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OgNar posted:Theres been a long run of Christians telling people what they can or cannot do in this country. yeah i was born jewish and am stilll side-eying the jesus bath, believe me i get it doesn't change the fact that "christian" means nothing without context unless you want to doff your fedora and own sky daddy what has the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, whose primary liturgical language is arabic, done to the US besides "exist while christian" and "get beat up because beard = terrorist" or should everyone just self-crucify because southern evangelicals are bad?
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Jul 4, 2023 19:44
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As long as religion is allowed to exercise political power on any level, accusations are going to be levelled at a religion on the basis of what it uses that political power to achieve, regardless of whether it represents the religious community as a whole (it never does, because every religious community has diversity within it). I don't think all Christians are hateful, prudish busybodies, I don't think all Jewish people support Israeli war crimes, I don't think all Muslims support hardline poo poo like you see in Saudi -- but we are allowed to be upset about religions abusing their privileged position to do bad things. Adherents of those religions which disagree with the problematic expressions of that religion should stop getting offended by guilt-by-association and bitching about it, and keep saying "yeah, we hate that poo poo too!" The other side of that conversation is that we have to accept that it's never going to be as loud and prominent as would be ideal -- that doesn't mean that the good Christians, the good Muslims, the good Jews, are doing something wrong or somehow agreeing with the lovely people who use the name of their religion to do bad things.
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Jul 4, 2023 20:45
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Panfilo posted:Does this moron believe in anything? Voting democrat right now. I’m ready to vote. (I wish the democrats were as radical as the conservatives make them out to be)
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Jul 4, 2023 21:07
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Panfilo posted:Does this moron believe in anything?
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Jul 4, 2023 21:54
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Angry_Ed posted:Is his name catturd because he has toxoplasmosis? yes the more you poo poo on him the more he will like you
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Jul 4, 2023 21:57
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Panfilo posted:Right now conservatives are freaking out about the riots in France and saying "the west has fallen!" yet simultaneously praising American Muslims that stomp on pride flags. It's crazy how easily they can whiplash between the two extremes. They want this. Just replace their version of Christianity with Sharia. They really do. I've heard scores of so called Christians laud amputating thieves hands and the idea of fast tracked public executions. Conservative christians openly despise at least half of what's in the constitution and actively ignore about 80 or 90% of the bible. And my main gripe about any religion, especially Christians in the US, aggressively influencing politics, our judicial system, education, science and preaching from the pulpit while enjoying tax exempt status. Pretty good racket really. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 00:18
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Panfilo posted:Does this moron believe in anything? What does this even mean? If I vote RINO then... America becomes an importer of arms? Is China going to donate arms to us to fight their proxy war?
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Jul 5, 2023 13:27
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PT6A posted:As long as religion is allowed to exercise political power on any level, accusations are going to be levelled at a religion on the basis of what it uses that political power to achieve, regardless of whether it represents the religious community as a whole (it never does, because every religious community has diversity within it). Christian is the mask. It's a convenient label because America identifies 63% as Christian. The values they/you're attributing to Christians would exist even if their was no Christianity to attribute them to. It's just easier to say "Well, the Bible says no Pride" and appeal to 63% of the population. You will notice that they've slowly shifted from "Jesus" and "Christian" to first "Judeo-Chirstian" to pick up conservative Jews and now to a more nebulous "religious" to pick up Muslims too because that 63% number is down from like 80. You blaming Christians is falling for the gimmick.
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Jul 5, 2023 13:36
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HootTheOwl posted:What does this even mean? If I vote RINO then... America becomes an importer of arms? Is China going to donate arms to us to fight their proxy war? Means they get invaded by Russia, probably?
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Jul 5, 2023 14:06
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HootTheOwl posted:What does this even mean? If I vote RINO then... America becomes an importer of arms? Is China going to donate arms to us to fight their proxy war?
