[PavlovsCat]

> Why not just say 'Thanks'?

> It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism.

I know I'm quoting out of context, but I had to.

> My experience is that even the most benign-seeming of errors can cause problems sooner or later.

But of course you don't mean the mistake of mistaking a genuine attempt to be friendly for something to be indignated about. No, when someone speaks from their position into your life, that is not okay. If you speak from your position into theirs, it's super objective and correct, and to downvote them into oblivion is a perfectly adequate response. Who here would care if they're hellbanned? Just another peddler of religious beliefs, nuke them.

Oh, but as Bill Hicks said: Newsflash, you're dead too. Mistakes lead to a bad outcome, so does perfection. So I don't quite get the posturing.

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. -- Charles Bukowski

Yet from what I can tell, not believing in a particular fairy tale doesn't mean that every single thing you otherwise hold true isn't a fairy tale as well. It doesn't take a lot of science or introspection to realize that, does it? When people say "Planet Earth" instead if exactly describing the configuration of all matter and energy in the universe, does that make you angry, too?

[lmm]

> But of course you don't mean the mistake of mistaking a genuine attempt to be friendly for something to be indignated about

Projecting much? I never said anything about being indignant; it annoys me, or maybe saddens is a more appropriate term, but that doesn't mean I respond in anger. Pretending you think someone's right when they've just said something wrong may be the easy way out, but being truly friendly requires being more honest (and sure, sometimes it turns out it was you who was wrong all along).

> Who here would care if they're hellbanned?

I think HN's hellbanning is a terrible practice, I've said so repeatedly, and if you have any suggestions for how I could prevent it then I'd genuinely welcome them. But I don't think "don't downvote anyone" is a good response.

> Yet from what I can tell, not believing in a particular fairy tale doesn't mean that every single thing you otherwise hold true isn't a fairy tale as well. It doesn't take a lot of science or introspection to realize that, does it? When people say "Planet Earth" instead if exactly describing the configuration of all matter and energy in the universe, does that make you angry, too?

I'm not perfect, and I never will be. That doesn't mean I shouldn't try to become better.

[PavlovsCat]

I am sorry, I expressed myself very badly. I didn't mean to jump at you for the votes etc., but the general reaction to that post really astonished and saddened me.

And when I said "posturing", I was not even just thinking of this thread, but general delusions about being objective. I can see being "more objective", but even that will always be vague, and I think "objective, period" is out of the reach of anything within the universe. Simply because it's in and part of it. Yes, I get that religious stuff can be annoying, but so is thinking you're suddenly sooo objective just because you're not religious... On the scale between subjective and objective, the needle doesn't even visibly move, so to speak.

When someone expresses genuine condolences in an awkward way, a huge drama over religion and calling that person basically evil and wrong is kinda tragic. Like petty fights at a funeral. But you shouldn't be the scapegoat for that, just like that Indian poster shouldn't be the scapegoat for pushy religious people they were mistaken for.

General idea: If someone says something that means something nice in their culture, but means "asshole" in the one of the listener, they still said something nice, it's just misunderstood. Each knowing the culture of the other better would fix that. That's how I see it, anyway.