Well geez, if you hadn’t cremated him he could have at least been fertilizer for a tree or something.
God made created human persons of all nations, tongues, colors, and creeds. Each person is infinitely loved by Him, and therefore a sacred being in and of himself or herself.
All human persons of all nations, backgrounds, statuses, conditions, ranks, and estates is off immense dignity and value . . . dignity and value beyond description.
And I believe all men and women and children are created equal in the sight of God.
I was prompted to start this thread by corresponding with some other posters elsewhere about the formation of the United States of America. The topic of Americans of various political / cultural backgrounds communicating well with one another came up.
I thought this topic worthy of a new thread.
The people of the United States seem not to be “united” very much at all. I haven’t found much conversation among the various camps, other than vituperative expressions. I find this very sad.
My question is this: Do some Americans consider some of their fellow Americans “a waste,” . . . ? insofar as communication among them is pretty much limited to yelling?
This state of affairs is particularly sad, in that it would seem that fellow countrymen and women ought to be able to get along with one another, at least superficially.
Thank you for your kind reply, BubbaDog. I appreciate your input.
Thanks for the book recommendation, Jophiel. I’ll check it out, and hope others will, too.
oesn’t “witnessing” belong somewhere else? (I know where I’d like to put it)
Reported.
Many Christians would reply - as I would - that even people who behave as monsters like Nassar - even Hitler - had once been originally created good by a good God.
And that what happened is that these individuals chose to go over to the Dark Side. And so they did.
And that we all choose. . . at every moment, we all choose.
Thank you for your concern, kayaker.
This thread wasn’t started as “witnessing,” per se.
This thread was intended to explore the meta messages and meta meanings of the ways in which Americans of different backgrounds and persuasions communicate with one another.
I take the meta message of your remark as “Keep still, Euphrosyne,” which is a superb example of the underlying attitudes and assumptions Americans bring to the conversation when discussing even this very matter with one another.
I find it fascinating.
As a Christian, I view all matters pertaining to the human person through the lens of Christianity. And I can’t but bring that perspective to the table.
Others are welcome to bring other perspectives to the table.
Can’t we all just get along? is one way to characterize the point of this thread.
Reported for changing my quoted text.
No we can’t. And that’s OK.
We don’t need to have all of us hold hands, sing Kumbaya and praise Jesus. We can yell at each other, disagree vehemently and still respect one another.
Still, society will create some real losers who definitely are a waste of time space and energy. Go ahead and believe that God created them pure but somewhere along the way they managed to turn into useless assholes.
I’m getting the feeling that you’re largely basing your opinions on the discussions you see across the internet.
In real life, while some family gatherings can get heated while talking politics over the mashed potatoes, the practice of living among fellow Americans has gone largely unchanged. Thankfully, living my life today, around family and friends, isn’t the same as hanging out in the YouTube comments section. Maybe you need to get out more?
As a rationalist I say that all evidence points to the answer to this being: No, we can’t all just get along.
And “no” is the answer to practically all the other questions in your OP as well. They are indeed “hopelessly impossible aspirations”.
As an individual you and I can of course aspire to a better class of discourse, but should also accept that we need to work in a world where not everyone will try and even fewer will succeed.
One could conceivably say that in between sessions of molesting the girls he was ACTUALLY doing medically sound practices on them and did contribute to the success of Americans at the Olympics. He’s still an asshole, but by all accounts he was an asshole who did his job.
…yeah I got nothin here
Knock it off with the junior modding and the “reported,” already.
Euphrosyne, per the rules of this board, if you are quoting someone, you are not allowed to alter their quote in any way. Even fixing someone’s typo without properly denoting that you’ve done so is technically a violation of that rule, and someone may choose to complain about it. So please resist the urge going forward.
Thank you, Asimovian. I didn’t know. Duly noted.
I wonder if you’d clear up a point I’m a bit confused about: your frequent use of the word “meta.” Are you intending it to be interpreted in the sense of “post-modern” self-referentialism (personally, I’m more used to encountering this usage in a humorously ironic context)? Or do you mean for us to understand it as shorthand for “metaphysical”?
Your thread title and OP text both mention ‘American’, but never ‘human.’ In your follow-ups you call attention to ‘Christian’ four times. One doesn’t need to “assume ill will or unthinking malice” to find this very peculiar.
If your intent was to draw a contrast between Americans and non-Americans you could have made that explicit in OP, e.g. “Why can’t Americans behave more like Europeans?”
I do get out quite a bit, but particularly in the workplace, there is a great deal of self-censoring, and in some cases, actually walking on eggshells around other people, whom we suspect may not agree with our world-view. I’m talking about a workplace of thousands, and lots of international workers, and people of all ages and backgrounds. And the atmosphere becomes palpably tense when any of these topics are touched upon in even in passing, even momentarily. It seems to be “uh-oh!”
Even apart from the workplace, I think there’s an implicit rule among friendly neighbors and acquaintances that politics and religion are off-the-table.
Is not being free to discuss things “getting along”?
It’s been working for me.
It was a thoughtfully considered reply, and very pithy, as well.
You specifically said that people “were put here for a reason.” Ok, fine. Then you say question whether any American has aptitudes that we can allow to go to waste.
So even if infants are as pure as the driven snow, but later choose to become evil adults in the manner of torturers of their own offspring or serial child molesters, I’m literally asking you what these hideous adults have to offer this country.
It seems a very straightforward question. I don’t see why you’re taking offense to it, other than it’s very difficult to answer. Which is the reason I asked it.
I’m going to call on the OP to reflect more on themselves as a way to open the discussion.
Every american is flummoxed by the fact that a huge part of the country seems to have become irrational, on “many” sides of the spectrum. Huge numbers of them indulge in “rage rushes” having to do with hearing things that were designed to stimulate them that way, and believe that huge swaths of fellow americans are irrational wrong and immoral.
If you want to talk about it please participate as a subject and talk about how you are existing in this system. What is your place in it? “Everyone does it” is not a place where you can stand in this world anymore. We need to move on to the deeper level of what is actually happening.
I think you will appreciate this site as it has to do with listening.