[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by FriendofGod *
The facts that
do not establish that you were harassed for being a Christian. Do you have any evidence that your missing Bible study was the intended effect rather than simply an effect of being asked to stay late?
If a person identifies as a Christian before they identify as any other entity (human, citizen, animal, PTA board member, etc) then they are bound to feel that any slight towards them is persecution, because to be a Christian is to identify with persecution. In my judgment, this makes them potentially dangerous as an allied majority. Maybe I’m paranoid, but psych-logic tells me that if a victim is in power, they will abuse power. Like masters and slaves, they primarily see the world as victims and victimizers.
Satan:
I seem to have completely failed to get my point across. My point is this:
When Christians claim that they are persecuted more than members of other religions, the implicit claim is that they are harassed for what members of other relgions can do without being harassed. That is, Christians do X, Wiccans do Y, and they are basically the same, yet Christians are persecuted while Wiccans are not. All of this is what some Christians claim. Now on to what I claim.
What I claim is that the stuff which non-Christians do is generally not the same as the stuff for which Christians are “persecuted”. Since some Christians expect to be treated better than non-Christians, when they’re not they feel persecuted.
Could you point out what was unclear in my previous post? I’d like to avoid confusing people as much as I seem to have confused you.
Great post as usual, tomndebb. Thanks for the link about Lisa Herdahl in particluar.
I stuck her name in a search engine and I came up with this link. It’s a Google cache, but as a letter from a Southern Baptist who heard about the story, to write this letter shows a lot of what people - Christians - can be.
And on the other side of the coin, I give you this:
http://www.rfcnet.org/Updates/jan97.html
No description can do this justice. I will only say that the thing that caught Drain Bead’'s eyes when we were doing the Google search was “About three years ago Lisa Herdahl moved to Pontotoc County. She enrolled her four children by three different fathers into the Pontotoc County schools…” (Emphasis mine)
Uh huh…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by FriendofGod *
I have no time to give your two rather detailed responses justice tonight, but I would like to point one thing out. Did you miss this at the very beginning of my post?
Then why didn’t you stop there? Instead, you proceed to ignore your own advice and try and show examples of persecution to which the Christian majority is somehow being subjected.
Take on those who are saying this. I have stuck up for people when they were getting crap for no reason, even you.
Right now, though, you’re in my sights, and you either need to back off the notion that those links are examples which somehow show even the slightest bias against Christianity in this country (let alone the “P” word), or lose all credibility.
I read your words when reading my cite. You seemed to get it. I’ll assume then that you “get” how that (and tomndebb’s cite above) are far different than what you brought forth?
At any point that you wish to retract that the Wiccan or Atheist person in the example in the OP would get more crap than the Christian, I’ll accept that. Unless you can show me a Christian getting crap like we have shown they did to non-Christians… Hell, Herdahl IS A CHRISTIAN!!!
Or maybe she is one of those people who says she’s a Christian but somehow isn’t… :rolleyes:
So then the best you can say is that Christians are subjected to random acts of rudeness? Welcome to Planet Earth, FoG. We’re generally an okay species, but occasionally we need to go back to charm school.
Now that I’ve read your most recent post in the original thread, FoG, I’m glad to see that you were shocked by the behavior of the believers who harassed the non-believer in the story posted by Satan. I therefore withdraw my earlier statement about tolerance. However, I am rather shocked that this is the first time you have heard of such behavior. It’s been blatantly obvious to many of us for a long, long time. If only that Texas Monthly article I referenced earlier was available online. Thoroughly disgusting stuff, I assure you, and all done in the name of Jesus.
FoG said:
Good. Then we can expect to no longer see you saying this, right?
“Routinely”? You going around making claims you can’t back up again?
Sounds like your boss was an ass. I don’t see how that corresponds to persecution of Christians on a regular basis, though.
In fact, I can easily counter it with my own example. Where I work, I am quite surrounded by Christians. Each year, a woman I barely even work with gives me Easter and Christmas cards (not just “Have a Merry Christmas” but rather the “We Love Jesus” type), which she puts on my desk at work. Another coworker has Bible quotes plastered all over his cubicle. Etc.
I bet you’re thinking I’m about to attack them, right? Wrong. They are both incredibly nice people, though I think the first one takes things a bit too far. Anyway, I was just trying to explain the situation where I work.
I do have one coworker, a “good Christian” who, long ago, decided to make himself the bane of my life. Why? In large part it’s because I don’t hold the same Christian viewpoints as he does. He doesn’t like it when I talk to another agnostic about things political and religious. He doesn’t like the fact that I chair a local group of skeptics (even though it is a non-religious organization), etc. So he makes it his job to harass me by spying on me, going through my garbage to see if I’m doing non-work things on work time, etc. He has repeatedly tried to get me in trouble with my boss (for example, taking things out of my recycle tray and telling my boss they were non-work items; problem was they were printed on my home inkjet printer – we only have laser printers at work; I just chose to recycle it at work).
