(July 1, 2016 at 11:18 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: This may surprise a lot of you, but EP has a point there. This place can be pretty hostile to minority opinions and I or one wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of an AF dogpile.
I'm not saying everyone does this - far from it - but the phenomenon exists nonetheless.
I'll be brutally honest, since I am in that mood... I have no illusions about what this place is, or can be like. I learnt pretty early that it was very hard to play genuine devil's advocate with theists without inviting said dogpile. And also very hard to ask genuine questions of theists that didn't have any ulterior... gotcha... motive without again inviting said dogpile. This is embarrassing but I'll say it anyway... I saw many of the theists on this site as kind of like surrogate father figures and to some extent idealised them as such because they were brave enough to do what my dad would never do... brave enough to come into the lion's den and actually talk about the issues... whereas with my own dad any attempt at discussion of uncomfortable issues such as homosexuality is met with a literal or figurative door slammed in my face. So first it was alpha male, then Randy, then chad in that role for me.
But at the moment it's no-one because I'm in an angry frame of mind. Angry at Brexshit, angry at smunty - read 'smug cunt-y' - theists and others... just generally angry I'm sorry to say. And I know that anger breeds smuntiness so I get caught up in it just as much as anyone else... and that makes it worse... just an unpleasant cycle. But hopefully this funk will pass because it's not nice and one thing I do know is that you get out what you put in to this site... that it's all about attitude. I think back to a previous thread... the seeing red thread... where we - me, Chad, Rhythm etc - had a perfectly respectful and open-minded discussion and genuinely explored and learnt from each other's perspectives. I miss the frame of mind I was in then because that thread was and is like gold dust to me in terms of personal insight gained, and everyone's words - including chad with his theist perspective - were precious to me... so much so that I backed up that thread for posterity and easier reference
... so it is possible to get along and it basically just comes down to attitude... so as I said I just hope that I can get back to that sort of attitude because anger is not only unpleasant but also very draining and stressful 
Anyway, I'm tired so I'll say night night and deal with any fallout from this post tomorrow.
