Religious Bashing--What it is and isn't.

[spectrumc01]

Only because of what Protestants perceive as the Catholic's self-appointed editor-in-chief of the Bible



Any chance of inserting the word "some" before the word Christians in any of that post??


Besides the sweeping generalizations, Spectrum, I don't see you reply as "bashing".
Critical? Yes.
Cynical? Given some of the behaviors you've apparently witnessed, I can't fault you for that.
And we all have the right to be critical and cynical.

Sorry I didn't put it at the top but I did at the bottom. So if you look there is no sweeping generalization.

Rep sent.....I see the last sentence now


Hell, I realize that even "alot" or "most" would even fit for alot of what you pointed out.

hey it's alright, happens to everyone occasionally. Mostly me.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Jesus, Himself, wasn't a supporter of organized religion.
Shoot, He made it His life's mission to rile the Jewish elders!
He healed on the Sabot because He and the Father are about Love more than the restrictions of a written Torah.
He flipped the traders' tables at the tabernacle because He saw His Father's house being turned into a mockery full of thieves.
He hung out with people that were considered "unclean" because the salvation that He was preparing Himself to give was for ALL of humanity.


I don't see anything wrong with rebelling against a man-made religion. We should challenge everything we're told against scripture.


There is a way to go about doing it without ridiculing.
Too often, here and other boards, there are certain ones that like to use the insulting "invisible man in the sky" routine as a way to try to belittle God (or G_d, as they like to use).
I guess that's their little way to elevate their self above others.....to come across as too educated to believe in an imaginary cloud-rider.

I will say that there a couple atheists on USMB that can joke and have fun with Christians without being overly insulting and "bash"-ish (Huggy and USC).
They know, just as well as I do, that there won't be any converting going on in these threads....that none of us make it out of this world alive......that we may as well relax and have fun (even if it is at each others' expense)

It's the ones that tend to take it to such an extreme level of attacking that keeps so many away from religious threads.


Anyways.....that's my take on it.

Good post. BUT...(and you knew that was coming, didnja? )......I use caps on God and He when referring to Him, as a sign of respect for HIM...not to pretend I am better than anyone else or my belief is the true way. I think everyone follows their own path and I wish them well whatever one they are on.

Just sayin'/speakin' for myself, mind you.

The use of caps as a sign of respect is interesting. Do you capitalize Allah and Buddha too?

I'm sure she does, since "Allah" and "Buddha" are proper names, and Grace is pretty good about grammar. In the case of the Judeo-Christian God, "God" is generally used as His proper name, which means the only available reasons for NOT capitalizing it are illiteracy or a deliberate attempt to be disrespectful.

Furthermore, as I pointed out in another thread, pronouns referring to the Judeo-Christian God are properly capitalized in the English language as well, presumably because the people who codified English into a written language with set grammatical rules were Catholic Christians.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Christians need no help belittling each other, they do fine on their own. Just ask a christian Baptist, "I was thinking of joining the catholic church what do you think?" Their response will be quite eye opening. Christian hypocracy is well documented. Their ability to rewrite history is legendary.

Only because of what Protestants perceive as the Catholic's self-appointed editor-in-chief of the Bible

This would be Christian bashing if it were not true.

IMO they need to remove the plank from their own eye before they try to remove mine.

Christians draw much of this unwanted criticism because they are constantly trying to convert everyone to their side. If they are not converting they are pointing out who is and who isn't going to hell. They have become bold enough to move into the political realm and now try to legislate their particular morality on the rest of the nation, this tends to draw criticism. If you want to have public debate and you attack someones "legal" way of life you had best be prepared for what comes your way.

They have come up with irritating catch phrases that give them an aire of superiority like...

"Love the sinner but hate the sin", this does not give you the right to attack and belittle people under the guise of attacking the "sin". It has a tendency to piss people off. Either they are ignorant and don't know they are doing it or they do it on purpose.

Ending a debate or discussion with the words, "I'll pray for you you" is just like telling someone to F#$& off.

"You are a babe in Christ" is just like telling someone they don't know s*%(t about their own religion.

They want to attack but not be attacked, I suggest they get thicker skin if they want to discuss or debate. Knowinig their history and the history of the world would help them tremendously.

Lastly, this does not pertain to all christians. To those christians who are not like this, I am sorry that an undeterminate amount of Christians are like this, but really you need to take those that are, aside and rebuke them.

Any chance of inserting the word "some" before the word Christians in any of that post??


Besides the sweeping generalizations, Spectrum, I don't see you reply as "bashing".
Critical? Yes.
Cynical? Given some of the behaviors you've apparently witnessed, I can't fault you for that.
And we all have the right to be critical and cynical.

Why bother talking about what it is "besides" the sweeping generalizations, when THEY are what makes it bashing?