Now, do I consider this to be harassment because of my views? Yes. Do I consider it an example of the way all Christians behave? Not at all. This man is an asshole. It’s just that simple. Similarly, your boss was an asshole. Don’t try to make everything into a generalization about how Christians and non-Christians behave.
Oh, please. I’ve seen what you consider “cruel.” I only wish this message board were an example of real life – we’d be doing a lot better in the fight against ignorance in general. But the fact is that just because some people argue with you, demand facts to back your claims, and even attack your beliefs when they find them ridiculous, that doesn’t mean you are the subject of any sort of persecution. This is a message board. More specifically, this is the debate area. It’s not the real world, and you trying to use it as some example of what happens in the real world is simply preposterous.
The numbers in the above Gallup poll previously posted by me, should read that in 1999, 49% of Americans would not vote for an atheist. This is an improvement from 1970’s where over 70% would not vote for an atheist, and 39% would fire a known atheist school teacher. In 1955 in Britian, the number that would not vote for an atheist was 58% (All specifically Gallup polls, including Britain).
I also thought this was an interesting link on American ideology (or lack of) and how economic trumps political trumps religious, in that order:
http://www.wsu.edu/~tcook/doc/RAPT/Chapt1.html
Also, here is an except from an article that reviewed a speech given recently at USC on secular humanism is America:
*Self-proclaimed secular humanist, Paul Kurtz, professed his belief that atheists and freethinkers are among the last repressed minorities, before a gathering of nearly 15 students and faculty Monday afternoon at the University Religious Center.
Secular humanists believe in “the ethics of the good life,” said Kurtz, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and founder of Free Inquiry magazine. They promote happiness, creativity, fulfillment and enjoyment in a freedom made possible by non-belief, he added.
Secular humanism is a non-religious philosophy that promotes free thinking, rational thought and humanity based morality above religiously based morality and thinking.
As opposed to the theological approach to humanism which roughly dictates that those who believe in God must obey His humanistic commandments, the secular humanist approach states that “humans exist, our job is to end human suffering here and now” regardless of religious affiliation, Kurtz said.
In the past 20 years, a right-wing movement has attacked secular humanists as “evil and wicked atheists” with an “anything goes mentality that has no moral value,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz’s point is supported by an article published on Sept. 22 in the Los Angeles Daily Journal which stated that “a greater majority of American voters would vote against a political candidate just for being an atheist than would vote against a candidate for just being gay or lesbian.” A Gallup Poll published alongside the article shows that while more than 90 percent of Americans would vote for Catholics, Jews and women, less than 49 percent would vote for an atheist.
“It’s time for atheists to come out of the closet,” Kurtz said. “We are a repressed minority in society. The vast defamation of secular humanism is unfair.”
Kurtz expressed great concern over the religious influences swaying politics.
Supreme Court Chief Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas argue that the First Amendment exists only to protect the rights of believers, while non-believers are beyond its jurisdiction, Kurtz said. Kurtz also mentioned an article in which Vice President Al Gore states that the “the purpose of life is to glorify God.” He cited a separate article in which Sen. Joe Lieberman “declared that belief in God is the basis for the morality of our nation.”
“Isn’t that an indignity to say that if you don’t believe in God, you’re immoral?” Kurtz asked, saying the situation in Palestine attests to the notion that a belief in religion is no indicator of moral aptitude.
Kurtz said that because nearly 15 to 20 million Americans are atheists or agnostics, it is necessary to “defend the right of unbelief.” *
By Rebecca Zak
Copyright 2000 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 141, No. 49 (Tuesday, November 7, 2000), beginning on page 1 and ending on page 11.
I know of no religious obligation of any Christian sect that believers must study the Bible on Wednesday nights. You could always do that Saturday afternoon, Thursday, etc. Further, you nowhere asserted that your boss wanted you to work on Wednesday night because she didn’t want you to go to Bible study. Since your boss didn’t interfere with a religious obligation of yours, your desire to go to Wednesday night Bible study has no greater legal standing than a Wednesday night bowling league or book club. If my boss interfered with my enjoyment of one of those activities for no good reason, I’d quit, but I wouldn’t claim she’s persecuting me.
Result: bosses can be a–es; it doesn’t mean they are anti-christian.
Southern Baptists routinely hold full-blown worship services on Wednesday nights, Sua. All the better reason to have been raised Methodist. 
