What I Can't Stand

I am bugged by people telling me I am not a Christian. Or that because I follow a living prophet, that I am not following the bible. And especially by those who claim to be Christians persecuting me because of my different beliefs. I often feel like Gandhi: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Not that I am a good Christian, myself, which fact bugs me just as much.

I am annoyed at claims that using "Me" as a subject has become acceptable in speech. "Me" is an object. It is always an object. I have proven that I will argue even with one of my best friends about this to the point of rudeness. Yes, I always use "I" as the subject of my sentences. No, I am not some expert at a trivial point of academia; I simply speak correctly. And I expect everyone to meet my standards. You don't have to use subjunctive or speculative conditional forms of verbs correctly (were I to require this, it would require that I go without friends) but for the love of Noam Chomsky, use pronouns correctly!

And my latest peeve. Unless you are a theologian discussing cosmic forces, never use this sentence: "Everything will work out the way it's supposed to." In the exception I mentioned, I find this sentence acceptable, because I believe that Good will triumph over Evil on the grand scheme. However, for anyone who believes in free will to assert this on anything but a cosmic level is asinine. There is either free will or a perfectly controlled fate with scripted endings. Not both. I am perfectly able to screw up royally, thank you. To say that everything works out the way it is meant to, means that all the pain and evil inflicted on others was supposed to happen. And it wasn't. It is part of God's plan only insofar that man's agency is part of his plan, but the actual painful consequences of man's evil use of agency is not predetermined by God. That sentence is an adage meant to comfort those who don't want to worry about potential consequences.