In reply to Tlaloc (msg #67):

Nice contextualization

I think it really depends on your location.  Those in the LDS church are frequently the subject of discrimination in the "Bible Belt," while not in Utah.

Those of any religion are often more persecuted than atheists/agnostics in the San Francisco area.

That's the difficulty of the United States being so culturally diverse.  It's hard to make generalizations.

Yes, my mother (LDS) was.

And that is, by the way, illegal.


No, but there was a lesbian couple that did not want to come to our house because we were LDS, even though it didn't bother us that they were lesbian.


No, but my friend was attacked in Japan for being Christian, and my brother was attacked by a group in Germany for the same reason.

But I've certainly seen liberals use extremely down-putting language that lacked any substance in a clear effort to belittle another.  So that's not really special to religious or political ideals, but to an individual's immaturity.


I had my house vandalized for daring to put out a sign that supported Prop 8.  And my wife had her car vandalized for the same reason.


Yes, each of the people above is Christian.


Any person's suffering due to the idiotic prejudices of another is a shame and a sad reflection on the lack of understanding still too prevalent in our society.

I haven't read the thread through, but I have to wonder what you mean by Christian charity.  Because on one hand Christian charity does not mean letting down values or loving or accepting sin, but it should include accepting people of all beliefs and helping people despite their beliefs.

from

definitions 4 and 5.

Secundus; Historically Protestants have been worse than Catholics - in broad stroke- about opression.
Also when it comes to opression fictional stories about the evil members of an opressed group is *part* of the opression, the same way Jews in Medieval Europ were reputed to be poisoning wells.
And false accusations are similarly effective in opressing a group in that it reinforces the atmosphere of opression even if the person killed wasn't of the appropriate category. McCarthyism didn't round up a single actual communist but it sure killed the communist party in the US.

You know, I’ve always believed that one was a Christian based on the behavior they displayed, not by simply saying they belong to a particular sect.  One can say that they are catholic or protestant, but if they aren’t behaving in accordance to the Christian message then they aren’t a Christian.  That to me seems to be ware this thread kind of got off on a separate topic from where it started from.  The title is, unless if I’m mistaken, “How is a Christian to live.”    Now, I could go on to name the numerous cases in history when Christians were slaughtered by some other religion, and believe me I have plenty of ammunition to do so, but that wouldn’t solve anything, unless I was to take a completely irrational approach.  You see, the biggest flaw that most people often forget when they point their finger at a religion and say its evil, repressive, or whatever, is that they can’t use the followers of that religion as the sole basis for the argument.  This is called a Reduxio Adherium.  You see if I want to demonstrate the flaws of Islam, I’m just using this as an example, and then I have to demonstrate some feeling with the tenets of the religion directly.  I cannot use the practices of the followers to demonstrate problems with the religion, because there is a degree of separation between the content of the religion and the person that practices it.

As for Christian charity, I can think of numerous cases fitting the definition supplied.

But isn't it claimed within the Christian holy text that 'by your fruit will you be known'? Why should this not apply to religion as well?
Admitedly this also needs to be in context- any sufficiently large group over enough time will have rapists and marauders and conquerers, but where a behavior seems more closely tied to one religion or another, even if not supported by it's dogma, then I think a 'by the fruit' analysis is appropriate.
A second point in this is that of perspective. Every religion sees itself as more benevolant than other religions. Even ones which from the outside appear to clearly not be (for example Satanism takes teh 'mantle of evil' as a way to assist it's membrs in escaping teh christian dogma they were raised with. From their persepctive there are very few actual satanic murders, and they have a very live and let live attitude about self empowerment which in their eyes contrasts to more violent and dogmatically enslaving religions). But if a single religion is viewed in teh same way by people of all outside faiths I think that religion should probably take a good hard look at itself...

