Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Envying Self-righteousness

This has to be the most classic question I've read in ages:

"For me, at that moment, she was not a woman who lost a child; she was a self-righteous born-again Christian who didn't have the time of day for a crackhead and I was seeing through her charade of compassion. It was like what Buddhists get all the time: If you're so spiritual, why are you such an asshole?"

This is from an article over at Killing the Buddha. It is about a Buddhist woman who interviews and finds herself curious about some Christians, most of the time anyway. Her questions reflect what I hear from many liberal Christians who envy the confidence in more strict and fundamentalist Christians. While the liberals I know are interested (and sometimes facinated) by such beliefs, most will contend that giving up their compassionate outlook on the unfortunate or disenfranchized isn't worth the trade off. Still, this article is great.

Click here to read more.

2 comments:

Todd said...

what is the inconsistency between a certain level of confidence and a compassionate outlook on the unfortunate and disenfranchized? what is the trade off? you know i am no fundamentalist, but the conundrum you describe in the last couple of sentences seems contrived and unnecessary.

Todd said...

Bo - how is it that confidence and compassion must always be mutually exclusive?