I recently crossed a situation in a yahoo group where someone might have hopped in the group and... might not be there to be part of the fellowship, to put it nicely. 

It is something I have seen many times.  People will "join a religious group", only to say they were "part of the group" and that they saw from "first hand" that the group is "about Devil worship" or something on those lines.  And then they will end with reciting some religious statement aimed toward denouncing other beliefs.  This is psychological oppression.

I just really do not get the point of it.  It is just pure wrong, purely hateful, not to mention purely oppressive.  It isolates that religious group from other people by creating pseudo-propaganda, something that could easily turn into real propaganda.  It does not matter what one's religious beliefs, personal values, etc. are, it seems to happen in every group. 

Suffice to say, it really disgusts me.  It is not that I am against personal opinions, but certain people will turn those personal opinions into some negative stereotype and pass it as factual.  It is one thing when a person tells me that she thinks I may be idolatrous for having symbols and icons.  It is another thing when that same person says that I am part of some cult involving orgies and some ridiculous human sacrifice as a result of that opinion, and that I put value in the icons themselves and not God/dess as a whole. 

:::Sighs.:::  If anything, this kind of thing is childish.  A Nair associate of mine did make an interesting statement about these things, though.  It seems that those with more experience with different cultures or even more education have better things to do than to isolate different groups from the rest of the world.  Part of me wishes that we could just snap our fingers and make everyone know everything, so that they can realize one thing...that they know nothing. 



Sincerely,
ResplendentSeraphim

Alot of people are hard headed and only believe in one way thinking, its sad that some people can't open their minds.  Even if you don't believe in the same things as others doesn't mean you have to put them down or judge them.  Again its sad but I don't think thats ever going to change.