Perhaps, but until and unless he moves to Indonesia, we won’t know. He is on record as saying the Christianity has done more harm than any other institution (or something along those lines).
I’m not aware of anyone here who is anti-Christian but not anti-religion, generally. And it could well be that Christianity gets more flack simply because it is the dominant religion in the West. But that doesn’t change the fact that Christians, in particular, get a lot of flack from some number of very vocal posters. I’m not seeing that it matters much why that is.
Yeah, and it seems exaggerated lately; I decided that he must have some reason to be pricklier than usual in recent threads. That liquor thread where he kept jabbing at John Mace like he was scoring points was Ben Stiller-level awkwardness. I guess at some point if you’re a conservative poster you give up on the debate, such as it is, and just start trying to rack up kills.
That was pretty strange. We’ve often seen Bricker try and set traps for “liberal hypocrisy”, but I don’t know what that thread was… There was no there there.
The like-minded about what? About what the definition of the word “persecution” is? What possible reason would there be for the liberal hive mind to get into group consensus mode about which of several dictionary definitions is the correct one, in a context such as this one?
It’s entirely possible for Christians and non-Christians to have a spirited debate about whether Christians are persecuted in America, and for each side to really feel like they were the ones making the better arguments, while agreeing completely about what definition of “persecution” they are using. What’s ridiculous is for you to come in and say “hey, words have meaning, I found a single dictionary cite for this one definition of the word, and I’m going to start using it” even though no one else ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT was using that definition, and then act all victimized and put-upon when people get cross at you.
The weird thing about it is that even if somehow you were right, that wouldn’t really get you anywhere. Suppose you consulted a panel of experts in the history of language, along with Watson-the-IBM-Jeopardy-champion-computer, and you produced an absolutely convincing and masterfully written document demonstrating that the most common and most useful definition of the word “persecution” is the one you were championing, and all of the rest of us, in a moment of clarity, nodded our heads and said “yup, that’s sure as heck what the word persecution means, we were wrong, well argued Bricker”. Then we’d go back and start a new thread entitled “why do Christians, the largest religious group in America, feel that they are victimized and systematically mistreated in a way that causes substantive harm”, and the debate would be exactly where it started, and your entire hijack would have accomplished nothing, EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE RIGHT THE ENTIRE TIME (in this hypothetical).
Christians have a persecution complex as part of their identity. If there were really people out there that persecuted Christianity specifically, and not just rebelled against the dominant religion of where they live, and hence, the one that most affects them, that would give some sort of evidence in favor of this supposed persecution. But it’s not - very few people specifically hate Christianity and want to persecute it. At most, people want to be free from the negative influences of religion, and since Christianity is utterly dominant in the west, by necesity most of the rebelling against religious control is targeted towards Christianity.
No, it’s not entirely possible. By your definition of “persecution,” Christians are not persecuted in the United States. Period. It’s not possible to have a debate about that proposition, spirited or otherwise.
On the contrary (again). The answer to that second question would be easy, and not raise much in the way of spirited debate, or even lackadaisical debate. I think I’ve said it five or six times now: Christians in the United States generally don’t believe that they are victimized and systematically mistreated in a way that causes substantive harm. The complaints Christians have go to the more subtle mistreatments that don’t rise to that level.
I doubt you could find any significant number of American Christians who would agree with the proposition that Christians in the United States today are victimized and systematically mistreated in a way that causes substantive harm.
Why yes, so you did. I concede that I had checked out of reading the thread quite a long time before you posted that, so I didn’t read it until I checked out this thread; still, it cannot be denied that you posted that.
Given this demonstration that you are fully capable of discerning the connotation(s) of the word “persecution,” it does raise the question of why you appeared to think that your initial contribution to the thread was germane or pertinent to the question raised in the OP of that thread.
Actually I think there IS an interesting debate to be had there, and, somewhat ironically given recent threads, it DOES have to do with the fact that “persecution” is ill defined.
If “persecution” means being killed for what you believe in, no honest or reasonable Christians in America thinks that they are “persecuted”. If “persecution” means that sometimes people are mean to you, then no honest or reasonable person cares because it’s so broad and meaningless. But there are gradations between those two extremes, and there are also some key elements, such as whether there is a systematic pattern or not, that might or might not apply.
So I think that an at least vaguely reasonable Christian might, for instance, look at a collection of court cases concerning prayer in school and think “hey, those are part of a systematic pattern”, while another vaguely reasonable person might look at those cases and say “hey, precisely where the separation of church and state should be is a complicated issue, so it’s entirely reasonable and even expected that over all the schools in the nation there are going to be some court cases trying to suss out exactly where that line should be”. And meanwhile the vaguely reasonable Christians who saw what they perceived as a pattern (right or wrongly) decided that they wanted tell people about it, and while doing so (as people of all stripes do) chose language that was perhaps slightly over-strong for purposes of getting people riled up, and then other less scrupulous people took that language and ran with it and hey presto suddenly there’s a war on Christianity, etc.
That type of thing is interesting to discuss and debate, and there are at least parts of it where reasonable people can disagree, but that whole discussion got utterly derailed by you saying “well, here’s a dictionary definition of persecution, words have meanings”.
Having just had a gander at the Mila Kunis/Baby v. Bourbon thread, I would like to thank you for the laugh you just gave me when you [del]complained[/del] speculated that a subject would not likely raise much spirited debate.
I think the question to be debated is: Do American Christians (or their self-appointed media spokespersons) tend to conflate the connotations of that definition with the actual dictionary definition that you argued for in that thread? If the answer is “yes,” we could follow up with: how much excoriation should be heaped upon their heads for their disingenuousness?
And if the answer is “no,” we could discuss how far they from crossing that line?
I suspect that since the fall of Rome, most persecution of Christians has been performed by other Christians. Can’t really say much about “subtle” persecution, that’s kinda over my pay grade.
I think that’s the gist of it. There are certain posters here who simply cannot understand that some issues really do have two sides and reasonable people can disagree about which side is correct.
Because the OP was relying on Christians claiming they were persecuted and his own definition that disproved the persecution – and the flaw with that argument was that not everyone agreed on how much negative consequence has to exist before it’s fair to say “persecution.”
Are they being fed to the lions? Are they prohibited from public office? Are the sent to ghettos? Are they not allowed in public areas without suspicion? Are obstacles put in the place of their voting? Are they not allowed to own firearms? Are they held up for public contempt as a group by officials? Are they put to death and disposed of in ovens or mass graves? Are the called sub-human? Are they enslaved? Are they avoided? Are they not allowed to work with people not of the persecuted group? Are they subject to public beatings? Are crimes against them encouraged or ignored? I suppose we could go on.
As a Christian, I think that I am not discriminated against on that basis. Nor do I think Christianity in the USA is subject to either discrimination or persecution. I think the claim is fuckin’ preposterous.
There are, however, branches of Christianity that I am bigoted against. Snake handlers. Tongue speakers. Faith healers. TV preachers. These sorts of people run the gamut from deeply and wilfully ignorant to slimy rip-off artists (I’m lookin’ at you Pat “please die soon” Robertson.)
I’m convinced that Bricker does these argument threads simply to keep the sharp edge on his bullshitting skills, and it can be a form of trolling, although it probably isn’t for his personal amusement.
Remember, Brainglutton is kind of a moron. Other than cutting and pasting links to other people’s words, he writes at about a first grade level…his comprehension is somewhat below that.
Given that, that’s a pretty articulate* response from him.
*Note for Brain Glutton “articulate” means “he shoor talks reel purdy.”