tact

[His Noodly Appendage]

I get in a hell of a lot of trouble with my religious SO for being a somewhat tactless bastard when it comes to religion. I'm not sufficiently awed and respectful in debates, and when demonstrably faulty arguments are made, I've been known to use reductio ad absurdum - otherwise known as taking the piss.

Fair enough, that needs to change. It's a damn hard habit to break, being a born table-thumper, but I'll do what I can.

What I need help with, though, is this concept of 'sacredness', and a sense of its emotional hookups. Being raised atheist, I don't even have the social conditioning to cut a sufficiently wide swathe around religious issues to avoid offense.

I'm constantly stumbling into walls, causing great pain on both sides, because I seem to be severely lacking in empathy on the issue, and have to navigate around the issues intellectually, rather than having an intuitive emotional sense of it.

Yes, I can try harder to just keep my fool mouth shut, but it's hard to do in the middle of a good rousing argument. Bricks can be flying on both sides, and everyone seems to be coping fine, but then I'll toss one back and it will be completely unacceptable - and I never seem to know in advance which ones they are. It gets taken as a massive personal attack, a deliberate attempt to emotionally harm, when all I was doing was attacking the *idea*.

An example would be calling God a torturer and generally horrible person for running a giant room 101 full of billions of people subjected to infinite suffering. Somehow, this is construed as hating/attacking the person I'm expressing the opinion to. WTF? Did I claim *they* invented it? What did I do?

This seems to be one of my flat sides - I seem to be missing some basic emotional hookups that other people take for granted. Ferinstance, I honestly don't 'get' sexual jealousy. The evidence would seem to suggest that it's more or less inherent in humans, given the un-debatable emotional nature of it - but I simply feel none of the normal pain/anger/etc that people speak of when I consider the prospect of my mate shopping around. I simply feel nothing. (*leaving* me for someone else would be another matter, I'm as attached as anyone - but what they do with their own bodies while I'm not around is no skin off my nose, so to speak)

The same goes for attacks on things or people that I hold dear. I can take offense, I can get angry on their behalf, and I can feel grief and desire for vengeance if they are actually hurt, but I just don't get personally hurt by the attacks themselves.

This seems to run counter to the normal reactions of others, as evidenced by the amazing amount of trouble I get in and the unintentional hurt I cause.

The example that always gets thrown at me is an insult to my family, and the pain I would feel from that - but it just doesn't work for me.

You call my mother something awful, I'd be angry on her behalf, I'd think hugely less of you for it, if it turned out to be true, I might feel ashamed - but I just don't get this sense of personal injury that I'm supposed to feel. It's them you're attacking, not me.

What I'm really, really hoping for is an analogous relationship that DOES make sense to me, a way of thinking about it that will give me some early warning without having to analyse everything to death before I say it, or simply avoid entire topics (as tends to happen, and it sucks)

If not, I'll settle for someone who at least knows where I'm coming from.

Does this make sense to anyone?

jbc

[House of Games]

{Off-topic post deleted}

Edit- Please remember that this is a support thread.

[Postcard73]

I'm sure there are a lot of people around here who will have better advice about this than I do, but have you ever opened up to your SO the way you just opened up to us? I don't mean an "oops, I just did it again so I better go into damage control" type of thing. I mean, have you ever explained that you don't know how not to be insulting when it comes to religion and that it really bothers you because you don't want to be? Have you ever asked your SO to help you understand the concept of "sacredness"? Instead of approaching it like an argument, just give your SO a chance to talk unhindered. If you're sincere and can stand to keep your mouth shut and listen (something I have trouble with also), then it might not only help you deal with this specific problem but strengthen your relationship in general...

[Hooboy !!]

Originally posted by jbc
I can take offense, I can get angry on their behalf, and I can feel grief and desire for vengeance if they are actually hurt, but I just don't get personally hurt by the attacks themselves.

This seems to run counter to the normal reactions of others, as evidenced by the amazing amount of trouble I get in and the unintentional hurt I cause.
I'm the same way. Funny, because a friend of mine pointed this out to me at lunch just yesterday.

Her point was that I am either afriad of confrontation (obviously not true) or I am very selfish. I think the later is true, but I have never been ashamed of being selfish, nor does this mean that I am incapable of altruism.

The way I look at it is...Life is too short to chase after and attack every wind mill that comes along. So, I pick my battles pretty carefully. When you think about it...there really aren't that many things that are worth getting bloody over. I would much rather spend my time on other things.

[Ricomise]

I'll preface these comments with the statement that I, of course, don't know you at all, and therefore have no idea how you express yourself, and may be completely wrong, but...

I'll venture a guess that it may not necessarily be what you say, but how you're saying it. Different people have different ways of expressing themselves, and I have seen people who I know do not mean any harm say things that I may agree with but nevertheless make me cringe. It is not usually the content of the message, because there is no offense intended, but rather the way in which it is communicated.

An absurd example might be the difference between saying "Your mom is a dirty whore" and "I understand your mother has been involved in some indiscrete behavior." (I know you have said that attacks on relatives don't evoke an emotional reaction in you, but you may see what I'm driving at.)

The difference is usually a bit more subtle, but I have had good luck in using such arguments without being found to be offensive as long as I am careful with my phrasing.

That being said, I completely agree with you about the attacks on family members and sexual jealousy. (I was even dumped one time with the explanation that I was not "jealous enough.")

Another thing I don't get that I think is similar is the penchant for people to categorize based on perceived sexual behavior. (The whole "slut" idea.) Why on earth does it matter to anyone how many sexual partners another person, whether it be a co-worker, friend or someone wearing a certain style of clothing at a club, has had?

Anyway, just one possible idea.

[the_cave]

Ricomise has a good point about how to phrase things. Or maybe you could think about it this way; let's say you were very close with a relative of yours--let's say your father. Then someone comes along and says your father is as bad as Hitler. Wouldn't you be a little offended? First of all, you might be offended on his behalf if the criticism were unjust. Secondly, well, you might not understand this, but it might feel as though it is in fact a slight against you. If you're close with someone, if someone else tells disrespects them, it's as though they're suggesting or implying that your trust is worthless. You're also probably putting a lot of love into the relationship--so someone slandering the object of your love is suggesting or implying that your love is misguided, and hence that you are misguided.

Probably Ricomise is onto something, and it's a matter of tact--just like you wrote in the OP ;) Just phrase things a little more politely, use a little more restraint, and they'll probably get better.