And you think your different? Do you ever put your finger anywhere else other than pointing it?
Yes, CS, I do and so do you, which is why you left the other half of that conversation off, as I noted in my gunfight analogy. I think meeting a humorless insult with humor is different, can invite a different response and forces people to look at a thing differently than meeting it in kind. I think I'm different because I can compliment Glory on her parenting skills or rep GM on a point even though I know I'll never see more than an upturned nose from either of them. Because I can and do distinguish between the person I can't know and the conduct I can't condone. Because nothing would make me happier than seeing someone I'm disinclined to like bear beautiful fruit and I'd have no qualms in praising the outcome. I'm different because I can, have and do poke myself with that finger, a thing even Sod acknowledges, if only because it's his favorite (and likely the only thing he likes) about what I write. I'm different because I'm willing to consider a thing offered reasonably and rationally and invite it at any turn, as I did with you, like you or not.
I wish that I was Psalmist's kind of different. That was a man to model after, but I'm too inclined to fight, enjoy the joust too much to meet the world with his amiable and I think much more Christ like approach...something to shoot for though. In the fullness of time and with God what isn't possible that's worthwhile?
I think I'm different because I wouldn't do what you did among the atheists where I was championing the faith...And I think I'm different because I don't feel my way through the world, though I'm not unfeeling. If emotion contradicts reason then the emotion is suspect, because truth and any decent feeling are not and never will be at odds. And I'm different because my friendship and regard isn't predicated on agreement with an ideological litmus.
Is that difference better? It is to me. Does it make me better than the next fellow, than you or Glory? No, comparing our shabbiness among ourselves is nonsensical, which is why you keep missing with the condescension bit when you should be reading a level of incredulity coupled with a head shake, and even the arrogance assertion, if more understandable, misses the mark. I'm a Christian and a rationalist, it would be irrational to believe I'm better than anyone from within this context, pointless to play king of the hill on our dung heap of sin. We are distinguished by our differences and they speak to all sorts of things that have value, but ultimately either we are clothed in the love and forgiveness, the grace of God or we are not. Those who are cannot seriously squabble about their place at the table and those who aren't should invite compassion or at least pity.
Ultimately that's the only difference that matters and what we do with it, which likely means most of us should be ashamed more often than not around here, myself included.
