# Worldviews that are hard to fathom **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 28, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375 "2013-08-28T05:24:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/61 "2013-08-29T21:06:29Z")
Moving away from conspiracy theories for a bit, I can’t get inside the head of anyone with a hate-based ideology. Hating gays, hating Jews, hating whatever, I just don’t get it. I understand hate, I hate quite a few people, but only after I’ve interacted with them or heard about something they did. It’s always personal. Hating a huge group of people who you’ve never met? I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/62 "2013-08-29T21:26:24Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > My boss (who is crazy in a myriad of ways but I don’t have to mention it; see every previous post in this thread aside from the temperature one) brought out this gem. Somehow the topic of gay people came up, and my boss decided to mention that he thought gay people chose to be gay, that they did it for attention or they’re just perverted. My boss is _positive_ that every gay person has a gay parent. She’s convinced of it. Mind you, she’s not saying that homosexuality is inherited or genetic or anything as simple as that; she believes that if Person A is gay, then one or both of his parents is also completely gay, even if they’re completely and totally in denial of that fact. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This will probably be a hot button one because there are some examples among the regulars of this board. But I can’t fathom the people who have an overwhelming hate for America - especially when it appears most of them are American. > > I’d be the first person to agree that America is far from perfect. We’ve done a lot of bad things and are still doing some of them. But there are some people who apparently feel that every bad thing that’s ever been done in human history originated here in America. > > Slavery? Not only did we practice it, we invented it. Killing the Indians? We’re the only country in history that ever killed an enemy and took their land. Nisei internment? The worst atrocity of World War II. The Holocaust? Germans killing people but we were to blame. Saddam Hussein? Our fault somehow. George Bush? Worse than Hitler or Stalin. > > Seriously, people, learn some history and get a sense of perspective. Ha, I’ll agree with this. Every country in the world has its good points and bad, some with more points on one side of the ledger than the other. The overwhelming urgency some people have to prove that the US is all bad point, all the time, throughout history and for time immemorial, is baffling. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/63 "2013-08-29T21:33:01Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > Ha, I’ll agree with this. Every country in the world has its good points and bad, some with more points on one side of the ledger than the other. The overwhelming urgency some people have to prove that the US is all bad point, all the time, throughout history and for time immemorial, is baffling. You are presuming that people have a sense of history and context, ho ho. The issue with the US is that it is an aggressor right now, and in the recent past. Not to worry, people are already shifting to hating China. We adapt! ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/64 "2013-08-29T21:48:39Z")
I have some couple friends who are vegans. They tell me they believe that every life on the planet, human or animal, is of equal value to every other life. I asked, if that were true, if they would be as upset seeing me step on an ant on the sidewalk as they would be seeing a human child crushed to death before their eyes. They admitted that they would not be as upset - _BUT_, that was only because they have not progressed enough in their journey and have not yet shaken off the human indoctrination which unfortunately makes them care more about human life. But they’re working on it. Their ultimate goal is to reach a state wherein, say, the swatting of a mosquito is as horrific as shooting a man. I can’t say this worldview is hard to fathom, because I don’t actually believe it - I think they’re lying to themselves. But hey, that’s what they claim. These same friends - and a disconcerting number of others - are also followers of “The Secret.” They more or less believe that if they wish for something hard enough, something physical happens in the universe that makes their wish come true. These people are committed atheists, and would scoff at the notion that there’s anything “religious” about this belief. The Secret, you see, is _science_. Yeah. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/65 "2013-08-29T21:53:45Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > There are people who believe that Obama has had numerous gay lovers murdered to keep them quiet. 😕 That these men were murdered is easy to verify; whether they were gay or not is something only they, and the people who knew them, can know for sure. But I don’t believe any of that, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, there’s NO evidence that Obama has ever had any homosexual experiences or inclinations (and if he has, that’s an issue he and Michelle have to deal with), and it would be awfully hard for him to pull off something like that and get away with it. Did you consider that his gay lovers are actually all the gay fish he’s making with his gay laundry detergent??!?!?1? I bet you didn’t you sheeple! ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/66 "2013-08-29T22:19:34Z")
My brother honestly believes that no one has starved to death. He first made this statement regarding the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia. He is of the opinion the the people might be hungry but no one is actually starving to death. He’s also dabbled in Scientology, and other assorted woo. My mother believes anything a friend sends her in email. AIDS is manmade, placing raw onion around the house will prevent the flu, angels, you name it - if it’s on the internet it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/67 "2013-08-29T22:26:27Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > My brother honestly believes that no one has starved to death. He first made this statement regarding the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia. He is of the opinion the the people might be hungry but no one is actually starving to death. He’s also dabbled in Scientology, and other assorted woo. So what does he believe killed all those people? ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/68 "2013-08-29T22:26:28Z")
