Talk Elections

Clearly it does, and that is very disappointing

Maybe on the Atlas Forum, but certainly not in real life, where Evangelicals have it easier than everyone with the exception of Mainline Protestants.

Absolutely this, and really there are far better things one could fight against than the opinions of a fairly irrelevant forum about predicting the results of political elections.

Landslide Lyndon said you were a Russian bot. Are you?

Did he actually? Obviously, I am not.

Yes, because it's one of the most backwards religions on Earth.

I clearly remembering him mentioning you in such a context. Don’t worry, at the very worst you’re an Ukrainian bot.

Oh geez, I found it after like two seconds of searching. Someone let Vladimir Putin know I'm waiting on my check.

Most Evangelical leaders excel at double standards.

No, because much of the critique Evangelicals receive is for political reasons. Evangelicals believe many silly things, but then again, so do all religions. The real problem for Evangelicals is that much of their activities aren't benign religious engagements so much as they are politics dressed up as religion. The moment you politicize something, its detractors will emerge from the woodwork right behind it.

On Atlas?  Yes, just like there was with criticizing Mormons in 2012 (IIRC, Lief was pretty celebrated for making some incredibly bigoted posts about Mormons after Romney was nominated).  It's one thing to criticize snake oil salesmen like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Joel Osteen or have an actual theological or political debate, it's another to paint all evangelicals with the same brush or crap all over a legitimate religion in obnoxious drive-by insult posts just to be a jerk.  

In the real world?  No, not really.

The silly thing is the notion that evangelicals are anything resembling a homogeneous group.

A group that includes both me and Mike Pence and a hell of a lot in between is obviously one where broad brush generalizations are almost always going to be nonsensical.

You're both awful in different ways

They hate us cuz the aint us.

No, actually, Evangelicals are exactly the type of group where broad brush strokes are useful. Few groups that command such substantial membership numbers in American society align so heavily in one direction on most major political or social issues.

You're out of the mainstream, and there's nothing wrong with that, but your viewpoints are an outlier compared to your co-religionists.

i think all religion is just a control tactic.

religion = totalitarianism in my mind.

i wont stop anyone from believing it but keep religion the hell away from government

LOL no, I dislike evangelical Christians because they claim to care about the Bible (and use the Bible to make my life harder than it has to be because they don't like that I'm attracted to men) but then throw their support behind a blatantly hedonistic, thrice-married, sexual-assaulting serial adulterer instead of the devout Methodist woman, because the Methodist deleted emails, or something.

On the double standard question, it's tricky. I generally dislike sweeping generalizations/stereotypes against entire demographics, though I don't think attacking dominant groups (evangelicals in this case) is as bad as attacking minority groups (e.g. Muslims) because the former is mean words (which is bad) while the latter can result in harmful policy (e.g. travel bans or internment camps, which are more than just mean words).

This.  There's also a big rift within the Southern Baptist Convention - the biggest Evangelical organization in the USA - on Trump and related issues (immigration, racial reconciliation, etc.) with folks like Russell Moore and Albert Mohler on one side vs. Robert Jeffress and Richard Land, among others.  Nuance tends to be lost when discussing these groups.

This is strictly anecdotal, but based on the evangelicals I’ve encountered, it also seems like there’s a real generational divide over which issues are most important that gets disguised by the rate at which young evangelicals are leaving.  It’s not like the young ones were pro-choice or anything, but they seemed to usually be pretty liberal on environmental issues (whereas older evangelicals tended to insist coal wasn’t a dying industry), seem to generally be less hypocritical about Trump (and one has said that even if he votes third-party when a pro-choice Democrat runs, he’ll never vote for any Republican who endorsed Trump regardless of the circumstances), care more about social justice/missionary work with the poor than continuing the “culture wars,” etc.  I have met two who voted Trump b/c of the Supreme Court, but I also know one who said of the then-open Supreme Court seat “I’m sure Judas planned to put his thirty silver pieces to good use.”  

