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Screw terrorists!


crazydaffodil

3,262 views

Sorry to bring this down to a level of seriousness, @Destiny, but I just have to say how the way things work in the world today are so messed up.  That there are actually people who think that they get the upper hand by bringing down innocent people with such crazy and ridiculous actions!

Never mind the recent drama here.  The terror attacks in today in Belgium put that into perspective.  Lives were lost.  Families are ripped apart.  Innocent lives.  People who were doing nothing to provoke those who attacked them.  People just conducting their every day lives.  This happened in Paris in November.  This happened in America in 2001.  It happens in other places around the world that we don't hear so much about.

Why?  For revenge?  Because you think you are going to get 72 virgins?  Have you not seen Jeff Dunham's act to know that this ain't gonna happen!?!?! 

I just don't understand humanity anymore. 

images.jpg.80f33aab9d8ed1d4aaac3b1ae9305

Down vote me if you support these actions, but please give a positive rep vote to show your support for the victims of terror around the world, especially those suffering today in Belgium.

 

Just sayin...

  • Upvote 4

46 Comments


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THERetroGamerNY

Posted

Just now, crazydaffodil said:

Thank you, @THERetroGamerNY.  I am not as tech savvy as most here.  Obviously upvoting does nothing about violence, you are correct.  It was just meant as a source of solidarity.

Yeah, that's fine. It happens on FB a damned lot.

Actually, going back against the drift, and towards what you said, terrorism isn't actually new. The first documented acts of terrorism go back as far as 1 BCE. =)

The aims/reasons for warfare actually haven't changed any throughout history, just the technology and groups involved in it change throughout history.

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Fascinated

Posted

If I may, at the risk of offending, my issue was not with the upvoting, PER SE.

My issue was with the suggestion that not upvoting was a vote for the terrorists. Which is, of course, fucky in the extreme.  But I guess that has been satisfactorily explained.

I think I need to take a break from FJ, as I really don't know what's going on here anymore.  

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Curious

Posted

45 minutes ago, Fascinated said:

If I may, at the risk of offending, my issue was not with the upvoting, PER SE.

My issue was with the suggestion that not upvoting was a vote for the terrorists. Which is, of course, fucky in the extreme.  But I guess that has been satisfactorily explained.

I think I need to take a break from FJ, as I really don't know what's going on here anymore.  

Is there a reason you made a dig at my use of the phrase per se, which is a normal part of my conversational pattern and has never seemed to draw this kind of attention before?

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Fascinated

Posted

Not at all, Curious. It was not a dig at you at all. 

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Curious

Posted

1 minute ago, Fascinated said:

Not at all, Curious. It was not a dig at you at all. 

Ok.  I wasn't the only one that thought that so wanted to ask.  All good then.

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iweartanktops

Posted

Do people assume @crazydaffodil. is female because you think only females would have a flower in their username? I'm really interested in why this is assumed. I've never seen him/her specify. If I've missed it, please let me know. :)

  • Upvote 3
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church_of_dog

Posted

OK, here are some thoughts I’d like to share.  This is going to be rather a wall of text, sorry.

I have bristled at @crazydaffodil’s posts since they began, including this one.  I don’t tend to be so instantly judgy or critical of people in real life, or even usually online, so my bristling is really noticeable to me, and I’ve been inspecting it and asking myself why.

(and I will preface my comments by saying that I thought the upvote-to-protest thing was tacky but not horrible.  I have no idea what happens on Facebook as I don’t have an account and never have had one, and if stuff like that is popular there I’m sure I would think it’s tacky there too.  I do think it’s a helpful explanation for me to know that it’s a “thing” there, though, as I do tend to cut some slack when people are simply doing what they see being done around them.  We humans have a really remarkable ability to normalize all sorts of weird shit in our lives, as is exemplified by pretty much every clothing trend ever, not to mention teenage utterances such as “like”, “no doy”, “radical”, and “Daddy-O”.)

Anyway, daffodil, I think you’ve gotten an awkward reception here, for a couple of reasons, some under your control and some not.  As is pretty obvious by now, you arrived (or at least started posting) right in the middle of a really contentious situation where people were not sure who was who and whether someone was trying to play a mean trick on us all.  So it didn’t take much discomfort or awkwardness before some of us were wondering if you were a part of that.  We had (and have) no way of knowing one way or the other, and the suspicion was IMO completely understandable, though not really fair to you.

That’s the part you didn’t have any control over.  But here are the parts that you do have control over:  even after becoming aware that you arrived at a time of high tension, you haven’t done anything to build connection with anyone here.  In other words:  you’ve made no introduction of yourself, told none of your story, given no explanation of what brought you here.  You started posting with not just a blog, which is fine, but with a flurry (that turned into an ongoing stream) of *new topics* — you may or may not be aware of how common that is or isn’t for a new poster to do, but you don’t seem to be at all attuned to, or caring about, how it strikes others.  I can tell you, it strikes me as *really odd* for someone to join a new site and then, rather than join in the conversations already in progress, to instead start not just one, but many, new threads of their own, right off the bat.  

