religion and D/s

Stag of Oberon said:

Being invited to share your experiences and then discovering that you have shared something very personal in a setting where your very personal experiences will be "vehemently disagreed" with by multiple people?

Being told that something which happened to you could not possibly have happened, that's bullying whether or not the bullies are specific about what this 'falsehood' says about you.

I'm sure someone may come back with something to the effect of "god denial is not as bad as rape denial," and you're right there, it is indeed a lesser form of douchebaggery, so I guess you can pat yourself on the back for that.

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Meeting someone who doesn't agree with you on the internets is NOT - having your locks hacked off if you are Sikh. It is not having bacon stuffed in your locker if you are Muslim. It is NOT having your head felt for horns. It is not being yanked to your feet during the pledge if you are JW. Those are all things that happen because "we are a Christian Nation" with a specific definition of what that means. If you want outrage there's plenty to be found - but you are NOT going to find it by selectively looking only at the parts you like, or pulling a "we're all assholes" blanket gesture.

Stag of Oberon said:

Being invited to share your experiences and then discovering that you have shared something very personal in a setting where your very personal experiences will be "vehemently disagreed" with by multiple people?

Being told that something which happened to you could not possibly have happened, that's bullying whether or not the bullies are specific about what this 'falsehood' says about you.

I'm sure someone may come back with something to the effect of "god denial is not as bad as rape denial," and you're right there, it is indeed a lesser form of douchebaggery, so I guess you can pat yourself on the back for that.

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On the douchebaggery scale, god denial is the equivalent of an assertion of belief that god exists. Which is to say, "I believe Jesus died for my sins" is no more or less offensive than "I don't believe a sentient omnipotent Being exists."

I'm agnostic, and respect goes both ways in my book.

That aside, Stag, I honestly have no idea whom you are defending here, or from what. I've been reading Netzach for a long time, and never once seen her belittle anyone's religious experiences, or deny that someone's religious joy/enlightenment/whatever ever happened.

Stag of Oberon said:

Being invited to share your experiences and then discovering that you have shared something very personal in a setting where your very personal experiences will be "vehemently disagreed" with by multiple people?

Being told that something which happened to you could not possibly have happened, that's bullying whether or not the bullies are specific about what this 'falsehood' says about you.

I'm sure someone may come back with something to the effect of "god denial is not as bad as rape denial," and you're right there, it is indeed a lesser form of douchebaggery, so I guess you can pat yourself on the back for that.

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I'm curious now: when did the events you described in your first two paragraphs happen here in the BDSM forum? I don't recall anything like this and I tend to read most threads pretty much daily.

JMohegan said:

On the douchebaggery scale, god denial is the equivalent of an assertion of belief that god exists. Which is to say, "I believe Jesus died for my sins" is no more or less offensive than "I don't believe a sentient omnipotent Being exists."

I'm agnostic, and respect goes both ways in my book.

That aside, Stag, I honestly have no idea whom you are defending here, or from what. I've been reading Netzach for a long time, and never once seen her belittle anyone's religious experiences, or deny that someone's religious joy/enlightenment/whatever ever happened.

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If anything I'm jealous. Being incapable of believing the stuff I don't see around me is just how my brain is structured, it's not a choice or a stance or anything I came up with to be cute.

Netzach said:

If anything I'm jealous. Being incapable of believing the stuff I don't see around me is just how my brain is structured, it's not a choice or a stance or anything I came up with to be cute.

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I think my brain is split into two halves. Half of mine is like this, and the other half is...well, I'm not sure how to explain it. I think it's one reason my beliefs are always evolving. I have my thoughts and feelings on the subject, but I'm never going to be one of those people who just "KNOWS." Sometimes, I wish I could be. It'd be a lot easier.

satindesire said:

Not enough thinking religious people voted against prop 8. Our anger about that is completely justified. But that's changing now. It'll take a little bit of time, but compared to the hundreds of years that religious people haven't done jack diddly, public opinion and activism is making LEAPS AND BOUNDS of progress.

Be patient. It will come. Don't fight against the thinking religious folks, fight with them. Your anger is misdirected. Don't make us enemies, we don't want that and if you want change, you don't either.

