Truce or Dare?
Posted by Daniel on Friday, August 11, 2006
This is dedicated to Alan (a/k/a Spanky), the bully who came looking for a fight.
Normally I love to write about all the funny things going on in our lives and around the world. There’s so much delicious grist out there and I do so love to laugh.
Every once in a while, however, something happens that slaps you back into reality and reminds you that there is still some ugliness in the blogging world.
Unfortunately, for the past several days, this ugliness has kept me beaten down and, as a result, I’ve allowed myself to be baited and distracted. I am very ashamed of myself for this.
I know it’s pointless to let someone pick an online fight and stupidly take them up on it. Especially when that particular bully (as it turns out) is known by both of his readers for just that.
While I won’t go into the subject(s) of this persons rants and vicious religious attacks, I will admit I took the bait. Like an idiot, I allowed myself to be called out onto the blogger schoolyard and when the guy tried to take my lunch money, I swung.
Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!!!
I wanted to honestly apologize to the antagonist for whatever it was that pissed him off. As it turns out, that wouln’t have been enough for him, as anyone who isn’t ‘religious’ is his target. He is one of those who just keeps coming back.
My plan this morning was to just let it go and chalk it up to yet another lonely weirdo stuck in front of his computer who hates the immoral world. I wanted to write about something totally unrelated to this person and just move on. Live and learn, right?
Unfortunately, no. He’s taken it to the next level. Using his ‘moral superiority’ to bash me and also turned on Steve.
So, instead of continuing to give this person my attention, I’ll let the following response from Steve be the end of it:
“No, Alan, I am not saying everyone else is deluded. But after reading your post, I can pretty much deduce that you are. Nice job of twisting around valid points with that trademark flair of the evangelical.
You quote one site “Beyond Marriage” as the basis for what the “true reformation of marriage is about.” That’s pretty weak, but then again, typical of the evangelical right. Like I said in my post, I don’t believe your fringe element speaks for all of Christianity any more than that site speaks for what all gay people want out of marriage.
And do I believe I can do everything I want? Of course not, and that kind of argument leads me to believe that you are the childish one here. Scary to trust we might be using our own consciences instead of your Bible thumping rhetoric isn’t it?
If you have to latch on to either one of us being “anti” something, we are “ant-right wing evangelical”, because I will reiterate again, IMHO it has very very little to do with the teaching of Jesus Christ. You can disagree, that’s fine. This, to me, was not going to be an ongoing dialogue. The basis for the discussion isn’t likely to ever be agreed on.
I give you major props, though, on tutoring those would read your post on Daniel being passive aggressive while delivering passive aggressive in master strokes.
Again, I applaud you. That is an art form in itself.”
I apologize to all of my readers for the past several days of bickering. I will lay down my firey Italian sword (on this subject) and return to writing about what I love…
KatB said
I have some questions for you Mr. Grey. Did not God charge Christians to be an example to the world? Are you setting a good example by being “blunt”?
Is it right for you to publicly call someone out as a thief?
Yet you feign indignance at the idea someone would be upset at being accused of stealing.
When
someone professes to be Christian, I expect them to behave in a manner consistent with the teachings of their religion. You claim to become suspicious of people who behave inconsistently with their words. The hopelessly warped pathetic letter that is the subject of this “debate” attempts to point out, rather sarcastically, the inconsistencies of biblical teachings.
“I
generally believe they try to act morally. It isn’t till they start acting inconsistently with their claims that I get more suspicious.”
What do you have to be suspicious of? No one is trying to sell you anything, convert you in any way. I wonder why you continue to give so much air time to someone with whom you so vehemently disagree. Should you not follow Christ’s
example?
“So here we have Daniel, who claims to try and be a good person, being abusive and upset, when it is pointed
out to him that he was doing something that even the secular humanist gay rights feminist academics think is wrong?”
The key word being academics, outside of academia, plagiarism is called copyright infringement. As I’m sure
you are aware there are acceptable use provisions in the rules of copyright. I have to wonder why you are so bothered by this alleged offense unless of course YOU are the author of the letter. (Probably not, but just checking). The
author of the piece has not seen fit to complain about any of the zillion of times this piece has been used although Lorimar (the only ‘for profit’ use of it) did compensate him. On the contrary, the author probably wants the work disseminated
as widely as possible in order to get his message out. In addition, it has been varyingly addressed to Dr. Laura, George Bush and now Senator Brownbeck.
If you’re objecting merely to the sin of plagiarism and believe all who have done so should be “outed” then where
is your column on Ms. Coulter and her much more widely documented problems in that regard?
As for
Daniel’s passive aggressive attacks on Christianity, why do you even care? I submit that you care about these so-called attacks because you doubt your own belief system. Christ said the world is supposed to hate you. It’s how you
know you’re separated from the world, special.
As for mocking and deriding, duh, that’s called sarcasm and yes, that is the point – to hold hypocrites up to the light and see if they explode.
You say the Christians who insult Daniel may be misguided and not acting according to the bible, but they too believe they are telling the truth. But shouldn’t they be held to the standard of the religion they profess to be part of? Shouldn’t you, as a fellow Christian, be more concerned, like Paul, with chastising them than arguing with a self-proclaimed non-believer? I’m sure Daniel could give you their email addresses.
As for Steve’s comments, I’m not sure how you can characterize his statements as anti-religious. I think they are more anti-psycho Christians.
“It seems Steve’s version of ‘true christianity’ would let him do everything he wants and somehow call this ‘love’.” Holy leap to conclusion, Batman, I don’t know how you got that from them not liking the death threats. Steve’s
version of ‘true Christianity’ prevents him from kicking your butt which is probably something he’d want to do. So, I think, therefore, you are wrong in this regard.
And you conclude with the ironic statement:
“But there is an incredible dearth of evidence at how destructive the
homosexual lifestyle is.”
I think on that point, you are correct sir.
Perhaps you should spend more time in prayer and reading your bible (or your dictionary), and you would feel less need to harass those that could care less about your opinion. Unless of course you are just dying for the attention. Vanity, isn’t
that one of those problem sins for you people?
Sources:
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The Bible, author unknown, (New
International Version) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society