And the kicker for me is that NONE of the threads I have seen you start or post on, and none of your blog posts, that I recall, contained any mention of religious fundamentalism whatsoever!  So basically, you don’t seem to be interacting with this site in terms of what it is — a place to discuss the harms of fundamentalist beliefs -- rather you seem to be using this site as a blank page to interact with people on random topics of your choosing, which of course is fine and we do have a huge variety of topics being discussed here, but at the same time it’s odd enough that it raises some hackles.  I mean, if I went on a bicycle racing forum and went to the off-topic section and started posting about knitting, that might be accepted and there even might be enthusiastic participants, but it would be odd -- because if I wanted to talk only about knitting then why go to a bicycle racing forum in the first place?  The off-topic section of a forum, to me, makes sense because once we feel a connection to the community here, then we start wanting to share about all sorts of things that are a part of our lives.  But before those person-to-person connections are built, it's just really freakin' odd to me.

So, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’re just a new person getting an unfair shake here, my advice is to introduce yourself, say just a little about who you are, explain how and why you came here to FJ, and where you’re coming from with your seemingly random and non-fundy topics.

To reiterate:  nothing wrong with your topics, but we don’t have any context for why someone would come here to post them.  So some background, some context, some story that creates a connection people can feel with you, will go a long way toward dissolving the tension that was felt earlier.

  • Upvote 13
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crazydaffodil

Posted

I wasn't aware that speaking about religious fundamentalism, of which I know nothing about, was a requirement to be a member here.  I am someone who stumbled upon this forum and visited as a guest.  I thought about how I might respond to some of the things I read here, but just never had the time to devote to it.  Now I have some time and I speak my mind, like it or not.  Some people are entertained by my odd posts and that is good enough for me.

  • Upvote 6
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church_of_dog

Posted

3 minutes ago, crazydaffodil said:

I wasn't aware that speaking about religious fundamentalism, of which I know nothing about, was a requirement to be a member here.  I am someone who stumbled upon this forum and visited as a guest.  I thought about how I might respond to some of the things I read here, but just never had the time to devote to it.  Now I have some time and I speak my mind, like it or not.  Some people are entertained by my odd posts and that is good enough for me.

Not a requirement at all, and I didn't suggest it was.  I did suggest that appearing to have no interest in the official topic is going to look odd, and without some context to understand what brings you HERE to discuss stuff (as opposed to a million other forums focussed on other things), people will be baffled and confused by your posts.

I also suggested, or tried to, that IN MY OPINION the off-topic conversations that happen on forums, make sense BECAUSE people have established connections to each other -- in other words, they feel kinda like friends, or at least acquaintances, because of the ON-topic conversations they have had, and that becomes the basis for wanting to talk about other stuff.  So a person jumping to the off-topic stuff WITHOUT making any attempt to build connections to people first (via introduction, anecdotes, personal comments on other threads, etc) is, again, ODD.  Not against the rules, just odd.  

You seemed to be asking why people were having odd reactions to your posts, and I am/was trying to offer my opinion as to the answer to that question.  That is all.  You're not breaking any rules as far as I can tell.

  • Upvote 6
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crazydaffodil

Posted

You get no argument from me.  You make valid points.  I admit to being odd, but that's part of my charm as well.  It also causes some negative reactions as well. 

  • Upvote 3
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Myrtille

Posted

I think your post comes from the heart and I appreciate it. The up vote thing... *shrug*... it's everywhere nowadays and I couldn't care less about it. I never thought that I'll have to use the safety check button on Facebook twice in less than 6 months, so right now, all the moral support we get is welcome with me.

  • Upvote 6
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Curious

Posted

1 hour ago, church_of_dog said:

You seemed to be asking why people were having odd reactions to your posts, and I am/was trying to offer my opinion as to the answer to that question

To be fair, I think it might have been me that was asking why people are having negative reactions or I guess more to the point, why suddenly every new member is a troll or out to "get us."

I have tried to remind people repeatedly that for the most part FJ is a PUBLIC site.  We cover many topics and we are pretty well indexed in google, so someone could stumble on us for anything searching for anything from books or tv shows, to political stuff to fundies and a lot of stuff in between those things.

Also, remember that for quite some time we had a Welcome TWOP Refugees post at the top of the forum and TWOP was not strictly about fundies.  That post is probably still knocking around here somewhere and by now have probably been indexed by google.