But it’s not a big step from Wednesday services to Wednesday Bible study.
I think that everyone can pretty well agree that FoG’s “bad example” boss was mean-spirited and seems to have crossed over the line into harrassment. Regardless of the answer to my next question, I would still consider her actions inappropriate, personal harrassment.
I do wonder, though, whether her demands on FoG were based in purely anti-Christian sentiment? Or were they a personal reaction to his personality which just might have come across as a bit sanctimonious?
My first encounter with a genuine Wiccan found me struggling to be fair to an employe on a day-to-day basis because he was a twerp. No event occurred in the store that did not evoke a response from him as to the best philosophical approach, based on his Wiccan view of the world. (They are books. Put them on the shelves, alphabetically by author. The goddess is not trying to tell us anything just because you had trouble finding that last customer’s selection!) I have met a number of Wiccans since then who were not twerps and I do not judge a person simply by the religion they believe or disdain. Had I given in to my urge to throttle my employe, however, it would not have been his belief that evoked my response.
This link could have been posted in the thread that started this one, since I didn’t follow that. But, it is not posted here, so here I give you “Life in Our Anti-Christian America”: http://www.infidels.org/misc/humor/lioaca.html
This is whole Christians are persecuted belief seem part of a larger backlash against civil rights, greater tolerance, egalitarianism, etc. Other examples include “White males are persecuted (or at least discriminated against)” and “Rich people are persecuted.” (If you don’t believe this last belief exists, read aynrandlover in the “Trickle Up Economics” thread.) They all suffer from the same sort of completely convoluted logic.
Dang it, minty green, just blow my whole argument out of the water, why dontcha? 
Are the Wednesday services obligatory? If not, I think a shred of my argument may still survive,
Sua
Hey, who said Sunday services are obligatory?
I grew up across the street from a Baptist church. Although Sunday services drew more people than Wednesday, I’d say there were roughly two-thirds as many there people attending on Wednesday night. I don’t know whether other Protestant denominations have regular Wednesday services.
And before FoG answers my lame rhetorical question, I think Someone once said someting like “Honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
We had our annual med school Humanities Festival last week, at which I played music and did my magic show. The attending on my neurology team chewed me out the next day because I was off doing that and not following either of the two new patients that came in, despite the fact that we were officially excused and encouraged to come by the Dean.
I also volunteer for a concert series. I let my team know that I needed to be out at a decent hour (like, by 6PM) this past Thursday, so I could work at the Ricky Skaggs concert. This shouldn’t have been a problem; we’re usually out by 5:00 anyway. However, the attending deliberately made sure that there was plenty of busy work to be done so I wasn’t able to make it.
Can I say, then, that neurology attendings are biased against med students with outside interests? No; in fact, several of the other attendings came to watch my show. I can, however, say that this attending is a grade-A jerk. (Which is true. One more week, one more week, one more week…)
Off the top of my head, I can think of no fewer than half a dozen personal acquaintances who were practically disowned by their families for some rejection of Christian morality, ranging from full-blown declared atheism to shacking up to being gay to drinking alcohol. That’s in the here and now. The fact that you had to go to Malaysia and 1985 to find similar examples should give you some idea of the relative frequency of such events.
I think the relative open-mindedness of this board is one of its greatest strengths. A lot of what you see as “hatred and scorn” is not directed against Christianity, per se, but against such beliefs as it being harder to be a Christian in this society than an atheist or Wiccan. That’s because this board is dedicated to fighting ignorance, and attitudes like that fly in the face of the facts.
And if you want scorn against those who believe differently, were you ever over at the Left Behind Message Board? I used to be a regular, although I gave it up long ago and never made it to the Pizza Parlor. The amount of scorn directed against Catholics was astounding, much less atheists or agnostics.
Dr. J
Eh, there’s no way that FoGo honors the Sabbath. It’s Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, and Jesus sure knows when it is in the NT, when he says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Christians can go to church on Sunday all they want for whatever reasons they want, but they don’t get to define away the meaning of “Sabbath” for convenience’s sake.
(Great example: In Spanish, “Saturday” is “Sabado.” Anyone caring to guess what “Sabado” means? “Sunday” is “Domingo,” “God’s day.”)
Having participated extensively in that other thread, let me make clear specifically what it was you were accused of.
You were being accused of intellectual dishonesty, not factual dishonesty. You made a number of assertions about harassment, providing anecdotal evidence without locations, dates, or any kind of other information. You were asked to back up those assertions with citations – newspaper stories, cities, names, anything to demonstrate that your anecdotes were actual occurrences, instead of philosophical parables, or, to put it another way, gedankenpersecutions. Your response: “No, I can’t really back up my claims with facts, but here are a bunch of other assertions.” You were asked for evidence on those new claims. Again, you provided no evidence, and continued making unfounded assertions. That’s what you’re being accused of: not lying per se, but the intellectual dishonesty of offering proofs that you are unable to support.