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Jul 5, 2023 14:10
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HootTheOwl posted:Christian is the mask. It's a convenient label because America identifies 63% as Christian. Except that there are people, like those in my family and those in their church, who vehemently believe that poo poo because they self-identify as Christian. It becomes a thing you have to do to be Christian in their eyes. The labels work, and they work quite well on their target audience. Edgar Allen Ho posted:I know I'm a week late, sorry in advance, but you're kinda making my point Look at more or less any GOP leader and they'll spout poo poo about how "Christian" they are and surround themself with as many religious signifiers as they can get away with. Again, this is more or less in direct opposition with the Bible, but that has never stopped a politician before and never will stop them in the future. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate religion. I've seen a lot of good come from churches and a lot of good come from the community bonds that are formed by churches and similar organizations. But southern evangelicals have become the face of Christianity in the US, and there's an entire political party that panders to that group constantly, along with the backing of various media entities that reinforce the idea that in order to be "Christian" you have to vote GOP and support all of their talking points.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:39
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HootTheOwl posted:What does this even mean? If I vote RINO then... America becomes an importer of arms? Is China going to donate arms to us to fight their proxy war? There's a lot of pro-Russian propaganda circulating among chuds, and most of it is fully in the opposite of reality. The short version is that he means Christians will be rounded up and exterminated in concentration camps
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Jul 5, 2023 16:50
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DarklyDreaming posted:There's a lot of pro-Russian propaganda circulating among chuds, and most of it is fully in the opposite of reality. The short version is that he means Christians will be rounded up and exterminated in concentration camps SithDrummer posted:I'm glad to see we've finally reached the point where all Republicans (except one very special boy) are Republicans in name only. Look in his eyes, and what do you see? A cult of personality. He'll tell you 1 and 1 makes 3.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:56
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Neito posted:Or something something something ukrainians are nazis something. Not just nazis, homo-nazis. Z-twitter is loving wild
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Jul 5, 2023 17:08
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PT6A posted:Adherents of those religions which disagree with the problematic expressions of that religion should stop getting offended by guilt-by-association and bitching about it, and keep saying "yeah, we hate that poo poo too!" Would you extend this to race as well, that Black Americans shouldn't be offended by guilt-by-association for what other Black Americans do, that Chinese Americans shouldn't be offended by guilt-by-association for what the Chinese government does etc? Of course it's offensive to me that someone assumes I support war crimes because I'm Jewish, how in the world could that not be offensive? "Guilt by association" is generally bullshit, particularly in the case of religion which is basically an involuntary-from-birth cultural affiliation no different from race or nationality. PT6A posted:...that doesn't mean that the good Christians, the good Muslims, the good Jews, are doing something wrong or somehow agreeing with the lovely people who use the name of their religion to do bad things. "They're not doing bad things, but they shouldn't be offended at the idea that they are doing bad things, because they come from the same background as people who do bad things." This is the precise logic by which cops stop and search Black, Hispanic, and Native American drivers more than White drivers. People who remind you of bad people are not responsible for your faulty associations and inaccurate cognitive biases, they don't have to go above and beyond to prove they're the good type of person from their culture while still accepting your "guilt by association" libel. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 18:37
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Would you extend this to race as well, that Black Americans shouldn't be offended by guilt-by-association for what other Black Americans do, that Chinese Americans shouldn't be offended by guilt-by-association for what the Chinese government does etc? The difference is that every group you mentioned is a minority, and not one of the largest, most powerful, and most overrepresented power blocs in the United States. Evangelical Christians shape policy in a way that no minority group could ever hope to. And if Christians, especially white Christians, and especially especially white Christian men take offense to being lumped in with batshit insane evangelicals, then good! Push back!
