I am praying for you ...

We will pray for your…

Don’t you just love all these Christians praying for you? Seriously, “I’m praying for you” has to be one of the most offensive things someone can say. Oh they say it’s loving, but the context is always, “Every single part of you, your opinions, and your life, is wrong.” It’s the ultimate cover-all insult.

I’d rather have someone curse me out.

I’m surprised you can read those without having your head explode from the stupid.  You are a much stronger person than I am, lol.

I’d rather have someone curse me out.

That’s pretty much what they’re doing - “I’m praying for you” is the Bible-humper equivalent of “fuck you, I hope you fucking die”.

I guess the proper response to “hateful and sacrilegious” is “So?”, or possibly “What’s sauce for the goose….”

I thought Buddism was all compassion this and mindfulness that.Not at all what I got from that last letter(I can has equality under the law?)...But then,I’m just a lil’ secular humanist,what do I know:-)

Pam, for the first two, I would quote the wag who wrote, “South Carolina is too small to be a republic, too large to be an insane asylum”.

As for your Nichiren correspondent, if they’re part of Soka Gakkai, then they’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire, spiritually speaking.

Since Government intrusion in Marriage has wrecked it for Straight people.

Oh yeah, all those tax benefits and visitation rights and property benefits have really screwed it up…

I’d rather have someone curse me out.

That’s pretty much what they’re doing - “I’m praying for you” is the Bible-humper equivalent of “fuck you, I hope you fucking die”.

I take it a bit differently when somebody like my grandmother says it, but coming from these people, it does certainly smack of somebody grimacing “May God have mercy on your soul” (implication:because I sure won’t) right before they yank the lever on the gallows.

Did we come up with a particularly good response from a secular perspective to “I’ll pray for you” on the other thread?  I missed it if we did.

Antigone, someone somewhere suggested, “I’ll think for you.”

What I want to know is, did PeterR use the red font for his screed? If he did, and if he’s reading, I just have to say: Yeah, baby! If you got that Jeebus crazy, then flaunt it in burning red letters (ALL CAPS would have been even better—why go halfway on that?)

The Rshake one was weird but at least semi-coherent and free of those trite and passive-aggressive “I’ll pray for you"s. Question: is “Mormon Intelligentsia” official LDS jargon for heretics, or is it just the garden-variety anti-intellectualism found in so many organised religions?

The Sanford post.

This is a little mysterious, actually.  The post contains no personal attacks on Sanford.  Maybe “pol” means something else in South Carolina?

I like the writer who immediately followed “we don’t care what you think” with “I’m praying for you.”  You pray for people you don’t care about?  “I’m praying for you” really is just a reflexive “fuck you” in this context.

I’m always amazed by how angry people get over joke Jesus fish.  I mean, geez, it says “Tuna.”  It doesn’t say “Death to the Christians.”  As far as religious humor goes, it’s about as shocking as Catholic jokes about nuns with rulers—but I guess you can’t even gently mock Real True Christianity.

I like the writer who immediately followed “we don’t care what you think” with “I’m praying for you.”

Well of course they would write/believe that. You see, wingnuts /fundangelicals have this thing called cognitive dissonance. For example, “do as I say, not as I do,” “women should be in the home and never be in positions of power over men, but we’re going to vote for a mother working out-side of the home and running for VP,” and “the only moral abortion is my abortion”. This phenomenon can also be observed in their politicians and <strike>cult</strike> fundagelical leaders. The wingnut male politician (or male <strike>cult</strike> fundangelical leader) dirty-texting male pages, doing meth and coke with a Gay male escort, or consorting with high-priced prostitutes, or getting his mistress an abortion, etc. And *ahem* Republican VP candidate <strike>Serena Joy</strike> Sarah Palin—need I say more. Makes you wonder if these people are either Bipolar or hypocritical liars.

“We will pray for your conversion. “

Conversion to what?

I like, “I’ll reason for you,” which came up in some Pharyngula post or another a long time ago. But “I’ll think for you” works too.

Question: is “Mormon Intelligentsia” official LDS jargon for heretics, or is it just the garden-variety anti-intellectualism found in so many organised religions?

Yes and no. It is official jargon among a small subset of members- the people that are either aspiring to be part of said intelligentsia and spend a lot of time reading and researching and people who think they’re heretics. The faculty of BYU would be considered mormon intelligentsia and there are plenty of folks who think they’re heretics, even though they’re working at the church owned and sponsored university.

The vast majority of Mormons have either never heard this term, don’t remember hearing it, or don’t really know what it refers to.

Thanks, Starfoxy. RShake’s use of the term was striking in light of the usual definition of intelligentsiya, since I’ve never really heard it used as religious jargon. I guess RShake was one of that small subset of members who stuck with the church’s orthodoxy even though he left it.

Since Government intrusion in Marriage has wrecked it for Straight people.

I’m guessing this would be the Straight people who wanted more than one wife?

Wow - you get all the good crazies. I’m jealous.

