# I say "Christianity" What's the first thing you think of? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 30, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128 "2012-08-30T10:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/41 "2012-08-30T18:59:59Z")
Well, the first thing I thought of just now, before I opened the thread, was the “When I say Islam” thread. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/42 "2012-08-30T19:05:26Z")
Crosses. Christianity has put a lot of effort into having a single symbol and plastering it on everything. More so then Islam and Crescents or Judaism and the Star of David. Its pretty hard for me not to visualize a cross when I hear the word Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/43 "2012-08-30T19:22:21Z")
Close-mindedness. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/44 "2012-08-30T19:50:23Z")
Jesus on a crucifix. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/45 "2012-08-30T20:06:55Z")
Life-sized Jesus-on-a-cross statue. That’s my visual image, anyway. Conceptual first thought?The majority. The religion your average person on the subway is likely to be. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/46 "2012-08-30T20:27:44Z")
Jesus ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/47 "2012-08-30T20:54:11Z")
My grandfather. He was a minister. He sort of personifies Christianity to me, in both bad and good ways. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/48 "2012-08-30T21:04:25Z")
One Sunday night when I was about 8 or 9, when attending a church social in the church basement, there were a lot of children gathered, and someone opened up doors that were usually shut leading to corridors of considerable length, mostly of storerooms, utility rooms, whatnot. The children used the open space of the corridors to play and romp and run around in. It was a sector of the building we normally never got to see. So this one girl and I were chasing a boy down the hall and they stopped, and I kept going around a corner by myself to explore, and got pulled up short at the open door to one room. I saw a man lying on his back just inside the door, his head and shoulders nearly protruding out into the hallway, wearing some white linen garment. His eyes were open and dead, staring upwards. His skin had a ghastly waxen pallor. He was not breathing. Oh. My. Fucking. God. :eek: It took me about 1.5 seconds to process that I was looking at some Catholic saint’s old discarded statue. You know those Catholic statues all painted in living color. What a relief! But within that brief moment, I was deeply frightened. I don’t know why that’s the first thought that arose upon your OP question, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/49 "2012-08-30T22:23:11Z")
Hate. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/50 "2012-08-30T22:48:22Z")
Slimier-than-a-tapeworms’-douchebag televangelists and child-raping priests. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/51 "2012-08-31T01:35:27Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Great music. Bach, Charpentier, Alfonso “El Sabio”, Britten…heck, “I’m Workin’ on a Buildin’”. . . . I love this stuff, and I wish it were my first thought… > [@MegaBee](#): > > Fundamentalism …But, alas, this, instead, is. I associate Christianity with the extremists who have turned it from a house of God into a den of monsters. ---
**Author:** ![scratch\_llll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@scratch\_llll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch_llll)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/52 "2012-08-31T05:09:44Z")
> [@jayrey](#): > > Close-mindedness. This. And then I think of my kind sweet selfless grandmother praying over dinner. I recall the church groups that still go down to help rebuild coastal towns damaged in Katrina. I remember the immediate response of loading trailers full of supplies to take after a tornado hit Chattanooga last year. I think of the foreign aid programs to dig wells and establish schools. I recall a roofing project for old people one summer. In the end I understand how fashionable it is to down christianity, particularly here, that it is maligned to prop up the notion that it is as violent as the muslim religion though it hasn’t been near that violent for centuries. It is wrong in a lot of ways but not to the extent expressed just to be in vogue here. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/53 "2012-08-31T05:49:46Z")
Plain shiny metal cross on the front of a gaudy megachurch. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/54 "2012-08-31T06:37:55Z")
Nutjobs. Then, hate. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/55 "2012-08-31T06:46:07Z")
As a baby, I was baptized into an extremely liberal Christian sect: the Presbyterian Church in Canada. As such, I can eat meat on Fridays, booze it up as much as I like, never fast for any reason, be gay if I wish, and not attend church on Sundays. The big, main thing is to adhere to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, as our friends Bill and Ted so aptly put it, “Be excellent to each other.” I consider myself a Christian, yet I take issue with those who claim the “Christian” appelation as only referring to those who have been “born again,” or “who have accepted Christ as their personal savior.” In my faith, there is no proseletyzing, no televangelizing–through baptism, one simply is accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is no quarrel. Christian Fundamentalists are looked down upon in my faith, as they run against the “be excellent to each other” tenet in their search to gain converts. Just be excellent to each other is all my faith asks. That’s what I think of when I think “Christianity.” ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/56 "2012-08-31T07:44:37Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > I say “Christianity” What’s the first thing you think of? > > What’s the very first thing that springs to mind when you think of Christianity? Or has you-know-what coloured your first impressions of it? I was just thinking about this the other day and how unfortunate that I have no positive feelings whatsoever whenever the concept of today’s Christianity crosses my consciousness. My first and most visceral personal response is usually fear. I believe Christianity, especially the American strain, bolstered by its political arm the Republican party, is just about the most abrasive, destructive, and yes, evil force in the world today. I fear its influence is increasing and, unchecked, will ultimately bring about a new dark age rife with the glorification of ignorance, the dissolution of rights, and the open persecution and oppression of dissidents. The first words I think of to describe Christianity are: bigotry, racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, willful ignorance, and justifiers of evil acts. It is only adherents of Christianity, as far as I know, who utter the word ‘love’ when they really mean ‘hate’. It’s depressing, really. ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/57 "2012-08-31T08:48:51Z")
Superstition is my first thought. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/58 "2012-08-31T08:56:40Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > As a baby, I was baptized into an extremely liberal Christian sect: the Presbyterian Church in Canada. As such, I can eat meat on Fridays, booze it up as much as I like, never fast for any reason, be gay if I wish, and not attend church on Sundays. The big, main thing is to adhere to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, as our friends Bill and Ted so aptly put it, “Be excellent to each other.” > > I consider myself a Christian, yet I take issue with those who claim the “Christian” appelation as only referring to those who have been “born again,” or “who have accepted Christ as their personal savior.” In my faith, there is no proseletyzing, no televangelizing–through baptism, one simply is accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is no quarrel. Christian Fundamentalists are looked down upon in my faith, as they run against the “be excellent to each other” tenet in their search to gain converts. > > Just be excellent to each other is all my faith asks. That’s what I think of when I think “Christianity.” Golly, what a wonderful way to be a Christian! I only wish were more like you. Be excellent to yourself today, **Spoons**! ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/59 "2012-08-31T12:41:30Z")
First I thought of the “Islam” thread. Then the church at High Bradfield near Sheffield, a grade I listed building, as I was looking it up with a view to a visit just before I came on the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128/60 "2012-08-31T13:22:56Z")
> [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](#): > > I’d tell you but it would be too unexpected. Surprise! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-say-christianity-whats-the-first-thing-you-think-of/633128.md?page=4)