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Comment by MarkPNeyer | Hacker News Reader

Can you give an example of a principle that isn’t made up?

I suppose that's an inaccurate choice of words. I meant to juxtapose something meaningful to someone in stead of the Skygod that the Christians pretend to worship on Sundays.

Please don’t denigrate others’ faith here.

I'm saying it's mostly performative. I can't denigrate something that actually doesn't exist.

You said, “the Skygod that the Christians pretend to worship on Sundays”. This comment is uncivil and does not belong here. That behavior is not acceptable and please do not behave this way in the future.

To be clear, the comment denigrates Christians, by (among other things) saying that they pretend to worship.

If you don't call out the hypocrites, how would they ever know they are wrong? Did I cast them in a negative light? Yes. Do they ever read that book of theirs? No.

Once in a while you see a shining example of compassion and generosity born from church activities like this one: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1645867657697153046

That's the true Christian faith at work. Sadly it's the exception.

Your comment seems to be based on some kind of misconception about what religion is. Like, you seem to base your comments on the idea that the Christian bible is the sole foundation for Christian beliefs and practices. There are two problems with that—it’s not true in the first place, and even if it were true, it is not straightforward to interpret the bible.

If you are unwilling to put in the effort to learn what Christianity is, then you should also be unwilling to make comments about whether people are practicing it correctly.

Born raised and confirmed in Lutheran Christianity. Go project on someone else.

I’m responding to your comment, which seems to be based on misconceptions. If you have a working understanding of what religion is, it is not reflected in your comment. Or maybe I misunderstand the comment—you could elaborate what you mean.

I don’t think people who are raised Christianity are taught what Christianity is, so it doesn’t surprise me that you’re born, raised, & confirmed. People who are born and raised Christian are generally taught how to practice Christianity, and that instruction is tailored to their specific sect. They are not (typically) taught what Christianity is, especially other sects, because it is not really relevant to the practice of Christianity (this is not a judgment, I think it’s fine). I would expect people to learn what Christianity is if they went to seminary (depending, some seminaries don’t) or if they studied religion in college.

It is only through a misconception of religion that the accusation of pretense really stands. “These people aren’t really Christians, they are just pretending” is an old chestnut that has started enough wars; it is long past time to disabuse people of the misunderstandings that lead to those accusations in the first place.

I refuse to give any "believer" the benefit of the doubt. I assume they are socially Christian with no real practice or devotion from the getgo. To convince me of anything else they have to have works. There's a reason for the caricature comics have been lambasting for decades. It's only funny cause it's true.

You’re conflating “these Christians are behaving poorly (or in ways I disagree with)” with “these Christians are only pretending to worship God.” That’s the foundation on which you build a basis for sectarian violence, which is why I’m arguing here.

You can see Christians who are behaving the wrong way, by your judgment, without accusing them of acting unfaithfully.

The "behaving poorly in ways I disagree with" is them demanding legislation and judicial outcomes that hamper the way others want to live their lives. I am done with showing this group any sort of decorum.

Yeah, you’ve made it clear that you’re not interested in showing these people decorum, perhaps because you’ve decided that they don’t deserve decorum, or something like that. People are going to keep calling you out for being uncivil when you act like that; explaining your viewpoint is not going to help.

Read about the paradox of tolerating intolerance.

If they're only pretending to believe, they already know they're wrong.

If you sincerely do just want to communicate this to them, I recommend using "God" instead of "Skygod". It doesn't change the message and it makes it sound more like you're speaking in good faith.

You wrongfully assume I want to have any sort of conversation with the converts. The only conversation I want to have with them is to tell them to stay bloody clear of politics. If you want to have rules that govern your life, I'm perfectly fine with that up to where they want legislation that affects the freedom of other people. It seems too much of late that Evangelicals took The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction manual instead of a dystopic vision.

I didn't assume that you wanted to have a conversation with religious people; you said so and I believed you.

>If you don't call out the hypocrites, how would they ever know they are wrong?

If you're not actually trying to convince them they're wrong, you can't use that to justify uncivility.

I get that being polite is less important than preventing someone from leveraging the government to restrict others' freedoms. But if everyone defects from social norms, we'll be in the exact same place on those issues while being collectively worse off.

I can't convince them. Their belief precludes any sort of reason to pierce the veil.

Ah yes, those famously utopian atheistic societies… like Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. Good thing they kept Christianity bloody clear of politics or things might have gotten ugly!

Neither of those are utopian atheistic societies. They were authoritarian hellholes that weren't even socialist in nature.

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