HOW TO TALK BACK

LIKE YOU MEAN IT

The answer is obviously what?

What you have before you is a yes or no question and the answer is obviously what?

The answer has to be no.

And a true believer must learn to say it to their face.

Here's your line:

"Oh no no no, motherfooker - you don't get to tell me whether I'm a Christian or not."

Oops, did I slip up and use name-calling and/or profanity in spite of my many avowals of civil discourse?

I guess you'll just have to forgive me, won't you, or else what would that make you?

I'll repeat myself for the sake of languishing in the soothing warmth of a certainty.

No one else gets to decide whether or not I'm a Christian, and I don't get to decide for anyone else, and the same goes for you.

That's the good news for freedom of religion and the bad news for proselytizers.

So when I say you need to talk back like you mean it, do I mean to say that you're being too nice?

Do I mean to say that you seem all the more false for it?

Do you understand that no one wants to be condescended to?

Do you understand that no one wants another person to manage their emotions?

Let alone to manipulate them?

Until they do, I mean.

And you understand me?

Okay, good.

So let's go back to the principle.

The principal is this:

A person is a Christian just for saying so.

You can't disprove it, so that's the final word. 

They get to declare themselves one.

Theendforeverandanon.