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I don't fight against them, or any people of good intentions, i have been part of such churches and I realize they are out there. One of the reasons I left the last church I belonged to, which was quite liberal, was they insisted on saying about the fundamentalists and the orthodox Catholics and the like, that we needed to respect their beliefs, that they felt strongly about their positions..this when seeing the kind of pain and hurt those beliefs can cause, the church was full of a lot of people who had been hurt by those supposedly loving religious people and yet they couldn't see that the anger is not the beliefs, but what they do with them that is the problem, and telling a group of people who had been so hurt by that stupidity they needed to respect those beliefs was too much for me, and i walked away.

Thinking religious people or thinking people of all types have to understand that simply saying the religious strong men are idiots or wrong isn't enough, and rather then things like inclusive language services or LGBT special days or whatever, that the real answer is making a difference..and many churches do, Riverside in NYC is unbelievable in their support. The thing any thinking person has to remember is the words of Edmund Burke, who said that for evil to triumph, all good men have to do is nothing

Stag of Oberon said:

the part you already quoted does not state that way, but i'll clarify anyway. It is very literally saying "I do not believe that experience ever happened to you." That's a lot more personal than stating whether or not you believe a god exists, which I have no problem with.

It's one thing for a christian to say "christ died for our sins," a rather empirical statement that sometimes annoys me, but its another for a christian to say "you're going to hell," a pretty obvious personal attack.



how passive aggressively disrespectful.

I guess "you know who you are and you know what you did," isn't enough around here.



I am defending a hypothetical future poster from falling into the same trap that you and teknight and netzach and stella laid out with Biibunny's name years ago. go find it in your own history. Supposedly it'd happened at least once before that, and I know it's happened a couple times since then, but I was only lurking then.

As for netzach; you always come back at these condemnations with the same argument. If I may paraphrase, here's how it feels to me; "your generalized condemnations do not apply to me specifically, so how dare you make them at all." But if it didn't really apply to you, why get invovled?

No, you don't "dawkins" at people, that was mostly stella and teknight, wasn't it.

You are an interesting part of this corby, because you're right, you don't belittle anyone's faith, you belittle their arguments for defending it. You're that second shove, that knocks someone off balance so someone else can knock them over.

You do not instigate this, but you are always there.

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Yeah, you're right. I am so fucking mean. I am looking to set people up for even bigger meanie atheists to "knock them down." It has nothing to do with actual oppression which is all just something I made up to be cool.

Tone argument much? Please block me. I am not going to give out cookies for Christians who make sad faces around hypocrites but still show up and PAY MONEY.

I stopped going to temple because I do not want to PAY MONEY to bulldoze people in far away lands. It's not rocket science. I was 14 when I made that decision.

Stag of Oberon said:

I don't know whether to be sad for you, or jealous in turn.

But I would like to think that even if my brain were structured on such rock solid foundation, I would still champion this plead to let other people share whatever experiences they think they may have had without this need to nitpick what it might have actually been, nor fear that something so personal is too precious to share.

I too feel a little oppressed when a gaggle of christians feel the need to swoon over how they saw a face on a piece of toast, I can empathize with that. As a child of a very christian family, I remember having to put up with that a little more than I liked, even when I theoretically shared the same faith. But you don't have to shit on their toast, and you can't call that respectful when you do. Just let it be.

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You find me that moment. It does not exist. You are ascribing all sorts of shit to me that does not apply, and maybe you think you're being cute and illustrative of a point that DOES NOT APPLY TO ME. I have never called into question what was or was not in anyone spiritual inquiry and I'm not combing through 12 years of posts to make sure. Think what you want. Do what you want.

But when your shit starts poisoning my little corner of paradise, we will have words. When the "Taken in Hand" fundamentalists want to come into my pervert corner to explain how in their world I'm doing everything all wrong, they do not get a freaking kumbaya. No.

One of the people I love most on this planet believes, and I've never had this kind of a communication gap with him in my life. He doesn't have the gall to "feel sorry" for me, we talk about this all the time - lucidly and civilly. He's also not paying money into a church that actively fucks both of us over as GLBT people. BASIC. Nor is he apologizing for one. He gets in inconvenient fights with his relatives, he does not just shrug it off for fellowship and unity or tell me what kinds of words I have to use around him because you know, we're trying at least!

I am talking purely about the earthly damage done by institutions to other people, and requiring that people actually use their brains and make some stands before they claim to be on my side socially.

knot_sweet said:

Umm...not what I got out of satindesire's statement... I got a version of "work with us and we'll work with you, together we stand united we fall" kind of thing... but I guess my comprehension isn't really all that outstanding.

