Actually, I think that’s a very clever headline!
According to (dubious) legend, St. Laurence had the right approach to martyrdom. WHile being roasted over a fire, he supposedly said, “Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”
If Lawrence could laugh at his own torture, he could certainly laugh at a football game.
Nope. I realize that, and certainly didn’t mean to imply that you did. But I also didn’t say that non-christians are persecuted either. Simply that there is as much potential for persecution of non-Christians in the US as Christians.
Some people, perhaps.
And an awful lot of people tell me that I’m going to burn in all eternity for not thinking like them. And an awful lot of people tell gays that they shouldn’t have jobs and are damned for all time. And tell pagans that they are silly comic book satanists who will die eternally. And tell Catholics that they worship a whore.
I’m not sure if that’s making fun of people. But it sure as hell does more than “make [people] feel uncomfortable.”
Y’know, Lauralee, you have a point. Seems like 'most everybody thinks they’re being persecuted for one reason or another.
I think I’ll start up a “Pity the Poor Persecuted Liberal Christian” thread. Just think: some of the atheists condemn me for “believing in a god that just plain doesn’t exist”; some of the Neopagans can’t stand that I belong to the majority religion – and one with a history of persecuting witches; some of the gays don’t like that I belong to a religion that historically condemned gays and will stick up for those who believe gay sex is immoral, even though I don’t (hope he isn’t lissening); and Joe Cool, on the now-missing Friend-of-God’s swan song thread, took me to task for “calling myself a Christian but thinking the bible is bunk” (his lowercase letter on Bible; I respect it enough to use the capital – but that’s part of Billy’s “grammer” thread). Woe is me! 
Lauralee:
I know I mentioned this to you privately, but I may as well say it for the rest of the class.
I personally chose to take on the greater afront to me personally when I took on the “magick and faeries” commentary. However, there are more than a few posts there which say, “who says you’re persecuted?” to an extent.
To play devil’s advocate, they burned “witches” only a couple hundred years ago in this country. And who did the burning?
Yer pal,
Satan
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Christianity, in many peoples view is a faith built upon weakness and dependence on God. In that established and accepted state of weakness is the acceptance of persecution. Christianity grew in times of persecution, and even if it doesn’t happen much in America, it does happen in other countries and Christains use that to attempt to foster growth and support.
Whether or not anyone things this practice is wrong is irrelevant.
The fact is, almost every major social group that has ever grown and firmly established itself in our society has done so through persecution: Jews, Christains, blacks, gays…heck even Marylin Manson fans. Manson makes big bucks by selling himself as being despised by people (especially Christians, which is the case because he played his cards right). Anyway, so what is the big deal? It’s common. Blacks don’t deal with a major amount of persecution except in certain areas. Gays don’t really deal with a whole lot of persecution except in a few isolated incidences which they capitalize on. The whole general population of the country is paranoid that they might in some way step on the toes of a black or gay person. Likewise, Christians don’t really suffer much persecution, except in certain areas. But because it is such an old institution, there isn’t much sympathy for them. Oh well.
It must be a great comfort for the families of assassinated abortion clinic doctors to hear you say that.
As far as the OP is concerned, I’ve always considered this “Look at me! I’m a MARTY*R!” routine as a sort of religious Munchusen(sp?) Syndrome. It’s usually used by those who couldn’t convince anyone of their point of view, but don’t want to give up the spotlight. Any opposition is identified as persecution, and anyone with an opposing point of view is identified as a persecutor.
Yet, oddly enough, we ARE in danger of life and limb for what OTHERS believe. Look at Oklahoma City. (and NO, i am NOT blaming Xians for that… don’t even think of trying to pin THAT one on me)
One of the things that stuck in my head from when I was growing up in the south: Person A complains about what an awful day they were having/spouse troubles/car problems, etc. Person B responds woth 'You’re a Christian martyr for putting up with that. Can’t you picture St Lawrence rolling his eyes, laughing, milk spurting out of his nose at THAT one?
From PBS:
Early in the thread, Kyberneticist said:
I think this is really key (and I’ve been considering writing an article about it, though I don’t know where it might be printed).
Think about it. If they were in a mostly-Muslim area and the Muslims all decided to force their prayers on them during a football game, the Christians would be in an uproar. “How dare they?! They are persecuting us!”
But go to Texas and you see the Christians doing exactly this – and complaining about it when the courts say they can’t do it with official sponsorship!
Then they go further and decide to do it “spontaneously” without the school. While I do think this is legal, I don’t think it is moral. They are still using their majority status to try to force their religion on others. However, they don’t seem to have any empathy whatsoever for being on the other side (as some of you know, empathy is one thing non-believers have cited around here as a key reason for morality without belief in God).
To them, persecution is around every corner. They are being persecuted for not being allowed to use government control to force prayer. They are being persecuted in countries where they are not in the majority. It’s just ridiculous already.
On a related topic, for those of you who watched Survivor, you may know that Dirk was voted off for being just plain lazy. However, he has been going around to various interviews and speeches (such as on the 700 Club) claiming he was voted off because he was a Christian. Give me a break! It only adds to the whole persecution complex thing.