I'm not saying that there weren't Catholics who engaged in oppression (although saying then the Catholic Church is oppressive is an ungrounded leap of broken logic), or there weren't oppressive actions directly organized and perpetrated by the Catholic Church (nor that they were not wrong in doing so). I'm pointing out that the Catholic Church was not the 'leader' in this behavior. It seems like the RCC has become a bit of a punching bag so some Protestant Churches can claim a clean slate, but history has shown that both branches engaged in plenty of bad stuff to go around, and the RCC simply did not engage in the, per capita, degree of persecution that comes up when you have fundamentalist or extremist leaders which are more able to flourish following the Protestant Reformation.





We got two ways to cut this:
1) Witchcraft is real in the sense that it can cause hexes, ill-fortune, turn people into chickens, and so forth.

If this is the case, why do you think you are somehow immune to it? If magic works, magic works. And interestingly magic seems to work, in a way, for everyone. Granted, a Christian's 'magic' is either asking for God to do it, or turning away from God and asking Satan, but we can still see plenty of magic use in the Bible which resulted in thousands of people dying, committed by the Christian God.

So we can't just say 'he's an X, and people of his religion turned my kids into newts!' You have to give people a trial based on what that individual has done. In the US, we don't put Communists in jail, even though they are godless and some Communists are responsible for killing millions of people. I think we all agree that that is just. Similarly, you can't put Pagans in jail because some witches have committed terrible acts. You put the witch responsible in jail. So no, people in Africa are not justified for stoning witches because some witch somewhere did something bad, any more than we are justified in putting you in jail because some Christian somewhere did something bad.

2) Magic doesn't exist, witches don't cast hexes, and don't turn people into chickens. In which case, what's the argument? The people who are putting witches in jail are wrong, backwards and superstitious. There is no justification, they're acting out of prejudice, ignorance and hate. That's it.

So no, I can't hold your position that, perhaps, because Africa has a cultural heritage, that they are now justified in passing laws against people holding a religion. Can you pass laws against their harming people via magical methods? Yes. Studying how to harm people? Yes. But those are laws based on action, not on religious belief. They are no more justified in passing their anti-religious laws than we would be justified in passing a law against practicing Judaism on the grounds that they might call down the angel of death to kill all of our first born.

I will put the long history of the Catholics against the Protestants any day.



True.  But the stories of witches and witchcraft and sorcery far outdate the coming of Christianity and Islam to Africa and the Middle East.  Not to mention Europe.  Those tales are still with us to this day.  In many parts of the world the practices of the witch are still greatly feared.

It is a part of a great many cultures and witches have traditionally used the fear of their magic to affect the changes they wished or for profit.  As I asked, and which you did not answer, are people justified in discriminating (not murdering or torturing) against witches?  After centuries of making people fear their powers are they reaping what they have sown?



I think you have your concept of witchcraft confused with how many of these cultures view witchcraft.  In many of them witches are to be shunned and left alone to their own devices.  They mess with forces that are best left alone and they have not done a very good job, over the centuries, of buidling goodwill.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.

So, under your terms, the people have a right to discriminate based on the historical ill-will that witches have generated against themselves.  The false accusations are just a horrible side-effect of the bad reputation that witchcraft holds in those cultures.



Actually McCarthy identified quite a few actual Communists but no one had the actual testicular fortitude to purge them from the government.  Take a look at Venona, it justifies a great deal of what McCarty was about.  As for the US branch of the Communist party dying, well, good.

But that is an agrument for another thread.

Back on track: Christians are being oppressed in a great many places.  False accusations of witchcraft are rampant in a great many places.  All oppression of religious faith, no matter the faith, is unjust and terribly wrong.

In reply to katisara (msg #73):

I was just noting that the RCC has had a long history in which it did a great many Bad Things.  I did not let the Protestants off the hook at all but the Protestants have a great many different sects compared to the RCC.

As for your "two ways of cutting it".  It is obvious you still are not getting the point I am trying to get across:

1) This is not about what I believe but what the people of the cultures I am referring to believe.  I am a Atheist so I don't believe in Paganism or Christianity.

