Quote Originally Posted by lkdhf qkb View Post
Well, @Tommy I'm sorry if my first post came across that way. My point was not to be dismissive but to offer a way of interpreting your previous post from the perspective of socionics and enneagram, because that's the point of this forum. If I quoted you in my post, it's because I definitely wanted you to react to it; we're here to discuss and exchange insights.


@sbbds I don't really care about religion or faith, that's why I wrote that I am an agnostic. It's often the believer who sees the agnostic as dismissive and not the way around and I understand that it's because the agnostic is careless about something sacred to the believer, but again, that doesn't give someone the right to lash out and be aggressive. Right now it feels as if I'm forced to care just to spare the sensibility of the believer, you see what I mean? It's not about truth or respect anymore but about an "emotional hostage" situation: believers can say what they think but others have to watch their words. Respect has to go both ways, and that means accepting different interpretations of the same book without resorting to insults. Otherwise it's not a relationship of equals.


I have to admit that my post is a reaction to several other events on this forum, so the "argumentative" label was not only for this thread. I do think Tommy has a short fuse. What angered me was that she assumed that I was against her when I wasn't. So from my point of view she wasn't being "rightly" irked. At least not against me.


About talking to Tommy, I don't see the point. I don't want to convince her of anything, she can believe what she wants. I'm fine with that, I don't think there is one truth, only multiple viewpoints. I respect her beliefs and think she should be allowed to speak and act on them; the only thing I ask is to be left in peace.



"To be free of belief and unbelief is my religion." ~ Omar Khayyam
I’ve given my own interpretation of part of Bible before, and in fact Tommy has liked my post on it. So I don’t think she has the problem of an inability to accept multiple viewpoints that are reasonable, but obviously if you handle it in an insulting way, a religious person is going to be emotionally invested and be reactive to that. Your problem is that you feel like you’re being limited in your ability to express yourself, and thus act insulting, but you can actually do it without being insulting. You shouldn’t just project your prior experiences with a type of person onto everybody else of that type (in this case, religious people) you meet from then on without checking if it even applies.