Google is NOT the ultimate source. They contract and adapt based on your location, search terms, search history and the whims of the market.
Today they seem to be using Oxford English for me, but they also use Collins and sometimes wikipedia.
So without some cite that google makes any claim that they own, control and produce that content my original point stands. They are NOT an “original source”
And it isn’t.
I have an answer. And it’s a sincere answer. Unfortunately, it’s also an answer that appears self-serving. Nonetheless, it’s accurate. I averted to it in this post, above:
My complaint is about the tone that’s established as a result of poorly-grounded attacks. When they pass by unremarked, they contribute to the tone of general acceptance.
steronz described the experience quite well:
The idea is to participate in not letting poor logic, poor facts, or poor behavior stand. When Shodan’s commentary came along, there was no dearth of rebuttal. The tone of the board stood foursquare against his contribution, and did not need my addition.
Now, when I find a thread with something from “my side” that is new enough that the poster hasn’t been roundly rebuked already, I do try to step up and rebuke. Surely you’ve seen examples of my doing this – I know Shodan has.
Who said they were an original source?
I merely said they were a legitimate source.
But if that bothers you, let’s move to the Oxford English Dictionary, whose bona fides I assume you accept, although they, too, are not an “original” source, a term with limited usefulness in defining common words:
Of course, they do not quantify the injury. The second definition is more severe:
I agree that this definition is not particularly consistent with mine, since it specifies violent oppression. But surely that’s that the only type of persecution possible, is it?
Nope. Definition three:
Well?
Bob Jones, Sr. was not talking about “a couple of Popes.” He was talking about all Popes. He thought they were demon-possessed by virtue of being head of the Catholic Church.
Just one more example of Christians persecuting their fellow Christians, under our new definition of persecution. When will Christians start calling out Christians for persecuting Christians?
Christianception.
When? About 90 years ago. It’s not remotely a new phenomenon. In 1925, the state of Oregon passed an ostensibly-neutral law that mandated all children attend public school. In reality, it was a swipe by the Protestant majority against Catholics. Although at that time the First Amendment was not applicable against the states, that fact pattern today would certainly support a First Amendment claim… and would be fairly described as Christians persecuting Christians.
I can understand that. I think, though, that this seems like an area which introduces a lot of varied responses. Speaking personally, there are a lot of times when I’ve come to a thread, seen a reply, thought of a rebuttal to a point made, only to scan down the thread and see that it’s already been brought up. Sometimes that happens when lots of people disagree - sometimes when just one person disagrees I feel like there’s nothing that I can add that that they didn’t include. All that I would be adding is my voice - my +1, not a particularly substantive post. If anything, my own post could easily detract from an eloquent of clear post from another; i’m sure you’ve seen examples of posters making excellent, reasonable points, only for opponents to only respond to posters who make foolish or unclear points, or who offer abuse.
I suppose what that leads to is; i’m curious as to whether, applying that standard if you think it’s reasonable, the situations you have in mind in which posters have gone un-rebuked become less of issue to you.
The tertiary definition?
Dude!
Of the three, do you think that’s the definition this thread is about?
I’m confused. I thought you were positing that criticism or hostile language meets the threshold for persecution? Now, you are giving me a fact pattern that involves people actively trying to change the law to coerce behavior, which is a much higher threshold. So, let’s go back to my original question. When fundamentalists insult and demonize Catholics, are they persecuting Catholics?
This; Christianity has enjoyed such unchallenged superiority and a fairly protected position that they have become accustomed to it. Now the era in which it’s not polite to openly challenge people’s religious beliefs is fading fast and many are on the wrong side of SSM. Let’s add that many conservative sources like to feed the nonsense meme that freedom of religion is threatened and they are now the victems.
The rest of this twaddle has already been torn to shreds, but I wanted to address how very, very wrong this specific statement is.
Baehr vs. Miike, the Hawaiian gay marriage case that, arguably, kicked off the current debate on the subject, was first brought to trial in 1991 - over twenty years ago. This was not, of course, the first time gay activists had brought up the subject. The first law suit seeking government recognition of same sex marriages was brought in 1970. (The plaintiff, incidentally, was a church.) I can also say, speaking from personal experience as a third generation gay rights supporter, that the notion of marriage equality goes back much, much further than that.
