Rude during religious ceremony?

[Lobo]

[I'm posting this in General Discussion because I have a pretty good feeling that socionics will be discussed about it at some point, just like everything in this forum lol]

So last Sunday I went to Catholic mass with my family, even though I don't really believe in the spiritual aspects of it. I go every week because that's like a family tradition, and we all eat lunch together afterwards which is nice. This last time I went was special because it was a mass being offered for a deceased relative of ours, enough to make my aunt, uncle, and cousin go. They never go to mass, and I know for a fact that they are atheists, and I was actually a bit surprised that they decided to go.

While mass was taking place, I noticed that, unlike my aunt and uncle, my cousin deliberately did not follow certain things you're supposed to do during the ceremony, such as standing up at certain times (New Testament readings about Jesus, for example). It's deliberate because he was raised Catholic and knows what he has to do, but the most obvious sign is that everyone else was doing it and he just decided to sit down throughout. He was making a statement which didn't make sense to me, considering how he wasn't forced to attend the mass in the first place. Anyway, the worst thing he did, and it definitely got strangers giving him an upset look, was how he was pressing buttons to try and turn my uncle's phone off (it rang twice before) during the consecration of the eucharist, instead of waiting for that part of the ceremony to be over before doing so. For anyone who doesn't know, that's probably the most important part of the entire mass, and everyone kneels, etc. I found that to be so rude and it actually pissed me off a bit, because instead of just not attending if he's not going to be treating the ceremony with respect, he decided to just act uninterested and blatantly show how little he cares about it.

Thought this would be a good topic for discussion, and see what you guys thought of it.

[Wynch]

I would rather he tries to turn the cellphone off than have the cellphone go off during the consecration.

The standing, not standing doesn't bother me. If you're there for a loved one and you don't follow the ceremony of the Mass, that doesn't really bother me. Sitting through the entire Mass isn't disruptive and isn't particularly disrespectful imo.

[Galen]

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Okay, I agree with you that it's pretty rude and disrespectful. But maybe the reason he didn't stand when everybody else did is he was just really lazy, in church I didn't like following what everybody did exactly either, it didn't mean I didn't care. I agree though the cell phone thing was really rude.

The big picture is the cousin could still be a very good person who does incredibly heroic and good things, despite the incident in the church. And I know it can be hard to see that sometimes because you can only see him from your point of view, and different people just bring out different sides of ourselves. No offense or anything but Fi-valuers can seem blind to this.

Lobo, you seem like a really good person and I'm just a rude Beta Fe-whore, but it seems like a lot of your posts are about morally judging other people. I don't mean for this to come across condescending, and I'm sorry- but like anybody else, I think forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness....

I mean what can we really do w/rude people? They won't stop being rude unless they themselves feel like it anyway. We naturally get annoyed at them cause they are well....rude (don't they have guilt and empathy like a normal person wtf is going on here?), but a lot of time that's the rush they get out of it so they keep doing it, knowing how nice, kind and sensitive humans are.

We can kill them, bully them, treat them just as rude back- but we don't really feel good about ourselves when we do that. And we need to leave room open for redemption. You know? If we just....bully-back hound and morally patronize all the rude people, they can't grow into good people like you.

We can vent, which is what you're doing and it's all okay. But when we keep venting about the same things, 'we become part of the problem.'

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I hope my demonstrative Fi can help here. =p

[The Ineffable]

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

No. In fact it's the other way around, like Lobo said, if you willingly participate in such ceremony, it doesn't make sense to distrupt it, even more so for Fi-PoLRs. When you're forced to do that - something that doesn't make sense to you, it's a different matter - where I agree a Fi-PoLR would be likely to put politeness aside in order to resist doing "absurd" things. What's he doing is gratuitously disrupt others, that has nothing to do with Logic, in fact the cellphone incident is nonsensical and outrageous.

