Part 1 "Beyond Your Control: An Exit Interview
Part 3 Hey Rain, I think you better get God on line one for a judgment call on this one
Audio is available of my version of therapy on youtube at
When I wrote the following comment, I was trying to commend the person who wrote the diary - virgomusic - for finally putting some response up on the site to Pat Robertson's latest "Haiti made a deal with the Devil so they deserved the Earthquake" comment. Because I had been checking for a week to see if anyone would say something about it.
Sadly, like I do, it looks like I left off the last half of the sentence; I lose things. I would have read like this
"If I had seen these kinds of refutations when the events happened, I might be less offended by those who merely distanced themselves or excused themselves from Robertson/Fallwell and others."What follows is a cut/paste of the comment that I didn't see, because once I had been "banned" I had weird time that night. It's strange that they are acting as if they are grieving themselves right now, but that's how it goes.
And that's what they tried to teach me, that's how it will continue to go, apparently.
• If I had seen those kinds of refutations when (2+ / 0-)
( Recommended by: JCHFleetguy, JDsg )
...he said that wildfires in Florida were the result of a gay pride rally in Orlando...
...when he said 9/ll was the fault of everybody but Christistians...
...when he almost caused an international incident by suggesting the assassination of Hugo Chavez...
...when he told the "good people of Dover (PA)" that they should not call on God in time of need beecause they had rejected God in throwing out the school board over Intelligent Design -
I will direct you all to this diary - I hope you'll get the analogy.
http://frothingatthemouth.blogspot.com/2008/05/story-behind-name.html
The punchline is:
Is is more outrageous that I would ever dare to say something so unthinkable, or is it more outrageous to realize that it was only once I said something so unconscionably obscene that the he finally took me seriously?
If Pat Robertson can get away with saying all the things he has said in the past and only now face a backlash from his fellow Christians, that should stand on it's own as a legitimate reason that people like me have become (in the eyes of some here) "extremists".
I wasn't sitting in a closet somewhere reading Winnie the Pooh cartoons all my life, these are the kinds of things that have been raining on me all my life and every time I spoke up about them in the past the answer was almost universally the same,
"Well, I'm a Christian, and I didn' say it, so it's no skin off my nose"
SNAFUBAR: I know things will always be FU from time to time, what I'm working on is that we stop being so damn comfortable with it as "Situation Normal"
by snafubar on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 05:33:39 PM PST
A few points that are important. Note that JCHFleetguy is one of the ones who recommended the comment. He's the guy I've been so mad at in recent months and one of the reasons is that he has unilaterally re-written the meaning of a 'recommend' himself. He says he rec's every comment he reads just so everyone who reads it will know he was there - like a calling card. Well then would it not seem strange that if he had been criticizing me for all that I had wrote (or re-writing it by posting corrections and telling me I had just never learned history correctly or my definitions or wrong or....) he would give what is supposed to be a 'thumbs up' sign.
Nope, not to John. Although to recommend a comment might be a universal thumbs-up sign for everyone else, he is OK that he uses it differently and doesn't care what I feel about it. That is a quote, although It will take me a week to find it. He said he's been like that for years, and will not change for me.
I wonder if he how he deals with traffic lights. Red might mean stop to everyone else, but John feels it's perfectly OK to assign a completely different meaning to it...
He also said that he's never TR'd a comment in all his time there. So the tools that are at his disposal to express approval or discontent have either been forsaken or misused, and he can't figure out why someone might be getting the wrong message from him.
Now, for the responses:
○ Right (0+ / 1-)
Nice anti-theistic garbage.
Thanks for sharing.
Not
by Danish Brethern on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 06:39:45 PM PST
This is the guy who says he's a counselor of some kind. Where is there an anti-theistic message? I said I was upset not about theism but about lack of condemnation or denial from people on his camp. No atheist or secularist could attempt to correct Robertson, for any attempt to do so would simply inspire more of his outrage, and more of this bullshit victimization that these pious whiners cry out about people taking away their religious freedom. So any correction of Robertson has to be from a fellow "theist". Again, more labels - no constructive progress on how to solve the problem any more than he feels mine was not.
○ You would find (1+ / 0-)
if you looked as I did that there was equal unreported reaction to Robertson then
To find out about me: http://braincrampsforgod.blogspot.com/2009/09/about-me.html
by JCHFleetguy on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 07:15:17 PM PST
Get that? If only I had lived my life the way John has, I would have gotten all the information that I needed. Nothing condescending or insulting in that attitude, right?
This is the person who had set me off all these last months. He just did it again - you see, he wants me to know that my experience was invalid, and if I had only lived my life as he did and "looked", then I would have found what he feels I should have seen. That's too convenient; I guess I should just have to live my life standing right next to him so I would be sure to experience the world precisely as he does, then I would see the world the right way after enough time.
That's not specificially proselytizing; it's condescension and I find it much more offensive and demeaning. But remember - it's their house, and they are interested in harmony and a 'safe place' for faithful people. So if people like me are out sharpening our fangs because of whatever reason, they'd rather not know about it.
That's fair - it's their right and perogative to manage their own site. I would suggest though that they ought not to be surprised at the hostility that might be present still; and I will demand that despite their claim that I was surely broken before I got there and therefore it's not their fault. I wasn't drunk, stoned, or otherwise under the influence of anything other then the feedback and contributions of others when I lived through it all.
In other words, I was reacting to people at Street Prophets as much as I was Pat Robertson, so now that they have restored harmony to their site by banishing the dissenters, where am I now?
Out of sight, out of mind - but they'll still be writing diaries about the tension between faith and lack thereof.
And so will I.
He's gone, JCH. (3+ / 0-)
We banned snafubar.
by Rain on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 07:40:55 PM PST
□ I saw that after I answered n/t (1+ / 0-)
To find out about me:
http://braincrampsforgod.blogspot.com/2009/09/about-me.html
by JCHFleetguy on Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 07:58:24 PM PST
What I think is most telling about JCHFleetguy is that every post has a link to his personal blog. I think he's insecure and needs validation as much as I do; and maybe he felt I was getting some of his light or at least taking it away from him. But I won't be so arrogant as to use that as a reason to shut him up; I just want him to recognize he can be doing damage to people by being so innured, indifferent, aloof to how he makes other people feel.
If you look at my history at SP, I just posted my own diaries and then I tenaciously defended my position. I rarely ever went into other diaries at all; I was just there to know that I had left my footprints somewhere, and I gained my energy from those who saw them. I lost energy when someone tried to tell me my footprints did not belong there or tried to fill them back in with something.
So I banged heads for many months with a guy who's seeking validation and feedback as much as I am, and someone else made a judgment call to declare who was right and who was wrong.
I'd say my outlook on life is pretty accurate - other people are going to throw stones no matter what I do. I was a fool to think I should try to ask them why they felt the need to; that wasn't my call.
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