TAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S BELIEFS SERIOUSLY | 2005-10-01
One thing I hate about Europeans is that they take their own particular national feelings very seriously, but they laugh at my being a Southerner. When I was young and I told a Scotsman that it really hurt me to be called a "Yank" he was too wise, he thought, to take that seriously. He had read all the stuff about how silly Southerners were.
I hated his guts for that. I wouldn't now. But I still think very little of him.
I didn't hate him because he took HIS identity as a Scot seriously. I admired him for that. But when he then turned around and laughed at MY identity, it was more than a young man could take.
What made me think of this was reading the comment I just answered by Jehovists.
They always start off by insulting me. THEY know their Bible. My ideas are navie and wishful. THEIR ideas are based on reading the Book, which I obviously never did.
THEY take their religion SERIOUSLY. Mine is just superficial.
After saying all that, they give me extensive quotes with which I, a fairly intelligent Bible Belter, was very familiar before most people living today were born.
But the insults have to come first.
THEY have a religion they take seriously. THEY have read the Bible.
Compared to them, they say, I am just an ignorant piddler.
I respect that ranting, Bible-believing "little" preacher out in the sticks. I respect his beliefs, and I don't care how much education he has.
I respect a European's dedication to his own identity.
But if you want to turn a potential ally into an enemy fast, tell him how much you know about identity or religion and tell him how REAL and SINCERE your ideas are and how superficial and ignorant HIS feelings and beliefs and knowledge are.
There is a piece of wisdom in the North Carolina saying, "You're ugly, your feet stick and you don't love Jesus."
That saying ridicules people who are not aware that they are assuming that if someone is against them they are evil or insincere or ignorant in every way. Jesus said the same thing: There are people who say you are either with us or you are against, but we -- his followers -- are not of that sort.