Unfortunately, loudmouthed, bigoted, ignorant people who claim to be Xians--

and maybe some of them are--but anyway, they have given Xians a bad name. Not surprisingly, many on DU and undoubtedly many not on DU, think of them as bigoted, loudmouth, deluded fools.

As some DU'ers occasionally point out, not all Xians are like that, and many Xians actually do many good things--food banks, helping homeless, etc. But they don't make "good copy" in the MSM. Their efforts are only written about in local newspapers, for the most part.

As I've said, this is unfortunate. It's the nature of "news," it seems, that the negative is accented much more often than the positive.

(Can I get a grant to do a study of this? :rofl: Yeah, I'm stating the obvious. SOMEBODY has to do it.)

The latter being all-cross and no-Christ.

visible adherents are as you say they are.

The people doing good stuff aren't headline-grabbers by nature so you're right -- they are not the ones whose models define the faith.

The percentage of good people doing good stuff is likely about the same as it ever was, but the screeching authoritarianism from the nutbags has grown far greater -- in decibels and in adherents -- and that isn't good for the main office.

A public radio program over the weekend featured a piece in which it was suggested that people nowadays are holding religion accountable to their lives and not the other way around, that this has been an enormous paradigm shift, and that in such a climate the traditional hierarchies will be strained and possibly snapped.

One of the interviewees all but predicted that Christianity is in its death throes, owed in part to its institutional inflexibility.

because the reason they have to keep telling you they are is because they don't ACT like christians. most people who are christians that you don't hear about are the ones actually living their beliefs and DOING things without getting a lot of brooha ha over it. they are running the food pantries and helping the homeless and not pushing their religon on others.

"They'll know we are Christians by our love".

I agree. Words alone aren't often very meaningful in this context. The sort of chest-thumping bragging never is. (As if Christianity were an elite club, and not an obligation).

Actions speak.

an open and affirming policy on gays and lesbians, that song was stuck in my head.

http://mediamatters.org/reports/leftbehind/ and
http://mediamatters.org/reports/sundayshowreport/

Your suspicions are right on; however since the study has been done, don't count on that grant

if you have to use your ism or your ianity as the reason for your actions then you really aren't YOU yet.

So you would only give to charity because you're a christian? You aren't really practicing judaism if you aren't a zionist?

There are good democrats and bad democrats, because GOOD democrats all agree with each other?

Whatever it is you do has to come from WHO you are, not what group you belong to, for it to be immutable and real, and not just done out of duty or affiliation.

the golden rule is STILL the golden rule.

:thumbsup:

I think of a term my sister uses to describe the condescending Christian use of "I will pray for you" when anyone disagrees with a fundamentalist in any way, she calls it "blessing you out". What they really desire is to curse you out, but they think they are being "good" by saying they will "pray", the intent and insult is no different though. But they feel that it will get them to heaven rather than hell. Fear rules, but at least they are still "better" than the rest of us (in their minds).

we are not defined by what we are or aren't. we are not good automatically because we go to church. BTK went to church. or the whole, well he couldn't have done that because he is a good christian. that's horseshit. people of faith and people without do good things or bad things irregardless of whether they are or aren't of a faith. people do things because they want to help others. i do things because i believe in the golden rule, not because of any religious affiliation. i believe in pay it forward. i believe in the idea that helping others comes back around when i need it. i know that is selfish isn't it. i help people because it makes me feel good. do i believe in god? yes. i believe in god. but i do not consider myself a christian either.

are not necessarily Christians. "Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me" and "do unto others.." and the beatitudes (and I could go on and on) are not embodied by the heartless ones, but those with heart live the gospels and love their neighbors. My atheist friends are more closely aligned with Christian values than the majority of those who attended the Assembly of God church I used to attend.

Give me an atheist as a neighbor or a new thought type person as a friend because I have found that they are more faithful to what is right and good than most of the professed Christians I know. I'm on the same page with Gandhi when he said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Sadly the extremists and fanatics are too often the voice of the Christian Church and so your point is well taken.

There is no definition of Christianity that even the Christians here on DU will accept en masse. None. From just the people on this board, there is adequate proof that Christianity is whatever the believer makes it to be. Therefore, the only way to tell whether or not someone is a Christian is to find out how they self-identify.

So the loud-mouthed, bigoted, ignorant assholes are just as Christian as anyone else who claims the label. It makes members of this board unhappy sometimes, but then again it's a voluntary label, which means that when they choose it they choose the baggage that goes along with it.

It's not like the word itself is a home, or a territory, or other tangible thing that people often feel the need to stand and defend. It is a word, or a label if you will, and it is therefore not nearly as important as the teachings and traditions these people wish to follow.

In short, I think if "true Christians" honestly want to avoid being painted with the same brush as the ignorant assholes, they shouldn't stand so close to the ignorant assholes in the first place, and one way to step away might be voluntary finding a new label.

He (if the bible stories are to be believed) spent a lot of time speaking out and pissing people off. He also believed, for example, that disease was caused by demons you could cast into pigs and then send them off a cliff to be rid of.

