War on Christians

CACTUSJACKmankin

Critical Thinker
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This is probably the most genius work of spin, how else do you convince people that 90% of the population of this country is being persecuted?

They claim that their religious faith is under assault by secularists and atheists/agnostics/secular humanists, for some reason they can't seem to distinguish between those. They blame these groups for prayerless school, creationless school, and ten commandmentless court houses.

Apparantly, they either haven't read or disagree with the establishment clause of the first amendment US constitution. They also make the claim that our country was founded on christian ideals. As a history buff this makes me nuts: freedom of speech, no taxation without representation, free elections, and separation of church and state aren't christian values, they derive from the enlightenment thinkers. Our founding fathers were schooled in enlightenment philosphy and religiously many were deists, Jefferson for one had a profound mistrust of organized religion.

The reason christians can say that they are being persecuted is that they have been the persecuters for so long that they don't know how it feels to be on the other end. Religious persecution is not being forbidden to put religious icons in government buildings It's being refused a job because you are a muslim, it's being forced by law to live in a section of town (called ghettos, yes this is where the term comes from) as Jews were in many areas historically, and it's being forced to convert under threat of torture or death as many indigenous cultures were. Christians in the USA encounter none of these and are 90% of the population, so they have no reason to complain.
 
It's hard to explain, but when your life revolves around a book that declares in the end times that you will be persecuted, it becomes easy to believe you're being persecuted when you're held to the same standards as the rest of the world.
 
CACTUSJACKmankin said:
This is probably the most genius work of spin, how else do you convince people that 90% of the population of this country is being persecuted?
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Most concerns about religion have nothing to do with religion. They have to do with "different". Same as me is good. Different from me is bad. Race. Religion. Gender. Sexual preference. Monetary worth. Cigarette smoker. Weight. Clothing. Anything.

It goes like this:
Same = good. Different = bad. If you want to force me to accept your difference, then you are persecuting me because you are forcing me to accept bad (your difference) as good (same as me). I will not accept you bad as good. Stop persecuting me for not accpeting your badness.

Note: This works on different levels. You can have legitmiate reasons for not liking and even persecuting a class of people. For example: murders.

You can turn it around to. A minority class can still persecute a majority class. :)
 
It's even deeper than that.

In order to have a leader, there must be a 'them'. When left to their own devices, those who are power hungry will create a 'them'.

There is something tribal in our makeup. Have you ever been in a crowd of strangers and suddenly(one way or another) met someone who was from 'your neck of the woods'. Cool, isn't it? A strange thing happens. Someone whom, under normal circumstances, you wouldn't have given the time of day to is a sudden ally. It's no longer you, it's US.

Have you ever been the only person of your ethnic heritage in a room? Like the only hispanic in a room of black people? Would you consider yourself racist? Would you be uncomfortable, especially if the other folks were acting differently from you?

Real leaders know how to exploit this. Wherever you find a 'great leader of men', look for the crisis he solved, look for the enemy he fought, either verbally or physically.

(Most of this 'exploitation' happens unconsciously. I am not implying otherwise. And keep in mind, most folks WANT to be manipulated..they want to believe in their leaders.)
 
persecution genes

i have observed that there seems to be some genetic factor that gives humans a feeling of satisfaction at being persecuted by someone. it seems that every social group has some "others" to defend against. i think people with an overdeveloped genetic trait tend to turn into conspiracy nuts and paranoid schizophrenic. unfortunately, there hasn't been much medical research into this field -- but i notice that many people who subscribe to a religion, simultaneously take on a feeling of righteous indignation at anything that would normally be just an annoyance or limitation of life. they feel superior to others for choosing the "right" way, and some emotional triggers reenforce their convictions by saying anyone who denies the "right" way must have vindictive or twisted morals. actually, i know a lot of skeptics and athiests (from their writings) who seem to fall into this same "trap" feeling victimized by people who don't share the same point-of-view.

of course, it is debatable, i suppose, whether there really is only one "right" way or not, and whether it is acceptable to not follow a supposed better way. there are certainly a lot of things we do in our daily lives that is not the best rational path.
 
The Christians who are whining about being persecuted should be embarassed. Jesus said, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

So if they are actually being persecuted, they should be rejoicing instead of complaining.

I'm so sick of these so-called Christians ignoring everything that Jesus said.

Personally, I think this is a way for right-wing politicians to rally the masses. If they pick a real issue, they might win. And then they can't use that issue any more. By picking an imaginary issue, they can have pep rallies forever.
 
writerdd said:
The Christians who are whining about being persecuted should be embarassed. Jesus said, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

So if they are actually being persecuted, they should be rejoicing instead of complaining.

I'm so sick of these so-called Christians ignoring everything that Jesus said.

Personally, I think this is a way for right-wing politicians to rally the masses. If they pick a real issue, they might win. And then they can't use that issue any more. By picking an imaginary issue, they can have pep rallies forever.
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An accurate description. And, sadly, far too common. Welcome to America in the 21st Century.
 
CACTUSJACKmankin said:
As a history buff this makes me nuts: freedom of speech, no taxation without representation, free elections, and separation of church and state aren't christian values, they derive from the enlightenment thinkers.
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What do you suppose furnished the foundation of much Enlightenment political thought?