The ones I’ve met have (with one exception) been very anti-gun control which is a bit disappointing, but at least they don’t all like the NRA.  I have also not personally met a single evangelical who really likes Falwell Jr., Pat Robertson, or Franklin Graham (I’ve heard multiple folks diplomatically say he’s not half the man his dad was which is true even though I don’t think Billy Graham was a particularly good guy either tbh).  If anything there seemed to be some resentment towards these folks from the younger evangelicals I’ve met who often felt these guys were “Sunday morning Christians” in their hearts who make a mockery of Christianity by making evangelicals look like hypocritical political hacks.  Joel Osteen, understandably, seems to be a pretty widely reviled figure at this point. 

It could just be that I’ve coincidentally met an unusual number of moderate/more independent-minded evangelicals, but from my (obviously limited) experience there do seem to be some real divides in the community.  Another one is over how to handle the fact that many evangelical churches are losing their younger members pretty rapidly.

Hmmm. I worked for the campaign against banning gay marriage in my state. I didn't vote for Trump, or for that matter any other Republican in my life.

How does that apply to me?

Really? My church condemns Trump regularly and even did before the election (although then without saying him by name.) I even once heard a guy preaching talking about how he had just traveled through rural North Carolina and was uncomfortable because "most of the people I was dealing with probably voted for Trump." I've never once heard anyone there say anything remotely pro-Trump. My Facebook feed is always full of posts from people there about how Trump is so un-Godly and how someone following Jesus would be nothing like Trump.

Yes, of course. And for a good reason- you'll probably agree that a Jew making jokes about Christians is alright, while a Christian making jokes about big-nosed Jews could be problematic. The Evangelicals, likewise, are a powerful group in America who've never been discriminated by the system or treated unfavourably.

Maybe Evangelicals as a whole shouldn't be so hypocritical and actually vehemently against the Christian religion? Anything is fair game when the majority seems to do that. The people who are actually good Christian evangelicals can't complain since they remain silent and do nothing. It's all deserved.

uh that describes me? Wtf?

I tend to agree with this.  Similarly, on this American forum, badmouthing white people is not anywhere near as bad as attacking blacks or other historically-oppressed minorities.

God, using this word is lame.  We get it, you're very, very enlightened.

I think that, sadly, the Albert Mohlers and Franklin Grahams of the world are far more accurate representatives of American Evangelical Christianity, at this time, than people like BRTD or Jimmy Carter.

But that probably will change when the former group starts dying off.

And, obviously, it's not just Evangelicalism that's dominated by lunatics.  Islam has plenty of toxic elements, but that's why we should be paying attention to the reformers within that faith and dismiss the Wahhabi/authoritarian/regressive sects.

Russell Moore would like a word:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/if-donald-trump-has-done-anything-he-has-snuffed-out-the-religious-right/?utm_term=.5f1e29fdf783 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/if-donald-trump-has-done-anything-he-has-snuffed-out-the-religious-right/?utm_term=.5f1e29fdf783)

How long are you going to keep whining about a single post that was quickly dealt with?

I think it fair to say that at least recently, there have been more infracted posts bashing Evangelicals as a group then there have been about other groups. It would be nice if posters would learn to criticize the politics of many Evangelicals, and their activities (e.g., the way some of them suck up to the amoral and reckless narcissist Trump who worships only himself) and what they advocate, rather than just bashing their religious affiliation, or damning the group as a whole because they perceive a majority of them have political opinions, or opinions in general, that they very much dislike. And some I think are willing to just take the infractions because they really want to lash out that much, that they don't care that it violates the TOS.

So I can understand that some of our Evangelical posters are unhappy right now. Hopefully this too will pass. There is just so much else out there that right now that one can lash out at without violating the TOS, to help get the anger out of the system. Sad, but true. We live in interesting times.

The Christians are the second most disrespected group in America today after our brave police people.

Can anyone name a group that is more disrespected than atheists?

I have never in my life suffered disrespect for being an atheist, by anyone, be they religious or non-religious. Granted, many would not vote for me if I ran for office, but on a personal level, I think most take in stride that many are skeptical that God exists.  Granted, I don't go around bashing folks of faith. I assiduously avoid doing that in fact, and always have. That might be part of the reason that I have never had a problem.

