Anybody else deal with this issue?

[Flyndaran]

and without fail the "us" will believe without a doubt that the "them" are trying to persecute them.

And thereby BE the persecutors. It's why the judicial system was set up to override the majority, when the majority is wrong.

[smileyeagle1021]

And thereby BE the persecutors. It's why the judicial system was set up to override the majority, when the majority is wrong.

except in California where the majority said to hell with this, if the judicial system won't cooperate we'll just rewrite the constitution to force them to persecute the "them" with us.

[Flyndaran]

except in California where the majority said to hell with this, if the judicial system won't cooperate we'll just rewrite the constitution to force them to persecute the "them" with us.

And with a chickensh*t supreme court that won't take any case even vaguely related to gay rights, the other two branches are allowed almost unfettered rule to persecute and trample on civil liberties.

[Jadedcarguy]

My sister went through exactly the same thing in Idaho. She, like me, is an atheist, and has no problem saying so. Could not find a job to save her life until she figured out why. Her next interview, she showed up with a gold cross necklace, and mentioned the church closest to her house. Hired.


It will be a lovely day when this shit stops mattering.

[Flyndaran]

...
It will be a lovely day when this shit stops mattering.

But the day after might be problematic. There are very strong evolutionary reasons why our species is so prone to rigid clannish behavior.

It would be interesting to see how such a species would act without strong us vs. them attitudes or even the underlying urge to join groups.

[Slytovhand]

There are very strong evolutionary reasons why our species was so prone to rigid clannish behavior.

Edited for accuracy...

Yes - we shall see...

[Flyndaran]

Edited for accuracy...

Yes - we shall see...

No. Putting the word "was" in that place makes the sentence say that you don't think people have excessive clannish behavior NOW.

I think you meant to make my sentence state that people are no longer under evolutionary forces to be as clannish as we are presently.

Personally, I think the forces are stronger now. When groups get bigger than a couple hundred the only things keeping them together is group identity. That is the whole concept behind nations and just about any other huge group.

[Boozy]

It would be interesting to see how such a species would act without strong us vs. them attitudes or even the underlying urge to join groups.

Well, the whole basis for the world economy would collapse. The world would likely be indistinguishable.

Clan behaviour doesn't have to be a bad thing. For example, there's nothing wrong with my company trying to get more market share than our competitors. The competition produces higher quality products and lower prices. And it would be completely impossible if our employees didn't strongly identify with Company A instead of Company B.

But like with anything, Us vs. Them can be taken to an unhealthy extreme.

[Slytovhand]

Yeah, sort of...

More about the 'evolutionary' side of things. There were evolutionary reasons for clannish behaviour.

Now, the clannish behaviour isn't from an evolutionary basis. Now, such behaviour doesn't make sense, and is more destructive than survival.

I'm not so sure about it being stronger though. More obvious in some respects - yes. But the 'clan' as such seems to have dissolved a fair bit, to be replaced by nationalism... probably for the worse.

[Flyndaran]

Yeah, sort of...

More about the 'evolutionary' side of things. There were evolutionary reasons for clannish behaviour.

Now, the clannish behaviour isn't from an evolutionary basis. Now, such behaviour doesn't make sense, and is more destructive than survival.

I'm not so sure about it being stronger though. More obvious in some respects - yes. But the 'clan' as such seems to have dissolved a fair bit, to be replaced by nationalism... probably for the worse.

Same biological source but with cultural differences in expression in my humble opinion.
Evolution is still affecting our species, very different forces than ancient ones, but still going on.
Nearsightedness that would have lead to early deaths way back is allowed to spread throughout our population. That's evolution as poor vision isn't necessary to live long enough to reproduce.
While most aspects of the evolution of modern man are dismal, there is one silver lining.
Every successful species evolves rate of aging to accomodate expected lifespans without considering rate of aging.
A wild mouse that even if magically kept from aging would still likely only live say three years in the wild because of all the other hazards of living has no need to evolve a slow rate of aging. Getting old around 2 1/2 and old at 3 fits perfectly.

[Shangri-laschild]

I used to be a member of that religion. I was always amazed at how many of the girls seemed like this perfect cookie cutter of each other. Sweet, nice, most likely to seem like a homemaker type even if they worked. That wasn't me. Not at all. I got lucky sort of. The ward I was in had nice girls. They were accepting and welcomed me and my friend (who was very much like me) and included us. The leaders were the problem. They made us feel like we were so different that we had to be watched because we were more likely to infect the others since it was a given that we were going to to bad. In retrospect, I don't know that I would have left the church as soon as I did if it hadn't been for them.

