A Petty Response to Petty Comments

This morning, I was greeted with a rash of angry comments on my blog.  And by "a rash of" I mean "three."  They seemed to have all been written by the same angry faithful Mormon.  And because I'm not yet mature enough to withstand personal criticism without trying to get the last word in, I think I'll post a little rebuttal.

The first comment was posted on My Un-Missionary Experience and I'm not entirely sure if it was a direct response to my post, to Andrew's comment, or to both of us.  Here's what my new best friend said:

Your an idiot the reason it felt more comfortable was because you were telling him what he wanted to hear, so you don't have to worry about him judging you, rather than what you believed to be true. for example taking things to the extremes I would feel a lot more comfortable telling a man who has a gun up to my head and says "if you don't tell me 2+2=5 ill shoot" that 2+2 does indeed equal 5

I'd said that it felt easier to discuss the church as a non-member because I was embarrassed of it as a member.  Andrew had said that he'd felt it was easier because he no longer felt responsible for the church.  Apparently at least one of us is an idiot.

I can't speak for Andrew's experiences, of course, but in my case I didn't feel like I was telling my coworker "what he wanted to hear" about the church.  He was genuinely curious and had no knowledge of the church. He had no preconceptions.

And, of course, I find it amusing that my new buddy has used the "2+2=5" example, which was featured prominently in Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Similarities between the church and the Party of that novel have been drawn many times.  The LDS church doesn't teach the doctrine of eternal progression and we've always been at war with Eastasia.

The second comment was posted on I'll Pray for You and it seems to be a direct response to Jewelfox.  Jewelfox had posed the question, "What's so great about going to heaven, and why does he assume that you want to go there? :P"  Our hero's response:

This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever read. Why would you not want to live eternity in a happiness humans can't even fathom with eternal glory. But you shouldn't have to worry too much I'm sure god will send you along with every other dumbbutt blogging faggot(and I say faggot in a slang sense of the word and not be cause I hate gays or believe they're going to hell) hipster straight to hell

Okay, first of all--the dumbest thing you've ever read?  Somebody's never been to Yahoo Answers.  Secondly, she was clearly being playful and facetious, as evidenced by the sticking-your-tongue-out thing at the end of her comment.  And third--dumbbutt?

Dumbbutt.  I can honestly say I've never been called that.  Way to ruin what was otherwise a decently scathing insult by chickening out of full-on swearing and making it sound silly.  Everyone reading knows you meant "dumbass," so if you think you were being virtuous by insulting someone without actually swearing, I don't think you succeeded.  It's the meaning behind the words that carry more weight than the words themselves.  If you told someone to go fetch himself with a rusty razor, you wouldn't expect him to laugh it off simply because you didn't actually use the f-word.

And what's the deal with the faggot business?  The bigoted epithet against gays is the slang sense of the word "faggot."  And it's kind of passive-aggressive to include a parenthetical statement about not believing gays go to hell when you're telling someone that God's going to send her to hell anyway.  So, Jewelfox, when you die, and you find yourself in hell, rest assured that it's not because you're a faggot, it's because you're a dumbbutt blogging hipster.  

The third comment was posted on 2 Nephi Chapter 7 and, despite its clear animosity toward me, is actually my personal favorite.  Our anonymous crusader for truth says:

Why is anyone taking advise on their eternal being from some loser blogger who's thirty years old and works in fast food? Do people read this crap and think "yeah this guys got his stuff together and knows what he's talking about. he's a genius philosopher and I am going to put my fate in some dumb posts he puts on the internet that are very sarcastic and cynical"?

Awesome, dude.  Very classy.  Also, I think you may have some severe misconceptions about how widely-read this blog is.  This is my 134th post and I have only 91 comments scattered throughout--and a decent number of those comments are mine.  I don't have people writing glowing reviews about what I write.  I don't know that I've ever changed anyone's mind about anything.

But moving on to the more important issue--people taking advice on their eternal fates from a loser blogger who's thirty years old and works in fast food.  You know, that's an excellent point.  Why did anyone take advice on their eternal fates from some loser farmer who was twenty-four years old and liked to look for buried treasure?  Why should anyone take advice on their eternal fates from two fresh high-school graduates who've never lived away from home before?

You'd think Mormons in particular would be smart enough not to judge a guy's capacity for greatness based on his profession.  The two most important people in all of Mormondom had famously humble beginnings--Jesus was a carpenter and Joseph was a farm boy.  Of course, I will never have the same level of impact on the world as either one of them had, but my point is that a Mormon attempting to use the glamourless quality of my profession to imply that my words are meaningless is inherently hypocritical.

In conclusion, though, I'd like to mention that I do get where this guy is coming from.  As tempting as it is to say "if you have a problem with my blog, why keep reading," I've felt the same morbid curiosity reading things from his side of the fence. I've made my share of futile arguments on YouTube videos.  When you're confronted with something you so passionately disagree with, I think there's a natural inclination to want to see more--if only to prove to yourself that someone can actually be this stupid.  And, then, of course, you feel obligated to try and change his mind--or at least discredit him so that he doesn't mislead anyone else.

So hey, New Best Friend, it happens.  I mean, I don't think it had to get quite so nasty, but I get it.  If it turns out all of us hipster bloggers do go to hell, maybe I'll see you there.  We'll get a cup of coffee and laugh about how ironic it was that, after all this acid and vitriol, it turned out that both of us were wrong.

Yes, they have coffee shops in hell.  Because I've been told that's where you go if you drink it.