I was not sufficiently clear. I was not characterizing you as a person, but rather the sweeping condemnation of alternative and/or faith-based modalities.
One of the things that create snappishness in me is fundamentalism of any kind. I know fundamentalist socialists - people who will not concede that there could be any use whatsoever for any kind of market system - and though I have socialist leanings myself, their closed-mindedness irks me as well. In other words, I tend to define fundamentalism as an unwillingness to concede that another viewpoint may have merit. I don't know you well enough yet to know whether your belief system falls into that category, but that part of your post certainly did.
Granted, I have made sweeping generalizations myself - about Republicans, for example - but I recognize such as a bad habit that I'm working at rooting out.
Or-put another way - I have no problem with your saying that *you* have no use for faith, energy healing, whatever. Should you go further and postulate that these things can not and do not exist/have any use/etc. for *anyone,* and futher do so in a way that shows disrespect for those who disagree with you...I have a major problem with that.
One thing I do know - when the two of us pass, one of us has a surprise coming. If the "surpris-ee" is you - or, putting it another way, if my belief in the permanence and rebirth of the soul is correct - you owe me a drink in the next life, friend :-)
Re: You've a right to your opiniion
One of the things that create snappishness in me is fundamentalism of any kind. I know fundamentalist socialists - people who will not concede that there could be any use whatsoever for any kind of market system - and though I have socialist leanings myself, their closed-mindedness irks me as well. In other words, I tend to define fundamentalism as an unwillingness to concede that another viewpoint may have merit. I don't know you well enough yet to know whether your belief system falls into that category, but that part of your post certainly did.
Granted, I have made sweeping generalizations myself - about Republicans, for example - but I recognize such as a bad habit that I'm working at rooting out.
Or-put another way - I have no problem with your saying that *you* have no use for faith, energy healing, whatever. Should you go further and postulate that these things can not and do not exist/have any use/etc. for *anyone,* and futher do so in a way that shows disrespect for those who disagree with you...I have a major problem with that.
One thing I do know - when the two of us pass, one of us has a surprise coming. If the "surpris-ee" is you - or, putting it another way, if my belief in the permanence and rebirth of the soul is correct - you owe me a drink in the next life, friend :-)