An Exercise In Futility
Time for some venting, sorry if you were expecting something deep today. :-)
I truly believe that communication is a lost art. Either that, or I’ve been transported to a parallel universe where up is down and left is right.
I refer to several recent experiences in message boards or blog comment threads. In one, on the topic of the pre-trib Rapture, I expressed my strong objection to people spreading a lie about the pre-trib view: that it began with Darby or someone named Macdonald in the middle ages. Yet the next person told me how egotistical it was of me to claim the pre-trib view was the only right view (!?!?). So I posted in reply that no, that wasn’t what I said at all, I only objected to the false charge that we don’t get our view from the Bible but from visions and allegedly misguided teachers. Yet even more people jumped on my back, flaming me for saying what I never said, insisting that I was claiming the pre-trib view was the only view!
I cannot fathom what causes people to continually ignore the plain meaning of words.
In another venue, I kept seeing false statements made on another topic of controversy. I started a thread on why people who hold this particular view were not the kind of people everyone said they were. But in page after page of responses, every one of them ignored the topic and instead posted diatribes against the view itself. It was supposed to be about the people who hold it, and since I started the thread I certainly knew what my own topic was. But they are still going on and on raging against the view and not addressing the issue of the people who hold the view.
What’s the use of telling people anything? Why do they go on burning straw men, even after you tell them point blank that they’re doing it? How can there be civilized discussions that benefit anyone when people can’t follow a line of thought, or that seem to have no other goal but to bash whoever doesn’t agree with them?
Thanks for listening.