Bigots, Zealots and Hypocrites: Oh My!

PATIENCE AND A GENTLE TONGUE

Today I read that Nicki Minaj has a song that appears to endorse Mitt Romney for president. Of course, this caught my attention because when the Minaj speaks, I listen. The line in question goes like this: “I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney, you lazy b****es is f***ing up the economy.” Profound, no?

This seemed like a good excuse to bring up something that bothers me on a regular basis. Obviously, we’ve become incredibly opinionated and vocal about the things we believe in these days. Blame it on Twitter, Facebook or whatever you want, the point is: it’s gotten a bit out of hand. It seems like every single article/YouTube video/blog post has a comment section that gets hijacked by people who want to debate politics or religion. Don’t believe me? Start making it a point to look at the comment section on everything you look at. You could be on YouTube looking at kittens and I guarantee someone is debating the divinity of Jesus in the comments.

So after a long time of looking at people’s comments/tweets/facebook statuses, I’ve decided we have a bit of a problem. I think open discourse is great and people should continue debating and sharing their ideas. However, there is way too much hatred and anger being perpetuated by people. It comes from all sides of every argument. I think it’s just human nature that once you become convinced of your views, you think you have a license to verbally or physically unleash on people that you view as closed-minded, selfish, lazy, greedy, entitled, bigots or {insert adjective here}.

The best way I know how to illustrate is through the Christian world-view. We are all well-aware of the fact that at one point the Christian church had a very dangerous stranglehold on people’s ability to think for themselves. Well, it’s been a very long time since we shunned Galileo for his crazy science. I realize that there are still Christians that are afraid of science, but I want to speak as one who is not. I support science and its claims, but I don’t place it above God. If you believe in science and not God, I feel no urge to belittle you as a person nor do I want to execute you for heresy. But let me assure you, despite the common perception that Christians monopolize our country’s ideals, that has not been my experience. Growing up as a Christian, believing in a God that you can’t measure with science can lead to a lot of ridicule. It’s the epitome of hypocrisy to decry bigotry and closed-mindedness by making someone feel small about their beliefs by appealing to presuppositions that aren’t shared by both people.

Everyone should continue discussing and debating over the issues and they should do it passionately. We just need to understand that hypocrisy and closed-mindedness are not traits that are exclusive to Christians or Republicans or Democrats or white people or black people or university professors. It’s human nature to become overzealous about the things you believe in and we all have to work on that. As a Christian, I am always trying to believe in the Truth that I know in a way that is bold, unwavering and respectful. So please do the same.

CROWNS THAT DON’T LAST

Football returns tonight and that means fantasy football returns tonight! My wife is in two fantasy leagues which is incredibly fun. She drafted really well, too. She has Arian Foster in one league and Calvin Johnson in the other. Woah.

SLAVERY

We paid off another small loan this week! We do Dave Ramsey’s “Debt Snowball” which is very helpful. One of the things it encourages is paying off the smaller debts first in order to gain momentum. I think it really works. Every time we pay off some small balance I feel like we should throw a small party or something.