Faith Well Grounded

I think "offended" is a bit strong of a word.

E-dogg, go back and reread GoodKat's 2 posts, and you'll hopefully see my point. If not, that's cool with me too.

You can try to rationalize this all you want. GoodKat painted all of Christianity by his/her narrow view and that's wrong. I pointed that out. It becomes fairly obvious that he/she is being, at best, stereotypical and at worse (with comments such as "assaulted"), bigoted.

Again, rationalize this all you want, but stereotypes are wrong, and an incredibly lazy way to think. You can defend them all you want by using examples against those groups that appear to be open targets like Christians, NASCAR fans, etc... But it's just as wrong here as it is when the stupid racist posits that black people like watermelons, eat chicken, are afraid to swim and deal drugs.

***EDIT***

There are helper words out there, dogg. Like, some, few, many... Especially when referencing entire groups and describing them from the particular, it is appropriate to use them. When you leave them out, it paints the stereotypical picture, as my racism example above showed. As such, with the wide and shallow statement:

"I have allways wondered why Christians are so scared to study opposing views"

The difference between this and the morally dispicable racist stereotype is that of "target group". The stereotype structure would be, describe a group as a whole based on limited observation or predefined ideal, usually in a negative Let's give it a try...

"I have allways wondered why Christians [group] are so scared to study opposing views [negative particular which defines the group -- i.e. Christians]"

"I have always wondered why women are such bad drivers."

"I have always wondered why non-Christians are so stupid."

"I have always wondered why black people are criminals."

and yes...

"I have always wondered why NASCAR fans drink beer."

(*Note that none of the above are my actual beliefs, but are used to state that such statements are inherently BAD!)

Now, imagine the second statement being made as a comment on a feminist website, or the third on an atheist website, or the fourth on a black muslim homepage (or NAACP, etc...).

I think that my response was even-handed, and I even got to offer GoodKat THE message of love, that God loves him/her and wants a close personal relationship with him/her.

So, with all of that said... Exactly what is your beef with my response?

***/EDIT***

Agree or disagree, that's fine by me. But I'm a bit too busy to spend too much time trying to convince you of the obvious, that stereotypes are bad.

Take care...