When responding to someone who says, "I feel this way," an immediate response along the lines of, "Where's your evidence? Are you sure you're not making this up?" comes across as hostile.
Helen: "...we have demonstrated time after time that there is a hostility towards them".
But is it worth my pointing out the difference?
Don't you think it might be better to take a lighter, more conciliatory tone? There are many things wrong with ET and many things right. ET is not one-size-fits-all. Accept diversity, me duck ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
Where do I send the flowers? Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
upset in some way because of their perceptions - which to them are real, and thus the so called evidence that you call for is irrelevant to them
Even those in minority groups who sometiimes feel very offended recognise that claims that one feels offended do not settle matters:
House of Lords: What I wondered is whether the Sikh community have got experience of reporting incidents to the police which they think constitute good reasons for bringing a case and for being confident that a conviction will occur and still finding that the police are not taking action, or that the police cannot get the cases past the Crown Prosecution Service. (Dr Singh) No, we do not have evidence of that ... While I say the blasphemy laws should go, they seem to be too dated, there should be something similar which allows freedom of discussion, real discussion, which is so important we should get behind the superficial niceness of dialogue to real discussion because a lot of things that we say are religious are really cultural things that should have gone years ago. ... but the tests are the hurt it causes. Lord Avebury 527. You get differences in the perception of what could be -- (Dr Singh) But then, against that we must have the second, it must be offensive. People could, of course, say that anything is offensive, you should not say this or you should not say that, but there should be a second test of the real damage done as well. It should not be just a cursory statement that "I feel offended by this". There should be a quantification of the damage that is alleged to have been caused. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldrelof/95/2112703.htm
House of Lords:
What I wondered is whether the Sikh community have got experience of reporting incidents to the police which they think constitute good reasons for bringing a case and for being confident that a conviction will occur and still finding that the police are not taking action, or that the police cannot get the cases past the Crown Prosecution Service.
(Dr Singh) No, we do not have evidence of that
...
While I say the blasphemy laws should go, they seem to be too dated, there should be something similar which allows freedom of discussion, real discussion, which is so important we should get behind the superficial niceness of dialogue to real discussion because a lot of things that we say are religious are really cultural things that should have gone years ago. ...
but the tests are the hurt it causes.
Lord Avebury
527. You get differences in the perception of what could be --
(Dr Singh) But then, against that we must have the second, it must be offensive. People could, of course, say that anything is offensive, you should not say this or you should not say that, but there should be a second test of the real damage done as well. It should not be just a cursory statement that "I feel offended by this". There should be a quantification of the damage that is alleged to have been caused.
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldrelof/95/2112703.htm
ET is not one-size-fits-all. Accept diversity, me duck ;-)
I think that's what he's defending:
afew: The community isn't organized around separate clubs with non-club-members excluded, and diarists don't get to choose who joins in the discussion. That's how this place has functioned up to now, and that's what people are, understandably enough, used to.
The community isn't organized around separate clubs with non-club-members excluded, and diarists don't get to choose who joins in the discussion. That's how this place has functioned up to now, and that's what people are, understandably enough, used to.
I suggest you study afew's response too. I wouldn't quite agree with him that "hostility" has been expressed towards "spiritual" diaries, but rather scepticism about some of the claims of those writing about "spiritual" matters. I'm pretty sceptical about some approaches to the "spiritual" but I read with interest this book some years ago:
In this challenging series of dialogues with nineteen artists, writers, philosophers and critics, art critic Suzi Gablik addresses these and other central questions about the meaning and future of art in an age of accelerating social change and spiritual uncertainty. In conversations that are by turns intense, personal, philosophical, intimate and poignant ... Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and archetypal psychologist James Hillman show how art's present crisis of meaning is tied to the broader context of our contemporary social and spiritual crises.
And what do you know, I share Obama's mum's liking for this TV series:
One of Ann's favorite spiritual texts was "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth," a set of PBS interviews with Bill Moyers that traces the common themes of religion and mythology, http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php
http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php
So there's certainly no hostility on my part even to the spiritual - per se. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
