Ben, I genuinely do like and respect you, but in these two threads, Fundamentalist Christians, Would You Say This Prayer and Fundamentalist Christians, Would You Practice Buddhist Meditation, you’re starting to get a bit tiresome. You come across to me as asking us Christians to betray our faith. Any religion has inconsistencies and things that could be nitpicked. Also, while I know you directed your threads at Fundamentalist Christians, we both know there aren’t that many around here and as we’ve already seen, other Christians, including me, can’t resist getting in. I realize you may be genuinely curious, but what you’re doing is the equivalent of saying to someone, “Would you beat your spouse?”
I’m reluctant to put this in the Pit because I’m more frustrated than angry, but I couldn’t think of a better place for it. Could you please tell me why you’re doing this, back off, or both?
This thread is supposed to be about Gentle Ben? I never knew he was into religion. Is this where the turn of phrase ‘Is the bear a catholic’ comes from?
I don’t know if Ben was picking a fight in the Great Debates thread, and I’m not going to read throught the entire thread to find out. My point was that Siege’s comparison between asking a Christian if they could betray their faith and beating up your spouse was a bit of a stretch. I’m have no axe to grind here, maybe Siege has a point, maybe not, it was that particular analogy that I took issue with.
I believe that Siege’s whole point was asking someone if they’d beat their wife is offensive, which seems to be the way Ben posts his questions, and I have to agree. The thread about whether ‘fundies’ would say a prayer turned into a ‘fundies are so closed minded since they won’t say this prayer’ and this thread about meditation looks like that is still his motive.
It’s been my experience that Ben has a bit of an axe to grind against religion in general, but particularly fundamental Christianity. I didn’t get too far into the “Would you say this prayer?” thread, simply because it was already up to four pages when I first noticed it. The second thread is interesting, though. I want to see where it goes.
You can already see where it’s going. Look at the reply “When you’re doing your calculus homework, should you keep up a running refrain in your mind of “Oh Jesus, yes oh Lord Jesus, great Lord of Calculus, mighty thou art, our Lord and Savior Jesus, Hosanna, Hosanna”?” because obviously all fundies think like this when they think about God.
I think the second thread is more interesting, because it’s a bit less overtly religious. The prayer in the first thread was nice, but the thread dissolved quickly.
Give him a light spanking, but don’t stick paint thinner in his eyes, or anything.
Frankly, if someone had been able to read my mind when I was doing my calculus homework it probably would have sounded similar to that -
and I’m not even Christian!
Ben is a former fundamentalist, as said in some other threads I’m not willing to go hunt down right now, and I don’t think he’s completely over his cross-cringe.
I can understand his history, but I do agree, it’s starting to get very annoying.
Ben, I’ve noticed, in some ways, can be as close-minded as the fundies he regularly goes against. One thing that I noticed once was that he refused to see why we thought that Jews for Jesus was harmful-even though we explained it over and over-he insisted that we were being closed-minded and using the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
I don’t think he’s interested in “debate” anymore-I think that deep down, he just wants to get fundies to admit that they’re close-minded and irrational.
There’s somethin in these threads that Siege mentioned that seem almost to be baiting. “If you won’t do this, you’re close-minded and I can’t see WHY you won’t blah blah blah…”
I mean, so WHAT if someone doesn’t want to try Buddhist meditation, for whatever reason? Hey, why not ask Buddhists why they don’t say a Novena? Or Muslims to hold a sedar? Ben, sometimes, buddy, you just gotta let it go. I am one hundred percent AGAINST ignorance-however, it seems as if you’re trying to agressively convert the fundies to your way of thinking, as much as they would do to you. CHILL.
I brought up the analogy to wife beating, not to diminish wife beating, but to try to make it clearer how important the issue of faith is. Even why I was truly, madly, deeply, permanently in love (or so I thought), my faith was more important me. FTR, it was during a discussion of women in the priesthood (discussing religion was one of the things I truly, madly, deeply loved about the guy). For me to deliberately betray my faith is just as morally reprehensive, as WRONG, as repellant as abusing a spouse would be. Herge, I don’t put questioning my faith on the same level as beating my husband; I put betraying it on the same leve as I put, well, betraying my husband.
During the past few weeks, Christians are the only ones Ben has asked to betray their faith. If I’d seen a thread headed, “Orthodox Jews: Would You Say This Prayer?” containing a prayer that asked them to deny the G-d of Abraham and Isaac, I wouldn’t have started this thread. I’d like to know why. That or ask him in turn if he’d be willing to attend a Palm Sunday service with me.
Also, I just wanted to make it clear that I started this thread as a reality check for me. Those two threads in fairly quick succession were bothering me, and I wanted to see if I was the only one. If I’m being unreasonable, as I just told Ben, then by all means, feed me to the wolves.
One point that CJ makes that I found interesting is why the specification of fundamentalist Christians? By Ben’s apparent usage of the term, there are what, a total of 4 on the SDMB? He might as well address a thread to creationists.
I thought the same thing when the second thread appeared. What’s next–a thread on the Left Behind MB called “Atheists: Would you consider attending church?” How about a thread on FreeRepublic titled “Democrats: Would you attend a Bush rally?”