I have one more.
“God has a plan for me.” Usually spoken repeatedly while the speaker’s life is falling apart and s/he hasn’t a clue on how to deal with it.
I’m willing to forgive the occasional character flaw. The thing the bothers me is a person who lies, is a hypocrite, or cheats on their spouse.
That one is particular common during debates on the internet, somehow the other person magically knows your innermost thoughts and beliefs. And its particularly difficult to argue against.
I recently read a book, ‘Think Like a Freak’ by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt that stated that counter-intuitively intelligent people are more likely to have unusual or extreme beliefs, possibly because they’re better at coming across unusual information in the first place and then also better at finding more sources to reinforce the initial information and rationalising away any counter arguments or facts.
For example, take the subject of climate change, an intelligent person is more likely to be either 100% for or against the idea than someone perhaps less smart.
Interesting book actually.
Consider that an emotional “safety net” against depression, despair, and panic; a way to stay calm enough to deal with problems.
Rainer Maria Rilke, in one of his “Letters to a Young Poet”, phrased it more like “Life has a plan for you”, but the general assurance was the same:
They’re used to standing against the crowd… right or wrong…
The guy at work who said he doesn’t “bother” to vote. Yet he bitches about how the government is run.
The midwife who’d assisted in my delivery told it to my mother meaning “by my medical knowledge, this baby should be dead; it’s a miracle she’s not.” I’ve also heard it in similar contexts of someone surviving a very bad accident unscathed, for example, or living a lot longer than anybody would have expected: “he must still have something important to do”.
After the UCC school shooting on 10/01, I pretty much withdrew from life. Two acquaintances had been killed and a long-time friend had been wounded to the point that she spent several days on life support. Additionally, a professor, whom I initially could not contact and was worried sick about, had to withdraw from teaching for a while because the anxiety and depression was too much for her to handle. Part of my withdraw was stepping away from Facebook because, naturally, True Believers on both sides of the gun debate were using it as their soapbox.
When I finally logged back on after several days, I saw a post from a cousin of mine. Channeling her inner Ted Nugent, she had posted a several paragraph screed that blamed the victims of the shooting for their own deaths because they weren’t carrying guns for protection, blaming the school for not having hundreds of armed guards in every classroom, college students in general for being liberal pansies who hate the 2nd amendment, liberals for causing bad guys with guns to exist… it went on. And on. And on. And on.
It really sucks. We’ve been friendly and on good terms our entire lives, played together a lot as children, and made a point of visiting each other whenever we were in each other’s neck of the woods. But that was exponentially more than I was willing to accept. I blocked her and her husband from FB, deleted their phone numbers and email address, and if I never see her again it will be too soon.
Now, I hate to say it, but if I’m totally honest with myself I can say that she could die in a fire tomorrow and my only feelings would be sadness that I’m not sad. When I think of Amber and Sarena and Larry and all the others, laying in that little classroom in a big pool of blood and then I think of my cousin, standing there pointing and yelling that it their own damn fault they’re dead…
Fuck her. Maybe a house fire is too good for her. And all it took was one Facebook post.
I have a coworker who honestly believes that Donald Trump is the best presidential hopeful in ages. I didn’t think my opinion of her could drop any lower, and yet it did.
Was this a non-fiction work? And unless you finished the book, how do you know she didn’t later have a change of mind?
I’m keeping count of the number of things I’ve said or thought and I stopped counting at 7.
People who judge others on one trait or one single ill-advised comment.
It is possible to have a friend who has a deeply felt belief that you think is totally idiotic, but you still care about them, despite that.
See? I still like you. 
There were no such things as dinosaurs. Just ask my brother-in-law. Oh - and plumbers deserve bigger paychecks than teachers. Sunday dinners with the family were a joy, I tell you.
People who cheat on their taxes. Just pay your damn share.
Hugs to you. How is the person who was on life support doing now?
I actually came to this thread to post that if a person is constantly railing on social media about how Obamasgonnatakeourguns and yet they keep bragging that they have them, and especially if they leave them out with their minor children, that takes my opinion of them down quite a ways.
I also have no use for people who are always complaining about how overworked they are with their kids, and yet want to have more. Makes no sense to me.
Apart from bigotry and hatred, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I’d lose respect for them, but I’d say it’s close with people who constantly bitch about their lives (in whatever capacity), yet will never do thing one to fix it. In those cases, I just want them to shut the hell up and let those willing to work to fix their problems have at the resources or help to do so.
Well, everyone’s covered the obvious bigotry ones, so I’ll pick one of the higher-up fruit: snobbishness about music.
I’m fine with someone not liking whatever genre of music. Or saying modern music is trash, (because most people will accept that they mean that as a generalization). But stuff like “It’s not music; it’s just noise” or “There’s no skill involved in rap, it’s just talking” or whatever shows a certain snobbishness and unwillingness to listen that I consider to be a red flag about a person’s character.
Too many to count in my adulthood who started a sentence w/, “It’s not that I *mind *(protected class/minority)…” Ohhhh, this will not go well.
When anybody calls somebody else a racist.