I ran for office in Hudson, and lost alas. I wonder how many on this forum who are folks of faith would not have voted for me simply because I am an atheist. I suspect the answer would be close to none.

Yes, I know what you are saying, and I don't think it is so much personal as just an underlying prejudice and mind set. I base this on polls that show animosity toward atheists, but that may not mean that anyone goes after individuals. Nobody wants to be accused of being prejudiced against groups, so they don't want to attack people on a personal basis.

What I say to Evangelicals:  Keep your religion out of politics, and I'll keep my politics out of your religion!

Smilo's being Smilo, but you... are you f#cking serious?

Jews, African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBT folks, immigrants in general, women, WWC folks, the list goes on and on.  

Albert Mohler is against Trump though.  You can criticize him on theological grounds, but for the purposes of this discussion he is no Franklin Graham.

Being against Trump doesn't really help if you hate gays, transgender, any type of non traditional marriage, etc.

I mean, a lot of conservative Baptists like myself didnt vote for Trump. Unfair stereotypes are unfair stereotypes, especially when Catholics are the largest US Christian group. Plus its not like Hillary was ethical or a friend to evangelicals either.

As an insider so to speak, I think there are multiple factors at play.  It's not purely an age issue - for instance, the staff at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the SBC's Ethical and Religious Liberty Commission, along with The Gospel Coalition are all pretty strongly anti-Trump, many of whom are older.   These are 3 pretty major Evangelical institutions, so I think it's definitely an important part of the picture. Most prominent Evangelical pastors within the Reformed community were against him - such as Kevin DeYoung, John Piper, Albert Mohler, James White, Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, etc., with the notable exception of John MacArthur - it seems the non-Calvinist contingent of Evangelicalism was warmer to Trump on average, but perhaps that's biased by the prominence of Falwell Jr and Jeffress.  Also, the polling I've seen shows that pastors of Evangelical churches were significantly less likely to have voted for Trump than laypeople. 

So it's a much more complicated dynamic than seen in the media - I'm sure in other religious communities there is a similar story where simple narratives don't capture the full picture.

I’d say that people who bash reactionary Christians in the south but defend reactionary Muslims in Saudi Arabia are morons.

Same goes in reverse.

I agree with the highlighted sentiment.  Evangelical Christians, like everyone else, don't have the right to be uncritically received once they jump into a political forum. 

I agree that Evangelicals, to some extent, overemphasize politics.  But we are citizens, and we do wish to impact our communities and our nation with public policy reflective of our views, just like everyone else.

I would also state that Evangelicals have become politically active as a means of defending their religious liberties.  The reality for all people, everywhere, is that the only rights they have are the rights they can defend.  Being politically active, exercising juice at the ballot box, is how individuals and groups in America defend their rights.  This is one reason I find the calls for Evangelicals to not be involved in politics from non-Evangelicals or marginal Evangelicals to be ridiculous.  The results of the poll in this very thread suggests that I cannot count on anti-Evangelical liberals to respect my Constitutional Rights in sufficient numbers for those rights to be adequately defended.

This is why the US General Discussion board mods really need to adopt the "salt the Earth" moderating approach that I used to take: If a post is too offensive to be posted on the forum, then you not only delete the post itself, but also other posts in the thread that quote it.  That wasn't done in this case, which means that the outrage machine just continues when others read what was posted, and there's no end in sight.

Don't hold your breath.

My complaint isn't criticism of Evangelicals and their political stances.  When you enter the political arena, you lose the right to be received uncritically.  (That, by the way, applies to Khizir Kahn as well as Evangelicals.)

When someone splits up Evangelicals by race and calls all Evangelicals of one race "trash", that's more than being critical.  That presumably educated folks see that and are OK with that is something that should cause one to wonder just how "liberal" those folks really are.  Perhaps the "outrage machine" is humming along beyond what folks thought it would because the offensive behavior (on the part of more than one poster) had been allowed to go on long enough until one poster simply pushed the envelope too far.

Yes it seems to be a pretty major blind spot for many of our centre/left posters. A significant minority of this forum is comfortable with prejudice about Evangelicals that they would never tolerate with other groups.

