Believe it or not, there is a way to avoid offending anybody. It’s hard, very hard, but it is possible. In a hyper-sensitive world, it seems everything we say is subject to hatred and screams of outrage. I commented on this in another post, but I started wondering, is there really a way to go about life not offending anybody?
I gave it a lot of thought and finally came up with the obvious answer. The one, surefire way to avoid offending anybody and keeping peace wherever you go.
Is it love? You ask. Well, love is a subjective word these days; everybody has their own definition and they clash too often.
Is it acceptance? Once again, ideas butt heads too often to possibly accept all of them and actually live by them. After all, how to you live out both the pro-life and pro-choice lifestyles without being a hypocrite? So that’s not it.
Is it God, Mister Christian Blogger? I’d love to say yes, but as we know, God is ultra-offensive. Jesus is regarded even by non-Christians as the greatest man to ever walk the Earth, and how many enemies has he accumulated in 2,000 years?
No, the answer is even simpler than all these things. If you want to avoid giving offense to anybody in the world, you simply have to do one thing: Never let your existence be known.
Run. Hide. Crawl under a rock–or preferably a cabin in the woods. Live your days in solitude. You’ve offended people already by letting them know about you, so cut your losses and get away while you still can.
Now, isn’t that a bit extreme? You ask. Can’t we just be more respectful about our opinions? No, opinions are divisive things.
If you voice it, your enemies will call you a monster.
If you hide it, your friends will call you a coward.
If you don’t have one, they’ll both say you don’t care about anything.
That’s why voting is so tricky; you never win.
But this goes beyond your opinions. The very fact that you are alive offends somebody. If you are a man, there is a woman somewhere who wants to kill you. If you are a woman, there is a man who wants to break you. If you are somewhere in between, there is someone who thinks you are an abomination from Hell. That’s all there is to it. Simply be born and your very nature will infuriate somebody.
So if a life of complete, invisible solitude is too much for you to handle, you must accept that you will have enemies no matter what you do. Not everyone, of course, but you would be surprised how many enemies you can make just by speaking up.
So pick a life, live it, and do not hide it. If you stand, stand because you believe in it, not because someone tells you to. If you change, change because you believe it, not to win a popularity contest. Don’t let someone else decide who you are or what you believe.
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve –Joshua 24:15
Fencing With Ink 
That’s an interesting post and is something I have thought about too when having discussions with people about God. I don’t think it’s possible to not offend people, but I think as Christians we need not worry about offending people because like you said Jesus accumulated so many enemies because he offended so many people. Most of the people I came across who were offended I think suddenly became aware of the way they were living and how it was affecting their lives and didn’t like that I was revealing it to them, which is a good thing. So maybe offending people can be a good thing because it can help them want to change?
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It’s certainly a thought. People don’t like to be told their wrong, no matter their religion. Our goal isn’t to offend, but we have to choose to offend people instead of God.
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Absolutely, the intention isn’t to offend people, although we have to be aware that we will a lot of the time. It all comes down to what our main priorities are; what people think or what God thinks? 🙂
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I like the cabin in the woods idea.
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Careful. Thar be serial killers.
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This be good. 🙂 And a much-needed reminder. (Note to self: try to vacate home under rock sometime in the next decade).
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I once heard a saying that if you’re not offending anybody, you’re doing something wrong. If we were afraid someone would disagree with us, what’s the point in putting our thoughts out into the blogosphere?
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Amen to that, but I wanted to go beyond the blogosphere (is that how you spell it?) as well, into the real world, because man, is it an issue today!
I also heard a saying attributed to Eminem: Do you have enemies? Good, it means you stood up for something. Thanks for the comment!
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People these days are too worried about not offending anyone and being “politically correct.” But you’re right, God isn’t worried about that so we shouldn’t be either. We picture Jesus as being so meek and gentle, but he overturned tables and drove people out of the temple with a whip. Great post! It reminds me of the poem by Charles Mackay:
You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor,
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes.
If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never set the wrong to right.
You’ve been a coward in the fight.
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I like that, thanks for the poem!
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So true. Have a few principles and stick to/with them. People who are too terrified to speak out allow atrocities to happen and continue. Speak truth to power. What else are we here for?
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