And here I thought I asked a rhetorical question, thanks for filling in the blanks.
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Christian oppression / persecution in the US
- Thread starter GardenLady
- Start date
And here I thought I asked a rhetorical question, thanks for filling in the blanks.
In my experience, Christians, in general, feel oppressed if you do not totally accept what they say, and agree with everything they say. 100%. So, they are a bit like my kids when they were 5.
Probably they feel surprised that people call them out on their claims after 2000 years of them saying any nonsense with impunity.
ciao
- viole
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Riders
Well-Known Member
I am sorry I just don't see it. Here in Tx, it's the other way around, I personally have had so many relatives trying to get me into a church. Christians persecute non Christians out here.
I think one time you said what people did, but I can't remember what you said about this . What is the persecuting behavior that you have seen?
74x12
Well-Known Member
Well it's on the rise. Recently antifa just randomly attacked a Christian group that was minding their own business.
Ah, the theist cited a story in a misleading way.
Cite the event so we can trust your claim. We will assess the morals.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
How silly... these folks are being fined for not getting a Conditional Use Permit when hosting 40-50 people in their house for weekly prayer meetings. This has NOTHING to do with the government violating their religious rights. If it was a couple hosting 40-50 people in their homes weekly to discuss knitting THEY'D need to get a Conditional Use Permit as well. Just another case of privileged Christians claiming that they're being persecuted just because they have to follow the same rules as everyone else.
74x12
Well-Known Member
That's no argument. Knitting shouldn't need a permit either.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
Really? Please do provide your source for this claim. Were the Christians in this group fascists? If not, why would anti-fascists be attacking them?
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
Perhaps it shouldn't... but of course that's not the point. The point is that this group wasn't being fined for having bible study they were fined for regularly hosting 40-50 at their house.
Riders
Well-Known Member
There's just been a lot of people trying to get me into church pressuring me. I know 10 years ago when I went to the Krishna Temple there were Christians standing outside witnessing to people trying to argue against Hare Krishna beliefs to people and I believe they still do. There are Christian Hebrew churches out here who make it a point of their ministry to witness to Jews.
Here's something more recent, they use to protest the Pagan Unitarian Universalist church in this area and try to witness to us at times. That's been the past 3 to 5 years ago I am sure.
2 years ago the Cowboy church at my Mom's AA place told me everyone went to their church at AA and I would want to go and become a member without even considering asking me if I wanted to go. They kind of harassed me a few times yea, but I ignore it at AA because I am used to them.
Claims of oppression or persecution are almost always exaggerated, but I do think the public square is becoming more hostile to Christians and traditional religious belief in general. The ascendant progressive orthodoxy current in the west right now is undoubtedly hostile to Christian belief (or more accurately its moral stances) which means Christians will have to increasingly adjust to a society where they are out of line with the mainstream zeitgeist. And I am sympathetic to those Christians in that it must be uncomfortable to be suddenly out of line with the culturally defined 'respectable opinions' which were nearly unthinkable the day before yesterday.
Worst case scenario, I see a fairly imminent future where being openly Christian may come with significant social and professional cost. But an actual state backed persecution I think is unlikely.
Worst case scenario, I see a fairly imminent future where being openly Christian may come with significant social and professional cost. But an actual state backed persecution I think is unlikely.
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Oh please. As a Jew, I have been accosted in the street. I have attended a synogogue that was set on fire by a Molotov cocktail. I've lived in a neighborhood where two Jewish men were shot as they arrived at their shul for morning prayers. Anti-Semitic attacks are way up these days. And Christians, who are the majority religion, want me to feel sorry for the fact that the laws are being more inclusive to all religions and not partial to them?
You have missed the entire point. I'm not talking of 'inclusive laws' but of a social atmosphere where those who hold to traditional religious ethical stances will be increasingly stigmatized socially. This includes Jews who don't get on board with the prevailing sexual orthodoxy.
That Jews are also assaulted by radical Muslims, the far right and pro-Palestinian activists is a legitimate problem, but not really the relevant to what I am talking about. It's not traditional Christians, your conservative Catholics or Evangelicals who are vandalizing synagogues.
Yet you're quick to display the very hostility I was talking about. Despite the fact that I also said that the social hostility will envelop anyone who holds to traditional religious stances particularly in regards to sexuality.
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GardenLady
Active Member
Please be more specific. Is this about the law allowing same-sex couples to marry? Or about accepting transgender people as the sex they identify with?
It is not about law, but the cultural environment. I do see a possible (although not inevitable) future where Christians who fail to profess anything less than full endorsement of abortion, homosexuality and transgenderism (and soon polyamory I predict) will find themselves subject to an increasingly harsh social censure. A future where there will be increasing demands on people who hold to orthodox religious beliefs to publicly profess against their own consciences if they wish engage in public life at any level.
Take the cake shop saga as an example. A gay couple has every right not to be discriminated against in buying a cake from a bakery. But that couple does not have the right to force a baker's speech. To force a 'spoken' endorsement. I see a potential future where such attempts to force endorsement from conservative religious believers will become increasingly backed by various institutional actors. A Christian can have a business, if he/she but burn that pinch of incense first.
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In the fallout from recent news about the thousands of bodies of children being found in unmarked graves at Canadian residential schools, there have been a string of arsons and vandalisms of churches, apparently in retribution.
I'm still trying to decide whether this amounts to persecution, though.
'Not in solidarity with us': Indigenous leaders call for church arsons to stop
(Edit: and I know this is getting a bit beyond what the OP asked about)
If the report is credible and substantial then it may be that the self-inflicted and more-than-damaging child-molesting scandals of the past three decades have put the RCC in even more bad odor than we might have expected.
There are still suspect and objectionable people in the uppermost echelons of the RCC, for reasons that are completely opaque to me, though no doubt a lot of politics is involved.
For my own part, I find it easy to admire Bergoglio compared to Wojtyła and Ratzinger, and I don't doubt the contribution that particular priests and nuns make to their communities; but I also remember what happened, and worse, what didn't happen as a result.
That's stupid...but also not religious persecution.
As indicated in the article, the ruling includes 'fraternal' groups.
Stupid rule enforced by stupid beaurecrats.