Note to Ruth
Well, if you are not a frenemy, and you certainly are not a friend it seems, then what does that make you?
I seldom ever call anyone out in a hell thread. But I will make an exception. You stated:
I had a psychologist once tell me if one person calls you a jack ass, that's their opinion. If two people call you a jackass, you might think about it. If three people call you a jackass you better get some hay.
As @Dafyd had said, if an American thinks they want to talk about a person within the Trump administration, they can start a thread about that person if they want. They will only close the thread if it goes off topic or if no one is responding to it. Thanks for pushing the thread off topic.
I certainly did not think I was expecting a captive audience when I posted the thread. It was something I wanted to get off my chest as it were. You could have let it hang there, but, no, you attack me as the worst kind of retired minister. Great insult.
You know, there is no way to defend against it. It's like asking a question, "How many times have you beat your spouse?" No way to reply to it at all without implying one does participate in that activity.
Simply put, Do or do I not have the right to state my concern about a member of my government? If you do reply, do or do I not have the right to respond to your comment? You call it doubling down. I call it engagement.
I seldom ever call anyone out in a hell thread. But I will make an exception. You stated:
And you talk like the worst kind of retired minister, someone who no longer has a captive audience on a regular basis and can't get used to the fact that people don't have to listen to what he says.
I had a psychologist once tell me if one person calls you a jack ass, that's their opinion. If two people call you a jackass, you might think about it. If three people call you a jackass you better get some hay.
As @Dafyd had said, if an American thinks they want to talk about a person within the Trump administration, they can start a thread about that person if they want. They will only close the thread if it goes off topic or if no one is responding to it. Thanks for pushing the thread off topic.
I certainly did not think I was expecting a captive audience when I posted the thread. It was something I wanted to get off my chest as it were. You could have let it hang there, but, no, you attack me as the worst kind of retired minister. Great insult.
You know, there is no way to defend against it. It's like asking a question, "How many times have you beat your spouse?" No way to reply to it at all without implying one does participate in that activity.
Simply put, Do or do I not have the right to state my concern about a member of my government? If you do reply, do or do I not have the right to respond to your comment? You call it doubling down. I call it engagement.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Yup, I attacked you. You coming back for more? It will have to wait - I'm posting during an intermission during a movie marathon. (One Lord of the Rings movie down, two to go.)
No. The way you've rendered the joke, the person could just answer "zero". The versions I know are:
Have you stopped beating your spouse?
When did you stop beating your spouse?
Both of which, if answered without explanation, can only imply participation in the activity.
Just wanted to thank you for forcing the Hegseth off topic and throwing a good insult.
Graphics Device Interface?
Gasoline Direct Injection?
God-Damn Independent?
Last one is close.
You know what irritates me? You just pull shit out of your ass and expect people to believe it. 80% of ELCA are open and affirming? Only in your privileged dreams.
All dying churches? Come on. Just the generalization is a major red flag that says you're flat-out wrong. You are not in a position to diagnose the problem with all dying churches. And as usual, you've just pulled something out of your ass without even bothering to cite your personal experience to back up what you're saying.
Here's someone who actually asked people in the US why they left the church, surveying over 1000. He found that initial, inciting reasons cited by 10% or more of people leaving were the treatment of LGBTQ people, the behavior of believers, intellectual integrity, and exposure to difference, with the treatment of LGBTQ people easily in the lead. When asked what straw broke the camel's back, the ultimate reason people left, they said the treatment of LGBTQ people (by far the biggest reason), the behavior of believers, and politics -- i.e., Trump. He concludes, "Christianity is a religion that boasts about its love, but people are not seeing it, and they’re walking out the door."
I suspect that a survey of why people don't join churches in the first place you'd get a similar sort of range of reasons as those who were once in a church and have left. "The church never came to ask me what they could do for me" (aka "reaching out to their communities") is very unlikely to be on the list of why people have never been to church except the occasional wedding or funeral. With people leaving churches, whether through the inevitable effects of aging or the range of reasons in that survey, why people don't join is an important consideration - and not unconnected to the reasons people leave, with an additional dose of need to improve PR (eg: there are churches and denominations which are open and accepting of LGBTQ+, but the general perception is that they don't exist because the public discourse is dominated by the false prophets of some branches of Evangelicalism who present a skewed reading of a very small number of verses promoting hate rather than the overwhelming message of the Bible to love).
Or is that something I have picked up wrong?
It’s basically the same issue as has been complained about in threads on politics—people opining and critiquing out of ignorance about societies they don’t live in.
For myself it was a refuge because of its acceptance of other thought traditions - it had a Thich Nat Hanh Sunday school group for instance - so I knew I was "safe" to express some of my more unorthodox theological viewpoints and to "be myself".
But emotionally and materially speaking it was a very cold place. It wasn't a community where you could express your brokenness, your weariness, your neediness, your sinfulness, your remorse or regret, or any type of vulnerability and get any kind of help. I was tolerated, but never really included for reasons both theologial and social.
It was never the type of place where I thought "would I rather be fed to the lions than give up membership in this community?" The answer to that question was simple - I could walk away and it would hardly have felt like I was giving up anything. And eventually my life events forced that separation and it felt like I lost nothing.
I'm still happy to call myself a Baptist, because that church taught me about the roots of that tradition and I feel the founding principles of American Baptism are sound and rational and just, just like the founding principles of the Republic it exists in.
But I feel like there was probably more of authentic Christianity in an AA meeting than there ever was on any of those Sunday mornings in the sanctuary. Just sayin'.
AFF
He never got in with AA but this group seems to suit him better.
Whatever the case, I agree with @Nick Tamen ('I agree with Nick,' now where have I heard that before? 😉).
It is a gag I've cracked on these boards before ... and one which may not translate across the Atlantic.
But yes, I'm not sure it's fair to single out any faith group, whether here or the US or anywhere else to pontificate why they may or may not be in decline, particularly if we are unfamiliar with the cultural context.
I'm afraid @Gramps49, I find you guilty as charged on this one. You do come out with these sweeping generalisations and it becomes tiresome after a while.
There's no need for it. You have other interesting points to make.
Generalisations of that kind aren't helpful.
My brother now dismisses each and every Christian
faith tradition you can imagine because he doesn't think they helped him with his addiction. Almost as if that was their sole aim and purpose.
Of course he's going to get more specialist help at a group which specialises in such things. That's obvious.
People have all sorts of reasons for going or not going to church and we can't generalise about any of them.
(I know the gag, but only because I’ve looked it up when it has come up here before. And to be honest, I forget it’s a gag until the next time it’s pointed out it’s a gag.)
Much of that would be true for the UK as well. The Tubblet's big objection to organised religion / God is their treatment of LGBTQA+ people. As @Alan Cresswell points out, that's not all Christians. Unfortunately, that's not the impression you get as the anti's make the most noise.
The survey says that the thing most people miss about church is community. Which suggests that if it fixes some of the other stuff and puts itself out there, there is the possibility of recovery.
-- chrisstiles, Hell Host