Dear friend, my tolerance is reaching its limits

The BBQ Pit
1

You know that joyous moment when you reconnect with an old friend, someone with whom you share countless childhood memories, family secrets, feelings of closeness? Such is the magic of Facebook.

This joy becomes more and more distant with each passing day.

You see, I strive to be a tolerant person, and by ‘‘tolerant’’ I don’t mean I only care about people I agree with. I’m cool with a diversity of belief systems. Personally I love learning about different religions, and enjoy rational conversations with people who share different political views. I think people who believe in God have kind of a neat thing going, especially with the benefit of their church community (I used to be a believer myself and remember well the pros of such a lifestyle.) In short, I’m not a militant atheist, and while my opinions are strong, I’m not likely to shove them down anyone’s throat to the point of discomfort. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

So when you told me you are now a Messianic Jew, I was all, ‘‘Cool. What’s that?’’ I wasn’t even aware such a thing existed. I find this peculiar mixture of Judaism and Christianity to be very interesting. Not to mention it’s kind of a badass name for a religion. Good for you.

The problem is, I can’t figure out what ELSE you are. About 20% of the time I see glimpses of the person you used to be, but usually your actual personality is so obfuscated by generic references to your fundamentalist religion it’s really hard to tell what you’re like.

Now, I almost cut myself off from you the day you used ‘‘homosexuality’’ and ‘‘pedophilia’’ in the same sentence. Bigotry is one of the few issues that makes me tremble with rage. You later thanked me for being one of the few friends who didn’t turn her back on you because of that incident. I told you I thought it was better to openly air differences of opinion than shut out voices you don’t agree with. (My secret rationale is that you are surrounded by many people who agree with you, so it might be helpful for you to maintain some social contact with someone, like me, who thinks differently.)

Most of the time, things are okay. When they only come once a day or so, I can quietly ignore the links to FoxNews, rants about that Muslim teen who claims her parents are going to kill her for converting to Christianity, and your mind-bogglingly stupid friends (’‘I don’t know, she sounds really suspicious. If she’s from a Muslim country how could she possibly know about the love of Christ?’’ Extra stupid because that girl’s family is from Sri Lanka.) I’ve tried to engage you on your own terms – when you posted in a survey that your greatest fear was letting God down, I pointed out that as a Christian I once feared this myself, but according to the Bible Christ died for your sins therefore you should not be afraid.

Lately, you’ve been getting a little bit scary. You posted one of those get-to-know-you surveys and 20 out of 30 answers (I counted!) referenced Jeshua in some way. Yesterday you posted a video about how the book of Isaiah reveals the true name of the Anti-Christ (I didn’t watch it, I can’t tell you who it is, sorry Dopers. I’m placing bets on ‘‘Obama’’ though.) You talk a lot about the Second Coming. Really. A LOT. I asked you, ‘‘If you knew that Armageddon would occur in your lifetime, how would it change things? Would you do anything differently?’’ I was hoping this would help you to understand that even within your current belief system, obsessing over these things makes no practical sense. You didn’t answer.

Today I think I’ve really reached the last straw.

This is actually pretty typical. I bolded the part that annoyed me the most.

So I said,

And one of your jackass friends jumped in and said:

This is the same woman who advised you not to ‘‘toss your pearls before swine’’ when you tried witnessing to me during the homosexuality row. You think I wouldn’t notice you called me a fucking PIG, you two-faced condescending hypocritical bitch?

So this is what I think. I think SHUT THE FUCK UP. I used to BE a devout Christian, I know alllll about the joy of God’s love and a close, personal relationship with Our Lord And Savior Jesus Christ, so I know exactly what it is I’m missing out on. I’ve also read The Bible 20 times or so and I know your twisted version of reality has nothing to do with who Jesus actually was or what he commanded. If you actually look at what it says, our Lord Jesus Christ actually spent most of his time hanging out with hookers and tax collectors. He preferred the company of hookers and tax collectors to self-righteous religious twats for a fucking reason. My best guess is because he knew dingbats like you would drive away lost souls in droves. And he didn’t give a good god-damn about government.