Some of the posts on this thread prove it; doubling down on theur bigotry when confronted.



I don't trust that sentiment as far as I can throw it. Not that I don't trust you personally Snowguy, but most Evangelicals are ah... skeptical that our institutions that our political opponents will leave our institutions alone.

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/islam-facts-or-dreams/ (https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/islam-facts-or-dreams/)


Understand that the reason I am a Christian is that I believe that Jesus Christ is who he says He is.  Accordingly, I view Mohammed as a false prophet.  As such, I view the Quranic view of Allah to be a false description of the character of God (if one believes that there is only one God, and the Allah of the Quran is the same as Jehovah God of the Bible).  The God of the Bible loves sinners, sent His Son to die in their place that they may be reconciled to Him and be with Him Forever.  This is black letter Scripture; not abstract, not vague.  The Protestant Reformation was an act which reformed the Church from where it DEVIATED from Scripture and ADDED TO Scripture extra-Biblical concepts that actually contradicted the faith.

In addition, the New Testament is the New Covenant God has with His People.  When asked which of the 10 Commandments was the most important, Christ, Himself, stated "You shall love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength.  This is the First Great Commandment.  And the Second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  He told His Disciples:  "A New Commandment I give you:  Love one another, as I have loved you."  He said of his followers:  "By the, (the World) will know them; that they will have love, one for the other."  I could go on and on.  If modern American Evangelical Christianity needs a "reformation", it would be a reformation that would bring it into conformity to Scripture in ways where it has deviated.

I do not profess to know the Quran as well as I know the Bible.  But to the extent that Islam needs a "reformation", it would be a movement to bring Islam AWAY from the Quranic Scriptures; in effect, rewriting the Islamic Scriptures themselves, or adding to them in a way that would cancel out the words of Mohammed, himself.  While a Second Evangelical Reformation would be to make Christianity MORE Scriptural, an Islamic Reformation would be a move to make Islam LESS Scriptural.  The doctrines that would reform Islam in the ways that Scott (or Andrew McCarthy, for that matter) would wish to see are doctrines that would contradict the Quran as it is now.

With Christians, it is individuals that need to be reformed, to conform them more closely to Scripture.  The Crazies of Christianity out there (Westboro Baptist Church, Branch Davidians, Abortion Bombers, and most perpetrators of "sectarian violence") all are OUT OF COMPLIANCE WITH SCRIPTURE.  (I'm sure my list is incomplete.)  All of them.  Jesus was never about a political movement, and He was not about a war to overthrow His enemies.  (That fact disappointed the Pharisees of His day.)  Biblical Christianity isn't about that today, either; it's about presenting the Gospel to the whole world, giving the whole world a chance for Salvation, before Jesus Christ returns.  

I think Mr. McCarthy makes a strong argument that the crazies of Islam are IN COMPLIANCE with Islam.  This, to me, is a critical difference between Islam and Christianity.  As Mr. McCarthy points out, the "moderate, peaceful Muslims" are the ones who are out of compliance with the Quran; it is the Jihadists who are in compliance.  I'm certainly willing to listen to reasonable arguments to the contrary.  But I view this is as pretty significant because both Christianity and Islam are "religions of the book".  It says something when the desirable outcome for this lifetime (truly loving and tolerant people) can be achieved by following one book (the Bible) more closely, but requires ignoring significant portions of another book (the Quran) to achieve the same thing.

I realize that many Evangelical Christians fall short of the standards Christ has set for them.  I'm sure I have at times, and I'm willing to bring myself into conformity with Scripture.  I'm not always thrilled with the politics of Evangelical leaders, and even everyday Evangelical Christians, for that matter.  But most all of them I know ask God to help them be more kind and loving, and I see their kind and loving acts on a regular basis.  I see ordinary Christians every day step up to help others in need they don't know about.  (A Christian brother of mine who owns a roofing company put a new roof on a man's house; the church took up an offering for the materials and he and his son did all the work, because the man's roof was likely to cave in; this happened ONLY because this roofer was a Christian and God laid this on his heart.  This is just one example.)  Their Good Works aren't for Salvation; that was paid for at Calvary.  Their Good Works are to glorify God; hence, the anonymity of their deeds.