As an aside, I've personally known more than a few Christian representatives (priests, nuns, bothers, padres, etc) who have been quietly preaching tolerance, acceptance and other non doctrine approved teachings for a long time. One, Sister Saleen (if she's still alive, doubtful, she was 76 when I knew her nineteen years ago) for longer than the gay rights movement has been around.

Doesn't do anything to lessen my dislike of organised religion, but I try not to blame the good (if severely misguided) people who belong to these organisations.

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That has always been true, during the holocaust there were priests and nuns who risked their lives and in more then a few cases lost them, fighting the horrors of the final solution,While the German church was basically in bed with Hitler, and the Vatican did little to nothing to help the plight of Jews, when they had a lot they could do, in part because many in the Vatican hierarchy, including Pious XII, grew up assuming anti semitism was a normal thing (read sometime the things Pious XII when papal envoy in Germany wrote back to the Vatican about Nazi Germany). But then, the churches in Denmark helped organize one of the most incredible stories of all times, getting the Danish Jews out of the country. When the German occupiers declared jews had to wear yellow stars of the david, the whole country, including the King, took to wearing them, and when it became apparent what the German plans were for the Jews, they helped them escape, almost to a person. In the case of the modern Catholic Church, the hierarchy and the Vatican are these reactionary , fascist bastards while a lot of clergy, and nuns, are quietly in revolt against it....but they are powerless, because the Bishops control everything, and they are the Vatican's puppet. This is the same Vatican that when Uganda, a heavily Catholic country, passed laws that initially required the death sentence for homosexual activity, with the support of the Bishops of that country, and Ratzinger and the Vatican said absolutely nothing even though it violates what they said church teaching was; they will silence Bishops or remove them for theological disputes, like preaching liberation theology, but stay quiet when Bishops promote laws that call for the death penalty for being gay, or leave bishops in power who have committed terrible acts.

BiBunny said:

I think my brain is split into two halves. Half of mine is like this, and the other half is...well, I'm not sure how to explain it. I think it's one reason my beliefs are always evolving. I have my thoughts and feelings on the subject, but I'm never going to be one of those people who just "KNOWS." Sometimes, I wish I could be. It'd be a lot easier.

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I don't know anything. But in the absence of some really good reason to talk to something specific because it says hi, I'm going to just assume that the Great Void is as good as it gets. "Because" is actually a satisfactory answer to a lot of unknowns, to me. You can be spiritual and non-theistic. I think that's actually how I see myself.

Stag of Oberon said:

yeah I guess.

I've been addicted to Planetside lately, and what breaks the monotany and keeps me with the game is actually the community that comes with having an outfit (that games version of a guild).

On the teamspeak server they've taken to calling me "the pacifier," (not really a compliment), because I'm the one who likes to say "hey, we're on the same team, and even the other team is here to enjoy the same game, there's no reason to be douchebags even to them let alone our own outfit members. Play nice."

And then they remind me of my own teamkill ratio and my fondness for tank mines.

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I'll never understand the culture of shit slinging on Vent. This is an actual semantic argument at least.

JMohegan said:

If secretly gay-friendly churchgoers really did exist en masse here in the U.S., then equal treatment in marriage, adoption, the boy scouts, and every other damn thing would have become a reality a long time ago.

Why? Because, even though you may tolerate bigoted messaging while enjoying all that fellowship and free babysitting on Sundays (telling yourself that your tolerance for said bigotry really doesn't hurt anything)... still, we don't vote in this country on Sundays.

So let's dispense with that ridiculous notion.

Republicans may begin to support gay marriage in full force, Huckabee said, “And if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/huckabee_evangelicals_may_walk_over_gay_marriage/

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you have to be careful about that, because that assumes that people's beliefs translate into political will. It is complicated, but basically, a majority of Catholics, for example support same sex marriage, but the problem is, they don't do anything with it. It is also the reality of voting that someone positive towards same sex marriage is a lot less likely to go to the polls to vote then those opposed to it, who are fired up by their churches and their own hate. Old people, who not surprisingly are the biggest block against same sex marriage, tend to vote in numbers.

Young people are strongly in support of gays, 80% of young people support same sex marriage (30 and under)...the problem? They don't vote. Put it this way, if people of conscience voted, if we had 80% turnout in this country, the religious right and the GOP would be a regional party, their power would be severely ablated, and a lot of the so called red states might turn blue...but people don't bother to vote.