The bigoted charge, well, one could make an argument on that too, with his extreme judgmentalism ("weeping and gnashing of teeth", the cursed fig tree, etc.).

But some of the loudest-mouthed, most bigoted, and incredibly ignorant Christians run food shelves and community outreach programs too. (Hey, there's not a lot of media coverage of atheists who volunteer and help at charitable organizations either.)

In other words, the label "Christian" doesn't necessarily exclude any of those descriptors, nor is it only good "Christians" who are upstanding and contributing members of society.

Paulians, or Leviticans or Old Testamentites or or some such.

far as I can tell.

Just like the Snakers and the Witch-hunters.

If the "false" Christians are louder and more visible than the "real" Christians, I can only guess that they are the "official" Christians...

Prior to the development of agriculture or thereabouts each of us belonged to one tribe. Now, we can belong to any number of tribes. We can belong to the christian tribe, the Pittsburgh Steelers tribe, and the (ugh) Twitter tribe.

Religious faiths have had to compete in the marketplace just like soap flakes and lawn furniture and have suffered for it as a result. It doesn't matter how many good works a religion does, whatever they do has a corrosive effect on society as a whole. The fundamentalists seem fascinated with national defense and law enforcement, liberal christians are into traditional charity work. Both activities are counter productive because they depend on the privatization of public resources.

Nationalism is the primary means of tribal organization now. Religion as a tool for social cohesion has been struggling for relevance for hundreds of years and is not going quietly into that good night. That is probably because it springs from a part of the human experience that will never go away.

The task ahead for all of us is to better understand the impulse that results in religion and put it to use for the good of all rather than the profit of the organizations that promote it. A task not so different for most of the other cultural tools at our disposal. Maybe some day we will graduate from the nationalism tribe to the human tribe. If we don't kill each other first.

and until the 'good' eradicate the 'bad' from their ranks then they enable and own the bullshit too.

say "God hates fags," and harass women at abortion clinics, "You're kicked out of the church," especially since they more than likely don't go to the same church?

Xtians are self-identifying. You can talk about good ones and bad ones all you want, but they label themselves.

Furthermore, people who say they are xtians and are judgmental assholes, are following lots of the stuff Jesus allegedly said in the New Testament. He was into all sorts of hateful and judgmental stuff."I come not in peace, but with a sword..." etc., etc. It's there in the New Testament, in the gospels, but most xtians totally ignore it because they want to.

The problem is that there is no independent evidence that a Jesus ever existed and there are no independent records of his existence. He is probably a synthesis of three different people. The Gospels were written 50 to 100 years after he lived, NOT contemporaneously with his life. He has no distinguishing characteristics that make him any different from Mithra, Apollo, Osiris, Tammuz, or other gods. Birthday: Dec. 25; born of a miraculous union between a human virgin woman and a sky-daddy; worked miracles; miracles happened around the time of his birth; miraculous signs in the heavens at his birth; died; was resurrected; went to heaven; wise men present at his birth; etc.

The canonical (officially accepted) parts of the Bible were stuck together at the Council of Nicaea and Emperor Constantine wanted to unify his empire under one religion. Stuff was taken out, rearranged, mistranslated, and generally stuck in the literary equivalent of a blender. That's why it's repetitive and contradictory. It's a pretty sorry book to use as a moral guide except for small parts of it, and the ancient, superstitious civilization it came from is a pretty sorry ancient society to use for a moral example for the 21st century.

There are no new principles in Christianity that were not handed down from previous civilizations and their myths.

The xtians that are busy helping people are usually not talking about Jesus or their faith. They are helping others.

...whether or not the followers of the religion are "good people" or not, whether they do good things or not.

If the kindest, most generous person in the world, who had ended poverty and cured cancer was, say, a Mormon or a Scientologist, I'd still find magic underwear and Galactic Overlord Xenu completely ridiculous, and I'd say so.

I'm just wondering why you would care what the person who cures cancer/ends poverty believes and does in his personal life. So their underwear or overlords are weird, who cares. :shrug:

Think about all the things you talk about all of the time in day-to-day conversation, things you find interesting to discuss, and tell me if each and every thing you discuss is only something you have some deep and vested interest in, otherwise you remain silent and never bring up things outside of the scope of what you should "care" about.

Then ask yourself if you'd want to feel constrained by social custom to stick to discussing, and offering opinions on, only those things someone else thinks you "should" care about, never straying beyond those limits.

Then ask yourself why this question about whether someone should "care" or not comes up so often when religion or silly superstitious behaviors are the issue, but less often when the subject is say, what clothes people wear or who the best baseball pitcher is.

Why do I care what you believe in? If you and I get along well and you share my values yet you believe in voodoo should I reject you outright? I could probably hear some interesting things from you. As long as you and I are up front about the fact that I will not go to your church with you, and am not interested in sharing your beliefs I don't see a problem. As long as you can keep yourself from prostyltyzing to me, we're good.

Rejecting in what sense?

