Resisting Urge to Argue about Religion on Facebook

[_Dr. Shades]

Don Bradley told me a very funny story one day. In one of his elder's quorum meetings, a guy related an anecdote about how a dude wearing garments fell into the ocean and was attacked by a shark, but even though the shark ate both of his arms, ate both of his legs, and ate his head, it didn't bite through his garments at any point.

This made me laugh, 'cause the garment-wearer was just as dead as he would've been without any garments whatsoever.

[_RockSlider]

In my opinion, you can get away with a lot more just as long as you post your snarky counter-arguments in the form of questions. For example, hearkening back to Bazooka's link, you could've posted in response, "Then what are we to make of the twelve missionaries who died between January 2013 and October 2013 alone?"

Answer: they obviously lied about not having sex and repenting of it.

[_Jesse Pinkman]

Hey, Selek,

For what it's worth, I think it's a good thing that you decided to vent here rather than on your family's Facebook about the situation.

I'm glad that everyone in your family was OK. Whether it was an act of God, doctors, or luck, the important thing is that they weren't seriously hurt!

[_selek]

My immediately thought after reading that was that your sister's son was accusing his mother of not striving to live righteously. Is that what he meant? If she was striving to live righteously she wouldn't have been in an accident because the Lord would have been watching over her. Did he intend to say that she wasn't seriously hurt because the lord is watching over her?

I didn't read his comment that way. I read it as a self-righteous proclamation that God was watching over all of them since they are faithful Mormons and weren't injured.

[_selek]

Didn't you post pretty actively as pro-mormon back on the old Fair boards and the subsequent MAD board?

As Beastie pointed out, I'm the new and improved selek, with 73% less hot air and 91.7% more objectivity!

[_selek]

I just have to vent a minute and came within a hair's width of posting some snarky counter-argument to his post. I decided against it . . .

In my opinion, you can get away with a lot more just as long as you post your snarky counter-arguments in the form of questions. For example, hearkening back to Bazooka's link, you could've posted in response, "Then what are we to make of the twelve missionaries who died between January 2013 and October 2013 alone?"

I like that approach and may try it in the future.

[_Beers]

I just have to vent a minute and came within a hair's width of posting some snarky counter-argument to his post. I decided against it . . .

In my opinion, you can get away with a lot more just as long as you post your snarky counter-arguments in the form of questions. For example, hearkening back to Bazooka's link, you could've posted in response, "Then what are we to make of the twelve missionaries who died between January 2013 and October 2013 alone?"

I like that approach and may try it in the future.

Although I agree with Shades comment, you have to be very careful with this type of thing. TBM's have a weird way of twisting EVERYTHING god does into a positive, even when it is a huge negative. Such as one post in here stated that a woman was talking about how living righteous would protect your family.....and she has disabled children. Well, they are protected in a sense because they are saved and didn't need trials in this life, so your children aren't so you MUST live righteously to protect them. In Shades missionary example a TBM could easily say, "The lord needed to take them back because they were choice spirits and he needed more help with missionary work in the spirit world, blah, blah, more BS, blah." So you have to be careful that you do not push them further to the religion, and get them thinking more towards the truth we all know and embrace. This can only be done through sincere face to face communication. In that setting Shades comment would come in very handy as the person could see you are not fighting, but just trying to help them understand something they may not be thinking about.

Also....good job not responding....that is hard. As you put it we all have a little axe to grind with LDS Inc. so we are tempted to be a little rude to our family members to make us feel better. You did the right thing.

[_Tchild]

I tend just to ignore this kind of thing.

As do I. This sort of superstitious thinking for me falls along the lines of snake handlers, flat-earth creationists and the importance of any comments of appalachia hillybillies strung out on meth. All nonsense.

[_Tchild]

But what if there is a God of Lost Car Keys? Maybe you can see him or her in the mirror.

Back before my exit, I was working on my 79' Jeep CJ-7 - putting on some sort of gasket or other. I couldn't make it work and was very frustrated. I said a quick prayer and presto, the thing snapped into place.

There definitely is a God of Jeeps, and I still pay homage.