Its shit like this that tempts me to be done with the Pagan community altogether
... although I wouldn't, because if I let this shit drive me off, only the assholes would remain. And no one wants that, am I right?
Now, why do you think a person would go on to a forum and post a question, one of those hot button in the community questions, making it sound as though they have no real solid opinion on the matter when in fact they do have some very strong opinions, as anyone even a little bit familiar with who the person is and their past online activity would know? Why would you post this, cleverly designed to look like you're just trying to make up your mind and you're looking for other people's opinions, on a forum where even a cursory look around would tell you that a great number of the people here (by no means all but a great number of them certainly) are not going to share your opinions? What would possibly be the point of this, people?
If your answer was to cause trouble, you're probably right. Which is what I figured from the beginning, based on the company this person keeps, based on the fact that this person has been banned from other forums for doing the exact same thing. Early responses to the thread were still in the reasonable realm although it became clear almost immediately that bullshit about having no opinions of your own was exactly that, bullshit; that quickly deteriorated to arrogant lecturing and snide commentary (plus a lot of ignorance, and I do so love it when people flat out condemn a practice that a brief conversation with them will prove they don't know a whole lot about; or more accurately in this case, you've been exposed to one particular subset of the larger blanket term practice and make the mistake of thinking that's all there is to it when, again, a cursory look around should tell you that isn't true). And if I needed any further proof, having been forwarded the fantasy land summary of the conversation you posted elsewhere, the one where everyone in the discussion except for you was a complete flake deeply engaged in said "offensive" practice (when actually only a couple people said they did with any regularity, most people said never or very rarely, they just didn't see it as impious) and they all ganged up on you for trying to share the dimly glowing thirty watt bulb of your wisdom with us (one person directly commented on his attitude, another reminded him to be careful of wording and not make blanket statements, everyone else was just politely poking holes in his logic with is allowed in a debate, and I do notice most of those questions raised there were never answered). No link posted with the summary for people to go and judge for themselves, but then again in that delusional corner of the internet, I guess it wouldn't have made any real difference, now would it?
In any given religion, you're going to have people on the more conservative end of the spectrum and people on the more liberal end, and these groups are not always going to get along. And when you have it set up so that everybody has their own sandbox to play in, there really isn't any need for the two sides to get together if they really can't handle it. Going over to the other side and trolling is very childish and immature (and your profile says that you're an adult, act like one). Look, not everyone is going to share your opinions on every little thing, and unless someone's beliefs and opinions are causing serious harm to themselves or someone else, if its got nothing whatsoever to do with you, then get over it!!! Really, learn to live and let live, ignore and move on, you'll get through life so much easier that way if you stop feeling like its your duty to personally stand up on a soap box and witness to every heretic you see. If you can't stand being around opposing opinions, well that's fine, but the way to handle that is to go back to your own designated sandbox and just fucking stay there. Much like how I don't feel any need to go trolling the more conservative end of things (except that one time, but since they were talking about something I said, well their own fucked up twisted version of it anyway, that's different) and scream about how they need to accept magic, mysticism and patron relationships because of blah blah blah, insert lore quotes here. That would make me an arrogant, immature, miserable little fuckbag. And dressing it up as "preserving the authentic Hellenic tradition" (oh I love that one, especially in a conversation about hubris, like that isn't the epitome of arrogance right there, really who died and made you king of the world, huh?) changes nothing, you're still a fuckbag.
*Sigh* I get so tired of this bullshit, I really do, these my dick is so much bigger than yours and can pee twice as far as you too!!! who is more recon than thou contests that are really nothing more than a couple of overinflated egos bashing up against each other. You'd hope that by dropping the Recon label it would be over, but no. I guess as long as I still hang out in Recon circles, and worship ancient deities, I will never escape this childish crap.
I see this situation getting uglier before it goes away. I hope as always to be proven wrong, but when it comes to people acting like total asshats I rarely ever am.
ETA: Okay, its now been stated publicly that he has no wish to cause problems and plans to bow out of this discussion. While I have serious doubts about most of what he said on that thread (especially in light of other things said elsewhere), I do hope he's sincere about that, have serious doubts but hope. I don't intend to poke at this until it becomes something huge (hell, I debated commenting on that thread at all for some time before I did, because I already knew exactly where it would end up), not just out of respect to the forum but because drama from that corner bores me and has been boring me for some time, aside from occasional venting here I don't want to get into it.
