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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Christian Right's Bizarre Delusions of Persecution
http://www.alternet.org/christian-rights-bizarre-delusions-persecutionChristian conservatives feel aggrieved and they want to be heard. The problem is that their specific grievance---that everyone else hurts their feelings by not admitting were inferior---kind of sounds, well, hard to sympathize with. They need something snappier, a reason to claim that they are being oppressed by anti-Christian bigotry. The only problem with that is that in a majority Christian nation, most people are actually pretty accepting and even admiring of Christianity. Even if they disagree with right wing Christianity, they dont do so because its Christian but because its conservative. Being a Christian is a privileged position in American society; that makes it really hard to claim youre being oppressed.
Inevitably, then, the temptation to fudge starts to seep in, to exaggerate slights or invent paranoid conspiracy theories about how not getting enough praise and accolades for being Christian is an attempt to shove them out. But when that doesnt work, well, sometimes it helps to deliberately provoke a situation where someone pretty much has to confront you, so that you can lie and say its because youre a Christian. Indeed, its starting to become a pattern that goes something like this:
1) Enter into a community that is, by its nature, inclusive of people of various faiths and beliefs.
2) Break some common rule everyone is expected to follow.
3) Get corrected or punished for breaking the rule.
4) Squeal about how its because youre a Christian and theyre bigots and oppressors.
5) By the time the truth gets out, your story will be an urban legend spread far and wide, and your fellow conservative Christians will never really know the facts.
The recent uproar over the best song Oscar nominee that was shortly dropped from the nominee list after it was released is a classic of the form. The Christian right press is up in arms, claiming that the Oscars are exhibiting an anti-Christian bias by yanking the nomination for the title song for the movie Alone Yet Not Alone. The movie, besides being one of those D-list evangelical films made for very little money that barely touches the theaters before making most of its money on the church screening circuit, appears also be a stomach-turning apologia for the racism Europeans exhibited towards Native Americans during the 18th century. Regardless of the content, however, the song was booted because the composer, Bruce Broughton, broke the Academy rules by exploiting his knowledge of who was voting in the category and using that knowledge to alert over 70 of them that he was the composer. He denies it was campaigning, but its hard to imagine that theres any other way to interpret an email that says it is a request for your consideration.
-Laelth
coldbeer
(306 posts)I do not feel like an atheist and I do not
feel agnostic. "Religion" to me is like
the "American People". Nothing.
valerief
(53,235 posts)It isn't what the theists tell us it is.
Moostache
(9,897 posts)Atheism is NOT a belief system. It is a lack of belief in a deity.
Do you believe in Zeus? Apollo? Ra? Allah? Jehovah? Yahweh? Krishna? Thor? Odin? Isis? Osiris?
No? Congratulations, you've reached the age of reason and you are most likely an atheist regardless of labels or names others try to use.
The only reason so many people maintain the stereotype of "atheist = child molesting freak in a trenchcoat exposing themselves on dark streets" (and the subsequent aversion to be associated or named as "atheist" is that so many people shrink from the label as if the stereotype were true.
I have not believed in "gawd" or gods since I was little more than a child and realized that the stories of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny bore about as much reality as those of Noah or Abraham or Jeebus.
But, if it makes you happy to deny what your beliefs define you as, then by all means do what you have to do...
starroute
(12,977 posts)Or at least the New Atheists are -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism.
And in the same way as the loud-mouthed, self-dramatizing Christians have taken over the public face of Christianity, the combative, billboard-erecting Atheists have taken over from the "whatever" types.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Its that simple.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Said the evangelical to the Methodist.
marble falls
(57,422 posts)malaise
(269,250 posts)and I mean it.
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)This history of early Christianity establishes Christianity as a religion of innocent sufferers; as a church beleaguered and under attack. In periods of crisis or perceived crisis Christians of all stripes have returned to this stereotype of the early church in order to find themselves and understand their experiences. This is true even today: during the debate over the HHS mandate last year, a Catholic Bishop said that President Obama was attacking Christians just like the Roman emperors, Hitler and Stalin had. In August 2011 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum publicly complained that the "gay community ... had gone out on a jihad" against him. In the course of the last election, similar statements were made by Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, to name but a few.
This is not just a case of election-day banter or political nastiness. Just recently, Fox News host Todd Starnes accused NBC of persecuting Christians because of a skit that aired on Saturday Night Live. The accusation may appear flimsy, but the advertising boycott of NBC that resulted was not. The rhetorical power of persecution language is very real.
These evaluations of modern society and Christianity's place in it trace themselves back to the early Church. Christianity is responsible for changing the way that we think about persecution. Were it not for the belief that early Christians were persecuted, Christian identity would not be so intimately linked to the experience of persecution. It is precisely for this reason that understanding the history is so important.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/candida-moss/the-myth-of-christian-persecution_b_2901880.html
Moostache
(9,897 posts)I have a low opinion of anyone who hurls "...but I'm a Christian" out of their mouth for any reason, but the ones who go begging for dollars in Jeebus' name are particularly infuriating...
If there were no money in religion, it would have disappeared forever hundreds of years ago. TAX THE CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES AND MOSQUES!!!!
jwirr
(39,215 posts)was lucky to be influenced by His teachings. By the way even in a semi-conservative church my family were liberals. Most of our congregation were since it was in the 40s.
What I have found happening now is that the conservative churches do not even consider my church and others like us to be Christians mainly because we do not believe in their end days take over the government theology. There is a lot of other things we do not agree on also: literal interpretation of the Bible, baptism, women's rights, etc.
