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What entitles you to be mean to outsiders?

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
Jerk knows no boundry.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
Most people aren't jerks because of what they believe. They are jerks because it makes them feel good. It serves their ego to belittle others to inflate their own self-esteem. And they tend to believe whatever nonsense they hear that ratifies this inclination within them. That's why there are jerks among every group of humans regardless of what they profess to believe (or disbelieve): they are jerks, first, and believers second.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?

Just being alive gives me as much right to be mean to anyone as you have the right to be good to everyone. I think one big problem many folks have is that they think they have the right to control how others think.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?

I can be a jerk sometimes. I get tired, upset, just a lot of frustration with what is going on in the day. I try not to be but sometimes you're just in that emotional state that the next person that looks at you gets a dose of full frontal jerkiness.

It happens. When it happens towards me I usually consider the jerkiness has nothing to do with me personally. It's an issue that person is having for which I just happed to be a convenient someone that had a reason to ask them something. I don't take it personally.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
Some people just get mean when they disagree.
I find that avoiding them (mostly) makes this forum more fun.

A theory....
Such people tend to have a strong & rigid sense that they have
The Truth, & that anyone who disagrees is wrong....a challenger
to what is right & good. Angry intolerance ensues.
It could be any worldview....political affiliation, economics, religion.
Even being on the same side cannot inoculate one against rage.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
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Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Sometimes we don't know the whole story. If you've had repeated negative encounters with the same person, or even the same group of believers, you're more likely to become snarkier quicker. Can't take it personally.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Sometimes we don't know the whole story. If you've had repeated negative encounters with the same person, or even the same group of believers, you're more likely to become snarkier quicker. Can't take it personally.

I can't mention anything more specifically other than to say that I really admire this group of people, but some of them have a giant persecution complex, and I am sorry for them.
 

Earthling

David Henson
There are 3 posters who occasionally **** me off due to their being overly critical of Christianity, reflecting, not upon teachings, but on a personal level while those posters themselves claim to be, to a greater or lesser extent, Christian. This bothers me because it's a false sense of morality that tends to project itself above Christian teachings while being somewhat ignorant of the original teachings of Christ, not in an arguable or debatable sense, but just from arrogance. Like Christ should have been more like them. **mod delete***

I am myself critical of teachings and beliefs of all kinds, including Christian, but I never presume that anything I would offer is better than the original.

Often your criticism of people, like JW's are based upon criticisms of Christ's instructions to his disciples. Sometimes I gotta' speak my mind when I should shut my trap. But I tend to do that and everything's cool with me because it isn't really personal, even though it may sound personal.

Saying, for example, that someone is being foolish, or harsher words to that effect, from my perspective applies to what you are saying, not to who is saying it in a general sense on a personal level. Is that mean? It's often taken that way, but it isn't the spirit in which it is given. I should be more diplomatic in my expression . . . but sometimes the level of my contempt can't be fully expressed in a more polite fashion.
 
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Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
I can't mention anything more specifically other than to say that I really admire this group of people, but some of them have a giant persecution complex, and I am sorry for them.
This forum, or more accurately, the posters who come here, are a very small representation of any faith. To think it represents the entire group accurately is most likely folly. Best wishes.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?
What, exactly, is an "outsider?" Not sure I consider anyone this. For one thing, I hate labels. For another - I don't belong to any self-identifying groups. Not a one - except maybe my place of employment, if we're getting technical. I don't care what my "culture" is - no matter where I live I see absolutely no point in amassing "pride" for the general area. Perhaps some of the people inside the area, but the area itself? Pointless. Community is not the area you live in, but the people within that area. I don't follow sports teams - also completely pointless. The only time sports matters is when you are playing. The only time to root for a team is if you are personally playing in that team. If you have loved ones or friends playing, root for them specifically... that they are part of the team is for them to worry about. I may be white, may be male, may be of some European descent - none of which did I choose, nor can I exert control over those things. I would never say I "belong" to the overall "white community" - as far as I am concerned there is no such thing, nor would I care to be considered a part of it even if there was.

To even contemplate someone as an "outsider", your mind has to already be formulating ways in which it can divide itself off from the rest of the world, and think itself separate. I simply don't do this. It is a waste of time, and only fosters division.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?

Even atheists? Unbelievable.

Ciao

- viole
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Still smarting from an encounter I had last night on this forum. Trying to make sense of it.

As I mull this over, I've run into people from lots of different belief systems that have been abusive and unkind. Though, most people, even Atheists tend to be at least civil.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame a particular belief system, because the percentage of jerks in humanity is evenly spread?

Most people can become verbally aggressive at some point ("even atheists"*). Why can be one or more of many factors, religious differences being just one. Whether religion (or lack of it) is a driving factor, probably, because a persons faith helps shape who they are, it can be an emotive subject and this is a forum where religion is discussed.

I think on this forum the posters are, for the most part, quite civilised but it can sometimes get fractious.

May i suggest if a poster upsets you the answer is simple, use the ignore option and let them rant all they want, it wont effect you.

* Im an atheist
 
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