How is it that you presume to know what others think and feel?

Question

This applies to everyone here guilty of the following or similar issues:

Religious: People not of my religion, especially non-believers, are just running away from responsibility!/They haven't read my holy text!/They're just angry!/They have no morals!/They know God exists but they reject it!/etc.

Non-religious: They're just running away from responsibility! (funny how both sides say this)/They haven't read their own holy text! (funny how both sides say this)/They don't ever think for themselves!/etc.

Anti-homosexuality: They CHOOSE to be gay!/They just want to have sex with everything!/They're hedonists!/None of them could raise a child properly!/They don't want to take responsibility for what they do!/etc.

and many more...

How can you make these statements about other people, especially if you haven't been in their shoes? How can you say that everyone is the same way even if you HAVE been in their shoes?

Do you not realize how limited every human's experiences are?

expertless: WRONG. This isn't about definitions. This isn't about identities. 2=2, bank robber = robber of banks. This is about opinions and thoughts about what other people are THINKING AND FEELING, not what they ARE. If I were talking about that, I'd be asking how we can call anyone Christian or atheist or what have you.

ahmad: I was really talking about the online world, but okay. What you said is good, but still very subjective.

mark: Yeah. Of course. So if you THINK Jesus tells you that all the homosexual people are choosing homosexuality, if you THINK Jesus is telling you that all the non-Christians are running away from responsibility, you MUST be right! That makes PERFECT sense! I hate this so much. You can't use what one book tells you to figure out everyone around you.

Why I Love My Dog: You can star it, I suppose.

Spike: I don't know those people, but yes. I try my best to avoid it, and I do sometimes make generalizations just to be funny or if I need to make a quick point. I really try to add disclaimers to my questions, as much as I hate doing so, in order to stop people from whining about how they are being misunderstood. Clearly my questions only address those who are guilty of the issue at hand...

I suppose we're all guilty of this at some time or another, but some just don't even realize it or care if they do...

SeekingTruth: I, too, came from another side, and I agree that some of it is a matter of frustration.

But what about homosexuality? 'You CHOOSE it! I know because the Bible tells me so!' I'm not saying you're guilty of this, just raising the issue. People DO say this, and I wonder how they think that a book can explain away everyone who isn't just like them...

HawaiianBrian: Great quotes, but I'm really asking each person to think about what he's doing.

The funny thing is that a question like this gets so few answers, while so many other pointless ones get a lot.

jasmin2236: No, how idiotic. Do you think it's clever to come up with points like this? I'm basing this on what people SAY. When people say 'Atheists are running away from responsibility,' when people say 'Christians don't ever think,' when people say 'Homosexuals CHOOSE their sexuality!' It's clear to me then. It's not opinion; it's fact.

Answer 1

The reason we judge others is complicated. Tom Peter's said “we are drowning in information and starved for knowledge”, and well "stereotypes are a real time saver."* This is a part of human nature, otherwise we'd all suffer from infomation overload.

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble across a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it representative of a whole class.
— Walter Lippman

Stereotypes are the mind’s shorthand for dealing with complexities. They have two aspects: they are much blunter than reality; they are shaped to fit a man’s preferences or prejudgments. Thus two principles are involved: differentiation or its lack, and biased preferential perception.
— Robert E. Lane

Each person paints their picture of reality with a brush dipped in the pigments of the past.
— Jerry Andrus

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

All the time we are aware of millions of things around us--these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road--aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.
— Robert Pirsig, (Zen & Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance; p.69)

The effectiveness of our memory banks is determined not by the total number of facts we take in, but the number we wish to reject.
— Jon Wynne-Tyson

There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
— The movie: “Adaptations” 2003.

Most people falsely assume that they are in touch with reality in its true form, what they don’t realize is that the very process of interpreting reality alters it in some way.
— Me

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices – just recognize them.
— Edward R Murrow

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
— Gordon W.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
— Albert Einstein

We must train ourselves not to see the world only through our own eyes.
— Michael Levine

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are
— Old Talmudic saying

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
— Albert Einstein

Enlightenment is illusion-free reality.
— Buddha, [Siddhartha Gautama] (?563-?483 B.C.E.)

Answer 2

I'm not trying to rationalise it or condone this type of action but I think it comes from frustration.
Some of us came from one side and went to the other: we overgeneralise our experience and we get frustrated because our new lives seem better than our old ones. We seek this betterment for everyone around us and get overly frustrated when the 'other side' don't get our views on the subject. In the end we say things that we shouldn't and end up raging against someone who doesn't deserve it.
I agree with you though, it shouldn't happen, we should not go out in anger or frustration and should give answers that try to avoid personal attacks wherever possible.

God Bless

Answer 3

I have thought this same thing ever since I started using this forum. It's amazing how arrogant people can be to "know" the thoughts and experiences of another person.

Answer 4

Guilty!

Answer 5

guilty as charged...

man oh man...if we eliminated all the questions on this site guilty of the above, there'd be about 50 questions a day to answer...pangel and debra m would OWN this site!

Answer 6

According to your rules, no one should call a bank robber a bank robber. We are semi intelligent and have a right to make assumptions on general information. It doesn't always mean people are being judgemental, just making judgements. there is difference.

Answer 7

1) how they look like when they see something..
2) facial expressions..
3) how they talk, clearly, looking down etc..
4) how they judge people..

Answer 8

Can I vote for best question?

Answer 9

Aren't YOU presuming to know what others think?

Answer 10

Many questions, one answer...Jesus!