Sometimes on the topic of religion, I can get carried away and not even know it. My husband says "OK, you can put away the soapbox now" to cue me in that I've started ranting about it. My brother purposely tries to prod me into standing on my soapbox with issues like separation of church and state.
What topics get you standing on a soapbox? (Purposefully or not).
Believers in Astrology. I am quiet at first, then comes the question, "what's your star sign" and I have several come back options, none of which is my star sign.
What are a couple of examples? I am floored when people so casually and seriously ask me that.
There are probably a lot of overlapping opinions here so I'm just going to dive in since there are over 40 ahead of me.
Separation of church and state, inequality for women, LGBT, and people of color, politics(especially the cluster**** that was the 2016 election), dirty/murderous cops and the crooked legal systems that fails to find them guilty, white supremacists/ racists...
That's all I can think of now, I'm sure there are more.
I always see these posts when there's a ton of replies, but in this case, I bet a lot of us have overlapping conditions that bring out the soapbox.
Church-state separation, far-right evangelical Republicans and most of the political stuff that went on in 2017, inequality for the LGBT community and people of color, racists, dirty/murderous cops and the crooked legal system that doesn't put them in jail.
That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there are more.
Easier to answer what doesN'T. Religion espec. all things Islam, anti-civil-rights (anti-gun) efforts, anti-1A (anti-speech) efforts, anti-7A (anti-jury aka "tort reform" ) efforts, denial deceit and delusion about violent crimes in our country, USA warmongering foreign policy, anti-freedom (anti cannibas) efforts, climate change denial, anti-4A (illegal warrantless spying) efforts, SJW / antifa / third wave feminists nonsense, the insane level of wealth and income inequality -- on and on and on.
Literally anything revolving miracles, practices, difference in beliefs and mother Teresa xP
Plus anything about psychology, history and science that involves religion
This is a great topic, in my opinion. My two main triggers are the war in Viet Nam and marijuana. The two are tied together in time, and by one evil, vindictive man. I managed to escape Viet Nam because of marijuana. I'm reasonably sure I would not have survived since I would have been a 2nd Lt. leading an infantry platoon. Damn. That sentence still makes me a bit woozy. Marijuana, legal now in my state, would have been legal many years ago except for Nixon getting it classified as a schedule one drug, which killed research and gave marijuana a stigma and a legal status it didn't merit.
FREE WILL. I was 25 when I realized that free will is an illusion. It is a belief that creates all kinds of erroneous thinking, like people telling others what they should feel and blaming others for what they want or don't want. I should probably stop right here or I will be on my soapbox, and that is not what this post is about.
"Intelligent design". Candidates running on an eliminate-abortion platform. "Trickle-down" economics (give tax breaks to the "job creators" ). People who don't believe global warming is escalated by our industrial societies.
I find political language to be as substantial as impure wind. Shifting alliances or viewpoints simply to gain votes based on a mandate that they have little or no intention keeping, kind of sums it up for me. In nearly every industry with which I am familiar employees undergo an annual performance review and are either eligible for promotion and or a pay rise. Why should politicians be exempt from annal or end of term assessments? Of course, this might result in a government based on meritocracy, that is, people who keep their promises and implement their pledges.
Fantasy Wars
A never-ending stories of Religious conflicts over war and Sex/love.
As your Stomach Turns 2nd season
After the war of a billion Muslims and a billion Christians , christ won . Christian claim to take(steal) every soul in the Universe, including dogs, cats and Aliens.
Manys groups escaped earth to create their own planet . Like Gays- planet Queerto. Or nonbelievers, planet Godless. Mormon's planet Babe. Muslim genocide was worst than the American natives, coupled by their low technology they never got off the ground.
Christian forced atheist to build their spaceship to conquer other planet in the name of God based on fear and fairytales. They continue to get lost in space due 1000s of their own Christian denomination disagreement.
I would require and cost me several vomit buckets to produce it. Yet the Religious soup opera will egurgitate it, like hot cakes.
Depending how strong my mood is it can be hard to keep my mouth shut about the following:
"Adopt don't shop"
"It's all in how you raise them"(dogs)
"Cropped vs flopped" ears
So the worst for me is the topic of dogs with most people.
I hate being asked about dogs as if I'm an expert (which I'm not-know just enough to be an opinionated pita) when in a group of friends because editing my thoughts isn't easy in that regard.
Have to pep talk myself prior "I will not talk about dogs tonight x 100" and feel inordinately proud when able to avoid the topic.
I am not sure of breaking out my soapbox... But lot of subjects irks me. The growing fanaticism and fundamentalism in the government. Injecting the religious venom and killing the innocence of the child. Games people play in Corporate world -
The total apathy towards society by many corporates and then camouflage the apathy with CSR. List goes on
Unfortunately the people that wrote the constitution intended to separate church and state, over the years religion siding gets votes so the political entities started incorporating religious ideas in the doctrines. If you read careful back in history people like Ben Franklin did not want one god idea he thought many gods would be better to avoid the prejudice issues (example my religion is better than your bickering) Not exactly certain why they did not listen to Ben Franklin they could have saved many miss doing in our history if the congress would have listened back then. How many senseless deaths could have been avoided?
This is a bad habit for me and not just with religion; guns, environmental issues, women's issues, and more. The one thing that really gets me going is that so many liberals, who are supposed to be open minded, actually being closed minded regarding some of their emotion based "causes".
My partner often reminded me I was speaking to the choir. I told her I know but was just thinking out loud. Now you guys get to be the 'lucky' recipients of my rantings.
I know what you are talking about. I take no political sides if they had a box for how I think, I would bet very few people would check the box. The biggest issue that no one ever addresses is how Congress and Senate is permitted to hold oil futures and stocks in companies that control our economy.Not saying that there should be a forbid on making money for them, there should be a cap on how much stocks, bonds and futures anyone of them can hold including family members.