Despite what people say, Christians get way more respect than their beliefs deserve. If I say that I believe that aliens abducted Elvis because he knew too much about the Kennedy assassination, people have no problem laughing at me. If I say that a man was born of a virgin, came back from the dead and that I can commune with him by rolling around on the floor and babbling incoherently, I get to be attorney general!
Tell me randy: what belief system other than Christianity or Islam says that those who don’t subscribe to it will suffer eternal torture? Do you see why I (and others) dislike Christianity more than just a little bit?
You see, that’s the key difference: Christianity, unlike being gay or black, is a belief system, and one founded on remarkably flimsy evidence at that. Now, I think it’s unacceptable to say “Christians are assholes,” but I have no problem mocking Christians for their beliefs, just like I have no problem mocking people who believe in Roswell, or the Loch Ness Monster, etc.
I thought so too, but when I find out the Intelligentsia of America during the revolution were primarily deists and materialists I can only assume that the christian country concept of America might be a bit over-rated.** The fact is, the only place I feel Christians are verbally abused is in this particular forum**, and the preponderance of posters are definitely American making me wonder if this is what it is like for a Christian living in your country. It certainly isn’t evident in your national media. You probably don’t know that British Columbia is rife with a bigotry towards East Indians that can rival the bigotry of the 20th century states of the confederacy. You wouldn’t know it from this forum would you.
Love your linkage of causes there. I’ve got to admit that I’ve never seen a pro-abortion rights group “lined up outside a clinic to support it”. This phenomenon must be unique to your area. Everywhere else, it’s the anti-abortion rights people who surround the clinics.
**
Oops. Check your previous posting, Randy, in which you suggest that your “dillusions (sic) of persecution” are well-founded.
I realize that the image of the Christian under assault and harried by the forces of evil is central to rallying the troops and keeping the faithful unified and all that, but the days that you represented an embattled minority are long, long gone.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by super_head *
This crap about Christians being so horribly persecuted in the USA is exactly that - crap
Jackmanni,
super_head brought up the word “persecution”. My use of the word was in reply to HIS statement that Christians thought they were being persecuted. I was saying that I had never went that far with it. My fault. I should’ve mentioned his comment.
You must’ve missed it on CNN. After the Clinic in Alabama was bombed by an extremist, Pro-Abortionists were definitely lining the sidewalk in support of a “womans choice”, and not only in Alabama. I didn’t use the Anti-Abortionists as an example because most of them ARE Christians, and I wasn’t denying that some Christians are in-your-face, just saying Christians aren’t the only group. Looking back, yeah, that is quite a linkage of causes, aint it.
You see, at a democratic fundraiser all the people are there to buy favors and desirable legislation. The Democrat’s platform has nothing to do with their fundraisers…
Are you implying it is valid to judge all blacks because of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?
Ahh…c’mon…
I think Stoidela and I lent a nice helping hand in there. With thanks extended to goboy and pldennison of course:)
(no hard feelings there I hope)
And I love stuff like this:
Followed in the next post by:
???
So then, you admit that you are an intolerant religous bigot.
I can live with that.
I think they call themselves escorts. They walk the women into the clinic and try to sheild them from the pro-life protestors.
Plus, there are many, many pro-choice rallys. In fact, they are planning one this weekend to protest Bush.
Just a few things that, to me at least, separates criticism of evangelical Christians from criticism of black/gay/disabled/etc people.
Gay people do not approach me in the street and tell me to become gay.
Black people do not tell me that I am going to hell because I am not black.
Disabled people do not tell me that my entire world view is incorrect because I do not see the world from a wheelchair.
In fact, none of these groups say anything about my lifestyle. They just let me live. (So long as I respect their right to do so as well - which is fair enough.)
Yes there are gay pride parades etc but they are not saying my lifestyle is wrong, just celebrating their own.
This is my main problem with evangelical Christians. They presume to tell me that I am wrong about something that is none of their business.
