"I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left"
This is the original title of the video I am going to show.
I know it sounds like click-bate but I would suggest everyone listen to what she has to say.
I have been doing a little introspection here lately and wondering how I come across. Wondering if I am being heard or actually listening. There seems to be a lot of one liners, quips thrown around. I myself am guilty of such.
There seems to be a lot of people just talking over others. People yelling and cheering for a view without even explaining why or how they believe their view to be correct. People that think their view is valid and will argue that view without even listening to another perspective. Never understanding where or how someone might hold another view. Whether it be how someone was raised or taught or what someone may have learned through their own experiences.
There is never dialogue when people do not listen or are not willing to have any sort of understanding.
Open communication and exchange of ideas can change more minds and hearts than exchange of hatred and vitriol.
I think there is more to all of us than one side verses the other.
So please give the video a listen.
My thought for the day.
"We celebrate tolerance and diversity now more than any other time in memory and still we grow more and more divided. . . . Compromise is anathema. . . . [This] will not take us where we want to go."
I am so on board with what she said. I was going to post a non-article on this subject and why it happens. I am sure that most people who have seen a Chuck Lorre production might have noticed at the end, very quickly he puts up, what he calls a "Vanity Note". Here is one, about why we take these hard lines if we are not listening and why we never think we are wrong. I want to share it here if you don't mind.
Share away.
CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #620
People prefer to be right. Right feels good. It’s empowering. Wrong feels awful. And this is by design. Evolution rewards being right and punishes being wrong. The foraging monobrows who looked up from the berry bush and said, “That’s a predator, run away,” had a better chance of passing on their genes than the Alley Oops who said, “No, it’s just a big pussycat with an unfortunate overbite.” (They were more likely to become virgins tartare.) In other words, wrong equals death. If you’re wrong enough, you get excused from the planet. This explains why it’s almost impossible to change people’s minds. In order to have a shift in perspective, one must first admit to being wrong. That’s extremely hard to do. History is filled with people who chose to cause unbelievable carnage rather than consider the possibility that they’ve misjudged a situation (I’m talking about you Imperial Japan, Deutschland über alles, and The Confederate States of America). Which is why I fear for our future. None of us are willing to be wrong. The very idea of it is inconceivable. Unless, of course, some enlightened soul came along and proposed an alternative to the polarity of right and wrong. Perhaps the idea of Neither. A middle way leading to peace, serenity and joy. And if we were again to use history as a guide, we would most likely decide the Enlightened One was wrong, then we would kill Him, then we would worship Him, then we would kill anyone who didn’t agree that ours was the true faith. Which would allow us to be... yep, you got it... righteous.
1st Aired: 9 May 2019
Is Chuck Lorre any relation to Peter Lorre?
Very good video and right on target.
No. Lorre isn't his real name. But he is the creator of these shows:
Two and a Half Men
Mike & Molly
Mom
The Kominsky Method
The Big Bang Theory
Young Sheldon
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Dharma & Greg
Cybill
Grace Under Fire
Roseanne
So as you can see, he has quite the resume'
Most of his shows I watch on rerun. On rerun they usually do the credits real fast, maybe on the bottom of the screen.
So I never really see any of the vanity notes at the end.
They are usually at the end of the credits and you have to pause your DVR to see them. They can be funny or profound.
I think his explanation for why people don't like to be wrong or admit to it, is pretty much right. I think we are programmed by our DNA. I also found it funny how he brought us to another deadly sin, righteousness.
This sharing opens with the foolishness of grown people putting a sign in the hands of children and compelling them to be confrontational youths. It's ugly politics.
It shows how people can be taught certain things. It showed that no one wanted to know or understand why she was the way she was. Only wanted to attack, just as she was doing.
It also details how a mind can be changed, not by yelling, hatred and bumper stickers but by civil and peaceful dialogue, exchange.
It happens as she states it: "Lines blur" when people take time to listen, really listen, to one another's story. It does not mean that one side or the other is more right, or standing on 'higher ground' of fact. It is that each person is coming from a perspective in part or in whole. Christianity, for instance, makes more sense (and is altogether more potent) when it does not force itself on people who care not for it.
I was raised Christian and was taught to, basically, keep it to myself.
Praying in the open was considered vanity.
The polite and public conversationalist used to always avoid mentioning: sex, religion, and politics. Then, developers appeared with code for online discussion rooms.
I feel there is nothing wrong with sharing 'intimate subject matter' such as the above three categories deliver. Still, a balance of optimism can help carry difficult topics a considerably long way.
