Quote:
Originally Posted by BullDog
I am not sure who is being self-righteous but to me there is a world of difference between people with religious/spiritual beliefs who act from a place of love and conviction and those who use their "faith" as a cover for hate. The differences can be spotted a mile away and should be duly noted.
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i agree wholeheartedly.
i think for me i'm critical of my own judgment of other people as hypocritical when it's coming from a place of self-righteousness, because i do that (out of justifiable anger and frustration), but usually when i do that it doesn't leave the potential for changing anything. it just makes me feel like a better person. and for me at least that makes me wonder if i'm any better with my self-righteous judging than they are with theirs. just because i'm right and i have good intentions doesn't necessarily mean that it's a loving act for me to be judgmental and to be up on a high horse about it.
so i'm trying to learn to engage - when i do choose to engage - in ways that are more constructive and have the possibility of changing people's minds - while still maintaining my principles. one way of doing this is to emphasize rights and protections guaranteed under the law, although this doesn't usually make any impact on folks who are spewing biblical hate. another way that has worked somewhat for me is to emphasize how much their ideas and hatred are actually endangering and killing human beings. this sometimes has an impact on the more moderate folks. another way that i'm exploring is to open up ecumenical dialogue and actually confront the theological issues with faith leaders in moderate and conservative christian communities. the jury's still out on that.
the difficulty i have is that i view things in a pretty black and white fashion. i tend to take the james cone view of god and oppression - god is on the side of the oppressed, period, end of story, and any argument with that, whether overt or implied, is justifying and upholding oppression. so my patience with dialogue only goes so far. and i cave to anger and frustration a lot because, let's face it, the barrage of hateful bullshit is neverending.