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A Brief Rant
...Which may have been occasioned by the different religious observances going on this week and the debates they have engendered.
One of the things the internet has made painfully clear to me is that a lot of people have trouble seeing any group they don't belong to as anything but a giant homogenous entity. In the case of religious/political arguments, this leads to a lot of this:
Q: You say you're a moderate believer in X, so how come you aren't more vocal in disagreeing with the fanatical believers in X?
A: We did disagree with them. Several centuries ago. They kicked us out/tried to kill us for it, so we had to go start our own group. Which is why they currently won't listen to us, and in fact actually hate us more than they hate you.
Q: I still think you're closet allies of theirs. Discussion over, except for the shouting.
One of the things the internet has made painfully clear to me is that a lot of people have trouble seeing any group they don't belong to as anything but a giant homogenous entity. In the case of religious/political arguments, this leads to a lot of this:
Q: You say you're a moderate believer in X, so how come you aren't more vocal in disagreeing with the fanatical believers in X?
A: We did disagree with them. Several centuries ago. They kicked us out/tried to kill us for it, so we had to go start our own group. Which is why they currently won't listen to us, and in fact actually hate us more than they hate you.
Q: I still think you're closet allies of theirs. Discussion over, except for the shouting.