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Jul 5, 2023 18:48
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Dirk the Average posted:The difference is that every group you mentioned is a minority, and not one of the largest, most powerful, and most overrepresented power blocs in the United States PT6A specifically called out Jews and Muslims in their post, I'm responding to that. Part of what PT6A said in the post that I'm responding to is that Jews and Muslims shouldn't be offended by the assumption that they support whatever violence is conducted in the name of their religion. I disagree, I think it is offensive to say American Muslims are in any way guilty for 9/11, and that the idea of such guilt has resulted in mass suffering across the country. I also think it was wrong to throw Japanese Americans in concentration camps or for the cops to treat every Black American like a probable criminal. It is very bad to say that people bear "guilt by association" for the worst things done by the worst people in their cultures/ancestral backgrounds. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 18:49
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You're mixing up a lot of things. Should or should not American Jews feel responsible/annoyed at organizations that purport to represent us in the US for what they do? This has nothing to do with you making it about Israeli or Chinese policy or 9/11 or other things done by forces outside the country. vvv Fair enough, this should actually be directed to PT6A, sorry for not reading closely enough Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 20:27
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You're mixing up a lot of things. Should or should not American Jews feel responsible/annoyed at organizations that purport to represent us in the US for what they do? This has nothing to do with you making it about Israeli or Chinese policy or 9/11 or other things done by forces outside the country. I'm responding to a post that doesn't make that distinction at all, it talks about Jewish guilt for "Israeli war crimes" and Muslim guilt for "hardline poo poo like you see in Saudi." Guilt-by-association on the basis of religion is wrong in theory and heinous in practice, whether the crime takes place in the US or elsewhere, just like with race or culture or anything else which indicates a person's family background but not their character. I thought this was a pretty basic ethical idea to be honest. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 20:32
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What I'm saying isn't that people should put up with guilt by association, but rather that they shouldn't imagine it exists where it doesn't. Of course decent people share no guilt because of the awful, dumb poo poo their self-identifying co-religionists do. It's like the #NotAllMen poo poo. Yes, if you're not part of the problem, we're not talking about you. Move on with your day, do not stop to get offended by something that was never about you in the first place. When big chunks of your religious community are up to some bullshit, you gotta accept that maybe people are going to use a shorthand to refer to the people causing the problems, and it's not meant as a personal slight. If people say "Christians make lovely laws and try to restrict people's bodily autonomy", and you're a Christian who doesn't do that, then it's not about you. We know that any community is made up of different people with different personal values, who all behave differently.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:43
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PT6A posted:What I'm saying isn't that people should put up with guilt by association, You just said this: PT6A posted:Adherents of those religions which disagree with the problematic expressions of that religion should stop getting offended by guilt-by-association and bitching about it On the same page. Come on. PT6A posted:When big chunks of your religious community are up to some bullshit, you gotta accept that maybe people are going to use a shorthand to refer to the people causing the problems, and it's not meant as a personal slight. This is pretty familiar logic. I often see it in the form of "When I talk about how the Blacks/Mexicans/Arabs are ruining this neighborhood with all their crime, it's not meant as a slight against the good ones, of whom there are plenty, I'm just using it as a shorthand to refer to the ones causing the problems." The fact that it's convenient to talk about religious/ethnic/cultural groups as if they're monolithically responsible for whichever of them act badly, simply by dint of sharing a common background, doesn't mean it's acceptable. It's bigotry and it gets people killed. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 22:56
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Civilized Fishbot posted:The fact that it's convenient to talk like religious/ethnic/cultural groups as if they're monolithically responsible for whichever of them act badly doesn't mean it's acceptable. Agreed, we should be more precise whenever we speak about such groups. And if Black people, Mexican people, or Arab people were causing trouble in the same way a large, very visible, and politically powerful portion, but not the entirety, of American Christianity is then I think they'd have to chill about it too. That's obviously not the case though, so it's not a relevant comparison.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:12
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PT6A posted:Agreed, we should be more precise whenever we speak about such groups. Earlier you weren't just talking about Christians, you were talking about Jews and Muslims. I only engaged you about the Jews and Muslims part. I don't much care about the Christian part because people in this country aren't assaulted or killed for being Christians, but this happens to Jews and Muslims, often directly because of the "guilt by association" thing that you're saying we gotta chill out about. Should Jews and Muslims be chill too, or is it appropriate for them to be offended and alarmed when they start getting tagged with "guilt by association" for the overseas atrocities you were talking about earlier?
