Why so close minded?
Posted by Dave Tarantula on March 24, 2008
Hello all I hope the last week and this past weekend was a great one for all of you. Before I dive right in I want to take a moment to thank two of my friends. They are Julie aka calinazaret and Honest_Ape.
Thank You Julie for your honesty and the advice you provided. I will be speaking to my friend about it today and figured that honesty is best as well. If I’m upet with her lieing to me, how am I being any better pretending it never happened and waiting for her to say something? If my other friend gets mad, then so be it. I’d be a complete hypocrite if I was to lie as well.
And Honest_Ape, thank you for your comments on all of my submissions and your advice has helped me in words I cannot describe. Thank You for taking your time to read each entry. It’s good to know that there are people out there, who are interested in what you have to say and who care enough to read it.
So I wanted to write about this whole Good Friday and Easter thing. But now this sort of a rant I guess about the differences I’m noticing in our views about God and what not.
Many people don’t know that I’m a follower of Jesus or as it was called back in those times “A Disciple”. I’m not very outspoken about it but more and more so I’m starting to and not in a negative way or in the ways the media depicts it to be.
As usual the first thing I do when I get to work is I check my corporate email, personal email, mixx and then digg (to see if there is stuff worthy of being over at mixx). I came across a submission titled “Lying for Jesus?” by Richard Dawkins”, now I didn’t actually read the article as I first was checking out the comments as I like to hear what people have to say first and to avoid the “NSFW”sites (However I will be reading it after posting this). It honestly amazed me how many negative comments there were about God, I didn’t know there was such a big and strong following of Atheist’s on this site. Every comment that had to dowhere some one admitted being a Christian they were dugg down. Has it really reached a point where the users over at digg don’t want to be open minded? Have these users been hurt so badly by people who call themself a Christian? In all honesty I don’t have the slightest clue because I’m not them.
But the ironic thing is that there is a user over there who was saying to investigate and read through the Bible yourself and see if this is for you or not. Now this is where the ironic part comes in, when I was at Liquid Church the other day our lead pastor was even saying that it’s ok to question what is said in the Bible, and to investigate it yourself and that if it’s not for you it’s ok! Crazy huh?!
I’m not here trying to say your wrong for not believing in God or anything of that sort. That wasn’t the point of this entry by any means necessary. I’m just trying to figure out the hatred others have towards Christianity and Christians in general.
I personally had a bad encounter with my Senior Lounge teacher in highschool. My friend and I were talking to him about Christianity why we believed in it, etc. We weren’t making a goal try to convert him or anything and nor’ should that be a goal for any Christian at all, shoving your beliefs down some ones throat is a terrible thing to do. Anyways as I was saying we were talking to him and he would ask us why this and why that and we would answer it as honestly as we could. The next day he apologized to us for getting so upset about it and for snapping on us which apparently resulted in him drinking the night away.
It’s encounters like these I wish we could avoid but alas I don’t think that will ever happen. And by no means am I saying that I’m perfect and didn’t do anything wrong with what happened on that day. Hell there’s so much junk I have in my life I sometimes even question calling myself a follower. But what I was doing was pointing out a typical conversation about Christianity that just goes sour. Can’t we just have peaceful conversations with out the bashing?
I wish the video for the Easter Sunday message was online but unfortunately it is not and wont be until at least tomorrow or Wednesday. When it is however I will post it so those of you who want to can watch it and get an understanding about this whole being open and investigating thing I was talking about.
I’m so glad I’m part of the community over at mixx where I can have a discussion with other users such as this where they are willing to have a discussion with out being close minded. If only digg were the same.
honest ape said
First up, you need to flat-out leave digg behind you. There are a lot of close-minded people there, along with a huge collection of straight-up assholes.
The thing about the majority of mixxers is their willingness to get into honest debates without name-calling. Oh, there’s name-calling, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the exception and not the rule. Unless it’s the fun-natured kind of name-calling, that is. Same goes, even more so, for the mixx forum.
On to the topic of Christianity. I won’t defend the folks that slam on Christians. That’s just bullshit. But I’d like to point out that, depending on the site and forum you go to, there’s an equal number of Christians slamming non-Christians.
At some Christian fundamentalist websites, they consider Atheists as little more than pagan heathens.
Personally, I’m an agnostic. Being told to believe something in faith only, with no evidence whatsoever of its existence is something I can not do. However, at the same time, I’m not small-minded enough to go the opposite way either. Meaning, absence of proof does not disprove God’s existence.
What Atheists fail to see is that they are very similar to the Christians they decry. Both sides are 100% sure in their faith, whether it’s the existence or non-existence of God. Both sides have nothing but their faith to go on. Atheists are 100% sure there isn’t a God, though there is no way to disprove it, and Christians are 100% sure there is a God, with no way to prove it.
I don’t mean to disrespect either group. I feel that everyone has a right to their beliefs, and also that no one should push their beliefs on others.
I wish everyone felt that way. Would save us all a lot of heartache.
honest ape said
Also, is there some way on WordPress.com to enable comment subscription? I always forget to check back on posts to see follow up comments.
standardsdt said
@honest_ape
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with you 100% everyone has a right to their own beliefs and no one should force you to believe what another says. I’m slowly but surely moving away from digg, I usually only go on there to check if there’s stuff worthy enough to come to mixx.
Also I did some research and unfortunately they do not offer comment subscriptions. I however get notifications of new comments, so I’m surprised other users can’t get notification.
honest ape said
I wrote a long response to this, but my browser went wonky and I lost it. Crap.
To summarize, the anonymity of the internet really allows people that are assholes reveal their true selves. They will say things they’d never say in real life. Playing on xboxlive, I can’t go a gaming session without hearing someone say fa**ot or ni**er.
This always scares me. It makes me think, are there that many people who are only decent because society requires them to be? Without societal mores, I’m inclined to imagine a world of racists, bigots and hate-mongers.
I know there are good people out there who are that way because they simply are, and not because society dictates it. But it’s hard to remember that when every popular site is flooded with people who only want to insult people’s race or belief system.
Shit. That summary was just as long as the original comment. Man, I’m verbose tonight.
