cflute proposed an alternative to my suggestion below that if you want to post stuff in your journal that's going to make smallship1 feel hurt and attacked, and you don't want to make him feel hurt and attacked, you make a filter he's not on for such things. I think weirdsister does something of the kind for her friends whom she knows disagree strongly with her about politics, and whom she doesn't want ti get into fights with for both their sake and her own. But cflute mentioned that, if you don't want to go that far, a cut-tag will also work, so that smallship1 and whoever else knows that your arguments on the subject of the wrongs of theism, whether true or false, make them unhappy, can have a warning that it's coming and decide whether they feel like reading it that time.
I don't say you're wrong on the facts. You know me well enough by now to know that I very rarely disagree with you by a very wide margin on politics; in fact, one of the reasons I like reading your journal is that you say what I want to, only often you say it better.
I just don't want to see friends hurting each other. I don't see a point to carrying this kind of argument past the point where both sides know they aren't going to persuade each other to change their mind, and it isn't fun anymore for at least one of the people involved. I'd like to see it matter, not just who's right, but that people who like each other well enough to call each other friends and read about each other's lives assiduously try to avoid causing each other needless pain.
I agree with you that skepticism can prevent a lot of harm, and that certain "spiritual" beliefs have caused a lot of harm. I just find myself remembering two quotes, ironically both from theists of varying sorts.
My friend Liz, in high school, was a fairly serious Christian. I asked her once, whether it was true that her religion obliged her to ry and convert people, and if so, why she never tried it on us. She said, "Well, yes, in theory we are. But I figured out pretty quickly that if I went around trying to convert my friends into being Christians, I wouldn't have one single more Christian, and I would have a whole lot fewer friends. Since I know I can't convince you, it seems pointless to try, and not very polite either."
And, from the Book of Proverbs, quoted by one of my favorite fictional defenders of atheism ever: "He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
Don't trouble your own house, Cat. smallship1 is one of the good guys.
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Date: 2011-01-26 06:21 pm (UTC)I don't say you're wrong on the facts. You know me well enough by now to know that I very rarely disagree with you by a very wide margin on politics; in fact, one of the reasons I like reading your journal is that you say what I want to, only often you say it better.
I just don't want to see friends hurting each other. I don't see a point to carrying this kind of argument past the point where both sides know they aren't going to persuade each other to change their mind, and it isn't fun anymore for at least one of the people involved. I'd like to see it matter, not just who's right, but that people who like each other well enough to call each other friends and read about each other's lives assiduously try to avoid causing each other needless pain.
I agree with you that skepticism can prevent a lot of harm, and that certain "spiritual" beliefs have caused a lot of harm. I just find myself remembering two quotes, ironically both from theists of varying sorts.
My friend Liz, in high school, was a fairly serious Christian. I asked her once, whether it was true that her religion obliged her to ry and convert people, and if so, why she never tried it on us. She said, "Well, yes, in theory we are. But I figured out pretty quickly that if I went around trying to convert my friends into being Christians, I wouldn't have one single more Christian, and I would have a whole lot fewer friends. Since I know I can't convince you, it seems pointless to try, and not very polite either."
And, from the Book of Proverbs, quoted by one of my favorite fictional defenders of atheism ever: "He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
Don't trouble your own house, Cat.