I remember hearing an item (I think it was on NPR) when the latest TExas attempt at football game prayer went before the Supreme Court. The interviewer asked some students how they would feel if a buddhist, or Muslim, or Jew was to do the pre-game prayer.The response was:
‘That would be OK, as long as they mentioned Jesus’
:rolleyes:
Nobody likes him, everybody hates him! Think he’ll go eat worms!
And that wouldn’t be quite as funny coming from anybody that wasn’t quite as well respected around here as Polycarp!!
Of course. But I like to point out, when I can, that these aren’t just Christian failings. Yeah, we make more noise than most. But we’re hardly the only ones out there.
I think that this is all a case of the best offence being a good defence.
And for the record, the attitude you’re describing is not unique to Christianity. Or the United States.
The Federal District Court (I believe in Connecticut) has just upheld a lower court’s decision banning Bible stories chosen by students.
A teacher told her class they could choose any story they wanted to read to the class. One child chose the creation story from Genesis as presented in her child’s version of the Bible. The teacher told her she couldn’t use that one. It wound up in the courts, and the court found that the teacher could ban Bible stories.
Please note that neither the school nor the teacher was involved in choosing this story, therefore no coercion was involved, nor any establishment of religion.
The child could have chosen Harry Potter books about sorcery, Native American myths, or what have you. It is just the Bible that is outlawed.
This is why some Christians feel persecuted.
Do you have a cite for that? I can’t find it on Yahoo News. I’d like to read the case; I suspect there’s more to it than there seems on the surface. I kind of doubt that the student was disallowed from doing a book report on the Bible but doing a book report on the Koran, Torah, Bhavad-Gita, etc. was A-OK. Perhaps the child was supposed to do a book report on a piece of non-fiction, and the school does not really have the right to implicitly declare that, say, the Bible is non-fiction but Native American myths are fiction, or vice versa for that matter.
Actually, it was the Jacob and Esau story, Gaudere. The kid’s name was Zachary Hood, and his case was taken over by the Becket Fund.
Here’s one story on it from the (Philadelphia) Inquirer.
http://www.freedomforum.org/religion/1998/10/9biblestory.asp
This, I don’t know about; the other children weren’t reading “there is no Christian God” stories or “The life of the one prophet Muhammed”, they were apparently reading “Ben the Bunny Goes to School.” I don’t think “there is no Christian God” stories or “The life of the one prophet Muhammed” would have been deemed appropriate either.
Um, I believe the government already does this, unless you want every yahoo claiming tax-exemptions because they just formed the Church of Give Money to Me. Now, of course, if religions want to give up their tax-exemptions, et al, maybe we can talk… 
The government does decide to recognize whether a set of beliefs is religious or not–if you let your child die because you believe it’s more important to preserve her soul by not taking her to a doctor, that’s accepted in some states, but if you let her die because you think it’s more important to watch baseball than to take her to a doctor you’re toast–it simply cannot officially sanction one religion.
So, the child was not allowed to read the Bible story to the whole class, and instead read it to the teacher alone. Again, I think that any story read from that religions holy book would have been disallowed; stories about Moses or Muhammed or Satan as well as Esau. I think they were ruling against any religious story being read in school to a class of first-graders, not Christianity per se, so I don’t think it shows that Christianity is persecuted more than, say, Islam or Paganism or ostentatious atheism; I don’t believe any of those should have official support by a public school.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about the court’s decision; I hate to tell a kid he can’t read his favorite story to the class and Esau and Jacob might be a an OK story, but what if the kid wanted to read a sysopsis of the Crucifixion that mentioned the Jews killing Our Savior, or a kids-version of Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian”? The teacher does have an obligation to monitor what the child decides to read to his classmates as part of an official class project; I can certainly think of some things that no first-grader should be allowed to read to the class. Does it violate a first-grader’s right to free speech if he is not allowed to read racist or graphic anti-abortion literature to his class? I am rather leery of anything that seems like official sanction or censure of any particular religion; ostentatously religious or anti-religious stories don’t really seem to have a place in a public school’s first-grade classroom. Which infringes more on religious freedom, not allowing a child to read from his religion’s holy book to his fellow first graders, or to force a class of first-graders to listen to said holy book that may completely contradict the faith their parents wish to raise them in? It’s a sticky wicket, and I’m not entirely sure what is best right now. Neither are the courts, apparently. I am willing to listen to arguments from either side, if anyone wants to make one.
One additional point: The kid was definitely not the target of anti-Christian bias, since the story was, as described, from the Old Testament.
It’s heads! No, it’s tails! Wait, it landed on its side!
Why not eliminate public schools, and let parents decide for themselves through the free-market what their children may read in school?
Great idea!
That way, when the school board is hiring a new biology teacher, it will have to spend thousands more to check on the background of the teacher to find out exactly what kind of “science” the teacher has learned. I mean, it doesn’t matter what a biologist, chemist or historian knows, as long as their(now next to worthless) diploma says the right hing, right?
Lib, one of the purposes of school is to broaden the horizons of a child. This cannot be done if the only reading the child is allowed is that material the parents find familiar and comforting. I always thought that we brought up our chldren to become better than us, to live better than us. To do this, they will have to learn from those whose knowledge surpasses our own.