Threshold of Stupidity Tolerance

 "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein.


I have something called my threshold of stupidity tolerance. It is how I measure the amount of stupid which I can take at any one time before I feel the need to hurt someone. Last night it took less than 10 minutes for that tto be breached. I attended an interfaith presentation and panel discussion on woman within world religions. I enjoyed the presentations themselves and liked the speakers, even though I disagreed with them, which is to be expected since I practice none of their religions.

Having spent some time in college arguing with professors and speakers about how wrong they were to deny my naive and uneducated opinion(s), I eventually realized that I'm an idiot and should keep my mouth shut; Unless the folks who hear my words will either benefit or enjoy hearing my words. I often don't do that, but at least I've come to know that people who've spent a good portion of their lives believing or studying something will probably know more about it than me. Now I'm not certain about this, but when someone who knows more about something then you talks about the subject, when you spend your time listening to or asking good questions of them an experience called learning occurs. When someone who is equipped only with opinion and emotion wont shut up, I experience a mixture of annoyance and anger.

One of the topics which was brought up was sexuality in the various religions. I personally feel that sex is for marriage, that humans are meant to have only one sexual partner who is of the opposite gender that they will partner with in life and the raising of children produced by intercourse or adoption. Not everyone agrees with this, and thats fine. They've not lived my life and might not serve my God. However, I do expect that other people will treat me and my beliefs with the same respect, or at the least tolerance, that I extend to them. I naturally expect people to treat others with this same decency (theres something about that in the Bible, isn't there?).

There were a few ladies there in their 60's who had decided that they were free to ridicule or levy any insult or opinion they had against the woman who'd spoken. Now I've said that I disagreed with what the speakers believed, but I did respect how they presented it. The gals who attacked the speakers came from both conservative and liberal backgrounds but were very concerned with being heard, seemingly regardless of what damage they did to the feelings of the others. I'm not the kind of guy to put up with that.

My aversion to whats I call cruel stupidity comes from having practiced it most my life. I was bullied in school, and since I'm smarter than most people would find my ways of getting back at them. Usually that meant mentally or verbally tearing them apart. I've been hurt by words and have done my share of abusing with them. Because of this my opinion of someone falls quickly if I watch them publicly insult and try to humiliate someone that does not deserve it. Actually, to an extent I don't like seeing it done to people who do deserve it. I recognize that in a way this is what I'm doing here.

It's hard for me to draw the line that divides calling someone out from ridiculing them. Hopefully I'll figure that out someday. But my main point in writing this is that you, as a human, are not tasked with going through your life proving to others how correct you are by the arguments you make. Frankly, if truth is possessed by so cruel a holder I question the benevolence of the god, or gods, they serve. Such cruel criticism and attitudes from the church have driven people away from God, away from the love Jesus has for them. As a Christian, it is not up to me to argue people into believing. It should rather be my joy to live in a way that shows why Christ is a God worth following. I think that if we as his disciples were to come close to obeying what he teaches, that would be the best argument or evidence possible to prove his existence.

As always I want you feedback, especially since this blog is a lot newer in my mind than one's I've posted in the past.

More to come
PJ