I have some very intelligent, university-educated friends… who believe in astrology. :smack: I think the Big Bang Theory put it best: people who believe in astrology “participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/69 "2013-08-29T22:43:39Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > I have some very intelligent, university-educated friends… who believe in astrology. :smack: > > I think the Big Bang Theory put it best: people who believe in astrology “participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.” Anyone who believes in astrology is somehow accepting the notion that everyone who is born on the same day will grow up to have the same life. When you think about that and realize how stupid that belief is, you realize how stupid astrology is. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/70 "2013-08-29T23:19:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Anyone who believes in astrology is somehow accepting the notion that everyone who is born on the same day will grow up to have the same life. When you think about that and realize how stupid that belief is, you realize how stupid astrology is. Yes, my thoughts exactly. I don’t understand how anyone can believe that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/71 "2013-08-30T00:12:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I recently had an experience with someone who was, very briefly, a coworker. He was _absolutely_ convinced that all women wanted babies and no woman could possibly be happy unless she gave birth to babies. Upon finding out I didn’t have kids he immediately started in with “it’s not too late” and all the different medical things that could be done for infertility and simply could not accept that I was OK with no having kids. I must be in some terrible denial, you know? It got to the point where it was interfering with getting work done. It was inconceivable to him that a woman could have any other goals or desires than motherhood. > > I wasn’t at all unhappy when he got himself fired for stealing a couple days later. I worked in an office pretty much full of _women_ like that. I have NEVER wanted a kid of any sort. I had to go to HR to get them to stop harassing me by leaving me brocheurs and photocopied/printouts of crap about IVF and adoption and such. > [@Antinor01](#): > > We had someone on this board that insisted repeatedly that anyone without kids automatically had a life that was empty and meaningless. That was a crazy thread. I remember that thread. > [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](#): > > Moving away from conspiracy theories for a bit, I can’t get inside the head of anyone with a hate-based ideology. Hating gays, hating Jews, hating whatever, I just don’t get it. I understand hate, I hate quite a few people, but only after I’ve interacted with them or heard about something they did. It’s always personal. Hating a huge group of people who you’ve never met? I don’t get it. It takes a lot to get me to hate someone, I can’t see hating an entire class of people that haven’t done anything wrong to me. I can, however hate the people that killed a gaming buddy of mine last year, but that is because they killed someone I liked and knew. Random middle easterners, not so much as they in general haven’t done anything to me or mine. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/72 "2013-08-30T00:15:07Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > So what does he believe killed all those people? He doesn’t believe they died. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/73 "2013-08-30T00:33:24Z")
We have a friend who’s boyfriend was killed in a bad drug deal and then chopped up and put into several dumpsters. This was probably 20-30 years ago. She still thinks he is in witness protection and is coming home someday. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/74 "2013-08-30T02:06:56Z")
Those with a genuine communist/Marxist worldview. I don’t mean people who think Marx just offered some useful analysis of economics and other disciplines but those who genuinely believe a communistic government is practicable despite all the previous experiments to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/75 "2013-08-30T02:19:27Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I worked in an office pretty much full of _women_ like that. I have NEVER wanted a kid of any sort. I had to go to HR to get them to stop harassing me by leaving me brocheurs and photocopied/printouts of crap about IVF and adoption and such. It’s not that we “never wanted kids”, it’s that my spouse is sterile. It seems some people don’t understand they we considered reproductive technology and chose NOT to do it. Not because we couldn’t afford it or something, we just didn’t want to get on that merry-go-round. What, we didn’t grasp at every single chance to conceive? Really, it’s no one’s business why we didn’t reproduce and I refuse to be drawn into such conversations at work. This seems to annoy those people even further. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/76 "2013-08-30T03:13:32Z")
> [@campp](#): > > We have a friend who’s boyfriend was killed in a bad drug deal and then chopped up and put into several dumpsters. > > This was probably 20-30 years ago. She still thinks he is in witness protection and is coming home someday. ☹ That’s a very bad witness protection program. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/77 "2013-08-30T03:16:19Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > Conspiracy theorists. I used to have a neighbor who believed in chemtrails. He would corner me ever so often and ask me If I had seen the chemtrails the previous night while swearing that they were as clear as day. I think he lives next to me now. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/78 "2013-08-30T03:53:02Z")
Once you get lyme disease, you get it **forever** no matter how quickly you’re treated, and it causes every sniffle, every ache and pain, you have for the rest of your life. The only possible hope is to con a doctor into putting you on antibiotics for months, if not years at a time. If you stop taking antibiotics even briefly, the dormant bacteria waits to reinfect you, hiding in some unknown part of your body until you do. I’m not sure how common the belief is amongst people who have contracted lyme disease, but those who believe these things have posted about 90% of the stuff about lyme disease that’s on the internet. Made it damn hard to figure things out when I got it. But hey, after three weeks of antibiotics I was mostly better (last lingering symptom was gone in 4 months) and stopped having to worry about it much. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/79 "2013-08-30T04:20:06Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I also know a woman who totally believes everything she reads on right-wing websites. I know the type. This particular woman I’m thinking of doesn’t necessarily go to right-wing websites, but she seems to believe anything she reads anywhere. Her latest rant is that marijuana **cures** Parkinson’s disease and all of its symptoms, AND that the medical community knows this “for a fact!” She talks incessantly at work. OK, sorry dopers, but I need to vent!! I don’t think she ever stopped today! She just went from coworker to coworker starting conversations about whatever pops into her head next. I was watching her and thought - if I had to live with you, I’d wait until you fell asleep and smother you with a pillow. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375/80 "2013-08-30T04:41:50Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > I have some very intelligent, university-educated friends… who believe in astrology. :smack: > > I think the Big Bang Theory put it best: people who believe in astrology “participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.” I read the Globe and Mail newspaper online every day. It’s pretty much the New York Times of Canada. Anyway, every day they have a list of the top ten articles read in the last 24 hours. EVERY SINGLE DAY, the horoscopes are in the top ten. It makes me crazy. For me, it’s the existence of some form of malevolent evil in the world. Many people feel that some people are just evil and need to be killed. People are people. Some are ignorant, some are angry, some are mean, some people make huge mistakes, but nobody is beyond some point where they are just evil and must be destroyed. Anyway, how do you even determine ‘evilness’? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worldviews-that-are-hard-to-fathom/667375.md?page=5)