Let me help then.
ra·tion·al·i·za·tion
/ˌraSH(ə)n(ə)ləˈzāSH(ə)n,ˌraSH(ə)n(ə)līˈzāSH(ə)n/
noun
noun: rationalization; plural noun: rationalizations; noun: rationalisation; plural noun: rationalisations
1. the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.
"most people are prone to self-deceptive rationalization"
And who do you porpose are the ones who are "rationalising"? Me, or those who insist that "America is growing hostile to Christians"?
Both to differing degrees, it's a highly politicized issue, some choose to view it a pervasive, others like you choose to view it differently, both views are highly subjective based on pre-existing bias which obviously leads to self rationalizations. As with most highly politicized issues the reality is frequently somewhere in the middle.
Rather like to see your evidence of this. You seem to be suggesting that, at least to some degree, America
is becoming hostile to Christianity in general. And what would be your evidence of this? Are there churches that are being shut down? Are Christians being denied their right to assemble, and worship? How, precisely, is Christianity being attacked? Not, mind you, efforts to stop Christians from infringing on the rights of others in the name of their "religious convictions", but actual attack on, and infringement of Christians' right to lawfully practice their religion.
Perspective is everything......... It's difficult in this area to show evidence as one person's convictions are another's infringement and vice versa plus convictions can be viewed as positive or negative depending on the viewer's interpretation.
There are Christians who want to impose their idea of what society should look like and blame non-Christians for all the evils in the world. Conversely there are non-Christians who blame Christians for all the evils in the world and and would ban or bar the practice of Christianity or any religion for that matter. Granted both those extremes are thankfully in the minority but they do exist.
Let me ask you a question that may answer yours, do you think religious people have a right to political representation or not, political representation that espouses and promotes their viewpoint?
My perspective is that religious people have distorted and bastardized the whole concept of religious freedom to advance their agenda:
Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice. 2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.
1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:
This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.
The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.
2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:
In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.
Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:
•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.
The media often refer to NOTAs as "NONES" because they are affiliated to NONE of the faith groups. However, the words Nones and Nuns are homophones: words that sound alike but are spelled differently and which hold very different meanings. To avoid confusion, we recommend against this practice and recommend the unambiguous term "NOTA."
One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.
Source:
Religious freedom & the freedom to discriminate