I love how the last one is signed like a Christmas card. “We’re praying for your conversion. Hugs and Kisses! Uncle Mike and Aunt Mary.”

@ allison:Good one!

The first mailer is reading more than just Terry’s rants:

<a >http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message643818/pg1</a>

<quote>
OBAMA USING MASS HYPNOSIS JUST LIKE HITLER

Anchoring is a hypnosis/NLP(Neural Linguistic Programming) technique where the hypnotist programs the subject to respond a certain way from a specific trigger or stimuli. A “hypnotic anchor” is any stimulus that triggers a consistent psychological state. An anchor is essentially an internal state that is triggered by an external stimulus.

An example would be, a hypnotist eliciting a certain response from the subject, whether outward or inward, e.g. emotional, and then the hypnotist doing a certain act (the anchor) which is a touch, or a keyword, or signal, that the hypnotist associates subconsciously to the response. The hypnotist can then bring about that response just by repeating the anchor. It is similar to how Pavlov would ring a bell whenever he fed his dogs, and then eventually, his dogs would salivate just from the sound of hearing a bell ring. The hypnotist stirs up feelings or emotions. When that feeling is at its strongest, “anchor” is by making a gesture. Anchors do not have to be created or triggered by a physical touch, and could be any symbol or gesture that is a unique association.
... (snip)
</quote>

What I want to know is, did PeterR use the red font for his screed?

Yes, he did.

Can I just say that I’m really disapointed to see a supposedly ‘progressive’ blogger using terms like ‘crazies and ‘whackjob’ to describe intolerant individuals.

These are classic examples of the terminology used to render individuals suffering from mental illness as less than human.

If these people are intolerant call them that, don’t imply that they’re mentally ill.

How would you like it if I called a violent person a ‘Nigger’, because the stereotype of Niggers is that they’re violent?

Antigone, I also use “think” instead of “pray”.

These people are politically sick and vicious.

Which is a very different thing to being “crazy.” And that is my point. And nice job on calling me a concern troll, Pam"Some of my best friends suffer from depression” Spaulding.

I would have thought you’d seen enough to realise that words matter, and just because you’ve recevied resposes to your blog posts doesn’t give you the right to condemn ‘crazy’ people as dangerous right wing whack jobs. Are those family members of yours dangerous right-wing whack jobs?

Crazy is clearly a term that operates as a way to Other those suffering from mental illness, and I see applying it to people with right wing political views to be dangerous and unnecessary.

The term Nigger has no legal or medical validity, but I avoid using it because I feel it may cause offence. Am I wrong?

re: the Mormon thing - I’d like to note that I grew up in Utah County (home of WhyBeYou) and the word “intelligentsia” was often used to refer to people who were intelligent heretics or Sunstoner types. (Sunstone is a Mormon magazine which deals with history and doctrine, but tends towards the non-dogmatic side.) It is true that MOST Mormons don’t run around using the phrase themselves, but they’ve undoubtedly heard ecclesiastical authority such as Bishops or Stake Presidents use it when the annual apostasy talk rolls round, and we are all counselled to not put our faith in the arm of man, and how many a scientist or member of the intelligentsia is puffed up against God by his knowledge.

As far as I know, RShakes was right in one particular: Self-organising groups inside the church have no or little power to make decisions. (They can still change things though, by existing.) Everything is correlated from the top down, and you WILL get excommunicated for teaching something that is against the church’s doctrine, and homosexuality is against church doctrine. (I disagree with that, btw, if it wasn’t obvious.) If you are a “non-practising” gay or lesbian and say nothing, nothing will happen to you, although you will probably find people setting you up on dates and shit like that, because everybody should be married in the temple, doncha know. IF you speak out about your experience at all, you will either get disfellowshipped or excommunicated depending on age and position in the church and how much you’ve organised.

It is still possible for church membership as a whole to change the course of the church, but it has to be a sort of groundswell of non-organised anything, because the instant somebody organises, they get exed, and a bunch of people either follow them into apostasy, or members close ranks against them. This still helps change things eventually, because at least the people getting exed are raising consciousness in a way. Basically, the church has in the past reversed position on things like blacks holding the priesthood (well behind the civil rights movement though, and I remember thinking when I found out how much later that God’s church would be ahead of the civil right’s curve, not lagging behind) and more recently a prohibition on oral sex between married people. (Some church authority said from the pulpit in the 80s that it was a no-no. But eventually it was quietly put about that married folks could figure it out for themselves, and it turned into one of those things that was vaguely sketchy, but nobody was going to get on your case if you wanted to give your hubby a blowjob.)