As for the rest of number One.  This is a contrast of silveroak's statement that some of discrimination is justified where I believe that any discrimination is wrong and unjust.  As I said, this isn't about me but about religious persecution.  I agree with most of what you say in number one.  It would seem that you and I agree that the idea that discrimination against Christians and Pagans is unacceptable and wrong.

2) I would agree that magic doesn't exist any more than God exists.

You can't hold the position I am explaining.  You can hold the position I hold because it is almost exactly the same.  Oppression of religion is wrong in any case.

The position you and I can't hold is the one that says that "some" discrimination is allowed because some people in your faith have acted badly or counter to what your faith is supposed to act like.

In some places, Christians have acted badly.  In others, witches are the ones who have acted badly.  A person should be judged by their own actions no matter what faith they hold, or don't hold.

Am I clear now?

Some level of discrimination is unavoidable. either you discriminate against some pagan sects and require people to wear clothes or you discriminate against some Muslim sects and allow women to go outside with skin showing. So long as it is about accomadating a plurality some discrimination of this type is certainly permissable, and should take the culture into question.

secondly one of the issues with Witchcraft is one of translation. For example if you look into the Russian language there are three words for a magic user- one indicates a gentle wise healer (wicca's broader familly) and another indicates an evil sorcerer. Within christianity across cultures teh two have been blended to justify persecuting the former with the reputation of the later. Notably the latter are invariably almost exclusively in the realm of fairy tales, while the former are, or were, widespread.

In terms of history there is a huge difference between 'my grandparents were kidnapped as children and forced to convert in a Christian orphanage' (which was done exclusively by protestants BTW) and 'there are stories and legends that someone somewhere turned someone into a Newt.

It is important to recognize the distinction between fictional and factual if we are talking about how sensetive people might be to public displays of images or preaching.

I know that discrimination is a part of all cultural interactions but that doesn't mean we have to condone it or accept it.  Your example of the oppression of Muslim women having to wear full body suits is a good example.  Those women are human beings no matter what their culture says.

That is one of the problem I always had in Athropology classes.  So many people are willing to allow oppression in other cultures because, well, they are other cultures.  That is like saying, why free the slaves in the South?  It is a part of Southern culture that black people are slaves to white people.  When the individual, or minority, is crushed to fit into the role society determines for them it is oppression.



Exactly.  And yes, groups are sometimes mashed together, like "Pagans", in order to demonize and discriminate them as a whole.



Not in some cultures.  The power of witchcraft has a far greater hold over the imagination than baby-stealing Christians.  Except in those areas where baby-stealing actually occurred of course.  Those who kidnap are to be punished.  Those who do not are to be left to their faith.

The perception seems to be that the effects of witchcraft are like a Monty Python skit.  The belief that witchcraft causes miscarriages, dead cattle, a straying husband or wife, and many other examples of ill-fortune don't seem to enter the picture.  To downplay the perception of witchcraft is to dismiss how damaging those people view the practice of witchcraft.



It is also important to view how perceptions differ from culture to culture.  The fictional to you might be the factual to someone who believes all his cattle died because he mouthed off to the witch living in another village.  Is his faith in the power of witchcraft, and his anger towards witches to be blown off so easily?
This message was last edited by the player at 16:25, Tue 21 Dec 2010.

That's not a fair comparison, to take an organization which has existed for two thousand years, most of the time as the dominant religion of an entire continent, and compare it to a branch which has existed for about 500 years, and has, at most, been the dominant religion of a handful of countries. Saying a religion is the 'leader of persecution' in the Christian world because it existed for four times as long and across a much larger population is simply insulting.



You can't say that persecution is okay because some other culture believes it's okay. It's the fact that people believe it is okay which is why they persecute in the first place. No one is going to honestly believe that persecution is wrong, then do it anyway.

