Why do people on here have to be so condescending?

Question

I've noticed that when someone asks a question about God or Christianity that folks on here seem to be very condescending. Why do those of you who answer these questions automatically think the person asking them is NOT a Christian or doesn't believe in God? Could be it's someone who just wants to hear other opinions.

Answer 1

I have often answered questions that concerned religion, and have tried to avoid being condescending.

God and Jesus don't teach us to be condescending. I believe part of the Christian message is to love others, including the unbelievers. Condescension simply doesn't fit that message.

I think often the anti-religious people are very hostile in the way they approach these questions, and some of the negativity on the part of Christians or believers could be in reaction to that.

Answer 2

This is just the problem with text. It's difficult to hearsomeones emotions when you're just reading their text... same thing happens in chat. It's very easy to read a question and misunderstand someone tone and take offense to what they are saying and respond in kind. It is also just as easy to read someones responce and think they are trying to be condescending. I think more often than not that is the problem... Of course you're gonna run into people that are egotistical and if you don't know as much as they do then you must be inferior. The sad thing is people somewhere along the line started thinking of an adult asking questions as a sign of weakness and stupidity. When in truth we will never know all and the second we start thinking that someone asking questions is inferior we start to loose sight of who we're supposed tobe. As christians we are suppose to LOVE answer questions about our faith and our God and we are supposed to Love asking questions to increase our knowledge of God. Sooo KEEP ON ASKIN be a good student :D God bless ya

Answer 3

Condescension goes both ways. Frankly, I've seen a LOT of condescension going the other way: people who are atheists, agnostics, pagans, etc. being rude, demeaning, and insulting to people of faith.

Being constantly talked down to and treated like a not-very-bright child gets really old. So does being told that we are (by definition) deluded, demented, or brainwashed from childhood.

FYI, I arrived at my faith position as an undergraduate at a public university (not a religious school) more than two decades ago, after having grown up as a non-believer. I know perfectly well what I believe and why I believe it.

For a change, how about everyone treating everyone else like mature adult human beings? It might generate a lot more light and less heat, not to mention increasing the signal-to-noise ratio which would make this board rather more interesting to read.

Answer 4

If I had a dime for every time that someone called me condescending, I'd be sitting in the Bahamas and drinking something with pineapple juice and a couple of those cute little paper umbrellas in it.

The problem is that I was taught formal composition and debate, and we learned to present our information as factually as we could. In other words, no "I think" or "It could be. . ."

Since I present the information as decisively as possible, some people think I'm being condescending. That's not my intent -- it's just the rhetorical style that I'm used to. I've noticed that a couple of other people here have the same style, and I suspect it's because we've got similar educational backgrounds (i.e., we're a bunch of old farts from waaaaay back yonder in the pawpaw patch.) ;-)

Please don't think that I'm not respectful of your beliefs or your intellectual abilities because that isn't the case. I very much respect the mental skills and capacity of the people who post here.

Answer 5

Probably depends on the way you ask. There are so many nasty questions about God and Christianity in general that a lot of people get on the offensive right away.

If you want to learn something about your faith - then make sure that it is known. You will probably still get nasty answers from non-Christians but that can't be helped.

Make sure your questions are straight foward and you might want to put in a quantifier - such as "I'm a Christian and I'm wondering about..." so that people know you aren't out to make fun of their faith.

Answer 6

Definition of condescending:
1. To descend to the level of one considered inferior; lower oneself.
2. To deal with pe.ople in a patronizingly superior manner.

Maybe you should have picked a different word.

I don't think your aggravation should be applied to everyone who answers a question about God or Christianity.

But it sure is frustrating to have it happen, ne?

Answer 7

Not knowing the questions you have in
mind I can only generalize, but there are a lot
of people asking questions here ONLY to piss
other people off.

Its hard not to stomp on them. I'm sure we
occasionally get a well meaning question that
appears to be simply someone throwing
gasoline on the fire, and that person gets
needlessly abused.

If I have ever done that, I am appropriately
ashamed.

Answer 8

Because they don't have love.

