Bush-loving Republican. Conservative Christian. Welcome?

I know we hate Bush. I know we hate people who like Bush. I know we dont care much for that newfangled god thingamabob, and science==good and stuff.
Err. Guys?
We're constantly antagonizing half the population in america... how will SL ever get anywhere if we continue to treat people with this level of intolerance?
Today, there are few and they are far-between. When they arrive, the forums certainly get... interesting. I'm sure Jeska knows the dates by heart and paints them black on her calendar.
In the future, there might be millions of these people in SL, heck, they might make up half of the american population here.
They could probably be here now, I mean, network effects anyone? They come, they like it, they invite all their friends... if we just grit our teeth and don't post about how stupid they are and how everything they know and hold dear is complete bullshit.
We have solidified into a groupthink that rabidly antagonizes any dissenter. That's not right.
Can't we all get along?

We who?

coco

/120/52/61750/1.html

I don't subscribe to similar political, religious or social views as most in these forums, or SL for that matter, and I don't feel the least bit antagonized. I also don't feel that I'm being confronted by intollerant views or that anything I have to say is marginalized as a result of my not holding to similar views as the majority.

Eggy. My friends and I would like you to step in the back room for a minute. We'd like to make you an offer you can't refuse.

Seriously, though, I'm OK with well-spoken individuals who have ideologies that don't agree with mine. A few of them have been friends -- Dracus Templar is a notable pal and staunch conservative from the old days. As a matter of fact, Neualtenburg still has a placeholder for Billy Grace's United Conservative Front, if anyone would ever like to join and pick up their platform.

~Ulrika~

The sentiment of getting along is a good one, but honestly, the intimidation factor isn't really significant. I say that as neither a leftist nor a member of the Christian Right.

In the mind of another - I think what registers is surety, the tone, and lastly - any point that the writer is trying to make.

We are getting along. This is how Americans get along. Okay?!

Damnit, if I wasnt so busy I'd take you up on that. Heh. Sounds like fun.

-Adam

My dear, I think you would agree that your reaction to my views on the ID debate were anything but tolerant. Then, there's always that man-idiot incident. I have much respect for your intellect, but I can't say the same for your forum etiquette. By the way, well-spoken is in the ear of the beholder.

Eggy, good points. Thanks for acknowledging that human beings have value, even when they believe in fuzzy, supernatural stuff that can't be empirically validated.

Personally, when I start to get testy on these here forums, it's usually because people are treating eachother badly. To me, there is no excuse for that kind of behavior.

Oh, and Eggy, in the US, everything is so damned competitive that we have been conditioned to believe that every last little thing is a battle-worthy proposition. That's why the phrase, 'pick your hill to die on,' was coined, but we seem to have thrown that one out with the bathwater.

I think a modern Bush-loving (Fox-news watching etc) Conservative Christian would have to denounce SL as a tool of Satan to keep people away from reading the Bible. I'm as ultra-liberal as the next guy but even I get squeemish at the thought of furry-sex, SL is is virtual Sodom and Gomorah hehe!!!

Y'all got your heads in the sand if you think everyone else in SL thinks just like you do.

And you do, so you do.

coco

so well written *hugs*

Ideas are not people. A large part of the reason that people have difficulty discussing or strongly debating serious topics like religion is because people lose sight of that fact. I can love you and hate an idea you hold. If I express my thoughts about that idea I'm not condemning you as a person. The vast cultural divides exist precisely because we have this notion of political correctness that discourages an honest exchange of differing ideas. If people routinely hashed these things out, politely or not, on a regular basis, it wouldn't cause the discomfort that it does... but we don't because we're taught to keep it to ourselves. That causes frustration and repression that boils out when we do step outside those imposed social taboos. I'd rather see someone's anger expressed in an honest and open way and be able to shake hands afterwards than to know only their surface things deemed "polite." We end up divided because we don't talk, not because we do.

Why does everyone have to "try to turn [someone] around to [their] side of things?

Since when does tolerance have anything to do with how much time you have?

Chip is zeroing in on it. An idea is an abstract and an "attack" on an idea, concept or worldview of another is not an "attack" on the person.

Either way, sticks and stones....

And lest we forget...I know you are but what am I.

The regular posters of the Off Topic forum, or at least the ones who often get into flamewars

"Tolerance" is not being friendly until you can re-shape a person's worldview to nicely mesh with yours.