The “hatred and scorn” you charge us with has nothing to do with your religious beliefs. The purpose of this board is fighting ignorance. If you make a claim, you have to back it up. If you continue to make claims and are unable to support them, you will be the target of scorn, not for what you believe, but your inability to support that belief.
Where the wires get crossed is that much of Christian belief is, in fact, unprovable. There is no scientific means of demonstrating that there’s an invisible man in the sky (or wherever) who sees all, knows all, and judges us in an afterlife (which is itself similarly unprovable). This, like much of Christian dogma, must be taken on faith. Ditto for the wide variety of beliefs in all religions worldwide.
As I pointed out in the other thread, you are seeing the world through a “reality tunnel.” Satan moves in the world, and actively works against Christians. (Insert thick-eyebrowed, pointy-haired Jack Chick caricature here.) This is a fundamental assumption of your worldview. It is a filter through which you perceive events and evidence. A strong Darwinian bent is a similar filter. So is belief in government conspiracies.
This board is unkind to filters. This board relies on facts, evidence, citations. Assertions and claims can be put up on the refrigerator, but without a magnet, they fall back down to the ground. Where your difficulty arises is in an inability to untangle the things you “know to be true” because they seem “obvious” to you due to your filter, and the things that are actually factually demonstrable.
The poll showing that nearly half the population wouldn’t vote for an atheist is a concrete example. The methodology of the poll can be questioned. The specific wording of the question can be examined. But the result of the poll is a specific, nonbiased fact. This fact depends on the legitimacy of the poll, as described, but if the poll is shown to be well-conceived and well-executed, then the fact sticks to the fridge.
None of your facts have stuck to the fridge. If you perceive hostility, it’s largely due to this. In contrast, you might say, people with Darwinian filters – i.e. evolutionists – aren’t met with the same type of challenges to their beliefs. I’d agree, Darwinians tend to survive better on the board, simply because their claims are founded in a scientific method that lends itself to rigorous analysis, citation, and so on. Their claims, in short, stick to the fridge.
Religious claims, by their very nature, do not. I personally have no problem with religious assertions. I’m sure my Christian friends find happiness and spiritual value in their religion. Where I get hacked off is when Christians assert their faith-based beliefs as fact. They’re solid and tangible – to you. They cannot be proved factually. That is their very nature. There is absolutely no way to make a religious claim stick to the fridge, and trying to do so is a waste of time.
In debates on this board, you have made many assertions that do not have the benefit of rigorous analysis and extensive citation. Your assertions have been dismissed by many readers on this board because you have been unable to back them up, and as I said, you have been accused of intellectual dishonesty in your debating tactics. You have read this as hatred, scorn, and harassment. Partly, this is because your fundamentalist worldview demands that you see yourself as the target of persecution and evil obstruction. But more, I think, is that you offer up assertions that, again, “seem obvious” to you – but you don’t understand that anybody who doesn’t share your filter won’t likewise share your perception and interpretation of those events. You say something that, to you, is obvious and unassailable, and then when people call you on it, you get irritated, and assume people are attacking you for the hell of it.
The solution is simple. Look objectively at your assertions, if you can. Differentiate between those that are inextricably tied to your faith, and those that actually have objective value in the real world aside from your faith. Polycarp and others on this board are very, very good at doing this. They know the difference between what they believe as part of their faith and what they can prove and disprove objectively. They don’t try to assert the former as the latter. You have done this, and that’s why people have been calling you on it.
So, again: There is no hatred and scorn for Christians, or God, or basically anything religious, on the SDMB. (Not as a function of the board, at any rate; I’d hardly presume to speak for every single poster.) The scorn is for poor debating tactics, and for a whole heapin’ helpin’ of unfounded, unprovable claims and assertions. Stop doing that, and we’ll all get along fine. Sound good?
Oh, and P.S., I was going to go see the movie, but <clears throat> it isn’t playing any more. Guess I gotta go rent it. 
Loved it! My favorite maillist has a significant number of Xians, probably a good bit fewer, but still a noticeable and vocal number of Wiccans, as well as agnostics and atheists (yes, of course it’s a science fiction list). Rules of Engagement there basically boil down to “no flaming”. The list has been going since 1994, so it’s been around a while (none are as venerable as SF Lovers’ Digest, of course). It is possible for people to practice civility despite religious differences. I personally maintain that the best advertising anyone can do for his/her beliefs is to practice civility at all times.