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Jul 5, 2023 23:16
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Earlier you weren't just talking about Christians, you were talking about Jews and Muslims. I only engaged you about the Jews and Muslims part. I don't much care about the Christian part because people in this country aren't assaulted or killed for being Christians. Well, no, you're correct. I was trying to make it seem like it wasn't just about Christians, and I did it really clumsily. Muslims especially are correct to be wary about that sort of thing. The Jewish community, though, I do think it's a closer parallel because while they're obviously been historical discrimination, the politically powerful portions of the Jewish community in the US and Canada especially, support some really terrible things. I think we need to be very careful about how we phrase criticism of those parts of the community, but I don't think someone who says, in good faith, "Jewish support for Israel is a problem" is necessarily an anti-Semite, so much as imprecise speaker.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:26
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PT6A posted:I don't think someone who says, in good faith, "Jewish support for Israel is a problem" is necessarily an anti-Semite, so much as imprecise speaker. It doesn't matter what they believe in their heart. What matters is that language like this increases the probability of another synagogue or cemetery vandalized, another Chossid assaulted in the streets, or another Crown Heights riot. The fact that some Jews are politically powerful does nothing to change the fact that when innocent people are blamed for violent atrocities, they're more likely to face unwarranted, even violent "retribution." And they have every right to be upset about that and to demand it stop. PT6A posted:The Jewish community, though, I do think it's a closer parallel because while they're obviously been historical discrimination, I think this is the real issue - you conceive of violence against Jews as a crime of the past, and nowadays they're a basically secure group not too much different in social status from Christians, while the reality is that the Tree of Life synagogue was attacked during the Trump administration and during the Biden administration we've seen American Nazis menace synagogues. In this context blaming "the Jews" for problems isn't just inartful speech, it is throwing gasoline on a deadly fire. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jul 6, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 23:35
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:yeah i was born jewish and am stilll side-eying the jesus bath, believe me i get it #NotAllChristians. You aren't wrong. But what you are doing is the exact same thing as a guy kramering into a conversation about misogyny to say how not all men are misogynists. We know.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:43
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if my brother who got ran out of our old church and still has family that turn their back on him for being gay starts ranting about christians in this context, im sure as hell not going to stop him
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Jul 5, 2023 23:51
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World Famous W posted:if my brother who got ran out of our old church and still has family that turn their back on him for being gay starts ranting about christians in this context, im sure as hell not going to stop him This. Unlike a lot of people posting in this thread , I DO , in fact, have several problems with religion and am not shy about voicing that. It's not me saying it should it all be destroyed, never does anything good or that all members should be shunned. But modern evangelical christians in this country are passing laws right NOW that are hurting me, my friends and the people I love for reasons I do not think are just, let alone based on the teachings of Christ. I want these people to live up to the standard that they seem to want to wave in my face all the time and for those who tell me I'm going to burn in hell to check themselves. The ones that bother me are not SHY about it. Or even respectful. A vast majority of them I've interacted with are mean, rude, arrogant, smug assholes who openly say they feel sorry for me for not knowing what they do because God said so. And they can all gently caress off. Why must I constantly tap dance around the things that they believe, many of whom get their marching orders and self justification from AM talk radio?
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Jul 6, 2023 01:26
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And that's why I keep bringing up the evangelical side of my family. I don't have a whole lot of contact with them anymore, and that's primarily because while they are perfectly pleasant to myself and other folks who are the They do a lot for their local community and help the homeless, and left their church because it didn't hate gay people enough and might have wanted folks to wear a mask during a loving respiratory pandemic. Anyway, my point is that I'm not talking about an abstract "them" in this context. I personally know people who buy the evangelical bullshit hook, line, and sinker. I would love to be able to respect those folks. They're members of my family and it hurts to lose them. But I don't support their bigotry, and the poo poo that they spew actively hurts people I care about, even if it doesn't hurt me directly.
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Jul 6, 2023 03:54
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All I know is, as those "nonreligious" numbers tick up year after year, I think it's a good thing. It must seem apocalyptic to the more youthful religious folks, I only know a handful of fellow millennials that are religious and they're almost exclusively rural folks. And some that might say they believe in god if asked but otherwise never go to church or practice religion in any meaningful way. Dirk the Average posted:Anyway, my point is that I'm not talking about an abstract "them" in this context. I personally know people who buy the evangelical bullshit hook, line, and sinker. I would love to be able to respect those folks. They're members of my family and it hurts to lose them. But I don't support their bigotry, and the poo poo that they spew actively hurts people I care about, even if it doesn't hurt me directly. I get this too, I've been living on the West Coast for the past 7 years and beyond my immediate family I don't have much interest in going back east. I'm actually not 100% sure if my evangelical family members are homophobic and transphobic, but I also don't really care to find out, I already know they're Trump voters, which is enough. Mustang fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jul 6, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2023 04:09
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Mustang posted:All I know is, as those "nonreligious" numbers tick up year after year, I think it's a good thing. If they voted for trump, I don’t see how they couldn’t be extremely transphobic and homophobic. If they weren’t in 2016, they are now after 6 years of those things being key elements of the trump voter identity.