It amazes me how some people consider the meanings of words and how they combine together to be a mere nothing in the question of what they actually said.

If I say, "Atheists are ignorant, intolerant bigots", I have said something very different from the sentence, "Some atheists are ignorant, intolerant bigots", even though I've only changed the sentence composition by one four-letter word.

 

[del]

Christians need no help belittling each other, they do fine on their own. Just ask a christian Baptist, "I was thinking of joining the catholic church what do you think?" Their response will be quite eye opening. Christian hypocracy is well documented. Their ability to rewrite history is legendary.

Only because of what Protestants perceive as the Catholic's self-appointed editor-in-chief of the Bible

This would be Christian bashing if it were not true.

IMO they need to remove the plank from their own eye before they try to remove mine.

Christians draw much of this unwanted criticism because they are constantly trying to convert everyone to their side. If they are not converting they are pointing out who is and who isn't going to hell. They have become bold enough to move into the political realm and now try to legislate their particular morality on the rest of the nation, this tends to draw criticism. If you want to have public debate and you attack someones "legal" way of life you had best be prepared for what comes your way.

They have come up with irritating catch phrases that give them an aire of superiority like...

"Love the sinner but hate the sin", this does not give you the right to attack and belittle people under the guise of attacking the "sin". It has a tendency to piss people off. Either they are ignorant and don't know they are doing it or they do it on purpose.

Ending a debate or discussion with the words, "I'll pray for you you" is just like telling someone to F#$& off.

"You are a babe in Christ" is just like telling someone they don't know s*%(t about their own religion.

They want to attack but not be attacked, I suggest they get thicker skin if they want to discuss or debate. Knowinig their history and the history of the world would help them tremendously.

Lastly, this does not pertain to all christians. To those christians who are not like this, I am sorry that an undeterminate amount of Christians are like this, but really you need to take those that are, aside and rebuke them.

Any chance of inserting the word "some" before the word Christians in any of that post??


Besides the sweeping generalizations, Spectrum, I don't see you reply as "bashing".
Critical? Yes.
Cynical? Given some of the behaviors you've apparently witnessed, I can't fault you for that.
And we all have the right to be critical and cynical.

Why bother talking about what it is "besides" the sweeping generalizations, when THEY are what makes it bashing?

It amazes me how some people consider the meanings of words and how they combine together to be a mere nothing in the question of what they actually said.

If I say, "Atheists are ignorant, intolerant bigots", I have said something very different from the sentence, "Some atheists are ignorant, intolerant bigots", even though I've only changed the sentence composition by one four-letter word.

thanks, cap'n!

 

[Cecilie1200]

Christians need no help belittling each other, they do fine on their own. Just ask a christian Baptist, "I was thinking of joining the catholic church what do you think?" Their response will be quite eye opening. Christian hypocracy is well documented. Their ability to rewrite history is legendary.

Only because of what Protestants perceive as the Catholic's self-appointed editor-in-chief of the Bible

This would be Christian bashing if it were not true.

IMO they need to remove the plank from their own eye before they try to remove mine.

Christians draw much of this unwanted criticism because they are constantly trying to convert everyone to their side. If they are not converting they are pointing out who is and who isn't going to hell. They have become bold enough to move into the political realm and now try to legislate their particular morality on the rest of the nation, this tends to draw criticism. If you want to have public debate and you attack someones "legal" way of life you had best be prepared for what comes your way.

They have come up with irritating catch phrases that give them an aire of superiority like...

"Love the sinner but hate the sin", this does not give you the right to attack and belittle people under the guise of attacking the "sin". It has a tendency to piss people off. Either they are ignorant and don't know they are doing it or they do it on purpose.

Ending a debate or discussion with the words, "I'll pray for you you" is just like telling someone to F#$& off.

"You are a babe in Christ" is just like telling someone they don't know s*%(t about their own religion.

They want to attack but not be attacked, I suggest they get thicker skin if they want to discuss or debate. Knowinig their history and the history of the world would help them tremendously.

Lastly, this does not pertain to all christians. To those christians who are not like this, I am sorry that an undeterminate amount of Christians are like this, but really you need to take those that are, aside and rebuke them.

Any chance of inserting the word "some" before the word Christians in any of that post??


Besides the sweeping generalizations, Spectrum, I don't see you reply as "bashing".
Critical? Yes.
Cynical? Given some of the behaviors you've apparently witnessed, I can't fault you for that.
And we all have the right to be critical and cynical.

Sorry I didn't put it at the top but I did at the bottom. So if you look there is no sweeping generalization.

I call bullshit. I don't buy that whole, "I'll post an entire rant against Christians, and then put in a little legal disclaimer at the bottom to make it okay" thing. If you had the time and presence of mind to throw that sentence in, you had the time and presence of mind to go back and edit your post from bashing to thoughtful criticism. The truth is, you wanted to eat your cake and have it too by attacking Christians and then being lauded for how "fair" you were.

