One thing that is beginning to annoy me a little bit is the tendency of Christian apologists to wave off 1,500 years of abuse in the name of Jesus Christ as if it were a trifle, a unfortunate misunderstanding, or a theological tiff. Church history is rife with the systemic rape, torture, enslavement, and murder of opponents of the one truth faith. Often, these cleansings were carried out against people whose faith system was quite nearly indistinguishable from those of the oppressor. It is a sordid, sick history of the presence of hell on earth.
I've seen the apologists attack this issue by pointing to the eradication of slavery in the USA. This argument is one of many that just doesn't gain any traction, after all, it is just another case of Christian on Christian violence. Should the skeptic really be impressed that it took a Civil War for a Christian nation to eradicate slavery? Let's be serious.
Another ridiculous argument usually involves laying out before the skeptic some long winded explanation about how the various sects of Christianity are different from one another. The problem is that every single branch of Christianity has violence in its past, with perhaps the exception of the Anabaptists, who were largely exterminated by other sects - we've a history of people claiming the name of Jesus Christ to kill pacifists! This approach is a train wreck.
The abuse continues to our current day. From the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which was systemically covered up for decades, to the bat-poop nuttiness of Protestant Fundamentalists, who engage in the most glaring forms of psychological abuse every Sunday at 10:00am - to the really weird and sick stuff that rolls around under cover of darkness - the history is ongoing and it is a sad, sick, perverted heap of sin. Don't try to sell me the idea this stuff isn't ongoing, I was in a Fundy church that involved thousands of people. I saw the abuse up front and in person.
So here is the burr for me.
When a atheist comes to TWEB and starts taking about 'Theocracy' and fears about the 'Christian Right' and how Christians are bigots who are anxious to use power to destroy other human beings that atheist isn't some off the wall dingbat who is making stuff up. The dude just got up this morning and read the paper. Our marketing problems aren't his problems. Frankly, I hope Christians NEVER get power in any government on this planet again - and if you need examples as to why I feel that way I'd be happy to take you to a couple of churches I know. The sermons they deliver there will make you physically sick.
The skeptics/atheists/militant-feminist-lesbian-meth-smokers are afraid of Christians for perfectly justifiable reasons.
We need to recognize that the fear is grounded in REALITY and that many of these people have experienced abuse first hand.
It is absurd that we expect abused people who are fully aware of church history to come in here and be perfectly polite.
It is a miracle any of them talk to us at all.
I've seen the apologists attack this issue by pointing to the eradication of slavery in the USA. This argument is one of many that just doesn't gain any traction, after all, it is just another case of Christian on Christian violence. Should the skeptic really be impressed that it took a Civil War for a Christian nation to eradicate slavery? Let's be serious.
Another ridiculous argument usually involves laying out before the skeptic some long winded explanation about how the various sects of Christianity are different from one another. The problem is that every single branch of Christianity has violence in its past, with perhaps the exception of the Anabaptists, who were largely exterminated by other sects - we've a history of people claiming the name of Jesus Christ to kill pacifists! This approach is a train wreck.
The abuse continues to our current day. From the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which was systemically covered up for decades, to the bat-poop nuttiness of Protestant Fundamentalists, who engage in the most glaring forms of psychological abuse every Sunday at 10:00am - to the really weird and sick stuff that rolls around under cover of darkness - the history is ongoing and it is a sad, sick, perverted heap of sin. Don't try to sell me the idea this stuff isn't ongoing, I was in a Fundy church that involved thousands of people. I saw the abuse up front and in person.
So here is the burr for me.
When a atheist comes to TWEB and starts taking about 'Theocracy' and fears about the 'Christian Right' and how Christians are bigots who are anxious to use power to destroy other human beings that atheist isn't some off the wall dingbat who is making stuff up. The dude just got up this morning and read the paper. Our marketing problems aren't his problems. Frankly, I hope Christians NEVER get power in any government on this planet again - and if you need examples as to why I feel that way I'd be happy to take you to a couple of churches I know. The sermons they deliver there will make you physically sick.
The skeptics/atheists/militant-feminist-lesbian-meth-smokers are afraid of Christians for perfectly justifiable reasons.
We need to recognize that the fear is grounded in REALITY and that many of these people have experienced abuse first hand.
It is absurd that we expect abused people who are fully aware of church history to come in here and be perfectly polite.
It is a miracle any of them talk to us at all.
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