Good lord. Why do I do this?

[velvetpage]

A person in the canpolitik forum posted a comment about how they would never donate to the Salvation Army because of their anti-gay stuff. My response was basically, fine, that's your choice, but since I've never seen that for myself I'm going to go with my choice. She accused me of operating in an ethical vaccuum by donating to a discriminatory organization, told me I could call on my sky-fairies all I liked (???) and stated that religious organizations had no place in this crisis.

Okay, let me see here.

1) An ethical vaccuum exists because the organization I donate to happens to disagree with her on a point she considers fundamental. So the only people who should be represented in aid organizations are those whose beliefs exactly match, not mine, but hers. I'm starting to have issues at this point.

2) I did not insult her in any way. In fact, I was downright friendly. There was no call for her to insult me. In doing so, she did exactly what purplekat rightly accused Christians of doing all to often, ignoring my beliefs to push her own. Except that she didn't do it in love.

3) New Orleans is in the South. Many of the people who are left behind there are black. It would not surprise me at all to know that many, perhaps even a majority of them, are Christian. Of a certainty, there are some Christians trapped in that city. Well, how many of those people will spot a Salvation Army uniform and seek spiritual aid as well as physical? And who is this woman to deny them that aid? It takes all kinds to make a world, and anyone with love in their hearts and a helping hand to lend should be welcome there. There will be some who will want the spiritual succor of the chance to pray with someone in uniform. In a few months, the Salvation Army's magazine will be full of such stories from the disaster relief centres. She doesn't have the right to force her secularism on the rest of the world, any more than I have the right to force my Christianity. What she is trying to do is at least as bad as Christians trying to convert everyone they help, and frankly, I think it's worse. At least the Christians are acting out of a (slightly misplaced) sense of love and duty. She's just acting out of bitterness and political correctness.

I said much of this to her. I just can't leave well enough alone, can I? Who knows, though - she may actually realize I'm right. It's happened before.

Comments

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

One of the most important things for people to learn and apply is the concept of true tolerance; one does not scream for the right to believe in whatever faith one chooses and then belittle or attempt to deny another the same right to another once they have it.

*sigh*

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

It's late, I'm working (which means I'm supposed to ignore LJ like I said I would) and I just repeated my word choice. Please edit in your head. ;)

[paka.livejournal.com]

Mercy Corps does not have the anti-Gay attitudes found elsewhere, which is why I chose them as my avenue to contribute to the current emergeancy.

Given the scope of things, I don't think it's pragmatic to bar anyone from helping, or to disapprove of anyone contributing money to any of the organizations in there. Yeah, I have a lot of bones to pick with people but right now the idea of saying no to anyone, that's the way the Bush Administration works. That's what the bad guys do, not the heros.

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Why do I do this?

Because you're a sucker for punishment that would like to believe all people to be rational, good human beings. You'd like to believe that reasonable debate can bring people around to something regarding a concensus and that everyone out there is deserving of having what they are saying listened to, thought about and responded to in a respectful manner.

Isn't it a pity that it's usually the assholes we remember?

A lot of the Atheists out there are worse than many of the rabid Christians. They have an equal amount of arrogance and an equal contempt for those not of their opinion. I have no time for either breed.

I used to get upset at what they thought of me (being a moderate, centrist-liberal pagan/polytheist who believes that all manifestations of God are valid) but then I thought... is their opinion really important to me? Am I likely to change their opinion/obesession? The answer is no... few people are ever convinced by argument. It requires a special person who is actually listening to what people say and thinking about it rather than just reacting via their belief structure. Rabid religious extremists (atheists included... anyone who spends so much time denying something comes awfully close to belief of some kind or another) are hardly likely to fall into that category, or they'd already be more likely to allow for the fact that they might be *gasp* WRONG and be less combative in their statements.

