In Reply to: You know what, Methinks? This makes me angry posted by Acheick on January 01, 2004 at 21:14:50:
If I misunderstood you or offended you, I'm sorry. You certainly shouldn't crawl in a hole and give up on account of my smart ass opinions! I don't think you are intolerant just because of what you said to try to referee the tricky situation, and you are certainly not "under the gun," not mine - I hate guns. Just the same, I wasn't being intolerant of anyone or anything, not even of other intolerant people. Ahem! :-)
Alan has his right to state his belief system, just as anyone else here does. Perhaps my sympathies lie more toward people who can't tolerate unquestioning fundamentalism, but I certainly am not asking for the balance to be tipped towards any/all non-Christian expressions. I agree unquestioning fundamentalism doesn't only rear its ugly head only with Chrsitianity, but even with other religions/spiritual types/atheists/whatever smart-asses/political idealogists too.
You're right to ask, "why hang out in a place where these religious views will be expressed if you can't put up with them?" I certainly can't speak for NC, but if I'm correct, NC seems to show up only after a certain threshold has been crossed, only after someone starts getting heavy handed with declaring other people's beliefs false or something in that fashion. I don't see that same reaction when other Christian opinions are expressed. So it's my guess he/she reads and maybe posts "normally" because this board is interesting and must be doing something for him/her, until this happens.
My theory is some people post regularly, and others only speak up when they feel they must. It's hard to know exactly what sets one person off more than another. I don't think the temper tantrums were called for, but I can understand why they happened. Perhaps the issue needs to be addressed so that it's fair (or perceived as fair) across-the-board rules for everyone, and no one is shut out.
Perhaps a mistake many of us are making is assuming everyone is on some kind of "equal footing" and able to deal with all discussions on a neutral level. I think this really needs to be addressed, because probably this represents a big chunk of the participants here - we don't simply have people of different faiths and journeys being on "equal footing" and able to exchange personal journeys, but also wounded people who are hyper-sensitive towards the bible being used as a tool to condemn. Thanks to our being messed up from our Family experience, not everyone is able to articulate themselves and debate what exactly it is about the bible being used which way that offends them exactly how.
My smart-ass point I was trying to make is: I think we have to make provision for our special circumstances - post bible-based cult sensitivities. I don't think we can expect some burned out wounded types to get dive right back into the bible and debate theology, because they just don't have the emotional tools for dealing with that.
Just my smart-ass 2 cents...