There are some folks here that are so politicized that they would reject their college loans being paid off if an Evangelical Christian was writing the check.  I believe that number is relatively few.  I would suggest that many folks here are so blinded by their prejudices toward Evangelicals that they really have no idea of what Scripture asks of a Christian.  "Love one another as I have loved you."  I forgive RFKFan68 for unfairly maligning White Evangelicals as a group.  I forgive others for their double standard.  I don't wish them ill.  I do think that bringing the double standard out into the open is something that has been overdue here.  

"Love one another as I have loved you."  Can you apply that standard to Betsy DeVos (let alone Donald Trump)?  

Yes, and evangelicals themselves are very sensitive about it.

I think you're up to the task.   😁

Okay.

First of all, I am a Christian.  I was raised in the faith and I'm glad to say I've been an unwavering follower of Christ even on my darkest days.  At one point I had even planned on joining the ministry, and attended a church-affiliated college as a theology student (incidentally, it was during my time at that college that I began my spiritual conversion to Anglicanism and drifted from the more Reformed-oriented traditions of the UCC - the church that I was baptized in - and also realized that ministry was not my calling).  My own theology, my own understanding of Scripture and my personal relationship with God, has evolved and continues to evolve, but the foundation of that relationship (Christ) never changes.  I had read each page of the Bible, cover to cover, by the time I was a junior in high school.

Here's what I discovered: the Bible is not an infallible fourth member of the Trinity and it need not - it cannot - take precedence over observation and reason.  We cannot discern intuitive and rational truth by relying solely on texts that were, for all intents and purposes, written by fallible humans.  Scripture must be perceived and interpreted in light of reason and context.  Otherwise, it is meaningless.

Obviously, my own God-inspired approach to scripture does not fully align with yours.

Like Christianity, Islam is divided on interpretation of holy scripture as well as scripture's specific role within the faith.  A minority of Muslims believe that Quran alone applies and ignore the Hadiths.  Most Muslims believe that the Hadiths are authoritative secondary to the Quran, and some Sunnis believe that they are equal.  Does that difference in opinion make any of these groups comparatively "less Muslim" than the others?  Of course not.

You cannot attempt to reconcile the underlying assumptions of one religion with another.  You proclaim Islam to be a false religion.  Would you consider it "less false" if believers took your understanding of scriptural authority - toward your own religious text - and applied it to their own?  No.  As such it is irrelevant whom you or Andrew McCarthy believe to be 'out of compliance' with Islam.

I think the problem also lies in HOW Scripture is interpreted.  Many mouth-breathing Evangelicals seem to think that the Bible should be interpreted the way Brother Billy Bob preaches it.

My tradition is Lutheranism.  We tend to interpret the Bible in a two-fold manner: 1) The Bible contains Law, which exposes our sinful nature and our need for a Savior, and 2) it also contains Gospel, which is the hope that we have to be saved from our sins.

We also believe the Bible is meant to be interpreted in a Gospel-centric lens.  So, the story of Moses delivering the Jews out of Egypt, King David's fall from grace, the Passover, etc., despite being in the Old Testament, contain truths that can be interpreted as the Gospel.

Yeah.

Some of that has to do with the fact that an alarming number of preachers have zero religious education under their belts.  They either fall entirely on their own literalistic interpretation of scripture, or worse, they don't read scripture at all and instead simply regurgitate their favorite televangelists.

()

It's pretty amazing that 37% of folks here think such a double standard is acceptable.

Is this OK?


If it is OK, would it be OK if I looked up Quranic Scripture and made similar parodies?  I don't intend to, but would it be OK?

I dont really care either way, I think it's perfectly acceptable to attack or defend all religions as you see fit. That being said, if some attacks are commonly moderated for discrimination, then the same thing should either apply to all of them, or the mods should stop moderating those posts.

The issue is nonexistant. What is actually the case is that Evangelicals have more sway/ do more wrong than other religious groups filled with mostly nominal members that don’t influence policy. Evangelicals are just thin-skinned and localized in their projections in the American context.

