<p>“Talk of Protestants as being heretics is abusive language, vile and insensitive?” Try that heretic line on your neighbors. See if they are offended. LOL. </p>
<p>I assume you believe it is respectful and welcoming to speak of major Protestant denominations as killing or destroying Christianity? </p>
<p>What is your point in this? If you agree with fid why do you have to run down one belief to prop up yours? Are you really defending what he wrote? I sure thought it was extreme. But like you said, takes all kinds. ;)</p>
<p>I think Fides is confusing the organization of the Catholic church, which is actually quite political, to the essence of what Jesus meant by the word ‘church.’ It was intended to be an esoteric concept, imo, not a political structure.</p>
<p>er, hh, you put in too many *'s and I’m having trouble figuring out which vile and profane words you left out. Leaving in the first letter would be very helpful. Thanks!</p>
<p>^ leal - I think your last statement describes my issue. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to co-op Christianity to beef up the bottom line.</p>
<p>And I could tell you a horror story of a contractor we used who tried to bilk us out of $1000. They sent bills for unperformed work (the work was actually performed by another contractor!) and correspondence on statements and letterhead covered with fishes and passages from the Bible. It was ugly, especially when I commented that it didn’t seem to be Christian behavior to attempt to collect payment for work performed by another party. It’s a long story, but needless to say I had a self-proclaimed Christian women yelling some pretty interesting things at me.</p>
<p>And another interesting development…the whole fish on the business sign thing took off in our area after one particularly large auto-repair company built a new facility with a huge sign on which they regularly display inspirational Christian sayings. Within weeks, most every auto-repair business in the area had sign painters out adding the fish to their existing signs. That’s enough to make a normal person cynical imho.</p>
<p>(And look, I try to be a good person and I consider myself a Christian. But I’m sorry, the abuse of fishes bugs me. Leave the fishes alone!)</p>
<p>hh- I’m confused too. Is it the talk of fishes that is bothering you? I don’t think anyone is trying to insult Christians or is running down the fish symbol. This is something which is incredibly special to Christians. Personally I just take issue with people using it to attract business customers.</p>
<p>ldmom, go back to this morning when you made your “I may be the only Lutheran on the board and…” comment after you noticed Fid called y’all heretics.</p>
<p>edit: By the way, I don’t think it really “started” there. ;)</p>
<p>ldmom and hayden had every right to be personally offended by fid’s post, imho. They responded with humor and grace, cutting him some slack for his age.</p>
<p>curmudgeon’s obsessive reaction came from an entirely different place, imo. Could be wrong, of course.</p>
<p>“checking up on and posting past posts of Fides et Ratio this morning, as you well know, to “flatten” him when he dared to express his belief in the infallibility of the Catholic church, (a dated concept, I know, but I thought we still had free speech in this country)?”</p>
<p>Holding people rhetorically accountable for what they’ve said is hardly an insult to free speech. It’s an essential element of quality discourse.</p>
<p>Oh, dear. I don’t think too many of us would care to have all our skeletons dug up each time we enter a conversation (myself included).</p>
<p>Someone uses the word ***** twice and we therefore discount what he has to say? Can’t debate the person’s views on the merits because in one very special person’s opinion it’s not worthy of debate?</p>
<p>No. It’s a tactic to cut down free speech, or to cut down, period. (Ask any politician.)</p>
<p>Posts on a public message board are not “skeletons.” If you have changed your mind since an earlier post, or you misspoke the first time, you just say so, and you won’t be “cut down” in the eyes of any reasonable poster.</p>
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<p>Actually, it’s the primary way that we can learn about the evolution of views and (often) the truth behind someone’s hypocritical mask. Ask any politician. If you’re only condemning the use of prior posts in this one instance because of special circumstances, fine, but you’re making very sweeping statements that give the impression that it’s across-the-board inappropriate to point out what people have said in the past.</p>
<p>If it has a bearing on the discussion at hand, I can understand it. If it is used only to malign the person in the eyes of the reader, I think that’s a different story.</p>
<p>I’m not defending anyone here (nor am I that person, as curmudgeon so innocently implied ;)). Frankly I think I’m just weary of all the snide anti-religion comments on this board in general.</p>
<p>Hey, hh. I’m just a simple country boy. I can’t keep up with the slickers. I had no hidden agenda in posting Fid’s past “hits”. They were hilariously out of step with the persona he was exhibiting here. Gee. That should have been obvious. I certainly wasn’t hiding my purpose. It was as clear as yours is now. ;)</p>
<p>It was darn funny stuff. His obvious pride at his anatomical package and his feelings on women missing “something” (only he didn’t leave it unspoken :eek:) important as their reason for having a career? Truly inspired. And I believe it held a candle up to his comments on this thread. </p>
<p>You can endorse his positions if you like. Because as you so innocently pointed out, it takes all kinds. ;)</p>
<p>Some would curse out those who would dare to inquire about, let alone proselytize about, religious beliefs; even, dare I say it, HATE such presumption:</p>
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<p>And some would simply listen, nod, and go about their business.</p>
<p>Different strokes for different folks (simple country and not).</p>
<p>Actually, the truth is I missed most of fid’s posts and I had no idea his age, or where he had previously posted. I found the last fid post about Protestants and the Reformation very harsh toward Protestants and full of misinformation; and I was embarrassed and yes, I felt he went too far. As I said privately to someone, my immediate reaction was ‘omgosh, as a Lutheran, I feel the need to publicly apologize since someone obviously feels Martin Luther screwed up Christianity for everyone.’ (But as I also mentioned, I got over it. ) I’ve had many a discussion about religion on this board and there IS a way to discuss beliefs, religious history, to disagree with ideas, to point out differences and similarities…it doesn’t have to be insulting. I LOVE it when people want to know what I believe and I enjoy learning about what others believe. Mini’s posts about Quaker beliefs had me at Bible.com looking for Scripture that supports the Trinity. (What I found satisfied me btw.) That’s a good thing in my book.</p>
<p>Regarding old posts, the thing about these boards is that you are accountable for your words…even your old words. Those search functions come in handy and I have used them myself when trying to figure out where someone is coming from or what they are about. It’s the same advice I give anyone about the printed word on the internet, be it at message boards, facebook, myspace, etc…choose your words carefully, because cache is forever… ;)</p>
<p>And I’ve known curmudgeon through these boards for quite a while. We don’t always agree on issues, but he operates with more restraint and good judgement than most posters here, myself included.</p>
<p>And as far as cutting someone some slack b/c of their age or inexperience (i.e. college-age posting in “parents’ forum”)–all I can say is, if you can’t run with the big dogs, then stay on the porch.</p>
<p>Maybe I’ve missed something, but I fail to see how demanding that other posters refrain from quoting another person’s posts promotes free speech, whatever the reason is. It would seem that being able to quote someone is part of free expression. And that not being able to quote someone would be a restriction.</p>
<p>Freedom of speech doesn’t apply on a message board anyhow. That’s a common mistake made by people who don’t understand the Constitution very well or who want to twist it to their own ends. The only people with freedom of speech on a message board are the owners. Everyone else is subject to TOU (terms of use).</p>
) I’ve had many a discussion about religion on this board and there IS a way to discuss beliefs, religious history, to disagree with ideas, to point out differences and similarities…it doesn’t have to be insulting. I LOVE it when people want to know what I believe and I enjoy learning about what others believe. Mini’s posts about Quaker beliefs had me at