Would you say,
Or is it only hurtful when Catholics say things like that? It's not the perspective I object to, but the manner of expressing it, as though only a fool would disagree and those who do should be laughed at for their opinions
As far as I'm concerned, to take part in this conversation has not only meant being called a liar, but being condescended to and talked down to, and, worse than that, it has meant enduring gratuitously mean mockery repeated over and over again and then when I protest, being told that it was done out of love or a sense of divine mission.
After I tried to approach each of you gently, you minimized your own offensive language and now complain about offensive language used against you or your viewpoint.
Can we maybe commit ourselves to trying a little harder?
I like to think . . . I'm reasonably gentle and mild unless and until provoked by some outrageousness or another.
Nevertheless, I still have tried hard to keep it on the issues and perspectives as I've seen things and not on personalities and individuals--mostly, I think pretty successfully.
Given the 3,000 hours of intense group experience, and given my personality etc. I tend to be extremely expressive and more than a little "in your face" in my style.
To me--it's all reasonable fair communications wihtout ranchor or ill will toward anyone.
Nevertheless, when a double standard is clearly cropping up and some rank brazen hypocrisy and blindness appears, then I'm likely to get more vivid in my communications. But I don't do it out of the blue without being provoked into it.
Then, typically, from my observation, the finger pointing, whining and thin-skinned wailing begins. Strikes me as very underwhelming and disingenuous.
I don't think you can find a case where I've responded vividly with biting satire unless there was either a preposterous assertion offered or a hypocritical, brazen double standard thrown in my lap.
If folks want gentleness and calm reasonableness from me . . . it's pretty easy to trigger. Ask Dr. Eckleburg.
There may be [though I doubt it] and odd time where I wax fiesty just because the topic triggers it with no personalities involved per se. But I think those posts are pretty clearly responding to issues and ideas instead of personalities.
I still think that in an open forum like this--especially with strong emotions about religion--folks ought not speak up with chips on their shoulders nor thin skinned.
BTW, Guffaws to the max is many orders of magnitude gentler than
'used of satan to lure folks to hell'
And, I think if someone's perspective is too delicate to stand being laughed at, it's probably too delicate to share on such an open forum.
In the earliest years hereon, I was assaulted ruthlessly, visciously, harshly virtually for breathing and having an opinion from my perspective about much of anything.
And, a lot of tiems, I earned it. There was more of an attitude in those days of--if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
But in other venues, I often earned the harsh rebukes I got. I deserved to be laughed to derision. So what. I learned and grew from it.
Isn't that the objective?
Regardless of what the other person MAY have intended from their darker side, consciously or un?
I don't recall saying anything hurtful to you, Mad Dawg, but if I did, I apologize. Sometimes it's not what some of these protestant haters say but the 'tone' in which they say it and they're usually pretty condescending and nasty. NO one is in a perfect or 'one true church.' We're all pilgrims on a journey to God and I, for one, as well as many of the Christian protestants here, want to see people of all religions 'make it' and not depend on their traditions. Mxxx