As far as the evangelicals moving away from the GOP, I think the GOP is going to drop them like a hot potato, they are no longer useful and there is a specific reason. The GOP has become the party of the south and rural midwest, and it is the party of older, angry white people, and it is failing them, in part because they are dying out. The biggest block of voters in this country is independents, and they detest the GOP Holy Roller policy on social issues, they care about economic ones. The money guys, who were okay with the GOP pandering to the religious right when it served their needs, are increasingly frustrated with the GOP, and they absolutely detest the whole hoopla over social issues (believe me, Goldman Sachs, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple Computer, and so on, don't care about abortion or prayer in the schools or gay marriage, and find it extremely irritating, plus the religious right is also bad for business, they are economically in the backwater and they don't exactly provide the kind of people they need as employees, either).

Netzach said:

I don't know anything. But in the absence of some really good reason to talk to something specific because it says hi, I'm going to just assume that the Great Void is as good as it gets.

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It's as good an answer as any. Nobody really knows, regardless of what they say.

Netzach said:

"Because" is actually a satisfactory answer to a lot of unknowns, to me.

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For me, too, to some degree.

Netzach said:

You can be spiritual and non-theistic. I think that's actually how I see myself.

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I think I'm probably not that far away from you. I stepped into the theistic arena, but I don't think I can go any farther than "unknown alien God that none of us can really understand whose consciousness may or may not pervade the Universe, depending on what kind of mood I happen to be in when I'm thinking about it."

I think anthropomorphizing God--if there is one--is probably a mistake. Probably. I'm willing to concede that I might be wrong about that, too.

BiBunny said:

It's as good an answer as any. Nobody really knows, regardless of what they say.



For me, too, to some degree.



I think I'm probably not that far away from you. I stepped into the theistic arena, but I don't think I can go any farther than "unknown alien God that none of us can really understand whose consciousness may or may not pervade the Universe, depending on what kind of mood I happen to be in when I'm thinking about it."

I think anthropomorphizing God--if there is one--is probably a mistake. Probably. I'm willing to concede that I might be wrong about that, too.

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T got me, he said "ok, God is Goo....just ectoplasmic goo that feels like love"

I can't really rail against that that much. I can't really buy in 100 percent either. On good days it works for me.

Stag of Oberon said:

you seem to be implying that I pay money to a church?

Why would I still attend church?

Or were you not paying attention when I said I'm not christian anymore.

When someone is jealous of you, how do you go about making it right? you share. if you can't share.... sorry? It's a question of remorse, not gal.

As usual, same as last time, I disappoint myself by running out of steam for this just as you warm up enough for personal attacks.

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I'm not saying you attend or pay - I'm saying you insist that those who do get treated with kid gloves if they say civil enough words - no matter what history may have passed before, no matter what the leadership might be doing, God forbid someone be *offended.*

I don't understand why it's so OFFENSIVE to people when those fucked over by their club point that out. "Hey, you guys fucked me over."

Why would you not be more sorry about it, or worried about it than OFFENDED that someone say that?

LallyH said:

May I ask a question about the US here - please don't bite my head off because I genuinely don't know about this and would like to know the answer. And if it shouldn't be on this thread, then apologies again.

Gay marriage is not currently legal in the US but is being proposed, same as here in the UK? There is no doubt that it will go through here - is there more opposition where you are? Do you not have legislation that prevents discrimination against gay couples who want to adopt, or that protects against discrimination in the workplace?

Equality on the grounds of sexual orientation, ethnicity etc is fully supported and backed by the law over here, as it should be. It sounds like you're still battling?

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Lally-

It is complicated, keep in mind the US has a unique form of government that has this weird mix between the federal government and the states when it comes to laws and rights. Marriage under the constitution is a power granted to the states, which is why same sex marriage is a state by state thing. In theory, states are supposed to recognize the laws of other states (for example, my driver's license from NJ is valid in all 50 states), but they don't, so a same sex marriage in NY state is not recognized anywhere else. Then, thanks to the religious droolers and opportunistic pieces of shit like Bill Clinton (god that man is vile, he has some nerve now saying he supports same sex marriage..like, where were you 17 years ago, hillbilly?), they passed a law called DOMA that forbade the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages, and also told states they didn't have to recognize the marriages of other states if they passed same sex marriage laws in that other state.....which is a lot of rights, there are about 1000 rights associated with marrige on a federal level, including social security benefits, automatic right to inherit 401k's and pensions, employer paid health insurance being tax free (for same sex couples, if a company offers DP benefits, it is taxable, which is about 12,000 bucks a year).