If you're a buff of the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, I highly recommend Jeremy Waldron's God, Locke, and Equality (Cambridge UP, 2002), if you haven't already read it.
 
ceo_esq said:
What do you suppose furnished the foundation of much Enlightenment political thought?

If you're a buff of the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, I highly recommend Jeremy Waldron's God, Locke, and Equality (Cambridge UP, 2002), if you haven't already read it.
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And at the same time many Christians used their religion as an excuse for the Divine Right of Kings, Slavery, etc. If you have an organisation as ubiquitous as Christianity pre-20th century then it will have connections to most things... how have you determined that it was a net force for positive change and not part of the status quo?
 
ceo_esq said:
Could you clarify the part of my post to which you're referring here?
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This bit:

"What do you suppose furnished the foundation of much Enlightenment political thought?"

Point being, you're counting the hits and ignoring the misses... heck, fascism made the trains run on time but I don't look back on it as a lost golden age.
 
Repent - Or Else!

Roadtoad said:
It's hard to explain, but when your life revolves around a book that declares in the end times that you will be persecuted, it becomes easy to believe you're being persecuted when you're held to the same standards as the rest of the world.
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Repent ye sinners - the end of the world is at hand - give or take 100,000 years.

One observation often overlooked is that these 'end times' conditions have existed continually for thousands of years and were also invoked thousands of years ago to predict the same things even then!

Even the earliest Christians believed that the conditions for the 'end times' were ripe and it could come at any instant.

The final existing religion to make that prediction just before the end will have the dubious distinction of being the ONLY true religion and finally have the prophesy to prove it.

If you predict the end of the world endlessly, every hour on the hour, eventually you will be right one day.
 
swstephe said:
i have observed that there seems to be some genetic factor that gives humans a feeling of satisfaction at being persecuted by someone.
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I dunno about "genetic," but there's certainly a widespread tendency (to paraphrase Kanan Makiya) to view victimhood as a quality rather than as simply a condition. The truth is that, all too often, victims are simply chafing until they can deliver some payback and become victimizers themselves, but this realization does not come readily to cultures which traditionally revere martyrs. And martyrdom is, of course, a big thing in Christianity (though it is by no means limited to that particular belief system, of course). For this reason, many Christians need to feel persecuted, because how can you show off how devout you are if you aren't suffering? So, absent genuine persecution and suffering, it has to be invented.
 
Bang Goes That Theory

brodski said:
No, it didn't.
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.htm

anyway, back to the topic.
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Brodski, I'm convinced you read my mind! I was about to post the same link.

Have you applied for the JREF prize? I'll vouch for you!

LOL

I've seen that 'train' argument in defense of fascism (which has no worthy defense) before.

Old myths never die, they just keep on going and going and going ..., like the Energizer Bunny on steroids.
 
The Freedom to Persecute

Giz said:
And at the same time many Christians used their religion as an excuse for the Divine Right of Kings, Slavery, etc. If you have an organisation as ubiquitous as Christianity pre-20th century then it will have connections to most things... how have you determined that it was a net force for positive change and not part of the status quo?
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It was also the Christians at the forefront of the 1960s resistance to civil rights for Black Americans - often invoking the Bible against it.

Christians love to fight against others having equal rights that they disapprove of, as if they have the exclusive right to decide for everyone on moral issues at the exclusion of all other viewpoints but their own.

The Ku Klux Klan, among other not too nice groups, love to quote scriptures in defense of their activities and views.

The Puritans came to America for religious freedom - so goes the myth taught in schools. The real freedom they sought was the freedom to persecute the dissenters within their ranks without the government interfering with them.

In those days, a person could be imprisoned, deprived of food and other cruelties, just because a church official ordered it. The government took issue with any other authority inflicting such punishments upon any citizens as retaliation for 'errant' religious beliefs or behaviours. It was the official domain of the government to decide who was guilty of a crime, not the job of a church official based upon his religious beliefs.

The government didn't like them using the same punishments on their followers, without due legal process, that the government mandated for legally tried criminals. The Puritans considered this as being 'persecuted' by the government for their religious beliefs. So, they went to America to get away from government influence and continue their own persecution of people without restraint or oversight.

Historically, just about anything that denies a religion the unrestrained authority to do as it damned well pleases to its victims, is considered persecution.

With their shameful record, they have nothing to be proud of and no right to preach to anyone about religious persecution - the pillars of the church-state.
 
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swstephe said:
i have observed that there seems to be some genetic factor that gives humans a feeling of satisfaction at being persecuted by someone ...
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This might be explained, in part, by resentment at not getting what they feel they deserve. The idea that they're being cheated by some other group is more attractive than questioning their own feelings of entitlement. Leaders will encourage the idea, often choosing or inventing the enemy, to direct attention away from their own failings.
 
JayT said:
Brodski, I'm convinced you read my mind! I was about to post the same link.
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It could be that you read my mind, it wouldn't take you too long. ;)
But please, if that is the case, don't spoil it for me by telling me what happens at the end, I'm hoping for some really cool plot twists.
 
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