 

[del]

tissue?

 

[Grace]

The use of caps as a sign of respect is interesting. Do you capitalize Allah and Buddha too?

I don't use the terms Allah or Buddha. I use the term God. But as you can see from my post..yes. When I remember because it is rare I use those names.

Thank you. I don't use the term "God" but I do capitalize it out of respect for others.

When I use the term in a Buddhist way, I don't capitalize "gods" or "god's realm".

In one way, gods and demons refer to conceptual thought in Buddhist teachings.

I'm not Buddhist, but I respect the concept.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Depends how you look at it.

Many non-believers would view christians saying "all non-believers are going to burn in hell for eternity" as non-believer bashing, and I can't think of any worse kind of bashing than that. And TONS of christians believe that.

Personally I don't think saying snakes can't talk, or evolution deniers are silly, or living inside a whale is impossible is religion bashing. No atheist thinks any christian belongs in an area of infinite torture in the worst area the mind can imagine for all eternity.

But I think there's a difference in the ideas of Bible bashing and religion bashing. The Old Testament has some of the most immoral concepts in human history, but most christians don't take a lot of the Old Testament seriously. So I can't bash christians for the Bible when the worst aspects of it they take as seriously as I do as an atheist, in other words they more or less ignore it.

 

[nitroz]

Pretty sure thats bashing. But if it isn't, then don't bark at me for doing my share.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Pretty sure thats bashing. But if it isn't, then don't bark at me for doing my share.

The Old Testament talks fondly of slavery and asks believers to commit genocide against non-believers, I doubt there's even a dozen christians on the planet that immoral to share the Old Testaments views on those subjects so of course I'm gonna speak against the Bible in those instances.

 

[Sky Dancer]

, (CanyI think religious bashing, or any kind of bashing requires exaggerating or lying. For example, Scott Lively writes a book saying that gays caused the Holocaust. That would be an example of gay bashing. It's untrue.

An example of criticism of Scott Lively would be that he bragged about "setting off a nuclear bomb on gays worldwide" when he worked with Martin Ssempa in the "Kill gays" movement in Uganda. Lively actually said and did those things, and they are wrong.

An example of bashing would be if I were to say that "ALL" or "MOST" Christians agree with Martin Ssempa and Scott Lively. An example of criticism, would be that I can show that a Christian megachurch in Las Vegas, (Canyon Ridge) once financially supported Pastor Martin Ssempa and that Pastor Rick Warren has been a mentor of Martin Ssempa in the past.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I get the distinct impression - and not for the first time - that a number of people on this thread define anything that disagrees with positions they like as "bashing", and are conversely incapable of defining anything said about positions they DON'T as such. Note that Drock just said that he did not consider "Evolution deniers are silly" to be bashing. I would gladly bet money that if the word "silly" was directed at a position he himself espoused, it would suddenly become unacceptable.

Certain other people around here who shall remain nameless, because they know very well who they are, are long since on record as shameless, dishonest apologists for ANY post or thread directed at people they disagree with or don't like, regardless of how self-evidently the post is hostile or inflammatory, while storming around in outrage at any hint of a challenge to people and positions they agree with.

 

[Dr.Drock]

I get the distinct impression - and not for the first time - that a number of people on this thread define anything that disagrees with positions they like as "bashing", and are conversely incapable of defining anything said about positions they DON'T as such. Note that Drock just said that he did not consider "Evolution deniers are silly" to be bashing. I would gladly bet money that if the word "silly" was directed at a position he himself espoused, it would suddenly become unacceptable.

Certain other people around here who shall remain nameless, because they know very well who they are, are long since on record as shameless, dishonest apologists for ANY post or thread directed at people they disagree with or don't like, regardless of how self-evidently the post is hostile or inflammatory, while storming around in outrage at any hint of a challenge to people and positions they agree with.

My apologies, evolution deniers aren't all around silly people, but the fact that they deny evolution is silly.

Denying evolution is just as silly as denying gravity, and I'm sure everyone would agree that anyone who denies gravity is silly, so I'm not going to bite my tongue just because there's a religious motivation to deny evolution.

 

[AllieBaba]

If religious bashing is exaggeration or lying about a religion, I think Sky is one of the most egregious perps on this site.

 

[Sky Dancer]

I think it's pretty clear what the difference is between "bashing" and honest criticism or disagreement.

For example, saying that homosexuality is a sin in the Bible is honest criticism or disagreement with homosexuality. Saying that homosexuals caused the Holocaust is gay bashing.

Saying that ALL Christians think like Martin Ssempa or Scott Lively is Christian bashing. I've never that ALL Christians are the same. I have pointed out who are extremists, or what positions a Church has taken that I consider extremist.