DOMA should never have been passed, it is illegal, because the federal government has no right to decide what a legal marriage is.

The supreme court, because states fall under the jurisdiction of the federal constitution, could rule that bans on same sex marriage are illegal, that they violate the equal protection clause (as they did back in the late 60's when they invalidated laws banning interracial marriage. Not likely, the liberal judges on the court made pretty clear recently that they were afraid of a backlash (sad that judges would rather appease idiots rather than do the right thing).

The simple answer is that given the US political system, it is a lot harder to get things done, and the states that are most anti gay also, because of a compromise put into the constitution, have a lot more power then their population numbers would suggest (put it this way, a populous state, california, has the same vote in the senate as Rhode Island or Montana, which are probably 1/20th the size in population)...there are a lot more small states, so they have larger power than their population would suggest (which is also why polls are problematic; most people in the US these days live in relatively populated areas, but the political system gives outside power to small states)......

What will probably happen is enough states will pass same sex marriage that it will be unwieldily to have some states support it and others don't, then SCOTUS (supreme court US) will probably step in and say that a state cannot refuse to recognize a marriage from another state. It isn't just the dumb ass rural belt that has the problem, NJ, which for the most part is an economically advantaged, well educated state, does not allow same sex marriage, and though the legislature could pass it, we have a 400 pound blob of shit Catholic who can't seem to figure out that his church's teachings aren't law, and there aren't enough votes to override his veto. The NJ Supreme Court may rule that same sex marriage has to be legal, in part because the civic unions NJ grants don't have the same rights as marriage, among other things, even if DOMA fails, civic unions are not recognized federally. And a lot of the organization against same sex marriage is coming from religious groups, the Mormons spent 40 million helping pass proposition 8 in california (that banned same sex marriage there, which SCOTUS will prob let a lower court ruling stand, that will invalidate it), the RC spent about 10 million in California, and it is the same nationally. There was talk of trying to get same sex marriage made legal in NJ, and the Mormons, RC and evangelicals were all getting ready to start a massive campaign, but the law never got out of committee.

In many ways I am sorry this turned into a shitstorm,though I understand the feelings on both sides. I know where both Stella for example and Satindesire are coming from, and it is frustrating all around. Someone who is fighting the good fight feels like they have to justify their faith, that they have to justify being religious at all, and that is sad, in a sense, those who aren't the knuckle dragging evangelical types, the ones who use their faith as a club, have hurt them as much as they have hurt LGBT people and others. Stella is reacting, and not without cause, to the fact that the RC and other religious groups have been given far too much power in the realm of rights and laws, and it is hard in the US to Fathom that Bishops, who to a man these days are hard right/anti gay/party line types, have any kind of power wen 80% of Catholics don't buy the vatican party line...yet on the news, you hear constantly how the RC has 70 million in the US, is the largest denomination, and there is this incredible idea that all of them will vote with the bishops, when maybe 20% will.

There is another side to the thinking religious people and anger at them, this is something I saw personally. I was a member of an episcopal church, in the leadership, at the time that NH elected Gene Robinson as Bishop (openly gay), and a shitstorm erupted, both in the EC and in the anglican communion. It was ugly, the poor SOB was wearing a bullet proof vest when he was inducted...but what was worse was the reaction to the hate that came out within my own church, that is about as liberal as they come. Basically, the Anglican Communion was telling the US EC that it had no right to elect a gay Bishop, primarily because it upset the churches in Africa and some parts of south America (it was similar with the ordination of women and female Bishops)...The asshole who was the head of the Anglican Communion at the time, Rowen Williams, basically insulted the EC and told them they should refrain from activities in the communion because of the insult they gave to the traditionalists....which is even worse, because much of the funding for the Anglican Communion comes from the US Episcopal Church, and also funding for the churches in Africa that were so upset and angry and throwing a fit. The problem was, the liberal 'thinking' religious people were telling LGBT people that we couldn't make waves, we couldn't upset the African Bishops (who after all weren't responsible, because of course, their hatred was caused by white missionaries...right.....)..worse, they said they didn't want to break links with the Anglican Communion because a lot of charity work was done through that (in Africa, naturally)......didn't dawn on them that for all their sweet talk of inclusiveness and such, they were throwing their LGBT people under the bus....the rector of the church I belonged to was quite liberal, but I let him have it, I told him hatred can never be justified or excused, as he was doing, and whether the person doing the hating was brown, white, yellow, red, whatever, there was no justification for it, either you support everyone as children of God or you go home.....

