Religion
Related: About this forumFeel the Christian Love on this Billboard
But, yeah, "Fake News" billboards are the problem.
pandr32
(11,588 posts)democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Igel
(35,320 posts)Rule by those below?
ffr
(22,670 posts)Putin dark money or just misdirected idiocy?
CatMor
(6,212 posts)but I hate what it has become.
Igel
(35,320 posts)It has become what it mostly was. But less so.
We like it when it's being remade in our image.
Take that into a marriage. We only love our spouses when they act like we want them to, and change those things we dislike. Yes, it's a decent analogy. Humans like validation; we like flattery, and imitation is a good form of it. Bad, when we're spurned.
For most of my lifetime, the US has been moderately racist and misogynistic, with tinges (or more than tinges) of ethnic pride. Yet I recall vestiges of actual Jim Crowe--one of my earliest memories is being told not to use a water fountain near a mall, but to use another, located nearby. There were two. The one that was still there a few years later said "whites only." My (D) mother didn't want me used the _________'s water fountain.
(Match that with my (R) father's response when, in 3rd grade, I heard the n-word for the first time and asked about it that night at dinner. He told me if he ever heard that word again I'd really regret it. Which was confusing, since my mother had qualms over Obama, and only decided he wasn't a __________ when she said he was a widely published college professor. By which she meant "published a lot about the law." Wrong about so many things.)
Cartoonist
(7,317 posts)Small print
Atheist must be a natural born citizen
Quote or action requires link
America is defined as the land, not the government
dchill
(38,505 posts)For the billboard tells me so.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)You know...
The freedom of not having healthcare.
The freedom of getting shot by some wacko who shouldn't own a gun.
The freedom to be shot by a cop with an itchy finger.
The freedom to drink poisoned water.
The freedom to breathe poisoned air.
The freedom to eat processed crap with too much sugar in it.
The freedom to have your vote rendered meaningless by partisan redistricting.
The freedom of having your vote rendered meaningless by legalized bribery from lobbyists.
The freedom of getting demonized for not believing the fairy-tales of illiterate Bronze-Age desert-dwellers.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)Where are the people who were snarking about "evangelical atheism" over those billboards? Don't they have anything to say about evangelical Christian hatred?
I don't even want to hear that those who put up this billboard aren't real Christians. Of course they are.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)So that was probably worse than this. Somehow.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Saying mean things about an invisible sky wizard is just as bad, if not worse, than accusing people en masse of capital offenses.
marble falls
(57,106 posts)Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)*double checks OP*
Nope. Didn't say that.
marble falls
(57,106 posts)"Feel the Christian Love....." "The Christian" as opposed to "Some Christian"s or "Some self recognizing Christians". We woulden't want to broad-brush now would we?
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)Are the people that put that up Christian? Yes. So my title is just fine. Are you the person that responds to the #metoo movement with "not all men"?
But I am confident that when people make statements about atheists in this group that you will be there to make sure there is no broad brush with as much alacrity as on this OP.
marble falls
(57,106 posts)Voltaire2
(13,061 posts)If you were going to pretend that you were "juat askin' a simple question', you probably shouldn't double down on the accusations in the next sentence.
Just sayin'.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)about the Christian message on the billboard.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)Your post is more offensive, apparently, than the Christian message on that billboard. It's always good to know what's important to whom. Don't you agree?
Igel
(35,320 posts)The problem is one of a double standard.
"I say something, I just mean it to include those, possibly few people, I intend. They say something, it includes everybody, and I'm going to take offense."
Context matters. Yet we insist it mustn't.
Intent matters. Yet it's inconvenient to what *we* want to say and feel and think, so we insist it's only the viewer/hearer (that would be "us" that's important.
We shift definitions and contexts as necessary to confirm our bias, yet refuse to not impose our context and bias on others.
In church, I was taught that this is arrogant, and humility is a virtue. In my undergrad chem classes, I was taught that a certain humility is necessary when faced with valid data and opposing views. In this, the two find quite good agreement. Well beyond 5 sigma.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)So how about we just skip the foreplay and get right to the part where you chastise the resident atheists for not expressing outrage in a manner sufficiently deferential to the nation's most privileged religious class.
marble falls
(57,106 posts)"Feel the Christian Love....." "The Christian" as opposed to "Some Christian"s or "Some self recognizing Christians". We wouldn't want to broad-brush now would we?