For me it was just two leaders who made things really really bad for me and my at the time best friend. When you get in areas where the population of them is higher, the cookie cutter-stepford wife bit kicks in a bit higher and it can be a bit harder to find a way to fit in and be accepted. Maybe just remember that not all of them are bad. I know it's going to take some work but you never know. I know when I was active in the church, I still never once gave a damn about what the other person's religion was. I'd invite them to activities if they wanted to come, and if they said no, it wouldn't phase me. There are decent ones out there. It'll take some work and you might still for a bit have that initial twinge of distrust but just train yourself each time to look beyond that and it'll slowly get better.

[Slytovhand]

After reading Shangri-la's post, I thought of something that is relevant here (and in politics). Moderates rarely get to positions of leadership. I think because moderation means usually having to take a back-seat to your ego and desires - which means actually having to listen and accept other people and their ideas. Such is not usually found in leadership positions.

People look to leaders because they lead - not because they sit around and do a lot of listening.

So, it's really no wonder that anything 'different', anything that doesn't fit in with how they see the world (how they've been taught to see the world), gets 'rejected'. And, such people tend to be 'loud', vocalising their thoughts and beliefs - and thus, being heard over the more moderates views and opinions.. and thus creating a stereotype.

(yes, I"m generalising.. but I'd still reckon it to be fairly accurate).

[Boozy]

Moderates rarely get to positions of leadership.

I disagree. There is an unmistakable "draw to the middle" in both the Canadian and American system (I don't know enough about others to say either way.)

For example, there are a number of far-right evangelicals in the Republican party. Even though their views might be more suited to other fringe parties, they choose to run as Republicans because their more extreme views don't appeal to those middle-of-the-road swing voters. For example, a raging homophobe can stump against gay marriage, but he can't say that homosexuals should be sent to re-education camps, even if that's what he really thinks.

Same on the left. There are almost certainly Democratic politicians who believe that there should be no limitations on abortion, no matter the age of the fetus. But it's political suicide to voice that opinion.

Often we are left with wishy-washy people who won't take a stand on anything, because they are slaves to opinion polls. By attempting to appeal to voters on both sides of any issue, they end up appealing to no one. Or they just don't get anything done.

[crashhelmet]

I've experienced situations like this a few times on two fronts. Not really to the height of what the OP experienced, but still similar.

Background on me. I'm a military brat, I'm Catholic, and I'm half-white, half-Mexican.

Being a Military brat, I moved around a lot as a kid. There are 5 kids in my family, so most of the time, we were forced to live off base since there wasn't any housing on base big enough for us.

The race issue was experienced the most, but that's saved for a different forum or topic. As far as religion is concerned, while living in a community in the south my family was ostracized when our neighbors found out that we were Catholic.

We got the Why don't you come to (Local Church) on Sunday? Insert whole "recruitment" spiel about why you need God in your life, etc. etc. We would say we goto church, we just don't go to yours. That would turn into things like "well, our Church is the best, Pastor so and so is the top in the region, won these awards and commendations, etc etc. Besides, (other Protestant church) has problems with this and that. They're not really good churches if you ask me", and so on.

Once they learned we were Catholic, we were sinners headed straight for Hell and it then it seemed as if we didn't have neighbors at all. No one ever came by that wasn't a friend of my dad's or their families.

Thankfully, we were only there for 6 months. I don't know if my dad's station changed on its own (That happened A LOT) or if my dad pulled some strings.

CH

[jedimaster91]

Dragging this up for my two cents. Appologies in advance.

I do happen to be a member of the aforementioned religion, and before I scare you away, I would like to apologize on behalf of my Western cousins. There does seem to be a definite culture difference between members of this religion that grow up/live in the Western US, and those of us who live elsewhere.

As someone else mentioned, there are those overzealous idiots in every group, and I'm sorry you had to deal with a whole town of them. I sincerely hope that your aversion to us can be overcome in time. I'm going to be very sterotypical here for a second and say that generally speaking, when we are in the minority, we tend to be a little more tolerant of other viewpoints. In my area, there aren't a lot of members who can trace their ancestory back to the pioneers, and I truly believe it makes a difference. We converts understand that not everyone believes in the same things we do and we remember being on the other side of the fence. I personally grew up with this religion, but my parents did not. All of my extended family is of a different faith than I, and for most of my growing up years, I was the only member of my religion in schools with several hundred to a couple thousand students. I grew up in the reverse situation as your experience, and at times was ostrescized (sp?) for my beliefs.

I used to wonder what it would be like to live in an area where there were more members of my faith, and after working with a group of supervisors from Salt Lake, I decided I'd go crazy if I ever moved West. They were good people, but cliquey and were more concerned with the letter of certain rules than the spirit of the rules.

So, again, I apologize for your bad experience, but please realize we're not all like that. I firmly believe that if we were all the same, life would be boring, so I like being around people who are different. My best friend in highschool was so opposite of me in every belief and opinion I had, but we respected one another and agreed to disagree. And she was the only one of my highschool buddies that came to my wedding reception.

Also apologies to you Westerners of this religion. I really hope I didn't offend anyone (too much, lol), but I really felt I needed to set a few things straight.