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You and I have different ideas on what is right and wrong.

One of my granddaughters works for an ad agency. To me that is more immoral than working with porn. Ad agencies are in the business of persuading people to buy what they don’t need by appealing to their emotions. However, it is her choice, and I am not putting my morality on her. I am not telling her she shouldn’t do that or she should be ashamed. As a practical matter telling her that would only alienate her from me.

The following expands on what I have said in my previous posts.

The expression, “The world is broken.” implies there is some model or ideal of perfection that the world fails to reach. The world is what it is, and we humans may try to understand it. We have been at odds because my view is much different from yours. I have never been a Christian and see the Christian religion as embodying unreasonable guilt. One is asked to be like Jesus. However, Jesus is assumed to be perfect, but no human can be perfect so there is a built in guilt, a built in failure. We are all sinners and cannot be like Jesus because we are not perfect. That may be where your idea that the world is broken comes from. Plato has a similar idea in his world of forms. Somewhere out of this world there are perfect forms – perfect beauty, perfect horses, perfect whatever, the beauty and horses we see on earth are imperfect copies of the ideals of the world of forms. All real objects and ideas are imperfect copies of ideas and objects that exist in the world of forms. Some Christian philosophers have taken in that Platonic idea as being compatible with Christianity.

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I was raised as a Jew. Although I no longer believe there are some Jewish ideas I still have. There is a Hassidic story:

Reb Zosya said, When the Almighty comes for me he will not ask me, “Why were you not like Moses?” He will ask me, “Why were you not like Zosya?”

In other words, you are not a failure if you don’t achieve some ideal. All we are asked to do is to achieve what is in us to achieve. That is profoundly different from the Christian ideal of trying to be like Jesus.

I find the worldview expressed in the ancient philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism and Cynicism as a better way to live and regard the world than any religion I know of.

If I can sum up my beliefs they are: Be kind, and question authority. I have not always been kind to you in our interchanges, and I am reaching out to you to try to be kinder and relate to you as another human being rather than continuing to discuss matters on which we cannot agree.

I have written articles for olo expressing my viewpoints:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=4977 points to them.

The articles that most relate to our discussions are:

The culturally imperial and the satanic

There is no god in which we all trust

Secularism and religious tolerance

God is a human invention

Adam's rib

Another perspective on evil

When I encountered you on olo I felt extreme hostility. Perhaps the following will explain why.

http://www.beingjewish.com/toshuv/missionaries.html

I don’t largely share the viewpoint of the person, who wrote that, but I do share his hostility to missionaries, and you identified as a missionary. Jews have clung to their faith in spite of massacre and persecution. I regard Hitler as the logical consequence of the Christian missionary effort to Jews. “We can’t get rid of them by turning them into Christians, but we can kill them.”

If I have offended you I will stop here. Please tell me how you feel about what I wrote. If you want I will continue otherwise not.

To David f

Thank you also for telling about your life as well. We don't need to have a lot in common to be able to relate to each other. At least I don't think we do. Just getting to know the other person helps draw it away from hypothetical and stereotypical assumptions.

I must not know much about ad agencies to know them by emotional manipulation, none the less, I see your reasoning against advertisement slogans based on fighting against manipulation.

The brokenness of the world and the brokenness of me aren't something I know how to explain better then I have already. Though sin and the need for salvation fit into this view, they aren't the source of this view.

Let me give it some examples. That might help.

In school and in life everything is a race. It has been since high school (before then I was still slower then average but didn't notice it as much). I watched people put their pins down during tests and in class assignment and realized I was always cut short of finishing before the class was ready to move on. I've failed tests because I ran out of time and the rest of the class was done sometimes 15 minutes earlier then I was. These are frustrating things but over all I made it. I was an average enough student with some help. Entering the work force though, I realized I can't compete, and can't move up in any field because I can't compete in the lowest level of any job. Unfortunately I didn't know where to turn for better career paths, so I went from one costumer service job to another. Every job was still a race, just finish to be below average, below the bottom standard. As far as I could tell I was a worthless broken piece of humanity, because my best just wasn't enough.

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This isn't broken on a morality scale where sin is usually the concern. But it is a brokenness on a functional scale of judgements. If you can't do the work, you aren't suited for it. If you can't meet the expectations of any job, your broken. From there sin enters as a factor and I realized something else. The game is fixed against people more often then not. On a functional level the world is broken.

You don't have to agree with this way of looking at it, and I hope you're not insulted by it. But I thought it needed another try to explain it. Your phrasing it as a moral picture of the world isn't the full picture. Honestly I don't know if you can relate to this concept of brokenness. From what it sounds like from your careers and studies you've been very successful and even had job offers come to you that you had the opportunity to refuse for moral reasons. Even after a divorce you landed on your feet. Being broken is probably a slap in the face to you. One thing to add. The idea of being broken and the world being broken isn't a stand alone philosophy. My other views shape that philosophy as much as it shapes the other views.

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I honestly did not know how you felt about missionaries until the hostility I received about it on that first topic. If memory serves me right you said first that I reminded you of a missionary. To me this was a compliment not an insult. Someone who willingly gives up everything to move somewhere else to help another community. To share their faith as well, but to be a service in some way to the community they are going to. It wasn't a compliment I thought I deserved outside of sharing my faith, and I tried to accept it as the compliment that I thought it was intended as.

I didn't know the hostility that was associated with missionaries, or anything that would follow. I don't think I would take it as anything as but a compliment even today, though I might be a lot more cautious and ask "how so," or "what do you mean," before accepting that or other potential compliments from someone else. I don't expect you to change your views of missionaries, and I won't argue about it, but honestly how would I have known? Please understand my confusion. After accepting what I thought was a compliment, I was treated very harshly which followed through several discussions. The accusation of missionary seemed to fit better my accuser then it did me, and I was still coming to grips with it being an insult instead of anything else but an insult. Either way thanks for the article explaining the hostility. If nothing else it is an explanation. (I disagree that what I've said or expressed in any of the conversations as being comparable to Hitler. But it explains the reactions a bit, when all I've done is express my faith, opinions, or occasionally a political view.)

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You're answering my questions, so you can continue if you want. If you want more details from me or on something else let me know. It's only fair if this is an equal exchange instead of a one sided interrogation. I have one set of questions for you though.

Based on what you've said for your reactions and hostility initially and afterwards, do you really see my expressing the views I've shared in any of the topics as comparable to Hitler? Do you think of any Christian expressing their views in the same way? If not, then what is the difference? What I walk away from is that the only good Christian to you is a silent one (and maybe not even that). If I'm wrong on that then what's the difference? You've said many times that you view Christianity as a danger, or that my views are a danger, and I have to walk away wondering if you actually read the views I expressed, or if you filled in what I didn't say to make it a danger. Does that make sense? I get the impression from you that Christians (or at least me specifically) shouldn't be allowed to speak about their faith, or about any other topic either because of the faith they (or just me) hold.

I don't mean to start another argument, but I don't understand the comparison of me to Hitler. I don't see what I've said to be anything that I've been accused of either. From gun boats to totalitarian, I don't see the connection. At least not based on what I've actually written. Again this seems a slap in the face that by being a Christian that means I need to be silent on all matters. Do you think these are fair stances you've held?