LOL!
I trust my source. He is not one to make claims without doing the research and I am not one to go on blind faith on quotes.
BUT! If any of these turn out to be incorrect or inacurate, then I’ll submit myself to a public burning. 
Already been looked up hereand your statement is VERY misleading, which makes me wonder about the authenticity of the quotes and the context in which the statements were made.
We in Great Debates know EVERYTHING! 
In response to the OP, no, I haven’t converted because of this board. I was a Lutheran Christian long before I came upon this site. Unfortunately, however, the most vocal Christians are the ones farthest from the center. If what y’all are saying is true, than I have a bone to pick with some of these Christians.
First of all, I don’t believe AIDS is a scourge sent to rid the world of homosexuals. Why wouldn’t God try to get rid of liers/cheats/idolaters/pedophiles, too? The God I know isn’t vengeful. He is kind and merciful, so I act that way, too.
I could stand here all day trying to prove to you that there is a God, but I cannot. It would be like you trying to PROVE to me that you exist. No matter how hard you try, you cannot. Same with me and God. I can’t prove that He exists, or anything else about Him for that matter. I just trust that He exists.
Hitler only loved two Jews. They were Jesus Christ of Nazareth and his grandmother.
Hazel:
Don’t confuse the behaviors and tangental beliefs of the people who practice Christianity with the tenets of that religion. In other words, you don’t have to be a Christian to be a hypocrite… but it helps.
As to the original question, I doubt that there have been any converts here. It’s not an environment that is conducive to the promotion of that particular belief system. On the other hand, I will admit that, after spending considerable time here, my faith in science is somewhat diminished and my faith in God a little stronger. Probably not entirely consistent with the general trend, but I’m wierd that way…
Hazel said:
That may very well be the case, but if that’s the way it is, I can live with that. I find it better than the alternative: that men who I know nothing about who toss off ludicrously intolerant statements of pure jackassery somehow speak for me.
Doubleclick’s list of quotes is full of reasons: I mean, Falwell telling anyone of a faith other than his that they are “a failure as a human being” is not someone I want speaking as a representative of my faith. Or Moloney insinuating that there is effectively no morality in Islam. Who freaking thinks like that?
My religion isn’t perfect, and I get that. When I was a freshman in college I took a class in Mythology and was given a book by Joseph Campbell. (Well, actually, I had to drop sixty bucks on it, but still.) My eyes were opened that the stories and tales told in the Bible were very much like those I considered “myths” told in other cultures, and it left me angry at the way I was brought up, and how I was never clued into any of that.
Much later, when I was able to spend some time and think clearly about it, it occurred to me that while the events depicted in the Bible could very well be nothing more than plagarized pieces from religions past, Christianity at least had the figure of Christ within it as its center, “preaching” an agenda of love. He wasn’t racing about raping women as a lion, or turning anyone into a barrell of salt or whatnot. Christ is there as a figure of kindness. Of course, I know that that’s not unique – no doubt if I had been born and raised on the other side of the world I would have reached these same conclusions but by embracing Mohammed instead – but that it’s there is what matters and makes the difference for me.
Basically, Hazel, (sorry to drag this message out) if there are those, like Buchanan in the line provided by Doubleclick, who feel that a passage of intolerance overrides a dozen of benevolence, and can’t seem to reach any meaningful conclusions on their own… then I guess I feel justified thinking the opposite.
It would be nice if those with missions of hate (the lot listed in the quotes for example) could express their rage effectively without dragging the name of my religion into it. But hell, it would also be nice if my Flyers don’t choke things away in the conference finals this year, but that’s not going to happen either.
And everyone is so shocked and indignant when sime posters suggest that this board has an anti-Christian bias.
Are some people here really ignorant enough to apply the words of some equally ignorant Christians to all the members of the entire religion? That’s what it sounds like. If I have misinterpreted, please rephrase.
How is this any different from ignorant fundamentalists persecuting gays as all being pedophiles simply because of the existence of organizations like NMBLA?
What you people are bothered by is SOME Chrisitans…not Christianity itself.
Pardon me? Care to provide a cite?
Hey look, a Catholic asking for a cite, how about that?
I doubt that would be the case over here, since the the US was originally very anti-Catholic.
BTW, you also have to remember that the Catholic church, and the way it evolved with Rome was that the Church was the State and such, and the church had such supreme authority. The Catholic church has always been extremely political. Not that I agree that the church and state should be the same.
No. He thinks that everyone is under the influence of Satan, but that faith in Christ provides relief and shelter from that influence. I doubt that that would change your opinion of his views, but there is a real difference in his statement between saying that Jesus will protect us from error and your apparent implication that everyone else is a follower of Satan.