Another thing that people seem to be suggesting is that @crazydaffodil couldn't have knowledge of topics since s/he is a new member.  The MoGG thread was in snark which is public for a few days.  It was not moved to NHB until after it was locked for some amount of hours (I'm not really sure how many hours elapsed between locking and moving.  @HerNameIsBuffy locked it around midnight, IIRC and I moved it when I woke up the next day.  So probably 4-7ish hours elapsed.  Since then topics have been in Community Discussion which is open to any member, so it would not be hard to keep up with the topics once registered.

I'm disturbed that a portion of the membership seems to have become increasingly intolerant of differing opinions and that the term "troll' is starting to take on the definition of "person I don't like" or "person that has disagreed with me."   The tone of the forum has been subtly changing for a few months now and I do think we have been trolled, just not by the same people some are suggesting.

We had a big influx of people in May (Joshgate 1) and another in August (Joshgate 2), I think that is basically when things started to change, but it was kind of like "boiling a frog."   The change was relatively subtle until suddenly everyone was on hair triggers and it came to a head and is now very noticeable.

I admit that this is partially my fault.  I'm not into the Duggars and nothing they do interests me, so I rarely go into the Duggar forum unless there is a specific problem.   I know this is also true for many of the helpmeets and indeed even veteran members rarely post there for a few reasons.   The net result is that forum is now....unpleasant.    We have already implemented some measures to try and correct this and we have some other changes coming that will be announced in the next week or 2, as we work out the details.

I hope the changes coming will get us back on the right track, but for that to happen members have to put some level of trust in the administration, which frankly I did not think was an issue until recently. 

My attitude has always been and will continue to be that all members are valuable members of the community, until proven differently.  This applies to people that have been here 1 day or 10 years.  If every new person is looked at through the lens of "troll or not troll," rather than giving people the benefit of the doubt until they have proven to be detrimental to the site, we are going to continue to have clashes.

This apparently new attitude that FJ is somehow immune to criticism makes us look ridiculous, IMO.  We are better than this. 

  • Upvote 4
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Palimpsest

Posted

I think @church_of_dog makes some very good and thoughtful points here about how people are integrated into fora.  Sometimes it is a smooth entry - and sometimes it is a very bumpy road.  Overall, very good advice!

It does seem that FJ is hyper-alert to the point of completely over-alert to the possibilities of trolls at the moment.  I have my theories as to the reasons (yes, plural) but could be totally out to lunch in my thinking.

Yes, @crazydaffodil did happen to honor us with his/her presence - or delurked - at a very difficult time and has a distinct (coughs) in-your-face-but-not-against-the-rules style.   On the other hand, least one other member posting on this very thread also started posting at a hugely difficult time.  Her very first posts were on the thread where Burris said so long, and thanks for all the fish!  I don't remember anyone suspecting her of being a troll.  She is now on my personal most valued member list.  (:my_heart: @laPapessaGiovanna sorry to have used you here but it seemed like a really good example and we have already used poor OKTBT.)

As to knowledge about/interest in Fundies, is it really required to post here?  The Duggar side was invaded by RealityTV fans thanks to Josh Duggar.  Some of us are trying to teach them about the evils of extreme Fundamentalism - and that the KJV is not the Catholic Bible!  There are also plenty of people who seem to spend most of their time in WWoS or the hobbies/interests sub-fora.  No big deal.

Eh, all this would probably be more pertinent in Community Discussions so I'll stop.

I hope some air has been cleared here in this thread though.  I find @crazydaffodil rather amusing and sometimes thought provoking.  YMMV. :)

 

  • Upvote 10
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Curious

Posted

6 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

I think @church_of_dog makes some very good and thoughtful points here about how people are integrated into fora.  Sometimes it is a smooth entry - and sometimes it is a very bumpy road.  Overall, very good advice!

I agree with this and I don't want to give the impression that I don't.  My original intent was just to address that one bit I quoted, but as I am wont to do, ended up addressing a bunch of other stuff as well.

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church_of_dog

Posted

38 minutes ago, Curious said:

I agree with this and I don't want to give the impression that I don't.  My original intent was just to address that one bit I quoted, but as I am wont to do, ended up addressing a bunch of other stuff as well.

And I should also explain that elsewhere (not on this thread but on a different blog post, the one about moving to a new school and feeling judged), @crazydaffodil did express the question (as I interpreted it) about why people are giving her/him a seemingly odd reception.  I thought to direct my reply there, then realized I better read up on this post too just to be caught up before plopping down some potentially contentious words myself, and then I'm not sure why I ended up putting my reply here instead of there -- maybe it just seemed an opportune moment for it in the conversation.

And I hope no one interpreted my comment as in any way suggesting that daffodil or anyone else shouldn't be here if they're not active in the fundie conversation -- I don't think that at all!  (and anyone might notice that I myself am not particularly active in the fundie conversation and spend considerably more time in the off-topic and board culture type threads).  What I do think, however, is that doing it in the way daffodil did prompts a certain reaction from others, and if the question was asked "why am I getting this odd reaction", well then, I thought I could offer an answer.  NOT in any way a suggestion to leave or that anyone is unwelcome.  Just an explanation that seemed to have been asked for.