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Mariana
(14,858 posts)meant all Christians in the first place? What's the point of adding unnecessary words? "The trees are tall" doesn't imply that every tree on the face of the earth is tall. Some trees are sad stubby little things, and some Christians don't agree with the Christian message in the OP. And why say they are self-identifying Christians? More unnecessary words. All Christians are self-identifying. Saying that would be redundant, similar to saying "I live in a big house home."
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)rather than the offencive content. You may as well be posting, as has been pointed out, #notallmen
It's been a while since this method has been tried here. I really didn't miss it
Mariana
(14,858 posts)Next, we'll be told the people who put up the billboard aren't Christians.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)All the classics are coming back into style, just say an "angry atheist" line the other day.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)I'm still missing a few squares
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Asking why a guy who has just been accused of hating his country by a bunch of bigots why he didn't phrase his outrage in a manner more deferential to the delicate feelings of those who hold the lion's share of this country's political capital.
We get it. Really, we do.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,862 posts)all non-believers.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)What Cuthbert posted is obviously more offensive. Somehow.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,862 posts)If Christians, even just some of them, are willing to paint non-believers with a broad brush, then they'll get it back. Something about doing unto others.
Look, I get it that at best a minority of self-identified Christians will agree with that billboard. But it never feels as if they speak up very strongly, just a weak, "We're not all like that." I want to see a strong condemnation of such bullshit. Another billboard that displays inclusiveness of every possible kind. Cake bakers who understand that baking a cake for someone with a very different way of life in no way endangers theirs. And so on.
And especially when I over and over again see the crap repeated about how if you're not a believer you can't possibly live a good life. You can't feel compassion for others or give to charity. Or the real nonsense about how it's not possible to lead a good and moral life if you don't live in constant fear of punishment.
uriel1972
(4,261 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Same nonsense, but sponsored in this case by atheists.
Agreed?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)if these atheist countries hate American all atheists hate America
uriel1972
(4,261 posts)I would not be so quick to say Russia is an atheist country... However some people are stuck in the 1950's
on edit: Oh and what makes you say they are fake Christians, where is your proof of apostasy?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)I believe I have the right to call anyone a fake christian
Please be so kind to list all the attributes of Jesus??
Mariana
(14,858 posts)That doesn't mean anyone is compelled to agree with you. I suspect their faith in Christ is genuine. They don't interpret the book the same way you do, perhaps, and have a different idea of what God expects of them, but I don't think that makes them non-Christians.
I would ask you this: If they aren't Christians, then what are they, exactly? They don't appear to be atheists. Are they followers of some other religion? If so, which one?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)To me this would point to a One True Path
If one does not try to follow this path and says they believe in Jesus would make them a fake christian.
Just believing in Jesus does not make a christian.
answers:
fake christians
yes
their own
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Yes, that is the problem with intolerance.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Saying you don't believe in an idea, or saying that idea is bunkum is the same as designating an entire demographic enemies of the nation.
Good job.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)But if one accepts it when it accords with one's beliefs, that is an acceptance of intolerance.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)1. God isn't real
2. Atheists aren't real Americans
Yeah, those are the same. for the impaired.
This might be a new low.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)accords with a position with which one agrees.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)It's tiresome.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)THAT is tiresome.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)"Religion is fake" is no more intolerant a statement than "Jesus is real". I doubt you'd get yourself worked into an indignant tizzy over the latter statement, so what's your problem with the former? Oh, right.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Other times, it is exceedingly blatant.
The same is true with the dismissive attitudes and condescension.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)It must suck sharing the same in-group with 70% of the population and 99% of the country's most powerful people. How do you cope with it? I mean, besides projecting onto atheists.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Good on your part to admit what is easily observable.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 15, 2017, 10:38 AM - Edit history (1)
But unfortunately I don't think anyone here is actually dumb enough to confuse sarcasm with an admission of guilt.
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)You rail against it as intolerance? Because that is the EXACT same statement as "God isn't real." And apparently "god isn't real" is as bad and intolerant as "atheists aren't real Americans."
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Is that where you've set the bar?
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)But some reserve their criticism for only one of the bill boards. Inconsistent and intolerant.
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)How? It has nothing to do with the person. I has to do with a belief.
And for you to equate that with "atheists are real Americans" is just shameful.
They are nowhere near the same.