Tolerance is being friendly (or at least civil) even when you can't.

/Gay conservative christian.
//Back from the dead!
///Been hanging out on fark too much.

I don't disagree with Chip's sentiment, nor with your elaboration. I just think that, those who try to discount the value of tolerance are generally those who are the most abusive of it.

My issue, as always, has been with tactics. Chip is right on about valuing the person while disagreeing with the person's point of view. In the past, I have offered a "basic principle" for managing tolerance without interest or embrace. However, since we are on the topic, I'll quote it again:

Focus on the situation, issue or behavior, not the person.

Basically, that means argue based on the merits, but leave the person's inherent value intact. Sure, no one likes to be on the losing side of a debate, and certainly, there are many people who have more finely honed debating skills than others. We are not a scientific body, though, and this is not peer review. There is no excuse for humiliating others. This is an informal gathering of people who have a virtual world in common. Off Topic provides us a rich environment for debate and exploration. Why does it so often devolove into pre-school-like tantrums?

What we need is to agree on a "standard;" a fairly narrow definition of what constitutes non sequitor behavior. Then, rather than relying on overworked moderators, we collectively agree to certain "peer sanctions." Could be as simple as collective muting. I dunno, stream of conscious thinking, here. I'll let others chime in, now.

It was too simple to say, that I'm OK with well-spoken individuals who have ideologies that don't agree with mine. In addition they must present a dialogue to others which adheres to principles of logic. I must be able to make a logical point and have them concede that point (and vice versa). This is what I loved about Dracus Templar. We could bang heads and walk away with slightly different world views at the end of it.

Discussions on ID are inherently based in superstition, mysticism, and the supernatural and are thus not logical. I have no respect for superstitious punditry that supports itself with links to web pages filled with more superstitious punditry. ID is medieval mysticism for the religiously indoctrinated and poorly educated that has been compressed into a neat little modern acronym.

~Ulrika~

I was merely suggesting that one may want to try and talk things over with the opposing party.Since forever. Consider this. You're a doctor and a child patient is in dire need of a blood transfusion. Her Jehova's witness parents, however, object to this. What do you do? Do you tolerate their beliefs? Do you sit down and try to talk sense into them? Not if you're the doctor and you have the law on your side (resources), not if time is running out (timing), and not if you or society has been through this discussion before and has remained unconvinced by the opposing party's arguments (conviction). Kinda obvious, isn't it?

As for Chip's argument, how do you go about separating ideas from people? Some people identify themselves very strongly with their ideas--or cars, or spouses for that matter. An attack on something that you hold dear is--and should be--viewed as an attack on yourself. You say "I can love you and hate an idea you hold." Well, would you still love me if I hated your very raison d'etre? You may still say yes--and mean it--if I do not seem to be much of a threat to you. But if you perceive me as too much of a threat to your well-being, I'll bet you that the gloves are off, love goes down the drain, and tolerance out the window.

Well that was probably an overly simplistic expression of sentiment, so let me flesh it out a little. I can love people who are ruled more by their humanity than by their ideology. I have no patience for demagogues. There has to be give and take, and that exchange of ideas must be based on a foundation of recognition for the humanity of the other. When those conditions are met, exchanges (even heated ones) can serve to expand our worldviews... if not in finding common ground then at least in finding a deeper understanding of the other people we share this planet with.

I say I "can" love someone and hate ideas they hold, not that I "do" as a matter of course. Those that speak the word humanism as if it were some kind of blasphemy and as a sort of condemnation of those who revere it as sinfully prideful, they are lost to me... and to the rest of humanity. They've withdrawn themselves into their battlements and wait only for the rapture to give people like me our just desserts. The above statement, while specific to fundamentalist christianity, is analogous to all such narrow minded and dehumanizing views.

In general I hate political correctness as it is commonly applied to religious or partisan political views because the consequences of those views are not merely bruised egos or ruffled sensibilites. They manifest themselves in real repression, bigotry, and power hungry imperialism. I often speak harshly about Christianity because, as an atheist, I am repressed by it and forced to live under legislated moralistic views I do not share in a country where I would be shunned from public service or politics. There's nothing quaint or loveable about that. It's the stuff civil wars are made of.