Only too happy to oblige. Have you got enough rope there?
By the way, I notice you didn’t actually address any of my points.
For the rest of your tirade, the logical fallacy in which you indulge is called tu quoque i.e., “you also.” And no, I’m not doing it. I’m not saying I don’t like them because they didn’t like me first, though I could.
I’m not saying I dislike all Christians. In fact, those who actually practice the tenets of Christianity are very fine people. There’s just so few of them, and the rest have earned my distrust and suspicion.
These are the people to whom I refer. The smug, self-assured, self-righteous, willfully ignorant, who have the audacity to demand tolerance when they will not give it. But why should they? Are they not the chosen? If God says they’re better, who are they to disagree?
Don’t claim you don’t know who I’m talking about. If you are not among that number, you need not take anything I say personally. But you do, don’t you? Why do you suppose that is?
Well, we can argue over semantics to death. I never said that Randy used the word persecuted, only that that was the crux of his OP. If you want, I can change this to “Oh boy, a discriminated-against Christians thread!” or something of the like.
Well, let me posit a hypothetical. You’re watching TV with your buddies, and a commercial comes on for the psychic hotline. Or you see a newspaper story about a recent UFO convention. Or you stumble across a flat-earth website. Tell me you’ve never yukked it up with your friends, or just snickered to yourself thinking about how idiotic such beliefs are. Are you an intolerant bigot for thinking that some beliefs are stupider than others?
If you’ve never mocked other people’s absurd beliefs, either privately or publicly, then feel free to cast the first stone.
And a final word on Christianity. If I am against gun control, and I say that it would only be just if all gun control supporters were rounded up and shot, I would be condemned for my statement, and rightfully so. But, if I’m a Christian and I say that it is perfectly just for all non-Christians to suffer eternal torture, no one bats an eyelash.
There, you wanted me to address your points. The reason I didn’t earlier is because I could tell by the attitude of your reply, it really wouldn’t matter. Anyhow, since you’ve labeled me in your last reply as smug and arrogant and all that stuff, let me label you. Your proconceived notions of what Christians THINK, are making you a bitter man. Real insight there on my part, eh? We’re not all that bad, really.
and, (IMHO) they deserve to be. Here’s why I think that.
Fundamental religious organizations, and I’m NOT just talking about Christians here, tend to lust after political power, the ability to judge another’s actions as right or wrong, and the physical force to back it up.
I’m from the US but working in a Moslem country where the Sharia (sp) is used as the basis for civil law. Although this is a very SAFE country, almost crime free, there are also public beheadings of murderers dopers, or rapists, amputation of limbs for theft, and stonings for (female) adultery. Male adultery is blamed on the female. The (officially promoted and praised) religious bigotry and intolerance of ANY different religion is a source of constant amazement to every Western visitor. Religious police, who prefer the term “Commitee for the suppression of vice and establishment of public morals.” stand around in shopping malls, prodding women in the legs with sticks if they aren’t covered head-to-foot in black drapery. The commitee also has the power of arrest, the ability to drag you off to jail and KEEP you there until you see the error of your ways. Meetings between women and any male not a blood relative is considered strong evidence that some kind of sex has taken place. etc etc. The list goes on.
Now, before someone accuses me of Moslem-bashing, that’s not the point. The point is what happens when a religion, any religion, gains political power. I cannot truthfully say that I believe Christian fundamentalist leaders to be more tolerant or intelligent than the Moslem ones, somewhat less so if anything.
This in turn leads me to believe that, given the chance, Christian fundamentalists would turn the US into a copy of what I see here. This HAS happened in the Christian world, the Crusades and the inquisition being examples that spring immediately to mind.
OK, if you’ve stuck with me so far, we’re at the final bit of this rant. S Christian Fundamentalist leaders in the US pay court to the President and any other political leader they can influence. They also run in their own right. A fundamentalist of ANY sort influencing the government is (for me at least) cause for alarm. I see the inevitable end of that process as being something similar to what I’m living in now. At the end of the day, I bash fundamentalists because I fear them, I fear what they would do if they could only get around that troublesome “separation of church and state” thing.
