Completely agree with you on this point, JD. Conservatives can be religious or not. Religious can be liberal, conservative, or apolitical. And in my mind a Thumper can be of any religion and any part of the political spectrum.The best term I have heard to describe this, coined by a priest, who last I heard is now a bishop, is "WERF".
Not every conservative religious person is a thumper--not at all. I have sincere respect for most the ministers of most religions I have met--whether I agree with all their beliefs or not.
Thumpers are a small but very vocal, obnoxious minority found anywhere on the political/religious spectrum. A Thumper is someone who generally fits these characteristics:
--They are extremely closed minded about what is morally acceptable
--The believe they have a divine right to shove their morals on everyone else
--They don't rely upon facts or logic, but more upon "MY book is divinely inspired and therefore is perfect. MY interpretation of this book is perfect. YOU must believe as I believe."
--They often convince themselves they are "special" and have divine dispensation to ignore the same morals they want to shove on everyone else (homo-hate ministers who themselves see gay prostitutes come to mind, but the hypocrisy takes other forms as well).
Personally, I seem to hear more of the conservative thumpers than liberal ones on the radio when driving across the bible belt, but I have certainly heard liberal thumpers who are equally disgusting. And as I mentioned above, plenty of atheist thumpers have existed in the past, and muslim thumpers, and probably a lot of varieties I have never had the misfortune to hear.
Again, personally, I am far more likely to categorize a person as a Thumper when they try to regulate activities that don't "contaminate" them, but just exert their control over others. For example: gay marriage, someone else buying a drink on a Sunday morning, prostitution that is truly consensual, etc.
Some topics such as abortion I find much more difficult to categorize because depending upon your real, personal convictions some people do see it as affecting another life, and some don't. I have strong personal views about abortion, but I would never classify anyone as a Thumper because of how they stand on that issue--though I may disagree with them.
So, you may still disagree with me, you may still dislike my use of the term, but I wanted to make sure you at least understood what I mean when I use the term. I do not mean to categorize all sincere religious people as Thumpers, nor to imply that all Thumpers are conservative. Originally Posted by Old-T
Your lying, ignorant Yankee mick-ass was answered: Jews are proud of their heritage and proud to be identified as Jews. Originally Posted by I B Hankering