So you call describing me as ignorant and claiming that me an my chapter are close minded.....not making a judgment?

Once again, I don't discuss what goes in to selecting pledges for my fraternity. If you want to form your own opinions, be my guest.

Shinerbock,

But it's so fun to be judgmental of hypocrisy. There's no danger that you'll be called to be anything other than honest.

You can do anything you want as long as you don't declare that it's wrong, and you can still sit around and judge others. It requires no self-discipline, but you get to be self-righteous.

Who doesn't love that?

shiner, I think the bottom line is that when we all sit down and make those tough membership selection decisions that our prejudices are often what guide those decisions.

We can all trumpet our respective HQs' rules all we want. Membership selection is what it is.

I consider every man that is a member of SAE a "brother" in the sense that they are members of my fraternity and have accepted the responsibility of being a member of my fraternity.

I honestly don't concern myself with SAEs that I don't know. Sure, I'll treat them the same I would anyone else, but I wouldn't consider them in the same category as the men in my chapter whom I have grow close with and built long lasting friendships and relationships with. If I met Joe Blow from a chapter of SAE 3000 miles away, I probably wouldn't go around introducing him as my "fraternity brother". To me, my fraternity brothers are those that I pledged with and that I am with in the same chapter. Even when we go back home for holidays and such and I see friends that are SAEs at different schools.......I don't go around calling them my fraternity brothers.

If there are SAEs that are gay......I honestly don't really care. That is their choice. I consider them a brother in my fraternity just as I would any other brother that I don't know.

You know, perhaps the biggest beef I have with many true liberals I've run across is this inane idea that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either (1) stupid or (2) just has thought about it enough/learned enough. :rolleyes:

I think when one posts something like this (complete with emphasis added, no less):

one is most certainly making a judgment about the person the post is directed to. It's an accusation that he doesn't live up to the ideals of his own fraternity.

Interesting and not at all joking, but that is my impression of most conservative-minded folks that I know, which is why I generally won't argue with them.

Case in point:

True to a point.

My experience is that many (certainly not all) hard core conservatives will accuse anyone who doesn't agree with them of being stupid or ignorant. While many (again, not all) hard core liberals will make the same accusations, it is almost always, in my experience, the hard core liberals who will throw out the additional accusation that someone just hasn't learned enough or thought about it enough.

I'll never forget the very liberal friend who (in a discussion on the topic at hand in this thread, as it happened) said, "I just don't understand how any thinking person" could take a more conservative view of things. She was a bit taken back when I said, "And that's part of the problem. You're not taking the time to try to understand a position that differs from yours; instead, you're just writing it off as incomprehensible and unenlightened. Nobody's going to get anywhere that way. It's always so much easier simply to demonize someone who disagrees with you than to accept the possibility that someone as 'thoughtful' as you didn't come to the same conclusion you did."

I think the subject chamged at that point. :D

Conservative-minded people tend, on the other hand, to reduce liberal thinking to emotional (read irrational, illogical--this is a comment that I often hear conservative-minded folks make) knee-jerk, politically correct, guilt-laden responses to the issue at hand (look over on AKA Ave. or DST Blvd. for some examples of this).

I guess that happens on both sides, with zealous conservatives and liberals. It doesn't really serve anybody for people to be so closed to the ideas of others. In fact, part my definition of liberal means being open to an receptive to all ways of thinking, willing to listen to them, even if you ultimately don't agree with them.

Also, I am a teacher, so I hear all manner of interesting philosophies from my students.

I would agree with that, adding that to be truly liberal in the root sense of the word (which may or may not coincide with politically or socially liberal), one must always remain open to the possibility of being persuaded that one is wrong about any given thing.

Exactly, and it is from that root sense of the word that I begin when I talk about being both liberal-minded and conservative-minded (thus the qualifier); which, paradoxically, means that conservative-minded and politically and socially liberal people can be one in the same, while politically and socially conservative people might actually be quite liberal in their thinking.

So, in essense, I think we are both saying that we should just hug it out. :rolleyes: :)

I certainly don't want to derail this or make a mess but there has been something that bothers me about this discussion and I just want to play devils advocate for a moment. I will defend to the hilt an organization's right to choose their members... but I find it interesting that some people use the fact that their organization rituals are based on Christianity as a reason to discriminate in membership selection. What is Christian about discrimination? I thought God is the only judge?

Lol, love that Soror! I've been following this debate, but stayed out of it because I didn't see the point. But what you said about being liberal-minded and conservative-minded makes total sense.

I notice that on both "sides" and am pretty much tired of talking to anyone who gives their identity over to a label. The only label I will accept is that of human. If someone wants to discuss things with me as rational human beings great. But conserveative and liberal have become terms like lutherean and calvanist in the reformation. Believe/think/worship/behave in the same manner as I do otherwise you are stupid/immoral/ and if you are a centrist then you are weak willed and a fense sitter and can't make up your mind. All of it's a load of horse skyte if you ask me.

^^We have already hugged it out, and you can too. :)

@Sugar, Thank your Soror!

Oh, I think that the derailment from the OP happened a long time ago.

I think there's a real (and very scriptural) tension here. Discrimination and judgment can be very Christian. Yes, we are told to "judge not, lest ye be judged" -- this seems to have more to do with people saying "you are damned . . . " when damnation is not our call -- and not to harp on the mote in a brother or sister's eye while ignoring the log in our own.

But the NT is also full of warnings for believers not to have dealings with idolotors or immoral people (with descriptions, in some cases, of what kind of behavior can constitute immorality) and not to allow them fellowship in the church. Kind of hard to heed those warnings without some discriminating judgment.

Would, for example, you make the same claim that it is not Christian to judge or discriminate if the object of the judgment or discrimination was, say, a member of NMBLA, a porn trafficker or a white supremicist?

I am not in a GLO that claims a particularly Christian identity or heritage, so I'll leave it to others to say how this tension translates into such a GLO or other non-church organization. But I think the idea that "it's not Christian to discriminate," while it sounds warm and fuzzy, is really rather simplistic.