Coolest Ranger (511 posts)
Attention Atheist, can you please do me a favor and listen to me.......
I'm going to be straight up honest with you all. I love you all. Most of you if not all I am going to assume are liberal and democratic just like i am, but lately I am noticing a trend that is bothering me. In the last two weeks I have had numerous Atheist just flat out insult me over my belief in god. Some of them have been down right snarky in their characterization of what I personally believe.
I'm about to reveal some personal things to you guys again so you can understand where I am coming from. I had always grown up in the church. In my family my grandmother made us go to Church every Sunday. That just simply wasn't an option in my family. In my early 20s I strayed away from church but came back when I started losing vision in both of my eyes in my early 30s. I mean understand this from my viewpoint. I am in my early 30s, facing an uncertain future, going blind in both of my eyes. Then the unthinkable happens, I lose my job, my insurance and struggling to find insurance that would cover me for the cataract surgery I needed. I did the only thing I knew how to do when i got in trouble, I turned to the bible and I turned back to god. I started praying every day for him to find some way for me to save my eye sight. For weeks I prayed for a solution and one day it worked, I found an insurance provider that gave me the coverage I needed. But it was too late, I lost my left eye to a cataract but thankfully they were able to save my right eye.
I returned to the church at that point and recommitted my life to god. Going to church gave me the confidence I really needed to get back into the swing of things. You have to understand I was facing depression at that time. I was very conscious about what people thought of me. I mean in my mind, you have a grown man holding another man's arm in public. The way people thought of me was always in the back of my mind. So after talking to momma, a few others I was close with, I turned to God again and I started praying for clarification and direction and he sent my good buddy over who forced me to come out of my shell and start trusting people again. God once again answered my prayer and gave me the strength I needed.
In 2010 which I would arguably say was the worst year of my life. I say that because hat year, routine blood work detected some leukemic cells in my blood. Thus for 30 days, I was in pure fear. I went to my church and asked them all to pray for me. Cancer has already taken both my grandfathers my other grandmother, and my uncle so naturally I felt like it was going to come for me as well. My faith and my prayer life got me the results I wanted, I dodged a bullet. But that year, my health got worse, In August I had two falls. One at home, one at church and in November when we had family and friends day, I had a very public fall at my church. After paying on it, I made the painful decision to come home after 14 wonderful years in Louisville, Kentucky,
Now I bet you are wondering why am I telling you this. It's simple. I know a lot of you don't believe in god and I respect that but at the same time, it does you no good to come to people like me who depend on that faith and who always pray for others when they ask for it even when they don't believe. I know a lot of you are laughing at me and I get that, but at the same time you will never have me come and insult you because you don't believe. All I'm asking you as liberals is that you respect my right to believe after all, aren't we all supposed to be open minded?
This is what we live for: a DUmmy showdown of heavyweight proportions. In one corner, black/gay Cordell. In the other: every atheist on DU.RIGHT OFF THE BAT:
Deadshot (156 posts)
1. Religious beliefs deserve to be mocked, regardless of political affiliation.
Ouch. Sorry, Cordell.
Star Member Warpy (84,515 posts)
18. What you need to realize first off
is that nothing looks nuttier than somebody else's religion. Need I remind you we have pictures of you guys?
Once you "get" that on a gut level, you start to be a little more tolerant of everybody else. Cordell is the tolerant one so far.
Newly minted atheists haven't got that yet, along with newly minted religious converts. Each will complain bitterly about the other and both sides are right about the ill feelings and snark.
So cut them a little slack. If there is something in a post that you find offensive, comment on it.
And if you're religious, it's the height of ill manners to troll the atheist group. If you're an atheist, it's just as ill mannered to troll the protected believer groups.
That is all.
Here's what we've learned: you can be black and be celebrated on DU. If you're queer, you're REVERED on DU. But if you're RELIGIOUS, unless it's some bullshit American Indian mishmash), you're hosed.
And we now know that you can be as black as Randys1 and as gay as William769, but those can't help you if you're also religious.
Sorry, Cordell. DU just isn't the place for you.