  • Upvote 8
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HerNameIsBuffy

Posted

FWIW I think just about anyone coming in at this particular moment in time would have been under more side eye than anyone would want, from a lot of corners, given the lousy circumstances lately.

I know you mentioned that but I do think it's a major factor.  Most of the crap I post would be highly suspicious if I dropped in now.  

  • Upvote 9
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Curious

Posted

1 minute ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

FWIW I think just about anyone coming in at this particular moment in time would have been under more side eye than anyone would want, from a lot of corners, given the lousy circumstances lately.

I know you mentioned that but I do think it's a major factor.  Most of the crap I post would be highly suspicious if I dropped in now.  

I think this highlights the issue we are currently having.  It's a situation I find distressing, personally.  FJ has a history of being....unwelcoming....to new members, but I thought we had move pretty well past that quite some time ago.   I'm not pleased that we seem to be backsliding in that area for some reason.

Hopefully, things will right themselves with the changes that are being implemented.

  • Upvote 3
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church_of_dog

Posted

4 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

FWIW I think just about anyone coming in at this particular moment in time would have been under more side eye than anyone would want, from a lot of corners, given the lousy circumstances lately.

I know you mentioned that but I do think it's a major factor.  Most of the crap I post would be highly suspicious if I dropped in now.  

Part of how I interpreted all this was based on myself arriving at FJ right as Razing Ruth was collapsing, and being very aware for a few months that everyone was on alert to her potential next persona, and I found that it was hard, as a new person without a known voice/style, to say anything that didn't seem suspicious.  I remember the relief I felt when I got a few positive reactions from others, @Curious in particular, because that let me know that I wasn't under suspicion for being RR.  I also remember paying attention to that awareness, and intentionally finding things I could say that didn't have that "awkward tone-deaf stranger" feel to them.  I guess that's what I was suggesting daffodil do.  I think it's also just the case for me personally that when someone always has something to say but never reveals anything about themselves, their views, attitudes, etc., it feels awkward to me, like I'm being played, in a way, because there is no vulnerability on the part of the person who has revealed nothing about themselves.  I don't think I like that even when the community isn't in the middle of already feeling violated.  YMMV of course.

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Palimpsest

Posted

@church_of_dog   Is that when you first arrived at FJ? You poor thing.

Again, I think you make very good points.  

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Curious

Posted

14 minutes ago, church_of_dog said:

 I think it's also just the case for me personally that when someone always has something to say but never reveals anything about themselves, their views, attitudes, etc., it feels awkward to me, like I'm being played, in a way, because there is no vulnerability on the part of the person who has revealed nothing about themselves.  I don't think I like that even when the community isn't in the middle of already feeling violated.  YMMV of course.

This in an interesting point.  I rarely read the introduce yourself thread or the what brought you to FJ thread.   Once in a while, when I am cruising through SOTDRT, I'll take a look at the last page of each of those threads, but that's about it (unless I'm directed there specifically for some reason).

 

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church_of_dog

Posted

41 minutes ago, Curious said:

This in an interesting point.  I rarely read the introduce yourself thread or the what brought you to FJ thread.   Once in a while, when I am cruising through SOTDRT, I'll take a look at the last page of each of those threads, but that's about it (unless I'm directed there specifically for some reason).

 

You know, I don't often read them either.  I guess it's the case that with most people, their posting style creates, incrementally over time, a sense that I "know" that person at least in some small way -- maybe their sense of humor, or their attitudes about XYZ, or that they're posting their cat/dog photos, etc.  Kind of the same way we might get to know a new person that starts hanging out in our regular coffee house or works in the building next door, etc.  Any situation where we are not formally introduced, but start to develop a familiarity with each other anyway.

But occasionally here I will want to know more about a person when that incremental familiarity is missing, and i'll look at their posting history to see if they've introduced themselves in some thread I didn't see, and I sometimes then end up at the "introduce yourself" threads.

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  • Posts

    • noseybutt

      Posted

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      • Upvote 1
    • JermajestyDuggar

      Posted

      I bet there are quite a few changes in the book that they will never publicly admit to. 

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      Posted

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      Nathan Pearl just took over the NGJ business ministries. His daughter Ashley is running the NGJ social media. NGJ is also republishing TTUAC, allegedly a new edition with some changes:

      TTUAC_Newcoversameshit.thumb.png.6952c42bfa40ffc44e225ccb1ad8ebe2.png

       

    • formerhsfundie

      Posted (edited)

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      Edited by formerhsfundie
      • Upvote 1


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