One thing that happens to me (Fi-PoLR): there's an Easter tradition to knock red eggs. One person has to say "Christ ressurected", the other to answer "He truly resurrected". I can knock eggs with people and I enjoy doing so, but I refuse to say those things. This is not rationalized, I am so since my childhood, those statements are simply too embarrassing to say and currently I clarify with people who want me knock eggs with them that I won't answer that stuff - I don't mind if they say it, but if they mind me I prefer not to do it. The same goes for "I love you too" and other formal ethical things that don't make sense, not necessarily related to religion: I simply don't do them.
---

I had an IEE friend like the OP describes, he was raised Christian - well, believer - and in his 20s he began flirting with different subcultures - metal, punk, satanism - so he was always oscillating between faith and rebelion against it (he was a rebel in general). He was telling me and my brother (both Logical Irrationals, also atheists) his bad boy "deeds" in the church and we found them silly, although funny. We were the same age as him.

There is a chance to indicate Fi-PoLR, if for example he disagrees with specific customs, how he understands the religion, or if religion is absurd to him altogether, otherwise it's unlikely to tell anything like that. IMO the guy acts more like an Ethical Irrational (T-PoLR, rebel without a cause stereotype), though I could see other types too, considering he's young (how old is he, Lobo?).

[FDG]

Just think about how many disrespectful things the catholic church does every minute, and you'll see that what your cousin did pales in comparison.

[Absurd]

Just think about how many disrespectful things the catholic church does every minute, and you'll see that what your cousin did pales in comparison.

Only christians aren't to blame.

[Aiss]

I don't know, back when I was forced to attend, I'd be deadly bored so I'd look for anything, anything else to do. But then I was a child and hated it since like forever. Now I don't have to go so I stay away unless it's for a family reason - some of them really care about this stuff - and then I just do my best not to fall asleep. I wouldn't purposefully make myself center of attention like you describe, I think. (That doesn't mean I won't make a whispered comment or two to the most religious person around, and if they laugh out loud during the ceremony, well...)

[Slacker]

Honestly, the rudest person to me sounds like your uncle, who didn't turn his phone off beforehand, which is understandable, but then when it rang the first time still didn't turn it off and let it ring again. Maybe your cousin didn't want it to ring a third time. Are you sure you're right about his motivation?

[Gilly]

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

This. Good science, Dr. Galen.

[Lobo]

I would rather he tries to turn the cellphone off than have the cellphone go off during the consecration.

The standing, not standing doesn't bother me. If you're there for a loved one and you don't follow the ceremony of the Mass, that doesn't really bother me. Sitting through the entire Mass isn't disruptive and isn't particularly disrespectful imo.

My point is how he obviously was making a statement. Instead of just turning off the cellphone during the consecration, he was pressing the buttons (now I'm considering that he could have been txting my other cousin who was the one responsible for the calls).

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

He's actually ESFj, and my ILE aunt was following all the steps.

Okay, I agree with you that it's pretty rude and disrespectful. But maybe the reason he didn't stand when everybody else did is he was just really lazy, in church I didn't like following what everybody did exactly either, it didn't mean I didn't care. I agree though the cell phone thing was really rude.

The big picture is the cousin could still be a very good person who does incredibly heroic and good things, despite the incident in the church. And I know it can be hard to see that sometimes because you can only see him from your point of view, and different people just bring out different sides of ourselves. No offense or anything but Fi-valuers can seem blind to this.

Lobo, you seem like a really good person and I'm just a rude Beta Fe-whore, but it seems like a lot of your posts are about morally judging other people. I don't mean for this to come across condescending, and I'm sorry- but like anybody else, I think forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness....

I mean what can we really do w/rude people? They won't stop being rude unless they themselves feel like it anyway. We naturally get annoyed at them cause they are well....rude (don't they have guilt and empathy like a normal person wtf is going on here?), but a lot of time that's the rush they get out of it so they keep doing it, knowing how nice, kind and sensitive humans are.

We can kill them, bully them, treat them just as rude back- but we don't really feel good about ourselves when we do that. And we need to leave room open for redemption. You know? If we just....bully-back hound and morally patronize all the rude people, they can't grow into good people like you.

We can vent, which is what you're doing and it's all okay. But when we keep venting about the same things, 'we become part of the problem.'

The image you have of me is way off, lol. My cousin is a great person and we've always gotten along, and just because he did that I'm not going to labeling him as "BAD." I'm not judging him as a person, only talking about what he did the other day. Also, you're not a rude person, idk why you try so hard to come off as one (it's not working ).

I'm not venting, and by continuing to voice disagreement doesn't make someone "part of the problem." I don't understand what you mean by that either. Disrespect is something that pisses me off to the core, like when I see through someone's actions and know that they genuinely have ill intent. I feel like I'm programmed to destroy people like that sometimes, lol. I exaggerated when I said that what my cousin did made me angry, when I'd just say that it made me a bit upset.