It's called the pathologisation of everyday behaviour. Pathologisation derives from pathos, which has to do with the idea of "what befalls one."

Superstitiously, there's such a thing as luck. I think these people are superstitious and they are trying to decipher how their luck is going today. This might be why oligarchies are at their weakest first thing in the morning. They are waiting for something to tell them it's worth getting out of bed.

Demon means "distributor of fates and fortunes." It has to do with the idea of sequence, as in the firing order of an engine. Then there are those who are like the spark plugs. They only fire up when it's their turn. A bit dumb, really. Doesn't make any sense to me.

In order to pathologise something in a distribution-type society (it's got to do with treating disease - your own or somebody's else's might be ambiguous), you need memorials behind your doorposts of opportunity (Isaiah 57:8) so that you can go and check what feels right according to the pathos of the moment. This is a doctor who's thoroughly ensconced in the system checking back over their notes to see how much emotion they can squeeze out of the notes. I'm getting angry again. I know how corrupt doctors can get. Has everybody forgotten about Dr Mengele or are they all too busy blaming Hitler without considering how much influence he actually had or didn't have? What are the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? Is this a criminal euphemism for corrupt doctors? What does anybody do with as much money as there is in the Middle East?

Therefore, I'm guessing what people are doing is that they're looking at whatever memorials of pathos they've got around their computer desk, maybe a picture of a supposedly Christian-inspired hate crime. The brutality of it elicits yet another ill-thought-out emotional response. You're doing it to yourselves, peoples! It's oligarchies that are the enemy. They want to tell people what toilet paper holder fashion is "supposed" to be. I just read a description of autism the other day. If you see a moving picture of two triangles and a square and you interpret it as a triangle helping another triangle out of a square, then you're normal. This is merely somebody's subjective assessment of a metaphor for the way the human body operates as far as our consciousness can tell. We don't actually talk about anything else other than ourselves even if we think we are. If you see two triangles and a square moving, then you're autistic! What kind of nonsense is that? An excuse to put somebody in a therapy group, that's all. I admit that some cases are worse than that, but therapy groups are notorious for turning into cults.

So using Colossians 2:18, why are people "supposed" to represent their bodies to themselves as shapes helping each other out? I hope this doesn't have anything to do with a neat segue to the relationship between the female genital parts, if a doctor's telling the story! It's not the professionals that are the problem. It's the telling of fable as fact. In fact, it would not be fable if it were qualified as somebody's opinion!

Anyway, Colossians 2:18 says: "Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such people also go into great detail about what they have seen, and their unspiritual minds puff them up with idle notions." Angels are messengers. Worship means "worth-ship." So why do people want to conceive of their bodies as consisting of the quality of the messages? I don't think nerves or lesions or physical problems are really to blame as much as they are diagnosed to be the problem. Our blood is there to constantly refresh. However, addictions use the substances in blood to feed the brain. They do this by putting stress on the individual so that the blood brain barrier becomes more penetrable to the right size particles. It's the blood that's the problem. Hypnosis causes it to increase and decrease in various parts of the body that can induce catalepsy, which is associated with schizophrenia and epilepsy. Other side effects can be depression, which represents resting reduced blood flow in the hyperfrontal region. For example, the left brain experiences an increase during hypnosis and a decrease after hypnosis. The left brain is conceived to hold logic and language functions. Therefore, when it is engorged with blood trying to passively resist the effect of the hypnotist, the person might become chatty, but anger is not allowed through the emotional resistance to expressing it when the hypnotist is around. If you train yourself to be your own hypnotist (autogenic training), you might never be able to express anger. If somebody else is your hypnotist, you might express anger when told and persuaded to. This is not logic, although people might think that anything persuasive to the speaker counts as logic. Logic is a sign convention.

Answer 9

Some respond to what they receive..we all need to learn respect and to ask things properly..however I have noticed that there seems to be a greater swing away of those who ask like that and more of those who ask mocking questions, sarcastic questions and use other tactics. I wish we could just have an ignore feature to ignore those kind of people..

Answer 10

Because even a different belief or different Christianity calls for them to tear into one another. That's the thing with hate, it just goes and goes.