Now, why do you think a person would go on to a forum and post a question, one of those hot button in the community questions, making it sound as though they have no real solid opinion on the matter when in fact they do have some very strong opinions, as anyone even a little bit familiar with who the person is and their past online activity would know? Why would you post this, cleverly designed to look like you're just trying to make up your mind and you're looking for other people's opinions, on a forum where even a cursory look around would tell you that a great number of the people here (by no means all but a great number of them certainly) are not going to share your opinions? What would possibly be the point of this, people?
If your answer was to cause trouble, you're probably right. Which is what I figured from the beginning, based on the company this person keeps, based on the fact that this person has been banned from other forums for doing the exact same thing. Early responses to the thread were still in the reasonable realm although it became clear almost immediately that bullshit about having no opinions of your own was exactly that, bullshit; that quickly deteriorated to arrogant lecturing and snide commentary (plus a lot of ignorance, and I do so love it when people flat out condemn a practice that a brief conversation with them will prove they don't know a whole lot about; or more accurately in this case, you've been exposed to one particular subset of the larger blanket term practice and make the mistake of thinking that's all there is to it when, again, a cursory look around should tell you that isn't true). And if I needed any further proof, having been forwarded the fantasy land summary of the conversation you posted elsewhere, the one where everyone in the discussion except for you was a complete flake deeply engaged in said "offensive" practice (when actually only a couple people said they did with any regularity, most people said never or very rarely, they just didn't see it as impious) and they all ganged up on you for trying to share the dimly glowing thirty watt bulb of your wisdom with us (one person directly commented on his attitude, another reminded him to be careful of wording and not make blanket statements, everyone else was just politely poking holes in his logic with is allowed in a debate, and I do notice most of those questions raised there were never answered). No link posted with the summary for people to go and judge for themselves, but then again in that delusional corner of the internet, I guess it wouldn't have made any real difference, now would it?
In any given religion, you're going to have people on the more conservative end of the spectrum and people on the more liberal end, and these groups are not always going to get along. And when you have it set up so that everybody has their own sandbox to play in, there really isn't any need for the two sides to get together if they really can't handle it. Going over to the other side and trolling is very childish and immature (and your profile says that you're an adult, act like one). Look, not everyone is going to share your opinions on every little thing, and unless someone's beliefs and opinions are causing serious harm to themselves or someone else, if its got nothing whatsoever to do with you, then get over it!!! Really, learn to live and let live, ignore and move on, you'll get through life so much easier that way if you stop feeling like its your duty to personally stand up on a soap box and witness to every heretic you see. If you can't stand being around opposing opinions, well that's fine, but the way to handle that is to go back to your own designated sandbox and just fucking stay there. Much like how I don't feel any need to go trolling the more conservative end of things (except that one time, but since they were talking about something I said, well their own fucked up twisted version of it anyway, that's different) and scream about how they need to accept magic, mysticism and patron relationships because of blah blah blah, insert lore quotes here. That would make me an arrogant, immature, miserable little fuckbag. And dressing it up as "preserving the authentic Hellenic tradition" (oh I love that one, especially in a conversation about hubris, like that isn't the epitome of arrogance right there, really who died and made you king of the world, huh?) changes nothing, you're still a fuckbag.
*Sigh* I get so tired of this bullshit, I really do, these my dick is so much bigger than yours and can pee twice as far as you too!!! who is more recon than thou contests that are really nothing more than a couple of overinflated egos bashing up against each other. You'd hope that by dropping the Recon label it would be over, but no. I guess as long as I still hang out in Recon circles, and worship ancient deities, I will never escape this childish crap.
I see this situation getting uglier before it goes away. I hope as always to be proven wrong, but when it comes to people acting like total asshats I rarely ever am.
ETA: Okay, its now been stated publicly that he has no wish to cause problems and plans to bow out of this discussion. While I have serious doubts about most of what he said on that thread (especially in light of other things said elsewhere), I do hope he's sincere about that, have serious doubts but hope. I don't intend to poke at this until it becomes something huge (hell, I debated commenting on that thread at all for some time before I did, because I already knew exactly where it would end up), not just out of respect to the forum but because drama from that corner bores me and has been boring me for some time, aside from occasional venting here I don't want to get into it.