[Lobo]

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

Being rude is a pretty clear sign of Fi PoLR, which would explain why he pissed you off so much.

No. In fact it's the other way around, like Lobo said, if you willingly participate in such ceremony, it doesn't make sense to distrupt it, even more so for Fi-PoLRs. When you're forced to do that - something that doesn't make sense to you, it's a different matter - where I agree a Fi-PoLR would be likely to put politeness aside in order to resist doing "absurd" things. What's he doing is gratuitously disrupt others, that has nothing to do with Logic, in fact the cellphone incident is nonsensical and outrageous.

One thing that happens to me (Fi-PoLR): there's an Easter tradition to knock red eggs. One person has to say "Christ ressurected", the other to answer "He truly resurrected". I can knock eggs with people and I enjoy doing so, but I refuse to say those things. This is not rationalized, I am so since my childhood, those statements are simply too embarrassing to say and currently I clarify with people who want me knock eggs with them that I won't answer that stuff - I don't mind if they say it, but if they mind me I prefer not to do it. The same goes for "I love you too" and other formal ethical things that don't make sense, not necessarily related to religion: I simply don't do them.
---

I had an IEE friend like the OP describes, he was raised Christian - well, believer - and in his 20s he began flirting with different subcultures - metal, punk, satanism - so he was always oscillating between faith and rebelion against it (he was a rebel in general). He was telling me and my brother (both Logical Irrationals, also atheists) his bad boy "deeds" in the church and we found them silly, although funny. We were the same age as him.

There is a chance to indicate Fi-PoLR, if for example he disagrees with specific customs, how he understands the religion, or if religion is absurd to him altogether, otherwise it's unlikely to tell anything like that. IMO the guy acts more like an Ethical Irrational (T-PoLR, rebel without a cause stereotype), though I could see other types too, considering he's young (how old is he, Lobo?).

Yeah, while my aunt is probably the most vocal about her disagreements with religion, when she goes to church she follows the ceremony closely. He's 21-22, not sure.

Just think about how many disrespectful things the catholic church does every minute, and you'll see that what your cousin did pales in comparison.

What does the catholic church have to do with what my cousin did at the ceremony? I don't see the connection.

[Lobo]

Honestly, the rudest person to me sounds like your uncle, who didn't turn his phone off beforehand, which is understandable, but then when it rang the first time still didn't turn it off and let it ring again. Maybe your cousin didn't want it to ring a third time. Are you sure you're right about his motivation?

You're right, but my uncle is pretty bad with technology and I also don't think it occurred to him that the best thing to do was to just turn it off instead of just ignore the calls. My cousin didn't want it to ring again, but he went about it so slowly and without showing any sign that he was paying attention to mass. Like I mentioned before, now I think he could have been txting based on how many times I saw him pressing buttons on the cell.

[Slacker]

oh well texting would be seriously rude.

[Lobo]

I don't know, back when I was forced to attend, I'd be deadly bored so I'd look for anything, anything else to do. But then I was a child and hated it since like forever. Now I don't have to go so I stay away unless it's for a family reason - some of them really care about this stuff - and then I just do my best not to fall asleep. I wouldn't purposefully make myself center of attention like you describe, I think. (That doesn't mean I won't make a whispered comment or two to the most religious person around, and if they laugh out loud during the ceremony, well...)

I usually never focus on what the priest is saying, and my brother and I always ask what we were thinking instead throughout mass since it can get really boring. Older priests seem to talk about the same themes over and over again.

[ashlesha]

being at church and not being religious is weird, i guess the polite thing to do is to go through the motions of stuff but then its like lying, which is ruder in a way. like when i end up in a group prayer i bow my head and i arrange my face to match and everything because i don't want to be disrespectful. but then there's the rudeness of being fake or implying i'm there on the same page when i'm really not. doesn't going out of your way to pretend for the sake of politeness more accurately qualify as "making a statement" than actually doing what matches how you feel? i'm trying to find the right word for what i'm trying to say, i think it might be pretense.

i'm not saying whats right or wrong here, i mean i still pretend in those situations even if i feel conflicted about it. i'm just bringing in a different pov.