No. You look it up. Hitler was an opportunist. You can fill a small book with quotations from Hitler avowing his faithfulness to Christianity or the Catholic Church. You can fill an equal-sized book with his statements denigrating Christianity. His actions included never attending a religious service, attempting to set the guidelines for a new national religion that either adapted old Germanic gods or omitted gods altogether (depending on his mood that month), and imprisoning and murdering several thousand Catholic priests and Evangelical pastors. While you might get away with ignoring his anti-religious hostility by putting more emphasis on his pro-religious statements, calling him devout is a wild exaggeration.
Hitler’s religion has been addressed in the Straight Dope Mailbag at Was Hitler a Christian? and in the responses to that column at Was Hitler Christian?
But, here, your interpretations of the quotes out of context have done just that.
(And we do not require a live televised immolation, just go and check your facts and understand your quotes before you throw them out as TRUTH.)
Are you talking about what I said, which was:
Now that I added some emphasis to what I actually said, please tell me that it wasn’t what I said which made you think this (and actually quoting what you are referring to would be helpful as well)?
If not, I believe you misinterpreted.
No, I wasn’t referring to your post, Satan. The two that jump out at me are Hazel’s list of what s/he sees as the bad points of Christianity (which is actually a list of the problems with bad Christians, not Christianity itself) and Doubleclick’s looooooooong list of stupid things said by stupid Christians. That one also illustrates problems with the people who said it, not the religion they used as a vehicle for their statements.
I do see a lot of anti-Christian backlash on this board. But it is really hard to nail down for two reasons: 1. It is hardly ever intentional (I would be hard pressed to find an intentional case, but I do not want to rule them out completely) and 2. It is usually wrapped up inside more valid comments aimed at one of the above mentioned “problem Christians.”
Ignoramouses who happen to be Christian deserve the wrath they receive for being ignorant. But I don’t think people on this board are careful enough in separating the offender from the religion they claim to represent.
Though I was not referring to your post, Satan, it does make a pretty good representation of reason number 1 above. I think your intentions with the comment were good, but if you took out the word “Christian” and replaced it with ANY other ethnic or religious group, you would immediately be attacked as a bigot.
Forget (if you can) all the folks who want to show that Christians are actively persecuted on this board. I don’t think that case can be made. But if you want to talk about a basic, misguided, unconscious anti-Christian element present in a lot of threads here, I don’t think that your statement would be totally invalid.
But the more time I spend here the more I have started to come to terms with the fact that I am a chronic hijacker. Should I move this? More importantly, would anyone bother to follow me?
I could have said, "Going to see the Dead reinforced something I always knew but it’s still nice to witness to get independant verification:
Hippies are not always assholes."
I could have said, "Going to the soccer match reinforced something I always knew but it’s still nice to witness to get independant verification:
Hooligans are not always assholes."
And if I instead put the word “ham sandwich” in there, it might mean that I am not a vegetarian. It would also make no sense.
I am weary of false analogies designed to inflame. Just about every statement about any grouping of people could have a substituted buzz-word in it like “racist” or “sexist” or “homophobic” and make it seem so inflamatory. That doesn’t mean it’s an accurate analogy for what was really said, in thought or deed.
Funny you should ask.
I’ve been giving some serious consideration to converting to UU (when I get around to it 
), mostly (not entirely) as a result of the SDMB.
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SDMB discussion and links to the UU website informed me that UU was agnostic-friendly. That was a pleasant surprise.
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Another link, acquired from the SDMB, ( Spiritual Belief System Selector A Religion Selector ) informed me that my spiritual preferences matched fairly well with UU. They matched equally well to Theravada Buddhism, though.
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The third reason is difficult for me to articulate. On mostly rare occasions, I find it appropriate to undertake a moral intervention. Being a member of a spiritual community would, I believe, might help fortify my moral stamina, as it were.
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Polycarp’s intervention on behalf of his neighbor impressed me.
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One poster’s description of the Book of Job persuaded me to briefly skim that chapter. I was impressed by how adult it was, relative to my expectations.
For completeness, I am afraid that I must add that my pre-conceptions regarding Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives have typically been reinforced on this board.
Alright, Satan. I’ll bite again, though it is an exercise in utmost futility to do so.
There is no way you could possibly say that slandering Christians in a public forum is closer to slandering, say, people who like Stephen King novels, than it is to slandering Jews. If, within your own system of morality, religions, races, sexual orientations, and other untouchable topics fall within the boundaries of fair game, fine. But are you really trying to tell me that if you had made the comment in question about Blacks as opposed to Christians that you wouldn’t have gotten crucified on this board?