Satindesire, I am sorry you felt picked on, that was not my intention, my point simply is to give why people are angry, why they feel like the 'thinking' people have often let them down, it is in part because of the things I write above.......it is a long, long history, and it isn't pleasant. It is like Hillary Clinton coming out and saying she is in favor of same sex marriage and how she loves gay people (yeah, when it is politically expedient to do so), meanwhile same bitch in the 2008 election said she would have signed DOMA if she was president back then.....*sigh*

Stag of Oberon said:

Here is the original misreading;



This looks like bait to me,

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I don't bait.

I DO NOT BAIT.

I speak the truth as far as I possibly can, to the best of my knowledge and self knowledge.

I do not invite people to make laughingstocks of themselves out of the clear blue. That, to me is a sin.

I am defending a hypothetical future poster from falling into the same trap that you and teknight and netzach and stella laid out with Biibunny's name years ago. go find it in your own history. Supposedly it'd happened at least once before that, and I know it's happened a couple times since then, but I was only lurking then.

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Because hypothetical people desperately need defending from Supposed situations, and if that means actually insulting definite people in the here and now, well-- you're just the man for the job.

Gotcha.

Forget it.

You can keep ALL of those pearls darling this pig thinks they taste like shit.

Stag of Oberon said:

Denial is always a tool of bullies and abusers. The first resort when they are called out or think they've been caught.

Denying that your behavior can be abuse of any kind invalidates your own arguments that verbal abuse is hurtful, or that cyberbullying is a real problem.



yes. the people who have not yet joined this forum, who might let their first post be in a thread like this one, should be forewarned;

LITEROTICA IS NO PLACE FOR YOUR FAITH, whatever that may be.

So there you go; go back and nitpick a thread from two years ago. My concern is for the next person you might hurt this way.

Your such a champion of anti-bullying; why aren't you more concerned or contrite yourself?

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Damn. *Sigh*

Blast from the past there. And right in the middle of my breakdown, too. I'm almost ashamed for people to see it.

Stag of Oberon said:

Denial is always a tool of bullies and abusers. The first resort when they are called out or think they've been caught.

Denying that your behavior can be abuse of any kind invalidates your own arguments that verbal abuse is hurtful, or that cyberbullying is a real problem.


yes. the people who have not yet joined this forum, who might let their first post be in a thread like this one, should be forewarned;

LITEROTICA IS NO PLACE FOR YOUR FAITH, whatever that may be.

So there you go; go back and nitpick a thread from two years ago. My concern is for the next person you might hurt this way.

Your such a champion of anti-bullying; why aren't you more concerned or contrite yourself?

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You are blaming me for someone else's words, as far as I can see. I am not tecknight and he is not me.

I found some statements of my own views at post 41- and then some questions and also, some clarifications. And also you said this;

Stag of Oberon said:

Aside from continuing to be an atheist, I pretty much agree with every part of this post. Including the part about religion being great for filling up the "void of why." I don't often find time to watch the sunset though.

Yes, faith is a tool, not a virtue. A weapon of mass destruction for some people. But not all faith is inspired by "why."

The only "why's" I ever sought from the cosmos did indeed involve other people, and I didn't generally get answers to any of the questions I asked. But I did find a little bit of guidance, and a little bit of friendship, and occasionally answers to questions I hadn't asked. Maybe I was just listening closer, probably I was just lucky.

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Maybe things got heated later in the thread, but I noticed some pretty cordial discussion between myself and bibunny in the first six pages.

Am I the only one who sees an important difference between the phrase "religious belief" and "a recounting of experiences of the divine?

Stag of Oberon said:

I'm sorry Bi-bunny, maybe I shouldn't have linked that after all.

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Nah, don't be. It's nobody here's place to tiptoe around my hang-ups.

Stag of Oberon said:

I'm sorry Bi-bunny, maybe I shouldn't have linked that after all.



My memory fucking sucks.

What I remembered from that was being ganged up on almost immediately after posting, that you were an atheist in the fray, and feeling betrayed. I may indeed have gotten more heated later on, I couldn't keep reading.

I think I am also recalling things you said about Richard Dawkins, who offends me on the same principle (this lack of tolerance), which may have been in other threads.

Obviously apologies are in order... and I'm usually pretty good at that... but rereading that thread reopens old wounds for me too.


