Parenting is hard.
It's a hard problem.
However, children are born as life-loving creatures. It seems reasonable that it's easier to keep them that way while teaching them how to function in this world, than to force onto them rigid unnatural habits (for example, many Christians consider sexuality a bad thing, and teach their children to be ashamed of their sexuality, except in this very special case of being married to someone; or they take the "respect your parents" command too seriously, effectively ridding their child of all rights to any kind of personal integrity - "I am your parent, you shall respect me, no matter what I do"), which lead to frustration of the child, which leads to resistance, which leads to frustration of parents, which leads to general unhappiness and mistrust.
But even if we completely disregard the complexity of raising children - Christianity is, in its essence, a suffering fetish. The symbol of Christianity is a man suffering on a cross. I do not believe that that kind of imagery doesn't have harmful effects on young children.
The TLDR on the Bible is John 3:16-21. You’ve probably heard the first sentence, but I encourage you to read the full paragraph and then compare it with the characterization you shared here.
I've personally witnessed every single thing I've written, so they can't be completely wrong. I was also raised in a Christian family, in a Christian neighborhood, so I'm pretty sure that what I've observed is at the very least plausible.
> The TLDR on the Bible is John 3:16-21.
You should note that Bible is huge, full of contradictions and open to interpretation. You should also note that many Christians have never even read the Bible, and don't follow it to the word, but rather follow the culture of their peers, which is usually focused on observable behaviors (don't eat X, don't work on Y, don't do Z, etc.), rather than deeper, more complex points (love thy neighbor as you love yourself, turn the other cheek, who is without sin - throw the first stone, etc.).
Note that (except for the "suffering fetish" comment) I'm not even trying to tackle the Bible or Christianity as a philosophy here. I'm talking strictly about the sociological aspects of religion.
Life is hard. Individuals consistently fail to act with everyone’s best interests in mind. This is true of all people and all groups of people at all scales.
The offensive thing about Christians is that they’re a people that have acknowledged that they aren’t behaving appropriately in the first place and have come to the conclusion that they want to behave accordingly to the standard set in the Bible. It’s completely understandable that when they don’t live up to that standard that others are put off.
When everyone is out there living their own truth, it can be offensive to learn about a group of people who reject the idea of their own truth and put their trust in the God of the Bible. It’s especially understandable that folks are quick to judge them for their hypocrisy when they fail to live up to that standard.
Yes, but Christianity gives people the excuse not to question their core beliefs - they just confess, repent, blame it all on Satan and carry on with business as usual.
> The offensive thing about Christians is that they’re a people that have acknowledged that they aren’t behaving appropriately in the first place and have come to the conclusion that they want to behave accordingly to the standard set in the Bible
The offensive thing about Christians is that they are constantly trying to impose rules from the Bible upon other people (e.g. abortion laws in southern US).
> When everyone is out there living their own truth, it can be offensive to learn about a group of people who reject the idea of their own truth and put their trust in the God of the Bible.
In other words, Christians consider themselves eternally right, and everyone else eternally wrong, no matter what evidence is provided.
Regarding laws, we live in a representative republic where anyone can vote for any representative to act in their interests. If you would prefer that we remove the rights of Christians to vote because they tend to vote for policies that you don't support, well, that's a very different type of government. Historically, in the US, we have gone to great lengths to give marginalized groups the right to vote.
Finally, a Christian is simply a person who has decided that they will organize their life according to the standard defined in the Bible in preference to other options. Other people make decisions to organize their lives in other ways. It seems like you are willing to tolerate folks in the latter camp, but hold a special animosity towards folks in the former camp. Do we not each have our own autonomy?
That's your interpretation. The behavior I have observed is different.
> Historically, in the US, we have gone to great lengths to give marginalized groups the right to vote
Christians in the US are not marginalized.
> Finally, a Christian is simply a person who has decided that they will organize their life according to the standard defined in the Bible in preference to other options. Other people make decisions to organize their lives in other ways. It seems like you are willing to tolerate folks in the latter camp, but hold a special animosity towards folks in the former camp. Do we not each have our own autonomy?
Read about paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
In order for society to remain tolerant towards everyone, it must not tolerate intolerance. Christianity (as well as many other popular religions) is not tolerant, no matter how much that word appears in its holy books - just look at the history.
If that's all you took away from this conversation, then I agree - it's for the best to end it now. But I'll try to elaborate anyway.
I am not taking the position that Christians should have their right to vote curtailed, I'm taking the position that nobody, not even Christians, should have the right to impose their own standards upon others, unless they made sense outside of the Christian worldview. Abortion laws only make sense in the Christian worldview (and maybe a few other, equally intolerant, worldviews). The fact that Christians are the majority in the US only makes it de-facto a Christian state, while still pretending to be a secular democracy.
Here's a thought experiment:
If Talibans somehow became a majority in the US, would you still consider it "their right" to vote away the democracy and establish Sharia Law?
> If Talibans somehow became a majority in the US, would you still consider it "their right" to vote away the democracy and establish Sharia Law?
Yes. The current form of government in the United States is a representative republic that has a constitution that defines processes for dramatic change including a constitutional convention that allows for open-ended changes to the constitution itself.
I don't have a divine right to the land, water, or air here.
That's were we disagree. I believe there are some human freedoms that nobody has the right to deny. I suppose I'm just an idealist.
> The current form of government in the United States is a representative republic that has a constitution that defines processes for dramatic change including a constitutional convention that allows for open-ended changes to the constitution itself.
I'm sure the goal of such openness of constitution was to protect the liberty of people, not to open doors for authoritarianism.