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Jul 6, 2023 04:13
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I don't view it as a great thing. I think spiritual practice and religion can be a great source of community and support at its best and it's probably not great that we've made it so toxic that people are inclined to ignore that altogether, because people are going to look for those things in other places and by and large you will not like what they find there. I look at religion as a very powerful force in the course of human events, neither inherently good nor inherently bad. At its best, it has encouraged charity, art, a deeper understanding of the world, compassion towards others; at its worst, it has driven bigotry, hatred, warfare and ignorance. We ought not say "this is bad, it's good that it's vanishing" but rather ask ourselves why so many expressions of religiosity tend toward the bad end of these qualities rather than the good, and how we might fix that.
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Jul 6, 2023 04:19
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right wing media sucks a big one i can tell you that
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Jul 6, 2023 05:55
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To rehabilitate religion in this way seems a little naive. If all religion were purely spiritual in nature and solely focused on the afterlife, I’d get it. However, all of the major religions have precepts about how to live life here on earth that are just flat out incorrect. And since they claim to be the infallible truth, how do we reckon with that as we progress?
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Jul 6, 2023 14:04
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Probably the whole reason we're here in the first place is evangelicals realizing that no one was coming for their tax exempt status and just went hog wild.
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Jul 6, 2023 14:19
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Mercury_Storm posted:Probably the whole reason we're here in the first place is evangelicals realizing that no one was coming for their tax exempt status and just went hog wild.
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Jul 6, 2023 15:09
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I think a big point of clarification is needed around power dynamics, and specifically how they exist in the U.S. If you're in the U.S. and you say "Those Muslims need to do something" you're an rear end in a top hat targeting people that already get poo poo on and don't have the power to force their viewpoints on the rest of society. When talking about the rotten edifice that passes itself off as "Christianity" in the US your criticism is being aimed at the dominant power structure in the nation that absolutely has the power to ban abortion, tell anyone not cis and hetero that they need to shut up or kill themselves and make it happen, rewrite national education standards and so on. That it is absolutely a valid target that needs to be criticized and the space exists within that power structure to say "Those Christians need to do something" because if they're not taking a stand against it then gently caress them they're a part of the problem that everyone else is suffering through. If someone in the dominant power structure doesn't like that argument they don't get to point out what happens to the oppressed and scream about how unfair it is to themselves. They're inside the club house. They get all the perks of membership. It's totally fair game to me to point out how lovely they're being to everyone outside. Don't like it? Fix the loving problems since the power exists within that club house to do so. Not doing so is causing the problems, and people outside the club house don't get the chance to do so.
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Jul 6, 2023 15:38
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bird food bathtub posted:I think a big point of clarification is needed around power dynamics, and specifically how they exist in the U.S. If you're in the U.S. and you say "Those Muslims need to do something" you're an rear end in a top hat targeting people that already get poo poo on and don't have the power to force their viewpoints on the rest of society. When talking about the rotten edifice that passes itself off as "Christianity" in the US your criticism is being aimed at the dominant power structure in the nation that absolutely has the power to ban abortion, tell anyone not cis and hetero that they need to shut up or kill themselves and make it happen, rewrite national education standards and so on. That it is absolutely a valid target that needs to be criticized and the space exists within that power structure to say "Those Christians need to do something" because if they're not taking a stand against it then gently caress them they're a part of the problem that everyone else is suffering through. If someone in the dominant power structure doesn't like that argument they don't get to point out what happens to the oppressed and scream about how unfair it is to themselves. They're inside the club house. They get all the perks of membership. It's totally fair game to me to point out how lovely they're being to everyone outside. Don't like it? Fix the loving problems since the power exists within that club house to do so. Not doing so is causing the problems, and people outside the club house don't get the chance to do so. 'Christians' aren't a big homogeneous group though, my ex-girlfriend's hyper conservative Catholic parents didn't mind I was agnostic but if I'd had been a Protestant, there woulda been issues.
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Jul 6, 2023 17:42
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I don't think nice progressive Christians have any responsibility to do anything about the loud and powerful evangelicals giving the whole religion a bad name. They might want to anyway if they care about convincing people not to leave the religion altogether as it becomes a symbol of toxicity and hate, but if they don't oh well fewer and fewer Christians every year 
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Jul 6, 2023 18:03
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DeadlyMuffin posted:#NotAllChristians. Maybe I'm misunderstanding op's point, but I don't think that's a fair comparison. I think an analogy might be-- Mississippi does something really lovely and claims to do so in the name of America/the founding fathers/etc., but haranguing people in Vermont for failing to take the Mississippi government to task over it doesn't really make sense even though they're both part of the big club that is "Americans."
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Jul 6, 2023 18:29
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