I did not design the analogy to inflame anyone. I wasn’t trying to make anyone angry. I posted it in the hopes that it might make other posters see my point.
flowback:
Just curious. How would you go about identifying a “Fundamentalist Christian Conservative” on this board? In order to reinforce your stereotypical preconceptions, you must have some way of singling out these individuals and getting inside of their heads…
To a certain degree, I gotta go with Kyomara, the analogies involving hippies, hooligans, and vegetatians are not comparable to statements regarding race and creed. On the other hand, I don’t think satan’s original statement was inflamatory… then again, I’m pretty sure Kyomara said that this wasn’t the reference he/she was targeting, so no harm - no foul…
JoeyBlades: How would you go about identifying a “Fundamentalist Christian Conservative” on this board? In order to reinforce your stereotypical preconceptions, you must have some way of singling out these individuals and getting inside of their heads…
Yes, it’s called “reading their posts.” Our resident FCC’s like FriendofGod and Wildest Bill openly identify themselves as such, and freely put what’s “inside of their heads” out on the MB for all to see, via the posting process. Good heavens, in a message board forum largely devoted to debating religious and political issues, it’s not that difficult to “go about identifying” the regular posters who fall into any particular religious and political category!
Kimstu:
Sorry Kimstu, but life is never that simple. ‘Certified’ “Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives” rarely identify themselves as such. If ‘FriendofGod’ and ‘Wildest Bill’ are running around calling themselves “Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives” and spouting rhetoric guaranteed to inflame even the most passive agnostic… then I have to ask myself are these really “Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives” or are they merely trollers, desperately seeking a fire to warm themselves…
They may, in fact, BE “Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives” and the opinions they express may be genuine, but we have no way of really assessing that. It would be a grave error for you to assume that everyone on this board is who or what they profess to be and that their agendas are as obvious as they appear at first glance.
Furthermore, many more people on this board are tagged as “Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives” without any such proclamation or clear evidence of such. When I first started posting to the SDMB, I was tagged as a “Fundamentalist Christian Conservative”, a “Young Earther”, and a “Creationist” (among other things). I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fundamentalist, a conservative, a young Earther, or a creationist… I did, however, ‘admit’ to being a Christian and that ‘admission’ seemed to have me placed, somewhat arbitrarily, into a larger group with very different beliefs than my own. Yes, I’m a Christian, but I caution against attaching any significance to that or making any assumptions about what that does or does not mean.
Fair question, fair caveat. First, let me restate the point I was trying to make.
The (sub)point I was trying to make
“Witnessing”, for this agnostic, is counterproductive, as are unsubstantiated assertions or appeals to biblical inerrancy. Admittedly the concept of “witnessing” is not entirely familiar to me: I may not understand it correctly. Be that as it may, I did not want to give certain Christian conservatives the mistaken impression that their arguments had caused a conversion on my part. In brief, I didn’t want my post to encourage a renewed tsunami of witnessing.
Now, let me reword my original statement: I have seen no perception-shattering posts made by those who identify themselves as Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives. Presumably, there are FCCs who have not made their faith explicit and have posted outstanding material.
Now for some awkwardness: it is likely that there are also a substantial number of people who identify themselves as Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives who,
Don’t espouse biblical literalism,
Believe in a firm separation between church and state (eg many Baptists, IIRC),
Have made their peace with mainstream science,
etc., etc.
So, yes, my original statement was fairly ambiguous, and was a bit of a broadside. Oops.
FWIW, I used the modifier “Fundamentalist” and added a possibly redundant term “conservative” to avoid painting with too broad a brush. For example, I wished to exclude mainline and liberal Christians from my characterization, as well as a certain (extremely large) subset of conservative Christians. I considered using the phrase “born-again Christian”, but that really seemed too broad. Are there any superior phrases for my admittedly ambiguous (and implicit) characterization of a certain set of beliefs?
I know this is not addressed towards me, but I find the above perplexing. I was not aware that FCCs rarely identify themselves as such. On what do you base that contention, assuming that the discussion is a religious one? Wildest Bill is a moderator; I don’t believe that FoG is a troll. And none of their statements have inflamed me: whether they have persuaded me is a different matter.
Now it may be erroneous to assume that WB or FoC are representative of FCCs, but I think it’s fair to provisionally assume that their views expressed have some correspondence to their actual opinions. Not that it really matters; to some extent I read their posts as arguments, independent of my (patchy) knowledge of the poster who wrote them.