[FDG]

being at church and not being religious is weird, i guess the polite thing to do is to go through the motions of stuff but then its like lying, which is ruder in a way. like when i end up in a group prayer i bow my head and i arrange my face to match and everything because i don't want to be disrespectful. but then there's the rudeness of being fake or implying i'm there on the same page when i'm really not. doesn't going out of your way to pretend for the sake of politeness more accurately qualify as "making a statement" than actually doing what matches how you feel? i'm trying to find the right word for what i'm trying to say, i think it might be pretense.

i'm not saying whats right or wrong here, i mean i still pretend in those situations even if i feel conflicted about it. i'm just bringing in a different pov.

Yeah. I just don't go to church anymore, ever. I don't care about what relatives might say, they only have emotional power over me for purely casual reasons (i.e. I didn't chose them as my relatives).

[Marie84]

idk the situation but it sounds like his parents pressured him to attend and whether it be a form of rebellion or simply immaturity he felt the need to make that apparent to everyone else there
So I guess it's rude but at the same time it's not a good idea to enforce people to partake in things like religious ceremonies if they feel it's against their ideologies. But if he went strictly on his own accord and than decided to act like a jerk, that's completely different

[ClownsandEntropy]

Being at an Anglican school, a few of my friends who aren't religious don't engage in any of the regular happenings during church - they'll stand up for readings for the gospel and the such, but they won't sing the hymns, or say the prayers with the congregation. When I asked them about it, a few of them say something about not thinking it right for them to be engaging in such things if they don't believe in it.

[Bluenoir]

When I find myself at mass for whatever reason, I just keep quiet and let them have their ceremony. I used to get a kick listening homily, beacuse it was usually riddled with baseless claims of truth. It was sometimes painful when the priest would outright misrepresent things that he did not approve of. Like rival religions, secularism, ect, ect. Nevertheless, I don't do anything to disrupt them.

[Pa3s]

I'm not religious, so the only times I go to the church (if at all) are when they have their christmas concert. When I was a child, maybe 10 years old, I went to such a concert with my parents. I took a gameboy with me and played during this event. Later, some girl I knew asked me if it was me who was playing gameboy while she was singing in the choir above. But she was laughing, so she wasn't angry or something like that. I didn't think it was a bad thing as well. I turned off the sound and I was a kid so this doesn't count as offensive.

Otherwise, I try to be as cautious as possible in this situations. I can imagine how it's like to have some idiot in your church who acts like a total jerk. However, I'd have also tried to turn the phone off.

[silke]

While mass was taking place, I noticed that, unlike my aunt and uncle, my cousin deliberately did not follow certain things you're supposed to do during the ceremony, such as standing up at certain times (New Testament readings about Jesus, for example). It's deliberate because he was raised Catholic and knows what he has to do, but the most obvious sign is that everyone else was doing it and he just decided to sit down throughout. He was making a statement which didn't make sense to me, considering how he wasn't forced to attend the mass in the first place. Anyway, the worst thing he did, and it definitely got strangers giving him an upset look, was how he was pressing buttons to try and turn my uncle's phone off (it rang twice before) during the consecration of the eucharist, instead of waiting for that part of the ceremony to be over before doing so. For anyone who doesn't know, that's probably the most important part of the entire mass, and everyone kneels, etc. I found that to be so rude and it actually pissed me off a bit, because instead of just not attending if he's not going to be treating the ceremony with respect, he decided to just act uninterested and blatantly show how little he cares about it.

Sounds like he has been possessed by a demon. An exorcism is in order.

On a more serious note he is likely passively-aggressively expressing his own boredom, dissatisfaction, probably pent up anxiety from having to sit there listen to long tedious speeches. If he is a little kid or a teenager he probably finds the whole ordeal rather boring. Yes, he could have refused to go to the service, but with the whole family going and it being a tradition such refusal would put him in an uncomfortable spot as other members of the family will disapprove of it.

[Primus Sucks]

Okay, I agree with you that it's pretty rude and disrespectful. But maybe the reason he didn't stand when everybody else did is he was just really lazy, in church I didn't like following what everybody did exactly either, it didn't mean I didn't care. I agree though the cell phone thing was really rude.