When reasonable folks are involved in discussion their should be no subjects that are considered taboo. I enjoy receiving the perspectives of others, if their arguments are sound they may even nudge me closer to their viewpoint.
The difficulty is that many folks have turned their side into something absolute and final with no room for thought.
Reasonability 'captures' us a people at varying stages of life.
In the case of this young woman in the video above, Megan Phelps-Roper, incidentally it is notable that she did not separate her maiden name (Phelps) from her married name. She is willing to bear the shame and continued probing from others she meet, I reckon. Anyway, her trust in familial dogmas caused Megan to 'blow pass' all conventions and traditions established to protect suffering, dead, and oppressed peoples of the world. Ruckus protestations at select venues recognized and reserved specifically for their quiet, peaceful, states should have set alarms bells off in the spirit of the truly sanctified—no matter the programming.
In a way, I really like this woman. It is a powerful statement to stand there 'naked' before the eyes of the world and expose past public heinous activities you engaged in-even as you ask for acceptance of a new stage of life for yourself! Many people simply can not be this forward-facing and open.
She was reached in her private space; through the medium of the internet. She heard from voices, images and faces of an unfamiliar kind and made physical contact with a real example of an outcast Jew who confirmed another new message: not everybody involved in anything has bad intentions.
Good on the Internet! Good on the real-life example who properly affected the life of a young woman seeking a threshold to cross into—out of her former way of life.
Another point to consider, at what time does communication become an impossibility.
We all know there are some that refuse to open up to any other possibility. Some that will continue to demean rather than debate.
Is it wrong to demean back? I think we have all done it.
Sometimes a time comes where there is not going to be anything constructive.
Myself, I try to just ghost. Might not be the right way to do it. I just don't necessarily need or want the conflict and I do what some may say is the easy way out.
I could be wrong in my approach yet could there be any other way?
I am sure we have at one time or another, but when we opt to travel that road we have lost. Like yourself when a conversation or discussion devolves to the point of name calling, the conversation has ended at that point.
And then again, there are some folks that you just cannot reason with and have their thoughts set in stone and there they will remain.
Ghost? Does that mean intentionally ignoring someone that you know you will only have conflict with?
Pretty much, yes. Haha
And Ender, we should walk away; conflict for its own sake is neither beneficial, productive, or enriching.
I’m glad George Washington didn’t feel that way.
What does George Washington have to do with conflict for its own sake, DM?
I might not fully understand what conflict for the sake of conflict is. Could you provide me with an example so I can learn?
Example:
Having a stomachache, a man goes to see his physician. The physician offers a cause and a cure for his ailment. At this point, the man with the stomachache should have enough commonsense to not threaten to have the doctor put in jail because of a dislike of the diagnosis and its recommended treatment;
jail would be harsh on the doctor, and the man would still have a stomachache!
Moral: There is a point where things really matter. Arguing beyond that point engenders conflict for conflict's sake. We should walk away; for it is neither beneficial, productive, or enriching.
Thank you.
It reminds me of similar situation I was in back around 1985. I went a gastroenterologist and he diagnosed that I had a peptic ulcer in my stomach. Later I was reading in Fortune magazine about a doctor that found ulcers are caused by a bacteria and can be treated with antibiotics. I was excited about the article so I made an appointment to see the doctor again. I informed him of the information. I asked if that would be a good treatment for my condition. He immediately got irritated and began to tell me sternly that I was wrong and went on to say “what medical journal is that in”. He was pissed off that I would question his treatment. I never went back to see him again after seeing his reaction to my information and questioning his treatment. Fast forward to about 2005. I was driving in the car listening to NPR radio and they reported that the doctors that discovered ulcers are caused by bacteria and can be treated with antibiotics won a Nobel prize in medicine.
Excellent counter-point to an example, DM! (Smile.)
Thanks CB and I agree with both you and Ender. Most of the time it is best to try to de-escalate conflicts or just walk away.
I'll be doing more walking away after a 'quality' attempt at deescalation fails, DM!
This lady is a perfect image of what a repentant spirit is. She recounts her past life of rage without inflection in her voice. Her stress-less performance emphasizes the tenor of her message. She is unarmed before a large audience without anything to hold or hurl. An acceptable 'messenger.'
Who gives a blank about the WBC? It has 40 members or so. If you would just ignore them they would go away.
I believe the point was geared more towards communication.
Ms. Roper is inspiring. In her, I see and feel hope.
Many people won't take the time to hear her out. They will see the Westboro/Phelp's brand, bristle, and take a pass. She is quite interesting and by the time she gets to her conclusion I realized she had taken me and her audience on a solid journey!