I’m sorry your shitty childhood has made you so fucked up but I’m really not sure I can take this anymore. There’s nothing you say that doesn’t sound like it was regurgitated straight from your cult leader. When you’re not making me mad, you’re making me bored. I keep telling myself that I have some kind of moral obligation to stick with you, to be that one voice of dissent in the masses, to remain open minded to all belief systems, but I hate feeling so angry all the time and I’m not sure it’s worth it to be tolerant anymore.

2

So, you’re against the redemption of America’s government?! :eek:

Seriously, when some people get all religious all you can do is say, “That’s great. Wanna go see the new Transformers movie?” Either that, or just let them drift away. Good luck.

3

I recently had to deFriend an old acquaintance on Facebook because he kept posting some really frothing at the mouth right wing comments on my page, using the slightest pretext. A favorite local restaurant closed? “It’s Obama’s fault! I’m not paying taxes anymore because he’s taxing everyone out of business!” Post a Tom Tomorrow cartoon for laughs? “America is a dictatorship, all of you are brainwashed, it’s time for a revolution or our freedoms will be destroyed!” But at much greater length, of course.

I asked him politely several times not to post these rants on my page. Post whatever you want on your own page, I swear I will not inject my two cents, but come on my page and spew this stuff, esp. when it’s only a tangential, pretextual reason that evokes it? No thanks. He accused me of violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and attempting to punish him for being a patriot. He also told me to move to Cuba if I like socialism so much. :rolleyes:

OK, I used to like him, but clearly he has no respect for my boundaries, no understanding of the Constitution he claims to revere, and no sense of proportion. DELETED. This is the risk of reconnecting with people on social networking sites. You find out things about them you didn’t want or need to know. I’ve known this guy for 10+ years and politics never came up, we never argued, but now… whoa. After three times when he posted almost unrelated, random screeds on my page, I couldn’t take it anymore.

4

I bet I know how they voted in that stupid poll that was floating around a few days ago: “Should Atheism be banned in America?” (my response: “No, but assholes who think up polls like that should be banned”)

You’ve got more patience than me. I couldn’t imagine being friends (in real-life or on Facebook) with someone so brain-damaged.

5

Having been part of that club as well, I can attest to some of these things.

A big part of the allure of strident christian religion is this war they think they’re engaged in. It gives them purpose, something to do, and makes them feel superior. I’m not just preaching to my homo neighbors, I’m *fighting a waaaar!! *

The more they elevate their stupid beliefs to a dire struggle for the fate of humanity, the more detached from reality they become. How do you argue with someone who legitimately believes they are fighting in the battle of armageddon whey they tell you Obama’s the antichrist? There’s no argument there.

And yes, the thing about the book of Isaiah giving the name of the antichrist is that it’s “Barak Obuma” or some nonsense. Except it’s not. Who cares, though, right, we’re fighting a holy war. Strap on the armor of god. Build up treasures in heaven. Kill the infidels.

Oh, wait, not that last one.

6

I had a close encounter with an ex friend-turned-religious fundamentalist. Luckily, it got nipped in the bud. Apparently he’d requested my friendship while I was in the country for the weekend. In those three days he decided that I was ignoring him and would therefore burn in hell. I got three pages of tripe and hellfire, then nothing else. Disaster averted.

7

This is the great thing about living in Japan. No one has front porches so we’re never at the brink of civil war.

No. Life is too short to argue with the crazy ones. Time to let this one go.

8

Here’s kind of where you took a misstep, in my opinion,

Not that the guy isn’t a fundamentalist nutjob, clearly he is, but you weren’t put on this earth to be a saviour to the misguided.

I understand what you’re saying, maybe you’re the last rational person this loony has in his life, it’s true.

9

Oh, man. I was joking.

I find that kind of hilarious, like that girl who forgot her boyfriend was backpacking in Europe and broke up with him and slept with someone else while he was away, to punish him for ‘‘ignoring’’ her.

She is pretty nutty, and it wasn’t just compassion for her that made me stick around. I’d really like to be a tolerant person, and not close myself off from people with differing viewpoints. I think that’s better for society in general. But I’m beginning to see that this tolerance may have limits.

