitable film treatment to be directed by Tarentino as an homage to Leone and Kurosawa. I see Bruce Willis as me, Sam Jackson as **Skald, **and David Spade as Miller…
I must admit that you make a very good point. Actually, it is an excellent point.
I’m left wondering just why I seemed to think it was such an important idea when someone once told me it was important to speak up in public when someone was making those kinds of remarks.
I have several friends who are in many ways my exact opposites. We knew that going in and are appreciative of those differences. I bounce my best arguments off them and they do the same with me. Even if they don’t change my mind, they always force me to think and help me to understand why the other side thinks the way they do.
What kills me are the ‘stealth’ friends. The ones who seem like they are going to really be good pals until they open their mouths and say something grossly unacceptable and completely out of my wheelhouse.
Here’s an example. Years back I started a new job and met a gal who seemed bright, funny and like someone who could become a friend. We had some lunches together, even went antiquing one Saturday with a group. Inevitably the conversation came around to religion. The minute she asked me if I’d ‘found’ God and accepted Jesus as my personal savior, I knew we were in trouble. I’m Catholic, and a practicing Catholic, and we don’t ‘find’ God. We don’t consider him to have ever been lost. I gently told her I was Catholic and the kindly look on her face swiftly changed into something ugly. She stood up from the table, briefly touched her hand to the top of my hand, and said “I really liked you. It’s a shame you are going straight to hell.” Then she turned and walked out of the room. She never spoke to me again except when business required it.
I usually don’t ask people their religious preferences right away when I meet them, but after that incident, I was tempted to start. It really doesn’t matter to me. I have friends of all faiths, but it clearly matters to others. I’m not sure there is a right way to handle this type of difference other than just letting it come out in its own way. But wow, that was hurtful.
I cannot abide certain types who deny reality. Holocaust deniers, Moon landing hoax idiots, and 9/11 Truthers come to mind. Probably others along those lines.
I get up. Nothing figurative about it. I’d rather go sit with the fat/black/Jewish guy they are mocking to make the point.
You also have to think that it may be based on one or more of the following:
emotional issues that are over-riding critical thinking
peer pressure/desire to conform (or even desire to not conform)
rational decisions made on faulty information presented by someone else.
That’s part of why I don’t require agreement. There are so many reasons that even rational and nice people can be racist or flat-earthers or whatever. Think about it this way: if you were a white person living 200 years ago in the American South, what are the odds you’d have been a racist? Pretty much 100%, right? We don’t exist in a vacuum, and our mental faculties can only overcome so much of the societal defaults that we are taught. I have no doubt that there were some very smart, rational, likable slave owners. Being wrong doesn’t change that.
I’m pretty open minded with friends, but a few deal killers are:
Anyone opposed to Same Sex Marriage. I have learned after years of debate with people who oppose it for all sorts of reasons, that at the core of such a person is a bigot.
Anyone who hunts purely for sport. Kill an animal, then eat it: no problema. Kill an animal that is preying on your herd, I’m down with that too. But pay $5000 to kill a giraffe, or shoot wolves from a plane, or shoot a cat with a bb gun……you’ll never be a friend of mine.
Anti-vaxers. Please go away, preferably to another planet. Also, people who dislike cats as I am usually semi-covered in cat hair. I broke up a potential friendship immediately in college when some asshole called me a cheap Jew in public. Um yeah, fuckface, no thanks. Don’t even breathe my air, bitch
The obvious things first, hateful assholes need not apply.
The personal traumas next, sorry fundies, you give me panic attacks or rage-induced headaches, so gtfo.
Pets/cats are up there. You don’t have to be a cat person specifically, but I’ve found thst if you don’t understand the impulse to have pets to snuggle, we just won’t click.
And lastly, as I discovered just this past weekend, Disney animated movies.
I was volunteering at a community event, and someone from another organization was at a booth next to ours. The conversation wandered around to geekyness (I think via Dr Who). There were early signs that we would not mesh - 9 is my Doctor, and she prefers Matt Smith, she has dogs so I thought we’d be ok, but then she stated that “cats are sociopaths - we’d be better off killing them all” (she wasn’t kidding).
The last straw came with our discussion of Disney animated musicals and broadway shows. Firstly, she said that The Lion King was stupid and boring, then she said Julie Taymor was a hack and Lion King was only a long-running broadway show because someone had dirt on Disney, and finally she said that The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the single best Disney movie, with the best plot and characters.
I found a reason to move my booth elsewhere before I felt required to deck her.
I turned down a second date with a guy who drew our star charts right there at the table where we were having lunch, from memory. :eek::eek: he was shocked, he told me he always does well with Taurus women.
I would have a hard time wanting to be around someone who likes New School hiphop. I can’t stand the stuff, and to me it would point to the person having some attitudes (like misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, enjoying violence, etc.) that I wouldn’t want anything to do with.
Kind of answered in the OP. Believe something I don’t? Go ahead. Can’t shut up about it, or try to “convince” me? Go away. Mostly I’d prefer not to know. This of course implies that there are some other redeeming features that make me like them; if going on a date you’re allowed to be more picky than someone you grab a beer with once in awhile. Like I have been friendly with YEC people, but I’m not going to church with you and this implies a higher likelihood that we won’t have much else in common.
I have a hard time relating to some peoples’ experiences because most of the attempted indoctrination I get is from the left or atheism and very little right or religious. I’m not interested in discussing or debating in either case. Maybe it’s because I work in academia, but this is a “purple state” (went for Bush x2 and Obama x2). Like the guy above me at work who tried to talk about gun control on campus when my opinions lie more towards giving Skald’s wife a high five on the deer (P.S. I accept venison care packages). Or on the religion front, the only “incident” I can remember was a couple weeks ago some random guy mentioned his church down the street and that Jesus died for me. Then I had a former coworker who was “atheist stupid.” Like a militant atheist, except completely ignorant of religion and proud of it. E.g. if the Greek pantheon were still relevant, he’d be proud that he has no idea that Athena represents (the just side of) war and wisdom, or that she was birthed by head wound. Is Zen Buddhism Mahayana or Theravada? “All religion is stupid. I don’t know that crap!”
(OT: is Minerva cool or is she an awful slattern?)
But I dont care for people who give off alot of negative energy or people who just are so unhappy with their own lives they seem to want to bring down everyone else.
Along with that they just dont seem to be going anywhere in their lives and are always negative yet refuse to change or do anything about it.