The big picture is the cousin could still be a very good person who does incredibly heroic and good things, despite the incident in the church. And I know it can be hard to see that sometimes because you can only see him from your point of view, and different people just bring out different sides of ourselves. No offense or anything but Fi-valuers can seem blind to this.

Lobo, you seem like a really good person and I'm just a rude Beta Fe-whore, but it seems like a lot of your posts are about morally judging other people. I don't mean for this to come across condescending, and I'm sorry- but like anybody else, I think forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness....

I mean what can we really do w/rude people? They won't stop being rude unless they themselves feel like it anyway. We naturally get annoyed at them cause they are well....rude (don't they have guilt and empathy like a normal person wtf is going on here?), but a lot of time that's the rush they get out of it so they keep doing it, knowing how nice, kind and sensitive humans are.

We can kill them, bully them, treat them just as rude back- but we don't really feel good about ourselves when we do that. And we need to leave room open for redemption. You know? If we just....bully-back hound and morally patronize all the rude people, they can't grow into good people like you.

We can vent, which is what you're doing and it's all okay. But when we keep venting about the same things, 'we become part of the problem.'

I can't believe how naive you are. If a person can't be respectful in little things how can they be respectful in bigger things.

Thinking the best of the people in the world is one of the biggest mistakes you can make take it from me I have been burned countless times.
People have to earn my respect and trust now but I would give the shirt of my back once you gain it.

Life is out to kick you in the ass. It's best not to turn your back to it.

[force my hand]

Thought this would be a good topic for discussion, and see what you guys thought of it.

I got roped into a catholic wedding one time, and before long the preist had everyone doing calisthenics except me. I didn't realize these things require audience participation, so I decided that in the future I just won't go to any catholic ceremonies.

[rat1]

Religious people despise their fellow humans. What else is new.
The kid is not obligated to respect your pointless superstitions just because he's in your church. The church needs to be torn down.

[ClaudiaM]

It sounds like he went to mass to pay homage to the deceased relative rather than anything else. If he is an atheist who is at mass, being "there for" and dedicating his day to and thinking of the deceased relative is what's important to him; he does not believe in and therefore did not act worshipful of the same god the rest of the mass-goers were there to worship.

Did it occur to you that if he, as an atheist, went through the motions to fake-worship a god he does not believe in, then he would be making a hypocrite of himself? He was there for the relative, not others' god. To demand that he pretend otherwise is to demand that he go against his beliefs, and that would be rude.

[Lobo]

Religious people despise their fellow humans. What else is new.
The kid is not obligated to respect your pointless superstitions just because he's in your church. The church needs to be torn down.

Is that your default stance when you don't like something? Have you really thought about the global ramifications of what would happen should the catholic church be simply torn down? I understand the appeal of making bold statements like that because it makes you look like you're "above" the drone-like and non-thinking society that poor you has to experience every single day of your life. You limit your understanding of those things that upset you, approach them thinking that you know enough already to judge them and simply destroy them as the solution, and until you change that way of life, you will never reach higher levels of understanding that require humility to reach.

[ScarlettLux]

Being rude is a sign of Fi PoLR? I only got that far..

Sometimes I do feel I also "judge" people about their rudeness/meanness/etc... that's one of the biggest things I do actually. You don't cross X line, etc, etc. or I will seriously look down upon you.

Lobo do you see your Fi dominance factoring into this at all and how so?

[Lobo]

It sounds like he went to mass to pay homage to the deceased relative rather than anything else. If he is an atheist who is at mass, being "there for" and dedicating his day to and thinking of the deceased relative is what's important to him; he does not believe in and therefore did not act worshipful of the same god the rest of the mass-goers were there to worship.

Did it occur to you that if he, as an atheist, went through the motions to fake-worship a god he does not believe in, then he would be making a hypocrite of himself? He was there for the relative, not others' god. To demand that he pretend otherwise is to demand that he go against his beliefs, and that would be rude.

I don't care about whether he was or wasn't making a hypocrite of himself. Willfully attending any kind of ritual (be it religious, societal, whatever) entails following it, otherwise you are blatantly making a statement of disagreement about what the other people are doing. It's about respect. In what I think is a related example, suppose you and a group of people start a thread about something that is controversial yet you want to discuss it in a certain specific way. Wouldn't you find it rude for someone to come in (not forced) and just not follow the rules that you guys had wanted for it? It doesn't matter how stupid or nonsensical the rules are when it comes to something being disrespectful.

