Lori (my girlfriend - a non-JW). and I had quite a discussion last night. I am almost always a VERY tolerant, easygoing person, but there is this one aspect of my personality that has caused us a certain amount of tension. Hmmm....
When I hear someone espousing an opinion or viewpoint that I KNOW is stupid, unreasoned and intellectually indefensible - essentialy on any topic that I've thoroughly researched and really, really thought seriously about - I just want to smack them up side the head and tell them what a fucking idiot they are. To say that I am condescending and view that person as intellectually lacking is to put it fairly mildly. For a nice guy, I can really go off on this...
Last night Lori cornered me about where this attitude comes from. As we discussed it, there was this breakthrough for me. I came to understand that this intolerance for what I see as stupidity goes back to being a Witness and having to stifle myself time after time, year after year, when I knew I was hearing someone spout total bullshit from the platform or in the pages of WTS literature.
When I was a Witness, and especially as I was leaving, I had discussions with many, many elders and COs. Time after time I heard statements, for instance in regard to the evidence that there was no flood or that evolution is a fact, like this: "Well, I can come up with all sorts of ideas for that" about why the 160,000-year-old ice shields covering the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland completely disprove the Noachian Flood and the 6,000-year date for the creation of Adam in a tropical paradise, why the cave paintings in France can be dated back 20,000 years or more, etc. This from JW men who have absolutely no knowledge of science or the scientific method or the concept that any idea, in order to be considered credible, must be falsifiable.
I found myself time and again trying to have serious, logical discussions with men who were totally ignorant of science and logic, yet who saw themselves as superior to science and logic because they were worshippers of the one true god via the one true religion. The last CO I talked with about any of these ideas told me how ready he was to go head-to-head on evolution, having just studied all the latest on the intelligent design issue. My god...
Anyway, it was very helpful for us to get this kind of insight into why I could just blow up when I hear someone spouting something that is total idiocy and bullshit.
Have any of you had this same issue come up after leaving the Witnesses? As in: "beware the fundamentalist, intelligent design proponent or any other intellecutally indefensible viewpoint idiot that crosses my path?"
Thanks for responding, from the normally tolerant
Seeker4