Smug is a four letter word

[kerravonsen]

Yes, it is o-dark-44. I woke up, didn't I?

Started thinking about something I saw on my friends-friends list, some pagan who was being smug. First time I've seen a smug pagan, oh well, it's a common human disease, can't see why they'd be immune. The cause of her smugness was apparently having caused a poor (badly taught) Christian to become all tongue-tied when trying to answer the "how can God be omnipotent and omniscient and allow suffering to happen?" Apparently the Christian said that God wasn't all-knowing after all. Bzzzt! Wrong answer.
But that didn't prove anything, really. Just that the silly fellow had been badly taught. Probably because he'd been taught by smug teachers.

I hate smug, condescending people. They're all Pharisees, more interested in being right than in actually having a dialogue with other people. Or, indeed, than learning anything. There's an awful lot of smug Christians; there are some in my Church. But Christians don't have an exclusive on smugness. As I said, common human disease. But it makes me tired, because you can't talk to these people.

We saw a video in my biblestudy recently, which was supposed to be about Apologetics. And while the speaker was entertaining, his examples wouldn't have lasted five seconds with someone like temeres. Smug, complacent, condescending rot.

Bah, humbug!

Comments

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

You know, it occurs to me that I don't know what the Official Answer to the theodicé problem is. I've always assumed that the answer would vary according to Christian variant, I think.

And I know that I lost a lot of respect for the Christians over here when a priest in the Swedish State Church couldn't give me a remotely passable answer when I was 14. Not so much because of the problem itself, but because I felt that somebody with a bunch of years of education and having it as a full-time job really ought to be able to out-argue a fourteen-year-old kid.

[kerravonsen]

I've always assumed that the answer would vary according to Christian variant, I think.

You're probably right. I know it varies, because my working-definition answer which I've come to over the years, I found was incompatible with the conservative Presbyterian viewpoint, which I ran up against when I first started going to my current Church.

Not so much because of the problem itself, but because I felt that somebody with a bunch of years of education and having it as a full-time job really ought to be able to out-argue a fourteen-year-old kid.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? (sigh)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Smug gits of all stripes are hideously annoying. And I say that as somebody who can look back, wincingly, on having once been a smug atheist git, herself. (But, then, one expects that from teenagers, I suppose. Fortunately, at least some of us grow out of it.)

Sadly, I do have to say that in my experience most Christians I've known seem to have been "badly taught." They don't seem to believe things for reasons, they just believe them. God said it, it's true, period, and thinking about it is apparently some kind of sin. All of which has led me to feel very impressed with and respectful of the few Christians I have met who do have reasons, who do question, and who are willing, not just to spout out the usual rote apologetics, but to actually talk and listen to people with other views. I still think their beliefs are wrong, of course. ;) But I have a lot more respect for them than for people whose beliefs I agree with who are closed-minded assholes.

[kerravonsen]

God said it, it's true, period, and thinking about it is apparently some kind of sin.

I can think of two reasons for that:
(a) different personality types -- I mean, xNTx do tend to think about things more than other types do
(b) a confusion about the differences between faith, doubt, and analysis -- they probably feel that asking questions (analysis) is doubting, and that doubting is a sin, because doubt implies lack of faith.

It's rather sad, really.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Smug self-rightousness is, I'm afraid, fairly widespread among those who know they are right (and it doesn't seem to matter what they're right about). After all, there's few things that feel better than smug self-righteousness...

[kerravonsen]

The problem isn't really with knowing that one is right; the problem is being contemptuous of those who are "wrong".