If persecution is wrong, it's wrong, and it needs to be stopped, regardless of cultural beliefs and common fairy tales of the people doing the persecuting. No excuses.



If you are saying that your statement was a satire in response to silveroak's statement, then I guess we're agreed - and we both agree that your statement was objectively wrong, but that you were using it as a rebuttal against another argument. Yes?

Glad we agree.



Yes.  I completely disagree with the "justified" view of discrimination of Christianity and used the cultural context of how witchcraft is viewed in so many other cultures to show how those perceptions fuel discrimination.  Both are wrong.  I was just trying to counter the notion that Christians deserve it while witches do not.  Neither deserve it in any cultural context.

I think we understand each other now.

I think Apoplexies makes a good point, and it can be taken even a step further.

For example, if you say you are "Jewish," what does that mean?  Jewish is a race, culture, and a religion.  And there are many types of religion that are Jewish.  There are many Jews who are Jewish in race only, and some who are all three.

The same is true with Christianity.  Many are "Christian" just because that is the culture they were raised in, but lack true qualities of a Christian.  It is sad and unfair to judge Christianity by these people, who are not actually "Christian" in the religious sense of the word.

Sounds like we all agree that we should judge individuals for their actions, and not by the actions of other members of the group they happen to be a part of.  That's great!  I sort of get the feeling that we're mostly using it as method for pointing out the faults of others, though (e.g., "Group X is wrong for discriminating against group Y!").  If we can get to the point where we're actually changing our own actions based on the ideal, I think we'll have really made some progress.

That's not what I said...

What I said is that your definition of "Christian" is imperfect, in that it can describe several different types of Christian.  Therefore, judging someone merely because they profess to be Christian may result in you judging someone for a different definition of Christian than they truly are.

Take this for example:

"Americans live in a communist society."

Is that true?  At first blush, you might think it is false, but what is an "American"?  It can include South Americans, Cubans, etc., or it can mean those in the USA, Canada, etc.  So it could be true or false depending on what the definition of American is.

To your statement that we should not judge people by the members of the group they are a member of, I would disagree...to a point.  We choose which groups we are members of, and therefore we take their actions upon ourselves to some degree.  But if we are a "devout Catholic" or a "devout Jew," we probably don't have any need to worry in any case because all "devout" Catholics and Jews are probably good people with good actions.  The problem is when the devout are intermingled with the other cultural or far less devout groups.

Well, in that case, I guess don't complain when people discriminate against you for being a "devout Mormon."  ;)

Personally, I think it's better to judge individuals on their actions, rather than by the actions of others in their group.  I can't claim to live up to the ideal perfectly, but I think it's a good ideal to aspire to nonetheless.

I would take it as a badge of honor.

My point was that one shouldn’t logically say that X is bad, because of the actions of those that are associat4ed with it are bad, which the case is often.  I can’t say for instance mustard is bad, because people put it on hot dogs.  I have to say that mustard is bad, because it’s tangy, or whatever.  The same goes for religion.  Some of the comments made here were leaning towards that bent, or at least that’s how they sounded to me; I’m not going to point out quotes, because that might not how they were intended.

<Quote> But isn't it claimed within the Christian holy text that 'by your fruit will you be known'? Why should this not apply to religion as well?
Admittedly this also needs to be in context- any sufficiently large group over enough time will have rapists and marauders and conquerors, but where a behavior
Seems more closely tied to one religion or another, even if not supported by its dogma, then I think a 'by the fruit' analysis is appropriate.
A second point in this is that of perspective. Every religion sees itself as more benevolent than other religions. Even ones which from the outside appear
to clearly not be (for example Satanism takes teh 'mantle of evil' as a way to assist it's membrs in escaping teh christian dogma they were raised with.
From their persepctive there are very few actual satanic murders, and they have a very live and let live attitude about self empowerment which in their
eyes contrasts to more violent and dogmatically enslaving religions). But if a single religion is viewed in teh same way by people of all outside faiths
I think that religion should probably take a good hard look at itself... <Quote>