My faith is personal and I do not have to or want to force it on others like they do. The only post regarding religion here that I have done are either to explain where I come from or to "persecute" the righties by disagreeing with them.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Then he lied, claiming religious persecution. He's a cheat and a liar and he cheats and lies within his own community in order to obtain for himself praise and career advantage. So he's a greedy cheating liar.
Mopar151
(10,006 posts)In some "faiths"
kairos12
(12,892 posts)in the community. The message displayed: "Jesus Loves Me, He Hates You"
Yep.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,064 posts)haele
(12,688 posts)That's pretty much what most evangelicals I come across promote.
No matter what they say, it usually comes down to:
"Give me attention, let me tell you what to think, always agree with me no matter what I actually do - oh, and maybe even give me your time and money. You need to give me the respect I deserve as the bestest friend of the Almighty, before I'll tell God not to send you into the eternal firey pit he's sending the rest of My Enemies to."
Yup, indeedy, they believe in the Loving God of Creation. The God they follow that tells you it's your fault you were poor, hurt, stolen from, or murdered because you were such a disappointment and needed to be punished. Even if you used the talents and free will He supposedly gave you, or when you lived the life you were born with, the one He supposedly made for you, because you still disobeyed some ancient "rule book" that was written by a heirarchy from an alien culture (NOT EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL; but a culture where life, time-sense, technology, opportunities, standards, and society is alien to those who live now - no matter where they are in the world).
Haele
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,064 posts)theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)1. Do everything I say, without question. I don't have to explain myself and I am never wrong.
2. If you do exactly everything I say without question, I won't punish you.
3. If something horrible should happen anyway, you obviously did not follow rule one as I commanded.
4. To get back in my good graces, get on your knees, proclaim yourself unworthy and beg for my forgiveness.
5. If you follow rule four I may forgive you but punish you anyway as a reminder that I am the one in control. Or perhaps I will curse your children or your children's children, so you may carry the burden of guilt for your own faults.
6. Unworthy as you are, if you have supplicated yourself sufficiently and recognized that it is I who gave you life and allow you to live, after you're dead you may join me in heaven where you can bask in the glory of my greatness and power and worship me for eternity.
7. Failing to follow my rules will result in eternal damnation and torture. You'll only wish you were really dead.
Nice.
Marking for later read
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)the religious are going into panic mode.
Their old standby response to reason, murder and mayhem, doesn't fly anymore and appeals to reason are obviously going to fail (yes Virginia, there really is an all seeing, all knowing, omnipotent man in the sky watching everything all the time, but he's just always broke), so now that people all over the world are coming out and calling them on the bullshit they've been buying for millennia, they are starting to freak out.
Put yourself in their place. If too many people don't share the delusion, they will lose the support they have to maintain the delusion. It's especially hard on the "nice" ones, they are beset on all sides. They have the crazy-mean evangelicals on one side working hard every day to counter every precept of the story, then there are the heathens and heretics that choose to follow some other false god, and now they've even lost the tacit government approval that allowed the old fashioned torture-murder-terrorize tactics that were always in the toolbox when needed.
What's a well-intentioned dissociative to do?
Moostache
(9,897 posts)LOVE that Carlin bit about gawd...just can't handle money!
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)... that I was interfering with his first Amendment rights to free exercise of religion by opposing his desire to prohibit certain bahaviors he finds religiously offensive (gay marriage, in this case).
There's no reasoning with someone like that.
Politicub
(12,165 posts)instead of berating those who are not in their mold of perfect, people may give a crap.
There is no whinier bunch, and thank god (harharhar) the number of pious people in the US is quickly shrinking.
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)Time to stand up to these bullies.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)I wouldn't have to go out of my way often.
In reality the only attacks I see against Christians are by other self-proclaimed Christians who have no problem killing people for money, voting against the interests of the least and turning a blind eye to massive suffering perpetrated in their name by corporate investments. Those are the ones most responsible for making a mockery of their own professed faith.
JHB
(37,163 posts)Remember when their gossip about how Proctor & Gamble's moon logo signified the company was a tool of the Devil? And P&G eventually changed it just so they'd go chase a squirrel somewhere else?
How the name of the band KISS stood for "Knights In Service of Satan"?
That same mechanism for telling themselves that the devil is always lurking about, ready to pounce if they let their fervor waver in the slightest, is at work. They already had an outrage mill, it's just that now it's being used to sell "anti-Christian bias".
Not to mention conservative evangelicals' rhetorical bait-and-switch: blurring the difference between all Christians and their version of Christianity.
Tree-Hugger
(3,370 posts)I get into this fight with fellow Christians. Mind you, I'm Catholic and I have some pagan leanings as well, so many evangelicals already think I'm satan's bride.
An evangelical friend will say Christian's are persecuted. So, I asked her how often she feels afraid to go to church. She is not. I asked her how many times she has had to pass protesters outside of her church telling her that her religion is wrong, she is going to hell, etc. She has never experienced anything like that. I asked her how often she worries that her faith will interfere with her getting hired for a job. Never. I asked her how often people graffiti her house with slurs against her religion. Never.
Their idea of persecution is having to live with the fact that not everyone believes the same thing as you.
I have pointed out that the only time I have ever felt persecuted for my Christian faith was when people would stand outside my Catholic church and hand out Chick Tracks (spelling? it's those crazy ass booklets) that were geared towards Catholics and how we're going to hell for the Virgin Mary and the belief in the Eucharist.....
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Much of the early Christian stories of persecution were simply made up.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)on this planet that Christians are actually being persecuted.