Yeah I watch the news, thanks.
I am not implying that you are ill-informed, merely insensitive.
You’re doing a remarkable job of arguing against the positions you hold.
I’m not sure when the last time I’ve seen so many comments on the thread that reminded of the significance of the phrase “a distinction without a difference.”
You understand wrongly
Oops. I forgot to use appropriate SDMB approved website sources:
From Democratic Underground which cites MSNBC
‘Persistent killings’: Christians flee deadly attacks in Nigeria
Christians, Leave or be killed. Pretty direct.
From Huffington Post
From Human Rights Watch
Just for the record, Christians are the majority in southern Nigeria.
I hope no one is seriously arguing that detonating a bomb in a Christian church on Christmas Day is not targeting people due to their Christianity.
As Todd Akin might have put it, “Easy enough to solve..don’t be 1) scantily clad 2) in a deserted alleway at night”.
Yep…victim blaming is so much more fun than admitting that there are bad people in this world that do bad things for their own bad reasons. Whoddathunkit?
I personally doubt that 150,000 Christians are killed per year on account of their religion per se, as opposed to ethnicity or (often religiously-driven) political acts, but it has to be a large number. Christianity Today used to document specific countries and cases of anti-Christian persecution in more or less every issue — while they’re obviously a Christian source, they won’t be making up stories. Also, just this week we were talking on the Straight Dope about Christians being threatened in Pakistan by their neighbours after the blasphemy accusations.
There is a difference between lying and using a faulty definition. Seeing as they give you a decent idea of how broadly they define martyr, there really is no dishonesty there.
This is simply ridiculous. The point about Christian martyrs is that they made a very conscious decision to practice their beliefs and not someone else’s, despite knowing that it might get them killed, out of a moral commitment to a religion whose founder and first members were also murdered for their beliefs. Yes, there are other religions whose members are martyred for their beliefs, and yes, the people who murder Christians would often (though probably not always) just as readily kill members of other religions as well, were they around. Nonetheless, Christian who are killed for what they aren’t are fundamentally dying for what they are; you’re trying to make a pointless and disrespectful distinction.
I certainly don’t mean to be disrespectful to anyone, and I understand if the point I’m trying to make might seem at first glance to be just useless hairsplitting.
But I don’t think it is, and I’ll try once more to explain why that’s so.
Many interpretations of Christian doctrine regard hatred, persecution and violence toward Christians as somehow intrinsic to or inevitable in the nature of Christianity itself, as a manifestation of Satan’s hatred for Jesus and his adherents. A lot of modern Christians discussing present-day instances of persecution or terror killings of Christians explicitly invoke this belief and its basis in Bible texts like the following:
I think this doctrine often colors popular perceptions of violence and persecution against Christians and oversimplifies their causes. The terror attacks in Nigeria are a case in point. Even the conservative National Review Online’s February 8 article on global persecution of Christians noted:
But the ubiquitous repetition of the remark that Christians are being killed and persecuted “for their faith” elides all those complexities into a simple reinforcement of the Christian doctrine that Christians are bound to be persecuted because faith in Christ is good and the forces of evil hate it.
Moreover, that theological perspective on persecution of Christians leaves out the persecution, suffering and deaths of millions of victims who aren’t Christians, simply because they don’t fit into this martyrological narrative. I’m certainly not claiming that Christians or majority-Christian societies in general don’t care if non-Christians are persecuted; I’m just pointing out that the simplistic assumptions about Christians being persecuted specifically “for their faith” makes it easier not to notice how much non-Christians are persecuted.
That, in short (too late!), is why I don’t think it’s pointless or nitpicky to make a distinction between Christians being persecuted or killed for some reason(s) involving their identity as Christians, and Christians being persecuted or killed simply “for their faith” as Christians.
I don’t think you need to state it more clearly. I’m not even a little confused about what you are claiming. I simply disagree with you.
I claim that being killed for not believing X qualifies as being killed for your beliefs. I also claim that “believers in Y” who are killed for not believing in X are justifiably counted as “believers in Y killed for their belief”.
Go back and read the post about the black guy who “wasn’t killed because he was black, he was killed because he was non-white”. It’s perfectly analogous to your claim, and (to me) perfectly ridiculous. Do you see why I think it’s ridiculous (even if you don’t agree)?
I’m dubious of the number but not about the fact that this can happen. By the same token I wonder if people aren’t trying a little too hard to reject the possibility that Christians do get this kind of treatment in some places.
I’m posting from my phone so this won’t be complete participation, but Kimtsu elaborated much more thoroughly than I would have, anyway.
Uhhh, cite please?
As I understand it, a very large percentage of new LDS converts simply write off their conversion as a mistake. Many do not self-identify as Mormons a year later, although few go through the hassle of resigning. Sicks Ate has a point. Unless they are excommunicated, resign, or reach their 110th birthday, the 14 million official Mormons are “counted as [Mormon] regardless of whether they retain the religion or not.” And from time to time, an overambitious Area President or Mission President boosts his numbers by encouraging the missionaries to baptize people who don’t even know what they’re getting into. Try googling “baseball baptisms”, for example.
No we went in with troops and sorted it out.
During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, in which the ethno-political violence was between the mainly Protestant unionist and mainly Catholic nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. It was tribalism between two groups which happen to be clearly differentiated by religion.
Was this a war over sects in Christianity or between ethic groups? If it was primarily a battle over religion, would losses on both sides count toward the number of Christians who are killed for the faith?
You are splitting hairs here. Christians are being killed because they refuse to give up their faith. They could convert to Islam to save their lives. Sure, the Islamists don’t give a flying fuck what they believe if it isn’t Islam, but Christians are still dying for their faith. I don’t know if there are any Jews or Buddhists in Nigeria, but the same would go for them.
Which division was sent in?
Sicks Ate, the fact that Islamic fundamentalists in Nigeria acknowledge that they are responsible for the deaths of not only Christians but other people as well would seem to show the inadequacy of this argument
Christianity has always appealed to the poor, because of its message of non-discrimination and equality.
Why use a fact about a non-Christian organisation to illustrate something about Christianity?
That’s a pretty pathetic comment, SA. After all, the Coptic church in Eygpt is 4 or 500 years older than Islam as a whole is, suggesting that they have at least as much right to live there.
There is no faux-persecution crusade in existence, because the Christian church across the globe is being persecuted. Islamic fundamentalists have made many public statements to the effect that they would like to destroy Christianity.
Hey! Zombie resurrection!
Unless you were a black slave, or a woman, or gay or from another religion in which case you were fucked.
Really? I guess the liberal press just covers up because I don’t hear about it. Or, what globe are we talking about?
And Christian fundamentalists also say things just as stupid and just as barbaric. The world would be much better off without fundamentalists of any color or stripe.