[ClaudiaM]

It sounds like he went to mass to pay homage to the deceased relative rather than anything else. If he is an atheist who is at mass, being "there for" and dedicating his day to and thinking of the deceased relative is what's important to him; he does not believe in and therefore did not act worshipful of the same god the rest of the mass-goers were there to worship.

Did it occur to you that if he, as an atheist, went through the motions to fake-worship a god he does not believe in, then he would be making a hypocrite of himself? He was there for the relative, not others' god. To demand that he pretend otherwise is to demand that he go against his beliefs, and that would be rude.

I don't care about whether he was or wasn't making a hypocrite of himself. Willfully attending any kind of ritual (be it religious, societal, whatever) entails following it, otherwise you are blatantly making a statement of disagreement about what the other people are doing. It's about respect. In what I think is a related example, suppose you and a group of people start a thread about something that is controversial yet you want to discuss it in a certain specific way. Wouldn't you find it rude for someone to come in (not forced) and just not follow the rules that you guys had wanted for it? It doesn't matter how stupid or nonsensical the rules are when it comes to something being disrespectful.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe it IS a socionics thing, you demanding that he/people follow what the crowd does while disregarding his own feelings/beliefs/whatever.

And your analogy is not parallel. In a forum thread, if a person does not follow "the rules" you set up/request to be followed, that person is causing a disruption and pulling others away from the intended point of the thread set by the rule-requestor/creator of the thread. Others reading/participating in the thread cannot avoid the scofflaw's posts unless they put him on ignore or do something else that requires them to go out of their way. In the mass service, by contrast, your cousin was NOT causing a disruption and was NOT pulling others away from the point of the church service in any way that disturbed the other mass-goers. Kind of like if people are on a guided tour through NYC and someone is reading a book instead of paying attention to the tour guide's narration, that person is not causing a disruption or otherwise pulling others away from the purpose of the tour; they are free to look at sites, etc, just as the mass-goers are free to worship as they choose.

[Lobo]

Being rude is a sign of Fi PoLR? I only got that far..

Sometimes I do feel I also "judge" people about their rudeness/meanness/etc... that's one of the biggest things I do actually. You don't cross X line, etc, etc. or I will seriously look down upon you.

Lobo do you see your Fi dominance factoring into this at all and how so?

My understanding of Fi seems to be different to what I occasionally see here in the forum. I don't see being rude as a sign of Fi polr, considering that I have been rude to people before too. Arriving at the kinds of judgments you are talking about is common in EXEs. It's like someone's worth as a social being in your eyes is diminished based on the type of emotional reactions they cause in you and others.

[Lobo]

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe it IS a socionics thing, you demanding that he/people follow what the crowd does while disregarding his own feelings/beliefs/whatever.

And your analogy is not parallel. In a forum thread, if a person does not follow "the rules" you set up/request to be followed, that person is causing a disruption and pulling others away from the intended point of the thread set by the rule-requestor/creator of the thread. Others reading/participating in the thread cannot avoid the scofflaw's posts unless they put him on ignore or do something else that requires them to go out of their way. In the mass service, by contrast, your cousin was NOT causing a disruption and was NOT pulling others away from the point of the church service. Kind of like if people are on a guided tour through NYC and someone is reading a book instead of paying attention to the tour guide's narration, that person is not causing a disruption or otherwise pulling others away from the purpose of the tour; they are free to look at sites, etc, just as the mass-goers are free to worship as they choose.

It seems like you didn't read all my posts in this thread. There's one part where I mention disruption.

P.S: It's not a socionics thing.

[ClaudiaM]

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe it IS a socionics thing, you demanding that he/people follow what the crowd does while disregarding his own feelings/beliefs/whatever.

And your analogy is not parallel. In a forum thread, if a person does not follow "the rules" you set up/request to be followed, that person is causing a disruption and pulling others away from the intended point of the thread set by the rule-requestor/creator of the thread. Others reading/participating in the thread cannot avoid the scofflaw's posts unless they put him on ignore or do something else that requires them to go out of their way. In the mass service, by contrast, your cousin was NOT causing a disruption and was NOT pulling others away from the point of the church service. Kind of like if people are on a guided tour through NYC and someone is reading a book instead of paying attention to the tour guide's narration, that person is not causing a disruption or otherwise pulling others away from the purpose of the tour; they are free to look at sites, etc, just as the mass-goers are free to worship as they choose.