Are you confusing rejecting a person's beliefs with rejecting the person? Are you confusing public discussion of an issue with private conversations one might have with friends and family, where different rules of etiquette and different standards of trying to get along might apply?

anyone (in all scenarios)who didn't believe exactly like you do. It sure read like thats what you were saying to me. If I misread that then what exactly are you saying?

That says what is says. Where you'd get the idea that the above has anything to do with rejecting the entirety of a person because I don't feel constrained from saying whether or not I think some of a person's beliefs are absurd, I have no idea.

Well, actually, I do have some idea where you'd get that idea: When religion is the subject, lots of people overreact, get overly sensitive, hear and read things that aren't really being said at all. They expect religion in particular to be handled with particularly special deference and automatic respect that no other area of human thought and opinion receives.

So what you are saying is that the person who cures cancer/ends poverty is going to hear from you that you think his underpants and/or his Galactic Overlord are/is ridiculous. :D

Thanks for clarifying.

Read it again. Slowly and carefully.

"If the kindest, most generous person in the world, who had ended poverty and cured cancer was, say, a Mormon or a Scientologist, I'd still find magic underwear and Galactic Overlord Xenu completely ridiculous, and I'd say so."

I'll let the two of you figure this out.

Silent3: "...I'd still find magic underwear and Galactic Overlord Xenu completely ridiculous, and I'd say so."
You: "So what you are saying is that the person who cures cancer/ends poverty is going to hear from you that you think his underpants and/or his Galactic Overlord are/is ridiculous."

Since you apparently can't see how those statements are different, I guess I'll have to explicitly point it out to you. Silent3's statement, unlike yours, says NOTHING about getting up in the face of that particular believer to criticize their beliefs.

I guess it goes back to exactly what he said, that when statements about religion are made, people read things that aren't there (you have clearly pictured in your mind some strawman atheist who seeks out believers to get up in their face and tell them how stupid they are), and can't help but read everything through that filter.

Just because someone cures cancer or performs some incredible service to society doesn't make their ideas on religion or the supernatural valid. No one should be afraid to criticize those ideas. That doesn't mean that the person who cures cancer will ever necessarily hear that their magic underwear is a load of horseshit, but it does mean that people like us won't shy away from saying it when the topic of conversation swings that way.

It's the difference between seeking the person out and telling them what you think even if you weren't asked, and simply responding in an unafraid fashion about your thoughts on a particular point of conversation.

Thanks!

I have no issue with the way you stated you would respond now that it was clarified to me.

I have no use for religiosity and I am glad to read that you were not insinuating that those who believe in things that you don't believe in should be treated rudely.

Personally I don't care about the oddity of beliefs as long as I am not forced to partake.

...laughing at magical underwear or Xenu, in a public forum, just on the outside chance this hypothetical Amazing Hero might stumble across my DU postings and be offended.

If I were talking to this Amazing Hero, and he/she brought the subject up first, depending on context I might or might not say what I think.

I wouldn't chase this person down, just like I wouldn't chase down each and every believer in such things, just to give them my opinions on these matters.

Are there any other ways for you to distort and exaggerate my position that you'd like me to clear up for you?

and then took a small bit of liberty to have some fun. I am happy to hear what you really meant.

...being zealous "fundamentalists" for much less than your "small bit of liberty" and your idea of fun.

I meant no harm and if that was unclear, now you know. Martyrdom suits no one.

Taking what people say the wrong way intentionally, if that's what you were doing, just to see how they react -- no warning that that's what you're doing, no obvious sarcasm, no "if I can play devil's advocate for a moment", just toying with their reactions while you deliberately misconstrue -- is an asshole-ish thing to do.

Yes, pardon me for assuming you were simply being dense, and not assuming you were deliberately being an asshole. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

I have on occasion been an a-hole I but in this case I think you may need to take a look in the mirror. I have stayed far from this place for years and the defensive, self righteous crap is still as thick as ever.

Try being a little less defensive. I perceived what you posted wrong. I did not mean any harm to you, I was making fun of my own as you say density.
Either you are loving being a a martyr and taking everything people say as an affront to you or you may be a bit dense yourself.
If my explanation is is not good enough this time I suppose ignore will be my next option.

Just an individualized reaction to you, in the context of a thread where a tired old meme about atheism was being trotted out, and you were joyfully participating in that meme.

I personal don't get much flack in real life for being an atheist. Not that all atheists are so lucky, like some here who'd have to fear being fired from their jobs if their atheism was discovered. On DU, things are generally not all that bad for atheists, although there's still some of the same BS about atheism that you find out in the world at large, and a small but annoying contingent of people who leap at the slightest opportunity to sneer about "atheist fundamentalists", based on a parallel of nothing more than atheists speaking their minds and not being cowed into walking on eggshells about religious issues -- as if the most important hallmark of other fundamentalisms, like Christian fundamentalism, was nothing more than those fundamentalists speaking their opinions clearly when issues they have opinions on are put on the table in public discussion.

Act like that "small but annoying contingent" yourself, and my response will not be warm and friendly. Deal with it.

A Muslim does something bad, indication of pure evil in Islam.

An atheist does something bad, proof that you must have a God to have a moral compass.

I have no clue why this argument still passes as anything but fertilizer.