Do I have more important and valuable things to do with my life than care about the opinion of someone who will never seriously consider looking at my side of the discussion? Yes. Is life far too short to be wasting emotion on such encounters? Yes. Could they possibly be right? Yes... but that doesn't mean I have to like them or their way of presenting themselves or their ideas. Even if there is the chance they might be right, it doesn't change the fact for me that I might be right instead/as well.

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Oh good grief... please ignore grammatical mistakes. *rolls eyes* That's what I get for not proofing more rigourously.

[tormentedartist.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on your point. That an atheist forcing her/his point of view on you is as bad as a Christian doing the same.

I'm agnostic btw, leaning towards atheistism.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

As someone who has been in that community for a bit longer than you, let me say that I have never seen more bizarre behaviour than in the past few days. I think this New Orleans thing is really getting to people. And rightly so.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I should note that I'm not at all surprised that she ignored your beliefs to push her own. I probably should have clarified that EVERYONE who holds strong beliefs without really having come to them in a thoughtful, considering manner tends to behave in this way.

I have a friend who's both Christian and a Republican but who hangs out with gamers. You can guess the kinds of attacks he gets to suffer. One time, I was over at his place hanging out and working on a project for school (this was a few years ago when I was making The Dress) and we got to talking about religion. He was floored that even though I'm agnostic, raised by athiests who are both rabidly ACLU and a die-hard democrat, I was able to listen to him talk about his faith without attacking him.

I was able to do this because I'm comfortable with what I believe, and someone, even someone I respect, disagreeing with me doesn't in any way diminish me.

Another time, I was in a chat room, and a guy who was really into being flamingly gay (this is one of the first things he would tell people when he met them) logged in and immediately said 'I hate christians!' A bunch of people agreed with him. I pointed out that if I'd logged in and said 'I hate gay people!' I would have been banned from the chat room and flamed into the ground. Eventually, we talked it around and he wound up altering the statement to be 'I strongly dislike Christians who forcibly try to convert me and don't shut up when I say I'm not interested.', which I agreed with.

All of that having been said: While I appreciate that religious organizations are getting involved in the relief effort and I'm glad that they're able to offer spiritual guidance to those who want/need it, if I were to hear of ANY organization whose help was conditional on them being able to go out and preach to people who weren't interested, I would hit the roof. I've heard of some organizations doing this sort of thing in similar situations, and it smacks of either bribery or blackmail, but either way it's a very nasty practice.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The Salvation Army's help is always unconditional. It always has been.

I wish everyone could be as secure in their belief system as you are, and as unthreatened by others. The world would be a better place.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people closely associate what they believe with who they are. And if you attack the core of who someone is, I don't care who they are or how calm and collected they are, they -will- lash out. The more effectively that you attack it, the more defensive and hostile they'll become.

I identify myself much more by my honor and behavior, the personal code by which I try to live, and if anyone were to attack that, especially sensative areas where I'm not 100% positive that I'm being everything I pretend to be, I might not lash out at them (although I might), but boy would I ever be hurt.

So I don't pretend to be any less human than anyone else :) The only difference is that I think I've managed to identify myself with something much closer to the core of my being that has less to do with what people around me think and do.

[neosis.livejournal.com]

I think I may be seeing a pattern as to why your are attracting this type of criticism:

She pointed out that the organization you recommended has an anti-gay agenda and actively promotes re-education of gays and lesbians. That is a valid ethical concern and thus the comment about an ethical vaccuum is topical to your recommendation. You are choosing to ignore that the organization is engaged in unethical behaviour. Your defense of "well it's my choice who I donate to", however, isn't valid when you are supplying a recommendation. She didn't say you can't donate the Salvation Army, she said there are better choices which aren't engaged in unethical behaviour. Also, by retreating to that defense, you moved the debate directly to your faith by supplying it as a reason to support your recommendation. She then dismissed your faith, rather rudely, because what you believe isn't really material to the topic of who people should donate money to in a disaster situation.

Essentially, I think you're taking the criticism too personally. I don't think she's aiming to attack you or your religious beliefs, they're immaterial to her.