Hey! You’re persecuting bigots by pointing out that they’re rewriting history!
There are a variety of posters for which I do the same.
Seeing as they are ranked in order of commonality, I would say that this post demonstrates that you cherry picked the definition that fit your argument then discounted several other posters responses as invalid due to your “authoritative” less common meaning. Thank you sir for documenting this fact and invalidating half a dozen of your replies.
I still claim that without citing the original source “google” is not authoritative. The google supplied definition could have come from the urban dictionary as far as we know.
Seeing as the percentage of atheists (4.0%) plus GLTB (3.8%) make up a tiny portion of the population and even a smaller portion of government representation I would argue that almost all “persecution” has been between the various sects of Christianity and at least after the second awakening I am unable to think of any US cases where non-christians did anything through the state that could be viewed as such. Not due to a lack of desire but a lack of power.
Us humans are really bad about detecting our own “privilege” and thus view the protection of belief in general as an attack because they are giving up (from a founders prospective) improper rights over others with differing beliefs.
A perfect example of this is how it is fully acceptable that there is a religious statue called “And Jesus Wept” across from the OKC National Memorial in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. There was zero outrage at this but when an out-group tried to put a muslim prayer space in a community center several blocks from the WTC site it was labeled the “Ground Zero mosque”
Unfortunately the “ultimate attribution error” is a normal human trait, and we ascribe moral failings as to the cause to any out-group action. And yes us liberals are not immune from this human failing.
But the OP can really be answered with this…those committing tyranny are for the most part good people, they have a privilege over others and have romanticized their perceived “right” to commit this abuse against others. In fact they won’t even see it as an abuse at all.
While there is some built in rhetoric in all abrahamic religions which adds to this perceived “victimization” it would be manufactured even without the bronze age mythos. Just go to any city council meeting or zoning committee meeting where they are removing street parking, increasing housing density or putting in street parking time limits. The same “victimization” rhetoric will be spewed by individuals who feel they are being persecuted because the government is taking away their subsidized use of public property. And this is completely without any form of supernatural mythos complicating the matter.
To say that Christians as a whole feel victimized isn’t any more accurate than to say that Muslims as a whole advocate terrorism. In both cases, it’s a minority. Most people want to get along, be left alone, and leave others alone.
Unfortunately, the minority of Christians that whine about being persecuted is pretty noisy and gets a lot of attention. Every year, there’s a “war on Christmas”. They whine about other people saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”. How DARE other people realize that not everyone shares THEIR faith! They obsess over imaginary threats like removing “In God We Trust” from coins and currency or removing the phrase “Under God” from the [heavenly choir/] Pledge of Allegiance [/heavenly choir]. They still piss and moan that we don’t force students to say THEIR prayers in public schools. It’s my opinion that these are mostly the social conservative wing of the Republican Party, and they whine because that’s what they do. Birdies gotta fly, fish gotta swim, snakes gotta bite, and right wingers gotta whine.
People who have been the victims of persecution deserve a great deal of sympathy and those who have persecuted others deserve a great deal of condemnation. A certain threshold of unpleasantness in the experience must be therefore be present before the definition can kick in.
I would say that in order for treatment to rise to the level of persecution it at very least needs to make the victim feel threatened. Is that not reasonable?
Historical persecution has often involved killing, expulsion, vandalism, or some degree of 2nd-class citizen status inflicted on the victims. Being made to fear that some such things might be imminent would suffice, as would being given a clear impression in ones daily face-to-face encounters with other members of the community that one’s kind is not welcome.
But purely verbal criticism or condemnation does not suffice as persecution unless it is being delivered from a pulpit that is clearly backed by power. Being in the majority usually brings with it enough power to protect one’s people from persecution (if not to mete it out). There can be exceptions in highly authoritarian societies such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, but Christians in the US have no such thing to worry about.
Don’t bother. There’s a reasonable discussion to be had about what constitutes persecution. Bricker shows absolutely no interest in being a part of that discussion.
No. The first definition, since it fails to quantify any particular level of harm, supports my point perfectly.