{"id":5778,"date":"2004-07-20T08:06:24","date_gmt":"2004-07-20T15:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/07\/20\/nicest-thing-anyones-said-about-me-today.html"},"modified":"2004-07-20T08:06:24","modified_gmt":"2004-07-20T15:06:24","slug":"nicest_thing_an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/20\/nicest_thing_an.html","title":{"rendered":"Nicest thing anyone’s said about me today"},"content":{"rendered":"

If one were to go solely on what I\u2019ve posted to SEB<\/a> it would be understandable if you thought I didn\u2019t feel there were any believers out there worth talking to outside of ***Dave and JethricOne ….<\/p>\n

While always willing to talk about relgion, either in general or mine in particular, the funny thing here is that I don’t define myself as “a believer.” I don’t wear a big “I’m a believer” badge on my lapel, I don’t flag down people to tell them how to be “saved” (hell, I’m still figuring that one out, so how would I have the audacity to chart someone else’s path?), and I don’t approach every conversation from that, or any other, ideological starting point. While my personal faith is very important to me, it’s not me per se<\/em>, any more than my hobbies or family or residency or hair color. Some might consider that to be not a good Christian, but I think God made me to be more than a sentient prayer wheel (or, rather, God’s intent was for my life to be prayer, not prayer to be my life). <\/p>\n

So I don’t approach things all the time as a “believer.” And, perhaps, that’s what makes me “worth talking to” (if I can fit those words past my blush), since I find that ideologues — whether I agree with their ideologies or not — tend to be dull conversationalists. To paraphrase Maslow, when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to pound your points in too hard.<\/em><\/p>\n

Indeed, to toss the compliment back, one thing that makes SEB <\/a>and Les so readable himself is that it’s not all or fundamentally about — let alone starting-every-sentence with — being a non<\/em>-believer. If it were, it would probably be pretty dull, and it’s usually anything but.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say that blogs (for example) on a certain theme can’t be informative or interesting or enjoyable. But the best tend to focus either on information (which is then either interesting or not in its own right) or about being a person (in which case the theme is coloring, not substance). Blogs that want to Teach You the Truth, Dammit, No Matter How Many Posts It Takes <\/em>don’t stick around for long in my own blogroll.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to get along with, and find (and enjoy) common ground with, a person. It’s a lot more difficult to do so with an ideology or an ideologue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If one were to go solely on what I\u2019ve posted to SEB it would be understandable if you thought I didn\u2019t feel there were any believers out there worth talking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3670,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/09\/free_mickey.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":0},"title":"Free Mickey!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Oct-02 1:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property. I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals,...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10797,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/06\/29\/potpourri_for_another_fri.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":1},"title":"Potpourri for another Friday on Vacation","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 29-Jun-07 9:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Robo-Dave suggests: New Baby Names. I'm a big believer in personal freedom and parental autonomy and all that, but ... yeesh, I feel sorry for some of these kids. Azorryona,...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/giantrobot.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13597,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/06\/a_question_of_election_pr.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":2},"title":"A question of election protocol","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Nov-08 10:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm a big believer in not lording it over others (or being unrepentantly sulky) when it comes to bumper stickers and lawn signs viz elections. I find people...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/obama-bumper-sticker.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5700,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/21\/more_failure_to.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":3},"title":"More failure to communicate","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Jan-04 1:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I've a believer in good, concise sig lines as much as the next person. But this little bit, extracted off the end of an e-mail I received (numbers altered...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130577,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/03\/religious-freedom-requires-defining-religion.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":4},"title":"Religious freedom requires defining religion","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-May-16 7:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article here (if not one I fully agree with) on municipalities looking more closely at facilities owned by organizations and trying to determine which ones are legitimate religious efforts, to be exempted from taxation, vs. which ones are simple commercial efforts, to be be treated (and taxed) like any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26761,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/29\/rip-davey-jones.html","url_meta":{"origin":5778,"position":5},"title":"RIP, Davy Jones","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-Feb-12 11:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"I grew up loving the Monkees, and their TV show, and their music, and, for obvious naming reasons, always appreciated Davy Jones (even if the teen heart-throb thing was a bit much). Thanks for the entertaining times, Davy. #ddtb [Note: for the record, yes, I managed to misspell Mr. Jones'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}