Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl polypropylene Henning) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Don't mean to be rude, but....... Message-ID: Date: 28 Feb 91 08:54:42 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: SUNY Buffalo Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Steven L. Boyls writes: In response to >> Terribly sorry, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but you're >> all a pack of raving idiots! What grown man in his right mind would >> believe in all this religion nonsense? If only you could look objectivly >> at your beliefs for once, you'd realise that you're all superstitous >> idiots....... >I think this person has a problem. At first I thought their problem was >that they were terribly rude. Then I realized that they do not have Christ >in their life. I can only hope that they will continue to read this forum >and realize that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, that no man goes >to the Father except through him. Hi, Steve. While I don't think that your response was, strictly speaking, "rude", I think that the person who posted at first was not so much being rude, as trying (albeit a little crudely) to convey a sense of incredulity. The problem, I think, is not so much in the content, as the manner of expression. What I think the person was trying to convey, was a sense of the complexity of beliefs and cross-beliefs involved in the average xian sect, and astonishment at the willing credulity on the part of many xians, in accepting without a qualm things which (to a non-xian) seem to fly in the faces of good sense, and common experience. The first post was not "rude" in the motivational sense, but rude in execution. Now, while not technically rude, your response seemed to me rather patronizing in the way that the first person's (admittedly ill-phrased) ideas were written off as being of no consequence, as coming from someone "without christ in his life"; a bit presumptive about the nature and function of this forum, the natural consequence of reading which, you suggest, would be that this person would learn to confess the well-worn dogma; and a little naive, in ignoring the evidence (in the posting itself) that this person had already in fact availed himself of the opportunity of reading through the forum. C'est la vie. kph PS/ On the "I am the way" wheeze ... I'm currently in Buffalo; the "way" to Cleveland is, to take I-90 west. Can I get to Cleveland by no other "way"? -- "The shrewder mobs of America, who dislike having two minds upon a subject, both determine and act upon it drunk; by which means a world of cold and tedious speculation is dispensed with." -- Washington Irving