The thing about personal views, and in particular, religious views, is that they're usually held without regard or awareness of their effect on others. They're often wrapped in lip-service to concepts like love while actually being the opposite. Empathy becomes simply a rhetorical device rather than an actual humanistic bond between disparate viewpoints... and this brings me to the crux of the point I was trying to make... that's often unconscious, indoctrinated, and unintentional. It's what happens when people grow up in a bubble unaware of how vastly different most of humanity is from themselves.

The most important thing that can be gained from dialogue (even angry vitriolic dialogue) is to have that bubble punctured and exposed as the naive construct it usually is... and, if there's still a shred of empathy and humanism left in that individual, hope for an appreciation and acceptance of the inescapable fact that we can't convert each other... that we instead must accept one other.

I come from a fairly deeply religious family. We discuss our disparate views as a matter of course. They're not taboo. We don't seek to change each other. We love and respect each other enough to be able to slap each other's ideas upside their metaphorical heads.

Finally, I believe deeply that most people care more about being understood than agreed with.

"I know we hate Bush. I know we hate people who like Bush. I know we dont care much for that newfangled god thingamabob, and science==good and stuff.
Err. Guys?"

I don't think you can apply the above to the regular posters of the forum, or the ones who often get into flamewars, or even the lurkers.

Did you check that link I posted above? It is to a poll, posted in the off-topic forum. It shows shows dems and repubs split evenly among respondants.

Thus, you are actually talking only to a sub-set of off-topic forum users, those who share your political and religious views, as if they were the forums (even the off-topic forums), which they are not.

That's kind of like taking for granted that you and those who agree with you pwn the forums. The poll says you don't.

coco

Chip, I come from a religiously disparate family, but one which enjoyed discussing religious differences, science, politics, all that - and never with antipathy at all.

I think that - plus the fact that I lived around in a lot of various places, among all kinds of people, of all sorts of socio-economic strata - helps a person not get their knickers in a twist over others having different views.

My mother was - is - a lifelong agnostic (who becomes a believer once in the trenches). My grandparents were holy-rollers. My brother, a Princeton professor, was a staunch atheist, as was his wife, a non-practicing Jew.

My grandmother on my father's side was Jewish. My father - divorced from my mother since I was 5, and I didn't meet him till I was 14 - considered religion entirely irrelvant. He spent his formative years being an orphan and his college years hoping his fraternity brothers never discovered he had Jewish blood. He kept it secret because he would not have been the fraternity president had they found out, and also because he lived through WWII and knew what could happen to a person if they were any part Jewish, so there was that fear element.

When I was growing up, my mother took me to Unitarian for a while, but basically I was encouraged to attend all sorts of churches with my various friends, and decide things for myself. Which I did.

And eventually I took all those factors - all the disparate religions and viewpoints I was exposed to within my own family, and all the religions of all my friends, together with my own scientific background - and I chose my own religion.

So, as you can see, my religious beliefs do not come from some fuzzy superstition or non-scientific thought, or lack of thought, or conformity, or anything like that, as some people seem to think they always do.

coco

Coco, I think the way your beliefs formed from the kind of melting pot you describe comes through a lot in the way you argue in various topics. You're stubborn about what you think but you tend to go out of your way to demonstrate to those that you're arguing with that you understand what they're trying to express, even if you don't agree. I think that's great. It goes back to what I said about people caring more deeply about being understood than agreed with. I think if more people took the extra step of trying to show the other side of a debate that they at least understand the other point of view, it would go a long way towards diffusing vitriol and helping discussions stay more productive. It's something I'm not sure I'm particularly good at and could use work on. It's often hard for stubborn people to do

Careful, the last guy to try to espouse that belief got nailed to a cross.

I tend to blame the major media (for almost everything, but this is a little more pertinent). In our fair country, "journalistic neutrality" has morphed into "this is a person advocating X" and "here's a person decrying X". This faux neutrality is easy to produce but tends to make issues into pairs of ideological polar opposites.

Just because another thread got me thinking about it, about the worst political stance that one can hold here is "it depends". Unfortunately, that phrase pretty well describes humanity, yet failing to be resolute - regardless of the wisdom of your choice - is political and rhetorical poison.

Oh, and to address the core of Eggy's point, the political spectrum seems to be cleaving along educational levels, in part I think, because Bush and crew explicitly pandered to that civil divide. As the SL playerbase is self-selectedly intelligent / creative / educated, what you are observing are attributes that tend to correlate highly with the modal SL player.

Or so the mythology goes ...

~Ulrika~