OK, that’s my contribution to the “Fundy Bashing” debate. As an Oh-bye-the-way, I feel much better now. Is that an indication I should have posted this in “The Pit?”
[cuddly friendly mode] Before you take up pldennison’s invitation randy do a search for previous threads on this and related matters. There is a perception here that certain types of christians are unduly confident in such matters. You probably don’t want to reinforce that perception. [/cfm]
And where did I say ALL CHRISTIANS? I have pretty emphatically stated that those who practice the true form of Christianity are not the ones that I have a problem with. The ones who are secure in their faith and content to let their God judge me, rather than taking it on themselves. This doesn’t include you, does it?
**You have no idea what you are talking about. Very well. I’ll try once again. A Theory, when used by the scientific community and spelled with a capital “T” denotes a principle which has such a preponderance of evidence supporting it that to deny it would be delusional. Evolution is supported by biology, geology, zoology, taxonomy, palenotology…to name but a few disciplines.
You’re aware, I suppose of the Theory of Gravitation? It’s about as reliable as Evolution.
Oh. My mistake. And to think all this time I though Christianity WAS an organized religion. This is going to come as a surprise to the Pope.
Roman Catholicism is perhaps the most organized religion in the world, but as far as generic religions are concerned, I believe Christianity is the most fractured,hundreds if not thousands of different denominations and many Christians feel no need to participate in public displays of faith.
Oh boy. Well…I looked it up in Merriam Websters and heres what it says:
theory
1. abstract thought
2. the general principles of a subject
3. a plausible or scientifically acceptable general
principle offered to explain observed facts.
4. HYPOTHESIS, CONJECTURE. (caps Websters, not mine)
I know you wanted more, but it seems there's several definitions for the word, none of them being "Absolute Truth"
Listen though, if it's coming down to a Scientific debate, I have no problem admitting that many, if not most of you are more educated on the subject than I am. I am intelligent enough to know this; for 150 years Darwins Theory (theory?) has been debated by well informed, educated, intelligent folks, and it will be till Christ returns. It has been hotly debated, and not only by the Christian community. Have all those years of debate been in
vain? They could’ve just asked you?
Sorry, but my faith tells me differently. If that's arrogance, and worthy of bashing, so be it.
Anyway, my topic was Political Correctness. I should've known better than respond to the Evolution comments.
**Oh. My mistake. And to think all this time I though Christianity WAS an organized religion. This is going to come as a surprise to the Pope. **
[/QUOTE]
Chrisitianity is a belief, or a way of life. Take what the Bible says, then mix in mans interpretations and laws with it, make a doctrine out of that, then it becomes a religion. For example, 1 John 1:9 says, “if we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. That is Christianity. The Roman Catholics say (not exactly this, but for illustration purposes) that if you sin, confess TO A PRIEST, say some Hail Mary’s, then you’re forgiven. That is Religion.
Of course that’s MY definition of it all, But if you’re allowed to use your definition of “Theory with a capital T”, then I’m allowed to use mine.
Testy, do you hate all groups who lobby politically for what they want, or just Christians? Should Christians step aside and not speak up while other groups lobby?
I don’t have any statitistics here, but I would guess that MOST Christians do not want to “get around that troublesome separation of church and state thing”. ALL, the Christians that I know, are very happy with that arrangement. If we’re not careful though, the Nations Leaders and Lawmakers might want to join the two someday. That would be trouble.
Gee, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. The fact that a scientific theory is subject to constant and rigorous debate and revision rather than simple acceptance on faith must mean it is full of holes and probably invalid.
Oh, can you please explain for us (since it’s so well accepted, it should take mere moments to find an online cite) exactly how gravity works, how its effects are transmitted across a distance, and the speed at which it occurs?