Notice, though by the fruit analysis would be useful only if the of tenants that religion holds that killing is wrong.  Note, that some religions, such as the Twatsony, in Northern Africa, see killing and oppression as a natural course and something their followers should ascribe too.  I mention this here for the simple reason that one must view an ideological structure within the context of that structure.  If I for instance, compare Buddhism, through the lenses of Islam, or using that as a basis, or  purely on the basis of thos that practice it, then I am going to miss some of the essential elements of Buddhism, which while I don’t practice the religion, I have been enriched through the study of it.  If we are to be rational beings, and study something from a rational standpoint, then a by the fruit analysis will not show the entire picture of that religion.

One should also note the tendency for those that engage in undesirable acts, or use their religion for political or social gain, will naturally often stand out more than the loyal members of the faith.  Now, while agree with the above statement that religion should take a good hard look at itself, atheism, holders of democratic ideologies, and science, should spend considerable time in reflection.  As these metaphysical frameworks, have both knowingly and unknowingly, led to what I would argue as much suffering as any religion.  I am saying this not because I have any ax to grind at any of them, but rather that members of these groups are capable of and at times have, taken on converting others to their ideals with fanatic fervor.  This is something that those, including myself, must guard against, as it is a trap that is easy to fall in (Zhu, 2001).

I believe however, that the greatest cause of problems among American Christian, and I am not saying this as something that I feel superior for identifying, is that we have become too apathetic on the whole.  There are those that follow the Christian tenants fully, most especially, “love thy neighbor as thy self,” but there are too many that only think of Christ and God on Sunday, or during the holidays.  This is something that I personally strive to guard against, but cannot claim any great satisfaction over.

Oh, if my postings are difficult to read, or anyone spots significant errors, feel free to point them out.

In reply to Tlaloc (msg #77):


and


and you don't see a conflict between these two statements?
My point is that *specifically* in a culture where in *recent* history (which for most cultures means within the last 200 years) there has been *actual* opression of the indigenous group A by force by religious group B, then once free I think it is acceptable for Group A to put some restrictions on the free speach of Group B.
In the same way many puritanical Americans are perfectly willing to curb my rights of free expression simply because they don't want to "see my junk" in public- I don't particularly want to hear Rush Limbaugh in public either, and many Muslim men do not wish to see any female skin in public. But restrictions get passed and accomadations made based on public ned as much as the rights to free expression.
So my right to spiritual nudism is restricted with what I see as simply a watered down version of Sharia law- admittedly from a different source, which says that people should be punished for displaying flesh in public.

Tlaloc was using satire to criticize your point about how people are justified in discriminating against Christians.

Here's an important difference though, since you are going into what is acceptable in public. We as a culture need to determine what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Most people agree that pooping in public is not acceptable, even if it doesn't do any specific harm beyond causing discomfort, and pooping in public is not generally something which provides a serious benefit to our culture or the individual. So we've agreed that outlawing pooping in public is in the public interest, except under specific circumstances.

If you are the Grand Poopa of your church and decide to bless my lawn, I would be justified in bringing charges against you, because you have violated our generally-accepted cultural mores, and have done it specifically in the environment that I live in. If you cordoned off a section of your own lawn so any effects would be contained, then it's okay. That isn't discrimination against religion though - you'd get in trouble whether you were Grand Poopa or not. It's discrimination against a particular activity that basically everyone has agreed is unacceptable.

Same with public nudity. I don't consider myself puritanical, but if I see you walking around naked, I will probably tell the next cop I see (after laughing - we have stories about driving downtown and seeing a naked, oiled man in a stocking cap walking around in the middle of december down the side of the highway). It's not because I'm thinking 'damn Wiccans, junking their junk everywhere'. It's because I'm thinking 'that person has no pants on, which is a health risk, offensive and possibly psychologically harmful for some individuals'.