It seems like you didn't read all my posts in this thread. There's one part where I mention disruption.

Trying to turn the phone off? LOL. That sounds like he was trying to avoid causing a disruption.

EDIT: I'm really not trying to be a bitch here, Lobo. You seem perfectly nice, and not hateful so much as (in my eyes) judgemental here; it's just that this kind of demandingness of others to follow the crowd or whatever as a sign of "respect," without regard for the individual, irritates me immmmmennnnsely.

[Lobo]

It seems like you didn't read all my posts in this thread. There's one part where I mention disruption.

Trying to turn the phone off? LOL. That sounds like he was trying to avoid causing a disruption.

EDIT: I'm really not trying to be a bitch here, Lobo. You seem perfectly nice, and not hateful so much as (in my eyes) judgemental here; it's just that this kind of demandingness of others to follow the crowd or whatever as a sign of "respect," without regard for the individual, irritates me immmmmennnnsely.

No, it was more than just trying to turn it off. I'm not judging him as a person (again, I explained this too). I also don't demand anybody to do anything. I honestly don't know how else to argue with you about this without repeating things close to verbatim that I've said before, lol. Getting mad over someone disrupting the flow of something on purpose is not being judgmental either.

[strrrng]

Sounds like he has been possessed by a demon. An exorcism is in order.

lmao

I don't think it has anything to do with socionics. frankly catholic churches freak me out, everyone is so ardently kneeling and prostrating, it wouldn't surprise me if dude was just idly busying himself because none of the rituals affected him. those things only matter to people who've already been indoctrinated. expecting "unsaved souls" to follow in suit just because of the setting admits as much.

Have you really thought about the global ramifications of what would happen should the catholic church be simply torn down?

honestly I think it would be the first step to a more independent and thoughtful humanity. no more daddy figures in black silk dresses to confess to in darkness, no more sacrificial animals on crosses to cry for like a noble sinner, no more diluted occult theft taken as the Word Of God, etc. people would probably flip out initially, big deal, that just shows they needed the chain broken.

[strrrng]

word, priests on pikes.

[rat1]

Religious people despise their fellow humans. What else is new.
The kid is not obligated to respect your pointless superstitions just because he's in your church. The church needs to be torn down.

Is that your default stance when you don't like something? Have you really thought about the global ramifications of what would happen should the catholic church be simply torn down?

Let's see... the continent of africa begins using birth control, countless children saved from molestation, we can stop talking about gay marriage and abortion like they actually matter, maybe we can start using stem cells and cure so many diseases... people stop being afraid of sex, stop feeling fundamentally worthless and sinful.. no more con bake sale fundraisers, smug attempts to convert me. Sounds great!

I understand the appeal of making bold statements like that because it makes you look like you're "above" the drone-like and non-thinking society that poor you has to experience every single day of your life.

Yes, that's all correct. Except the part about mere appearances.

You limit your understanding of those things that upset you, approach them thinking that you know enough already to judge them

Nope, this is bad speculation on how I work using worn out cliches.

and simply destroy them as the solution, and until you change that way of life,

If mobs across the world collectively burned all the churches to the ground it would help alot of things.

you will never reach higher levels of understanding that require humility to reach.

Please describe this higher level of understanding which you possess.

I don't care about whether he was or wasn't making a hypocrite of himself. Willfully attending any kind of ritual (be it religious, societal, whatever) entails following it, otherwise you are blatantly making a statement of disagreement about what the other people are doing. It's about respect.

Gee, how very unchristian of him!

[Cyrano]

Seems to me that when you are in someone's house, you should do your best to follow their rules and listen. When I go to church for my wife, I stand at the times when all stand, at least pretend to read along during prayers and hymns, and remain quiet when they are praying. I'm a non-beleiver, so I'm not going to pray or kneel, or eat the crackers, but I will play along otherwise. You are a guest. It would be disrespectful to fain support, or rejection.

If you come to my house, take off your dirty shoes and use a coaster. I don't care what you do in your house.

[strrrng]

churches are purported as the House of God. do "his" rules entail mindlessly following a series of physical gestures to prove you're worthy of his hospitality?