Unfortunately, it does seem to be a default defense - maybe automatic and unconscious - to interpret an 'attack' on any aspect of a religiously-minded person's beliefs as an attack on them personally. We've seen it around here before: a discussion about the evil actions alleged to their god all too often translates to “why do you hate xtians/me so much?“
“No, you're wrong and here's why“ doesn't, or shouldn't, equate to “fuck, you're stupid and I hate you“. I think I've mentioned before how someone posted a comment on Facebook using the term 'pate de fwar grar'. Me being me, I posted the correction, fully expecting the typical Grammar Nazi promotion. Instead, he thanked me politely for teaching him something new, saying that he'd only ever heard the words and never seen them written. It could so easily have erupted in flames.
It's weird in a way; understandable in another. People obviously dislike being corrected and made to feel belittled, generally speaking. Yet we could argue about sport, politics, film preferences, food likes/dislikes all day long, disagreeing on all of them without anybody getting offended (unless we're doing it properly). As soon as god beliefs are invoked, the Martyr Chip starts throwing up its smokescreen of standard error messages.
“No, you're wrong and here's why“ doesn't, or shouldn't, equate to “fuck, you're stupid and I hate you“. I think I've mentioned before how someone posted a comment on Facebook using the term 'pate de fwar grar'. Me being me, I posted the correction, fully expecting the typical Grammar Nazi promotion. Instead, he thanked me politely for teaching him something new, saying that he'd only ever heard the words and never seen them written. It could so easily have erupted in flames.
It's weird in a way; understandable in another. People obviously dislike being corrected and made to feel belittled, generally speaking. Yet we could argue about sport, politics, film preferences, food likes/dislikes all day long, disagreeing on all of them without anybody getting offended (unless we're doing it properly). As soon as god beliefs are invoked, the Martyr Chip starts throwing up its smokescreen of standard error messages.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