Free speech we have determined to be good for society, so even when it is offensive and possibly harmful, we have decided, as a society, that the benefit outweighs the harm - whether your free speech is as an ultra-conservative, a neo-nazi, or the Grand Poopa.

(And as an aside, covering all female flesh is not an aspect of Sharia law. It's a cultural custom limited to a handful of Muslim countries - and is specifically outlawed in a handful of other Muslim countries.)

I don’t see one either, nor did I find one when I went through the arguments them selves.





The contingency in the second statement does not counteract the statements in the previous statement; or in other words, statement doesn’t provide any invalidation of statement A, which means that there is nothing inherently conflicting about the two statements.

Now,

If I follow your argument, you want the oppressed to become the tyrant and place repressions on those that repressed them so, making them no better than the people that repressed them?

And just for my edification, does anyone know of a country where public nudity is tolerated?  I’m serious here, I really don’t know of any.  This also brings up a point, to what extent is something a cultural norm, or oppression?  We see full women’s coverings as oppressive, some women I knew while over there, didn’t see it that way at all.  Just something to kick around.

Yes, public Nudity is tollerated in Denmark, and France. actually it is tollerated through most of Europe. It isn't common to see on say a city street, but go to any beach in France and you will see a distinct difference from American culture.

Secondly, I am saying that a *major* oppression in the past may justify a *minor* oppression in the present. Germany had laws against the use of Nazi symbols until the 1990's where America does not, and even defends the right of Nazis to speak their minds. There are even some restrcitions in Germany today. Is there a good reason for this? definitely.
Similarly I think if missionaries in the early 1900s went into a community and abducted children to christianisze them in an 'orphanage' that it is acceptable for that community to then regulate the use of christian symbols in public.
Who knows what's going to happen in haiti where evangelicals were abducting children in 2010 following the earthquakes to take them to a religiously based orphanage. Of course the difference there is that the parents were most likely christian as well and the 'rescue' workers were working out of either a) a misguided belief that the children were actually orphans, or in teh case of teh organizers b) a mistaken belief that Haiti had fallen under demonic influence and the children would not be raised as christians there (perhaps in their definition of christianity tey would have been right- some sects can define it very narrowly)

I can go with that, under the idea that they could be possibly offensive and so forth.  Although, if that was the criteria, half the countries in Africa couldn’t display Islamic symbols in public; whether that is good or not, I can’t say.



As someone that worked over there during the first relief effort, I can’t work over there directly with my aid group now; there was a lot of pressure on everyone to remove children if you couldn’t locate a guardian within forty eight hours.  Mostly this pressure came out of the FRA Federal Relief Association, which typically works as the go between for the Federal government and various non-government aid agencies.  A typical action then when unable to locate guardians is to place them with an in country orphanage, in this case there was none, and if none is available to place them in an orphanage in the parent country.  In this case the U.S. and an attempt are usually made to place them in one that matches their culture, or religious beliefs.   Those children that were Jewish were placed in orphanages that have a strong Jewish culture, Muslims, with an Islamic culture, etc.  There were a considerable number of children for whom no guardian could be found, as a lot of headed to the capital, but didn’t take their kids with them.  So there were a lot of kids pulled out of the country and placed in orphanages, sometimes who would then be returned to their families later.  Naturally, the fact that children were being taken out of the country and being placed with Christian orphanages was the only one to make the news.

That may be but at teh same time tehre were Evangelical christian organizations which managed to get a bit of press for going outside the legal channels and apparently even going so far as to lie and indicate they had positive documentation that the children were orphans when their parents could in fact be located. And that was the press in the US, I can only imagine what stories were going arround in Haiti.
While most of those arrested at teh staff level were eventually released as they had apparently been mislead there were convictions, and I'm not talking about the moral/religious kind.

Live as if your assets, health and job are gifts from God and His assets - not yours.