My refrain stands though; this is no place for sharing those "pearls."
I'll just keep my shit to myself.

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I am glad you did link to it though, since I've been the object of your scorn here, and that was supposed to be the proof of my evilness. And it isn't.

"re-opened old wounds?"

You have been deeply offensive in this here-and-now thread. You've called me a liar, accused me of making up wierdass psychological traps and shit, called me a bully for no actual reason, and yeah, I totally think apologies are in order.

Evidently since Tek hurt your feelings all over again, you don't have to apologise to me. Classy.

Tell me what that difference is, to you?

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The difference between belief and experience?

That's too subtle for you?

I have never seen Netz set anyone up to flounder.

She doesn't ask leading questions, she doesn't toy with people's hearts, no sly digs.

She tends to tell it exactly the way she sees it, with zero prevarication or dissimulation-- and sometimes with barely enough grammar for coherency, but if you ask her to clarify, she usually will. Still, I imagine that some of her flat statements might leave people floundering.

These discussions are not actually group arguments. Although several people might well agree with each other, the dogpile effect comes from each person speaking their own personal mind, even if it is the same statement someone else just made.

Stag of Oberon said:

the part you already quoted does not state that way, but i'll clarify anyway. It is very literally saying "I do not believe that experience ever happened to you." That's a lot more personal than stating whether or not you believe a god exists, which I have no problem with.

It's one thing for a christian to say "christ died for our sins," a rather empirical statement that sometimes annoys me, but its another for a christian to say "you're going to hell," a pretty obvious personal attack.



how passive aggressively disrespectful.

I guess "you know who you are and you know what you did," isn't enough around here.



I am defending a hypothetical future poster from falling into the same trap that you and teknight and netzach and stella laid out with Biibunny's name years ago. go find it in your own history. Supposedly it'd happened at least once before that, and I know it's happened a couple times since then, but I was only lurking then.

As for netzach; you always come back at these condemnations with the same argument. If I may paraphrase, here's how it feels to me; "your generalized condemnations do not apply to me specifically, so how dare you make them at all." But if it didn't really apply to you, why get invovled?

No, you don't "dawkins" at people, that was mostly stella and teknight, wasn't it.

You are an interesting part of this corby, because you're right, you don't belittle anyone's faith, you belittle their arguments for defending it. You're that second shove, that knocks someone off balance so someone else can knock them over.

You do not instigate this, but you are always there.

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For god's sake, man! If your comments on THIS thread were actually in response to comments on a thread from three years ago, why the hell didn't you just say so?

Re the 1st bold: I have never said any such thing with regard to anyone's personal religious/spiritual experience. Not to you, or anyone else. Quote me, or knock off the self-pity party and quit making shit up.

Re the 2nd bold: Again, quote me. When have I ever done this?

As for my comments about being agnostic and respect going both ways - that's not passive aggressive, and it's only disrespectful if you think that one group deserves more reverence than the other.

My comment was totally straight up. It holds for expressions of belief...

"I believe in an omnipotent being" and "I don't believe in an omnipotent being" and "I don't know whether an omnipotent being exists or not" are all neutral statements on the respect meter in my book (i.e., no one is more worthy or less worthy of respect than the other).

The same holds for expressions of personal experience...

"I had a religious vision" and "I can't perceive the invisible being folks are talking to when they start praying" are neutral on the respect meter. Simple statements of personal experience - neither more precious, neither more worthy of reverence or condemnation.

Stag of Oberon said:

Tek didn't hurt my feelings all over again. I did.

And yes, in order, but maybe not right now, because I'm still angry, and I'm not sure why, and I'm not about to tell you I'm deeply sorry but i'm not sorry because blah blah blah. So, I do apologize for the delay.

Classy? admittedly not.

Do I owe netz an apology too? I don't know, she's admittedly mean, and has a habit of telling me to go fuck myself, was in fact one of the people ganging up on me in that other thread, and does indeed set people up to flounder, but hey, group arguments are what the internet is all about, right? Whats the harm in "playing to win"? At least I'm beginning to understand a bit where she's comin from, and I can't say there was any happy friendship there before, so hey, more ground gained than lost.

as for subtlety? I mistakenly thought you wanted to expand the conversation.

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Someone who is being directly and personally insulted by you, without good cause, has a perfect right to tell you to go fuck yourself.

You were not ganged up on in that old thread. The OP was characteristically dickish, but beyond that the thread was NOT all about YOU.