Examples, I have pointed out that the Pope claiming that ordaining women as priests is as grave a sin, and as harmful to the Church as pedophile priests is an extremist view and wrong.

I have pointed out that the RCC harboring pedophile priests as Church policy for many decades is wrong.

Neither of those instances constitute "bashing". They reflect honest criticism of actual stances the Church has taken.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I get the distinct impression - and not for the first time - that a number of people on this thread define anything that disagrees with positions they like as "bashing", and are conversely incapable of defining anything said about positions they DON'T as such. Note that Drock just said that he did not consider "Evolution deniers are silly" to be bashing. I would gladly bet money that if the word "silly" was directed at a position he himself espoused, it would suddenly become unacceptable.

Certain other people around here who shall remain nameless, because they know very well who they are, are long since on record as shameless, dishonest apologists for ANY post or thread directed at people they disagree with or don't like, regardless of how self-evidently the post is hostile or inflammatory, while storming around in outrage at any hint of a challenge to people and positions they agree with.

My apologies, evolution deniers aren't all around silly people, but the fact that they deny evolution is silly.

Denying evolution is just as silly as denying gravity, and I'm sure everyone would agree that anyone who denies gravity is silly, so I'm not going to bite my tongue just because there's a religious motivation to deny evolution.

It's funny how much your "apology" sounds like another attempt to attack and vilify, just from a different angle.

No one asked you to bite your tongue on your opinions. Just admit that you're as much a hostile, inflammatory "basher" as anyone else. And don't expect to be shown any more respect for your opinions than you offer to others.

 

[Cecilie1200]

If religious bashing is exaggeration or lying about a religion, I think Sky is one of the most egregious perps on this site.

That's generally how hypocrisy works.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I think it's pretty clear what the difference is between "bashing" and honest criticism or disagreement.

Yeah: whether or not YOU agree with it.

For example, saying that homosexuality is a sin in the Bible is honest criticism or disagreement with homosexuality. Saying that homosexuals caused the Holocaust is gay bashing.

You say that now, but I've seen you jump people's shit for even suggesting that homosexuality might be unacceptable on any sort of basis.

Saying that ALL Christians think like Martin Ssempa or Scott Lively is Christian bashing. I've never that ALL Christians are the same. I have pointed out who are extremists, or what positions a Church has taken that I consider extremist.

Straw man. Trying to claim that you're not a Christian-basher on the basis that you haven't engaged in ONE form of bashing is not only disingenuous, it's also CLUMSY disingenuousness.

Examples, I have pointed out that the Pope claiming that ordaining women as priests is as grave a sin, and as harmful to the Church as pedophile priests is an extremist view and wrong.

I have pointed out that the RCC harboring pedophile priests as Church policy for many decades is wrong.

Neither of those instances constitute "bashing". They reflect honest criticism of actual stances the Church has taken.

The question is, when's the last time you condemned someone YOU AGREE WITH for being "extremist" and "wrong"? I think if all you ever do is sit around, pronouncing the evils of people you don't like and defending the same behavior in people you DO like, then anything you say about your opponents becomes bashing, because it's not a reasoned response to the evidence. It's just blind partisanship.

 

[Dr.Drock]

I get the distinct impression - and not for the first time - that a number of people on this thread define anything that disagrees with positions they like as "bashing", and are conversely incapable of defining anything said about positions they DON'T as such. Note that Drock just said that he did not consider "Evolution deniers are silly" to be bashing. I would gladly bet money that if the word "silly" was directed at a position he himself espoused, it would suddenly become unacceptable.

Certain other people around here who shall remain nameless, because they know very well who they are, are long since on record as shameless, dishonest apologists for ANY post or thread directed at people they disagree with or don't like, regardless of how self-evidently the post is hostile or inflammatory, while storming around in outrage at any hint of a challenge to people and positions they agree with.

My apologies, evolution deniers aren't all around silly people, but the fact that they deny evolution is silly.

Denying evolution is just as silly as denying gravity, and I'm sure everyone would agree that anyone who denies gravity is silly, so I'm not going to bite my tongue just because there's a religious motivation to deny evolution.

It's funny how much your "apology" sounds like another attempt to attack and vilify, just from a different angle.

No one asked you to bite your tongue on your opinions. Just admit that you're as much a hostile, inflammatory "basher" as anyone else. And don't expect to be shown any more respect for your opinions than you offer to others.

I'll bash anyone's scientific view if they make a habit of denying scientific facts.

I'm not bashing evolution deniers morally, most of the ones I've interacted with are good moral people who I would be happy to befriend.

 

[AllieBaba]

If religious bashing is exaggeration or lying about a religion, I think Sky is one of the most egregious perps on this site.

That's generally how hypocrisy works.

Yup.