It is possible that RShake is working from old knowledge about the cultural groundswell of approval of GLBT. The church may still officially hold forth against homosexuality, but that may not necessarily reflect the entirety of the population. I know when I was a kid, it was true as far as I knew, that most members were against homosexuality. And people would say shit like, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” But these days, I think a lot of people from my generation in particular are more chill with it. A VERY large percentage will not be cool with it though, because it IS officially against church doctrine. And again, I can’t help thinking God’s church would be ahead of the civil rights curve, not BEHIND, and not ACTIVELY working against it. I know I’m pretty pissed when I see them organising for Prop 8, and I think “Shades of the ERA” when the Mormon church used to roust out their Relief Societies—the women’s auxiliary—to go protest on the steps of state capitals. When I was little, I thought the ERA must be something really horrendous, but as a young adult, I looked it up and found three sentences, two of which were about implementing the amendment. The pertinent sentence merely said you couldn’t discriminate on the basis of gender. Didn’t say which gender. Just said you couldn’t. At that point I realised the LDS church was actively hostile to my goals in life.

Crazy is clearly a term that operates as a way to Other those suffering from mental illness

Wow. Just…no. Quit speaking for me. You don’t do it well.

Am I wrong?

Yes, yes you are. This is *not* the hill you want to die on.

Signed,
A mentally-ill person who calls assholes crazy all the damn time.

Quit speaking for me.

Who said I was speaking for you? Did you consider for a second I might be speaking for myself? And if you call arseholes crazy all the time you’re as wrong as Spaulding.

condemn ‘crazy’ people as dangerous right wing whack jobs

All squares are rectangles, but rectangles are not squares ...

Who said I was speaking for you?

When you started on your Triumphal March To Protect The Mentally Ill, you presumed to speak for me. (Being that I am, in fact, mentally ill.)

If you only meant to speak for those mentally ill persons *who object to the term crazy* then no, you’re not speaking for me, and I apologize. But that’s, you know, not what you did.

GOD knows you BEFORE you were in your mothers womb
I believe the logic of that statement has been covered elsewhere:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/the_height_of_antiabortion_log.php
(No, it’s not Godwin. Think about the logic behind it.)

Sarah, I give you Websters dictionary definitions:

1 a: full of cracks or flaws : unsound b: crooked, askew

2 a: mad, insane b (1): impractical (2): erratic c: being out of the ordinary : unusual

3 a: distracted with desire or excitement b: absurdly fond : infatuated c: passionately preoccupied : obsessed

I will grant that #2 has some of the implications you decry, but it is quite obvious that there are other definitions and common usages of the word “crazy”. 

I’m not sure there’s any other way to interpret the word “nigger” except as hateful denigration of black people, so I would never use it because it’s not how I feel.  If the only reason you aren’t using it is because it might offend someone else, well, I’m stunned.

Don’t get mad at Gov. Sanford, just elect Linda Ketner to his old Congressional Seat!

(BTW, She happens to be openly gay.)

And BTW, Sanford’s not a true wingnut. He never was. He is far more interested in cutting taxes for the wealthy and gutting our public schools than gay bashing.

Still, he is a Southern Republican with ambition… I don’t know which is worse, the true wingnut who really believes that gay people are going to hell or the corporate mofo who knows better but plays along to get the wingnut vote.

Don’t stop calling these idiots “crazy” out of deference to people living with mental illness.

Instead, people should stop calling those who are living with mental illness “crazy” because it’s not fair to compare them to these idiots.

Another mentally ill (if you read my lovely laundry-list charts) person piping up to say:  calling the the fruit loops that email you screeds of hate and vileness “crazy” DOES NOT insult me.  At all. 

Perhaps I’m going out on a limb here, but I imagine it doesn’t really insult many people who have come to terms with what’s going on with their faulty cerebral wiring and who know that their diagnoses do not diminish their humanity.  Most would understand that Pam isn’t saying “Look at these out-of-control troll emailings!  These people are soooo like [MissKate7511 etc]!” 

Then again, one of the fun things about mental illness is that one can be secure in ones’ self one day, and a bit prickly about these things the next, and everyone’s at a different place in coming to terms with what they have to face.  Perhaps there was a time when reading about nasty asshats being called “crazy” would have made me wince.  It’s just so far back for me.

Please forgive me if what I’ve said is insulting/bad/awful.  I’m just a sleep-deprived grad student, thinking aloud.  I’m not trying to malign people who find the above uses of “crazy” offensive.

Sarah, what have you got against Willie Nelson:

I’m crazy
crazy for feeling so lonely
I’m crazy
crazy for feeling so blue
I know
you’d love me as long as you wanted
then someday
leave me for somebody new

(bridge)

worry
why do I let myself worry
wondering
what in the world did I do
crazy
for thinking that my love could hold you
I’m crazy for crying
I’m crazy for trying
I’m crazy for loving you

khankrumthbulgar:  O hai, I recognise that name.  Google “ginmar khankrumthbulgar” and see the wanton batshittery of that particular troll and his attempts to threaten slander/libel charges at ginmar.

I’m just chiming in (rather belatedly) to join the chorus of the mentally ill.  I frequently refer to myself as a loony or a nutter.  I don’t get offended simply by the use of a word, and it was perfectly obvious to me that Pam meant no insult to those of us in the insane freak community.

Language is a wonderful and complex tool and meaning is imparted by the context a word is used in rather than its dictionary meaning.

I’m off to try and soothe the black dog now.