I think it happened this morning, when I was attempting to address the mountain of unread emails in my inbox. I’ve always hated getting fundamentalist BS emails, because (contrary to some opinions) I’m not even close to fundamentalist. In fact, I subscribe to the theory that feminism is the opposite of fundamentalism; if you acknowledge women as human beings who are capable of independent, intelligent thought, you would have a hard time being fundamentalist. I think I’m capable of independent, intelligent thought.
But, back to the emails. Why? Why do I get them? What have I done to in any way inspire anyone to think that I’m a closed-minded, bigoted, fundamentalist, non-thinking sheep following wherever the random shepherd feels like leading? I cannot trust any source that purports to think for me, so I don’t have to think for myself (particularly if it’s been forwarded fifteen times). I used to feel guilty if I didn’t read it (even though I totally disagreed), but now it just makes me angry. Spewing hatred in the name of a religion you can’t be bothered to try to learn about is a violation of everything good and decent about the universe.
If you receive something forwarded and don’t know the root source, think about it a little more critically before you get all riled up and have the knee-jerk forward reaction. If you don’t know what critical thinking is, don’t even click forward, or at least remove me from your send list. Because you have strong convictions about things you may or may not be able to justify with the books you claim to follow, that doesn’t mean I share them. If it’s your own words, your own thoughts, then I’ll talk with you about it. I don’t want to be bombarded, inundated, drowned in your dogma, no matter the flavor.
And that was my collection of thoughts. Still avoiding the email, but I know where the delete button is, and I’m not afraid to use it.