10

Perfect. I was watching one of those “Left Below” movies starring Kirk Cameron last night, and I think there were at least five scenes that used this same, exact wording. Don’t ask me why I watch movies like that. I guess for the same reason I watch SciFi Channel original movies.

11

God must be a real douche, since he’s allowed his children to fester in sorrow while waiting for the Second Coming, which is already two millennia behind schedule. Sure wish God would get off his lazy holy ass and reave all those delusional Christian souls (as promised in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) so the rest of us can get back to worshipping Satan.

12

The horrible thing about facebook is that it takes people who should be acquaintances, and encourages them to share their inner thoughts. I know one of my coworkers is an atheist, another a fan of Ayn Rand who thinks Randian Libratarianism is a practical political system, another pro-Life (none of these a big deal to me - but frankly, I don’t know you well enough to even want to know these things about you. I have to work with you.) Fortunately, none of them has come out as a racist or militant homophobe, but I’m sort of waiting for the day to discover that one of my co-workers holds beliefs so abhorrent to me I have a hard time talking to them any longer. So I don’t friend them anymore.

13

Are you getting anything out of this relationship at all?

If you’re maintaining it simply because you feel an obligation to refute false information, then that’s fine, but you’ll have to detach emotionally from all their bullshit (and it’s a “they”, not a “she.” She’s part of a group mind at this point). Don’t take anything personally, don’t be shocked or surprised. Just calmly refute what you can (post links if you can), and give up any expectation that anything is going to be received with good grace, civility or reason.

It’s not impossible to peel people off the hive mind, though. The ranks of atheists are filled with ex-fundies. It happens. Rebutting their crap might be a waste of time, but it might not be.

14

I was walking down Wall St last week and this guy was standing on this pedestal thing screaming about the love of jesus. I had some questions I felt I had to ask so I stopped and asked him if I could have a moment of his time. Without pausing he just pointed to a guy standing next to him so I turned to ask that guy a couple of questions, specifically how many people he felt he was reaching with this method of spreading the word. His response was that they know none of the people they are speaking to will be saved (his proof was that in the time of Noah there were a billion people on the planet and god chose to save only 8) but that they were called to give their lives in service of the lord and this is how they chose to serve him. So basically they weren’t even trying to spread the word of god, just to annoy the shit out of some non-believers because god likes that. When I asked why they didn’t choose another way to serve god, like helping the poor or building churches or something they said that god most loves those who are abused in his service so they were purposely choosing the most annoying possible way of serving god in hopes that people would insult them.:smack::smack::smack:

I wish I could just use a delete function to get rid of those kind of people from my day to day life. I learned my lesson and will never directly interact with any of them again, except the nice ones who hand out granola bars in the morning.

15

Well that’s a horribly stupid poll, even for facebook. Out of morbid curiosity, do you remember what the results were?

16

It really is a good thing that you posted this on THIS forum where your real friends can agree with you.

Maybe it’s just me but if this friend was any friend at all, you’d have the decency to tell them they have changed and so much so that you cannot be friends any longer. Or you can keep looking for justification from a friendly forum.

This kind of thing is a pet peeve of mine.

17

There’s a very famous quote, something to the effect of “You can’t reason a man out of a position he didn’t reason himself into”, that I think might be relevant here.

18

God’s a troll? Ha!! I knew it! :smiley:

19

It was troubling to me to see the rampant Crazy Christianity from some of my Facebook friends. I just couldn’t figure out where these people who were kids just like me, living in a middle class suburb just like me, got all of these Crazy notions. The people I am talking about are people I went to school with for between 12 and 5 years.

Anyway, I just got so sick of it all that one day I purged about 5 of them from my friends list (5 out of about 100 total friends). It scares me enough to know that the Crazy exists at all in America, but at least I could find comfort in the idea that it was all JUST on TV. When I saw the Crazy come right into my Facebook account, I had to turn it off.

So I did. And I am much more discerning about who I add as a friend anymore. Random people you went to school with - just say no!

20

I don’t do apps so I couldn’t get the poll results but I asked someone else and at the time, the results were 89% no and 11% yes. Knowing that there’s always a percentage of people who believe in UFOs, ghosts, homeopathy, Sarah Palin and Glen Beck, I’m not surprised at the 11%. I’m just glad the No votes were so high.