>thank you, dennis, for that,
I want to thank him too. IT helped me understand better how to apply some of the stuff I've been reading on how to create a sales letter. Now, among the top 25 methods was the "I was like you once, and now I've seen the light" story.
Establish rapport with your audience, then smite them with your judgement: they are lesser than you because they don't have what you've got: Brill Cream, spirituality, insight into the workings of the world, whatever.
As Roger the copywriter said in Roger Dodger, "My job is about making people feel worthless." What an excellent way to sell spirituality to the unbelievers. Identify with them, siddle on up to them and establish that "connection" and then make sure they're fully aware that you believe they are missing something and you have it.
I'm gonna run out an buy my 'shrooms today! Of course, the author of the book I was reading also said it could backfire, too.
> and especially joanna, for introducing the thread...which has pressed
> some personal buttons, very hard, and made me wonder why...
>
>until i remembered that it is nearly impossible, even here, to make a
>general statement, or a statement addressing an idea-concept-issue ,
>without getting some form of response that paraphrases the words " why did
>you - or how dare you - say that about me"...
>
>is puzzlement...
well, try to keep up. Joanna and Dennis were both discussing people ON THIS LIST. both claim that people are hostile to 5eligion on this list. Joanna, specifically, claims that they are rabid atheists.
I think it's completely out of bounds to describe people _on this list_ as rabid atheists without backing up the claim and I think it's wrong to defend yourself by saying, "I was attacked first." And if you're asked to say who you mean, then say it directly to their faces. If you want to say all atheists are such and so, great. STand up for the claim and defend it. All atheists are such and so. Or most atheists are such and so.
At 01:46 PM 6/14/2005, Charles Brown wrote:
>Attacking "fundamentalists" (or referring to them sneeringly as
>"fundies") cuts us off from that fundamentalist who happens to agree with us
>on the main point now.
>
>Carrol
nah. Did liberals feel cut off from the cons who called people commies, pinkos, fags? did many feminists feel cut off by those who, in their ranks or from outside, called them manhaters. or did early second wave feminists often do what they could to suppress the lavender tide or try to be sure no one thought they were manhaters?
aside from which: i would assume joanna is using fundie in a very non-perjorative way, to characterize a particular branch of christianity or form of religiosity using SHORTHAND. We're typing, afterall, and sometimes it's just easier on the hands to use shorthand.
the fundies aren't here at any rate, we can be sure of that. i'll bet you dollars to donuts that joanna never uses that word anywhere but here and among other like-minded folks.
>CB: I don't agree that any fundies are our main target audience now. There
>is a huge group of non-fundamentalist ,religious people. That's our target
>audience.
agreed. and it works for the anti-communists dunnit? they just have to sneer about commies and pinkos and they've got every cowardly liberal on the planent who doesn't want to be associated with 'them' running for the hills, professing their adherence to hotball, basedogs, applehood, mother pie -- and chevrolets! :)
it's what carrol has described as legitimate baiting in the past -- in so far as he's acknowledged that, sometimes, this form of rhetoric works. in this case, 'fundies' works to shift people away from fundamentalism -- the ones who were going to be shifted anyway, at any rate.
after all, as someone else noted, plenty of the religious folks charles is speaking of also dislike the fundies. And they dislike them _because_ the fundies give religion a bad name.
i'm sure not a few liberals turned clinton democrats (and the like) felt that socialists and others gave liberalism a bad name. in an attempt to preserve it, they moved to the right.
i'm not sure if i like this way of approaching it, but ti plays of some of the discussions we've had in the past about whether to use the same tools the right's used against us. if you thought of yourself as possibly on that bandwagon at the time, i guess this is a good, concrete example to use to ask yourself if you're comfortable with it.
i'm still mulling it over myself.
and joanna, I'll ignore the silly comment about rocks and stars.
you don't have to say what Dennis said to convey your opinion that those of us who don't share your view of spirituality or don't explain what you describe as spiritual or religious. What you said was:
Nothing is more dispiriting than the really crude theist/atheist discussions on this list. (apparently, how we, the atheists discuss things is "crude")
Because the question of "God" is a lot more complicated and interesting than the fundies or rabid atheists make it out to be. (apparently the "rabid atheists" just don't get what you get: that these are interesting questions and, not only that, they are just as bad as fundies.)
"None of these assertions, however,demonstrate the absence of God. They just demonstrate some silly ways the people try to think about this stuff."
(the atheists are silly. check)
"to see what there is beyond labels, language, images, anticipations, attachments. I have experienced this very briefly a few times and it was extremely interesting: to call it joy would be an understatement. I, and others, would call it a religious experience."
(are you sayig that you and people like you are the ones to see beyond labels -- are you saying that atheists can't see beyond labels, etc.? I dunno, but it is, once again, insulting that you think that, say, Yoshie doesn't get this simply because she isn't spiritual or religious or whathaveyou.
You asked before how I knew that Yoshie hadn't been traumatized. I don't know anything. I think that it's better to assume the good in people first and describe them based on evidence and thins they've said.
" you may even find what looks (to outsiders) like senseless dogmas and rituals are actually time-tested ways to discipline bodies and minds in such a way that you would be able to achieve an experience "beyond labels, language, images, anticipations, attachments" as you put it."
How can any dogma or ritual (which is old) get you to the truth (which is always new)? Why would it be necessary to discipline the body? What's wrong with the body?
As I said elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with rituals, so I don't see what the problem is.
She's saying to you: look, you're thinking that these "other" type of religious people are dogmatic and rely on icky rituals and that what you espouse is something superior to that, it's your own private spirituality, however you define it.
Yoshie's saying, "but, open your mind and maybe you'll see that they really aren't that at all. They are rather "time tested ways...."
This isn't woman who is hostile to religion.
Kelley
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin