Ermm, no, I haven’t seen anyone reason that she’s a hypocrite because she’s religious. Those who think she’s a hypocrite, such as myself, think she’s that because she says one thing and does the opposite of what she says.
I hold her to the same standard I’d hold anybody. Including myself.
Yep.
Nope. “Don’t lie” is exactly the same standard I hold myself to.
There’s a difference between that kind of thing (like the Gorilla experiment, or eyewitness reliability in general) where it’s witnessing events not your own to control, and a later, deliberate, conscious action by yourself. The OP makes it clear that this rant wasn’t a spontaneous outburst (at least, that’s how *I *interpret the sentence “Thinking herself alone and unobserved”. She mentally checked first.)
We don’t read the OP the same way. She went into a place to be alone to wait for her husband and she broke down. If I go into an empty room, I think I’m alone and unobserved.
Yes, we’re going to have to agree to disagree - until/unless Skald clarifies - you see uncontrollable breakdown, I see mask slipping.
I think you’re employing either an unreasonably high standard of recall, or an unreasonably high standard of precision in language.
That’s bullshit. The only checking you do in a situation like that is to close the door behind you after entering an empty room; you wouldn’t check for listening devices. It seems to me know that your willingness to humiliate our fictional preacher stems from your long-standing and practically Hugoesque anti-clerical biases. Jacquie is a televangelist, so to you she must be a villain, and thus fair game.
The above was me writing as poster. As OP: I meant Jacquie’s rant to be an uncontrollable breakdown.
Ditto.
Since I’m one of the few Christian Republican Dopers, I’ll turn the situation around, and imagine that the “hypocrite” in question is someone on the Left.
For the sake of argument, suppose, I dunno, Richard Dawkins is walking down the street with his daughter, and she starts having horrible convulsions. She falls to the ground and appears dead. Suppose Dawkins began sobbing and begging God to save her.
If I had videotape of such a thing, would I post it on Youtube and try to show that the militant atheist Dawkins was a contemptible phony?
Frankly, I think I’d have to be a real jerk to do so. The man is in pain, worried about his daughter frantic and desperate… why would I want to heap humiliation on him at a time like that?
If Dawkins or “Jacquie” were engaged in some kind of hypocrisy that was hurting others, I might feel differently. But I have no desire to embarrass people who are suffering.
Why is everyone assuming Jacquie is a right-winger? There is absofrickinglutely nothing in the OP to indicate her political or social leanings. She could be a pacifist, pro-choice, vegan who campaigned for Nader for all we know.
We CAN say with certainty is that she didn’t support Obama in the 2008 campaign, though.
Good thing I didn’t say that, then, did I? “Mentally checked” is what I said - took a pause and thought if she was safe.
No, actually. I’d give* exactly the same respons*e to, say, a secular self-help guru doing something similar, or a politician who espouses liberal values going into a private racist rant after a minority accidentally kills his kid, etc.
How uncontrollable is it, if she deliberately waits until she’s alone rather than spew blasphemy in front of the doctors and nurses as soon as she hears the news (which is the kind of deathside breakdown I’ve seen)? I mean, I get that you’re the OP, so she’s your character, but to me, the description you gave spells control. Tightly-wound control, but control, nonetheless.
The latter. Or rather, I want forethought to public utterances.
Please cite for me any vegan, pro-choice Greens who run evangelical megachurches and write prosperity theology-sounding books…
I agree that she doesn’t have to be a RW, but c’mon…
And as one of the few other Christian Republican Dopers around, I will affirm that if I were a member of Jacquie’s congregation, I would care almost nothing about what she said in her moment of horror.
I would regard the TV producer who tried this kind of gotcha as the lowest form of sleazey slimeball.
Read Psalm 22. Recognize the opening line? Jesus quoted it from the cross. And then read where the psalm ends.
That’s one of the nice things about God. You don’t have to worry about hurting His feelings, because He knows even better than you what you are saying.
Yes, it was wrong for Jacquie to say that she never doubted God. That having been said, she just lost a child.
Cut her some goddam slack.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think it is hostility toward religion. I think it’s a refusal to acknowledge the complexity of human experience and emotion.
But then, I am not religious, exactly
(Okay, I think it’s nasty, bigotty self-righteousness; until the day they drop to their arthritic knees without noting the pain, moaning their loss, I do not care to hear their judgement of another.)
(We are talking about a woman who lost her baby here. What is wrong with people?!)
I am an atheist. But I know far too many pro-SSM, pro-choice, anti-war Christians toiling to help the poor, the homeless, the despairing, the lonely, the downtrodden, and the grieving in Memphis to judge Christians as harshly as you.
Nowhere in the OP is Jacquie’s church described as “evangelical.” As for the rest: who cares? As her politics are never mentioned, assuming they are righty is just an excuse to justify bias.
I have been unclear, obviously. The only people I am judging harshly are those who judge Jacqui harshly.
She lost her child. She might have been sociopathic enough to use that to her professional and financial advantage, but that is not my default assumption, and I have a low opinion of those for whom it is.
I was raised Catholic, and to believe that only God can pass judgement on others.
Errrm, “televangelist”?
Her politics have nothing to do with her hypocrisy - do you see me calling out her politics when I gave my answer? But it’s disingenuous to pretend that she could have any political slant. Liberal and prosperity theology megachurch pastor do not go hand in hand.
What makes you think people calling her a hypocrite have not lost kids themselves?
Despite the similarity of the words, “evangelist” and “Evangelical” do not mean the same thing.
Robert Schuller, for example? (at least for some values of “liberal”)
I know the difference between little-e and big-E evangelical, which is why I used the former. All televangelists are evangelical, even if they’re not Evangelical.
I think also for some values of “prosperity theology”, since I can’t seem to find a link between Schuller and the movement. Although I’d certainly say he was liberal (I remember him speaking out against his church doing some anti-gay thing, after he’d retired)
We are talking about a fictional woman who’s the fictional head a fictional megachurch with fictional congregants who worship a fictional god, and who had a fictional kid who fictionally died when a fictional brick fell on the fictional kid’s fictional head.
What is wrong with people?