A couple notes for commentors on this blog, particularly for those on the “Childfree: Selfishness Incarnate, etc.” entry below:
1) Dialogue guidelines. Here I’ll quote from one of my favorite bloggers: A Note to Visitors:
“Please share your comments! Note, however, that civility is considered a higher good than First Amendment rights here. Incivility will be uncivilly suppressed. Welcome to Our Kingdom! Enjoy your stay. “
Therefore any direct attacks on any one person, usage of f**k or similar words (or their thinly veiled abbreviations) will be deleted. I like and use profanity privately on certain occasions, but not in a civil discussion. If that’s a problem for you or you think it’s prudish or whatever, don’t comment here.
2) I value your comments. Seriously, and not for any reverse psychology-I-love-you-because-I-hate-you-reasons. I spend my time around a lot of people who agree with me, so how does that stretch me? Hardly at all, which is why I like a place where I can agree to disagree and converse with people.
3) I’ve had a seriously crazy week, so I’ve not gotten a chance to comment and respond to some of the more pointed questions, comments and rational responses. I really particularly want to comment on breast cancer, Natural Family Planning as being backwards, some of the intolerance and attacks on my God and my Church, and some people who shared some beautiful and very personal stuff, which I totally appreciate. And I will do this.
HalfLight said,
November 17, 2007 at 6:33 am
“some of the intolerance and attacks on my God and my Church,”
Funny thing, that. I get a lot more beef from my CATHOLIC parents for being an atheist than they get for being “religious.”
Intolerance? Try living as a pansexual in a household/environment where your attractions towards the same sex are grounds for putting you in a camp where they force-feed you medication and terrify you into fitting into cultural norms. Try living in a place where your discussions on a fictional character’s suicide as justified or unjustified is grounds for yelling you down and telling you you’re wrong. Try living in a household that believes that contraception is evil, liberals and leftists are destroying the country and that these decisions of yours are merely passing whims.
Once you do that, you can come back and talk to me about “intolerance.” I was Catholic for 14 years of my life, and I am grateful every single day for the people that showed me how stuck-up, snobbish and elitist I was. I have no sympathy for those who do not think for themselves and instead follow an outdated, selective doctrine.
MDC said,
November 17, 2007 at 8:54 pm
HalfLight, as I said to François in another thread, fundies — either the usual Protestant sort, or Catho-fundies like NFP — are masters of projection. They thrive on the sense that other people are “martyring” them for their choices, when most people really couldn’t care less. They make hostile comments toward anyone who chooses to live a different lifestyle than they, and when they get the inevitable blowback, they whine about “civility.” And they take the very existence of said other people — non-heterosexuals, feminists, CFers, atheists, pagans, etc. — as “proof” that their own existences are under some sort of “spiritual siege.”
Therefore, the “attacks” on gawd and her church are much, much worse, than, say….oh, I dunno, the deaths of more than 80 women in Nicaragua since the country banned abortion under all circumstances, with much applause from the so-called “pro-life” Catholic church.
Oh, but I guess it was gawd’s will that all those women died. Since the only real reason women exist is to bear children. Or something like that.
NFPworks said,
November 18, 2007 at 3:41 am
HalfLight, not that this means anything to you since you have judged me your enemy and judged that I cannot think for myself, I’m sorry that you had such terrible experiences with religious people, especially Catholic Christians. I’m sorry your struggle with same sex attraction was met with hostility, medication and repression, rather than compassion and encouragement to seek God’s vocation for your life.
I won’t make any attempts to defend the nature of truth and doctrine in the Christian religion at this point, because your wretched and understandably wounding experience has become a barrier, in addition to your level of judgement on me. I know you feel judged because I disagree and all-too viscerally criticize your way of life.
MDC, thanks for the updated anti-religious lingo. “Fundies” is certainly more hip and appealing than fundamentalist. And the “gawd” with the sort of southern flair is a great not-so-subtle jab at the southern-protestant-esque right-wing closemindedness that you’ve probably encountered before–that’s a neat new way to use the Lord’s name in vain.
It’s not God’s perfect will that anyone should die, but our human nature–including yours and mine–is weakened, but He allows it to happen because we have free will.
And mature sarcasm about the existence and purpose of women. I don’t believe that’s the only reason women exist, although our fertility (as well as men’s fertility) is a special gift that must not be sterilized, cut out or opposed just because it’s inconvenient, challenging or reminds me of wounds of my own childhood.
Read “On the Dignity of the Vocation of Woman” by John Paul II, and you’ll see a little different picture than the bigoted one you paint.