From: doug@uuisis.isis.org (Doug Thompson)
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Organization: International Shared Information Service (Ottawa)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 18:04:51 GMT

walsha@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (The only thing God didn't do to Job was give him a  writes:

> well, as Heraclitus said 2300 or so years ago... bigotry is
> the disease of religions. 

Yeah, it seems to be doesn't it!

> Is anyone able to read arnold nordeng's furious ravings and feel 
> anything but repulsion, or at best feel sorry for him? Does anyone
> read them and feel the least bit attracted to Christianity? I'd really
> like to know. 

Well I can be sympathetic because I used to be kinda like that. I had my
ideas, I was pretty sure they were right, and anyone who disagreed got
an earful (or a few screenfulls).

Then I realized that the only things being accomplished were A) I got
all upset at people and B) people got all upset with me. That got boring
and I just stopped.

I don't feel the need to have you agree with me about the divinity of
Jesus, the Trinity, infant baptism or the legitimacy of
Transubstantiation any more. I have my ideas, and if you have other
ideas I am curious about them.

I guess I realized that I wasn't gonna convince anyone with bigotry,
that I was going to do the opposite, create a resistance to the content
I was arguing based on the negative emotional tone. Thus if I really
wanted to convince someone, I was going at it in a way that did more
harm than good.

Then I realized I was a bigot. Oh shit. Conviction of sin and all that.
Guilt! That *was* heavy.

I still think most of my 'opinions' are 'correct', after all they are my
opinions and I wouldn't hold them if I thought they were false. But I
don't feel the need for you to agree with them. In fact I rather welcome
differences of opinion because through them I just might learn something
I don't already know.

I guess too there was the realization that while I may be a relative
expert on certain topics and have read and studied a lot, this doesn't
mean I know it all - for sure - and I'm constantly finding that almost
anyone, no matter how 'wrong' certain of his/her ideas might be, can
teach me something if I bother to really listen. Picking fights is a
lousy way to listen.

I'm also genuinely interested in what others think and why. I didn't
used to be, I was only interested in being *right* and being
*recognized* for my moral superiority in being *right*.

Religious communities of all sorts tend to cultivate this idea. Within
the community there is a certain theo-political correctness which is
sanctioned by the group. S/he who articulates it most correctly gets a
certain status in the group. S/he who errs gets a certain sanction. One
has to realize that what's socially accepted in one's Tuesday Night
Bible Study isn't gonna get the same reception in the open marketplace.

It is simple respect (love?) for others to try to talk to them in a
language they can understand (ditch your political correctness) and also
to listen with an attempt to understand to what they think and feel.

If you are right and they are wrong, after listening and understanding
them for a while you just might be able to find the language whereby you
can communicate a new truth to them without pissing them off and hurting
their feelings. Also, if you are wrong and they are right, you just
might see that too :-) :-).

In the worst case you make friends and learn stuff.

But this need to prove that one is right and that others are wrong -
it's a funny one. It comes, I think, from great inner insecurity and the
need to have others affirm that you are right because you're not
*really* sure in yourself. You cover your own doubts, or hide from them,
with a lot of shouting so you can't hear your own inner doubts.

But when you stop shouting for a while and just listen, then hey,
something positive happens. Dialogue!

Just a thought triggered by your post . . . 

=Doug

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