From my posting, you’ll see me give criticism of all the rackets when the time comes for a discussion. I only do so when the criticism is relevant and credible, something the theocrats here don’t do.

Yes, because those memes are hilarious and it would be equally hilarious if Quran verses were used instead.

...But since when are Evangelicals the only ones who believe the Bible?

Yes

There seems to be a pretty consistent yet moderate anti-"religion" bias/skepticism in general here and in real life.

Just speculation, but I don't think most atheists or agnostics think that evangelicalism is, like, the far-and-away worst tradition out there. I get the feeling it sounds that way sometimes because the most vocal evangelical groups and figureheads in the United States (not to mention, like, college campus protesters) are really, really obnoxious and more-than-occasionally criminal frauds. Evangelicalism here is unpopular, but more than anything it's just a conveniently placed easy target that most young people on Atlas agree on. Big tent fervor kinda thing, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong.

I'll admit that anti-evangelical bias exists here, and whether it's a function of humor or genuine intolerance, it's a generalization. It's intellectually dishonest, and it can be kind of mean-spirited at worst. Thankfully, we're generally adults here and it doesn't often go too far.

At the same time, I don't think it's a severe problem. I'm really not concerned about anti-evangelical bias here because this is a forum about politics and evangelicalism is used in America as a political weapon. Evangelicalism is often relevant, and the fact that a majority of people on this forum have a negative opinion of it does not in and of itself constitute discrimination or selective enforcement or whatever. This is especially true given that evangelicalism is not just any political weapon, but a weapon effectively turned on the LGBT community, people of color, the poor, women, members of other traditions, and refugees.

It would be irresponsible to say that all evangelicals endorse all or any of those things, but it is a fact that the organized evangelical institution has largely been mobilized against the rights and welfare of marginalized groups since Carter left office. Given that, I think we all have the right to be a little skeptical of evangelicalism. I don't think being outright mean is okay, but I also haven't seen a whole lot of that here.

It's the same thing as conservatives complaining about being oppressed on college campuses or whatever. Sure, that bias is there, but there's no institutional conspiracy against evangelicals. People just disagree.

You ran for City Council in an upper-middle-class to Rich highly educated Suburban town. Try running for congress anywhere outside such an area and see how well your atheism plays.

The major distinction here is that evangelist, at least to the degree they are involved in politics, and this is a political discussion site after all, specifically seek to impose explicit evangical religious Doctrine as public policy. Jews do not run for office in order to impose talmudic law in the public sphere, and, sorry fuzzy, Muslims in this country do not seek to impose Sharia law and the public sphere when they run for office either, regardless of what cretin  drafted website projecting its own desire to impose Conservative Christian law in this country might say.

This is a practice fairly unique to fundamentalist Christians, including Conservative Catholics, fwiw. I'm sorry, but if fundamentalists seek to the essentially the only religion seeking to impose its specific scriptural Holdings into public policy, it's going to invite legitimate criticism of said views.

     Criticizing common views of Evangelicals is fine. Bashing them as a group as some are wont to do is bigotry, and inherently evil.

Attacking religious groups is perfectly fine, not bigoted and not comparable to bashing based on race, gender or sexual orientation. That's because religion is a chosen trait that one decides for themselves, unlike the other traits. Its more comparable to bashing and attacking members of a political party.

The persecution complex of the religious right is staggering.

Be careful there. Hate speech and discrimination laws apply to religion and religious groups, too. Clever parody can be a way to avoid crossing into bigotry, but banal attacks on religion can be construed as hateful or discriminatory and would then be against the ToS.

As a Christian, I feel those range between slightly funny and in bad taste, but not particularly offensive.

Reposting something you already reported is a bit silly, If I infract the OP then I have to infract you. no?

There is in that there are a number of posters here who regularly respond strongly and emotionally to criticism of that religion, such that such criticisms often become larger debates. No such noise is typically created when similar criticism is put up of other Protestants, Muslims, or nonbelievers, because there are not posters willing to regularly defend these to the same degree.

The other day I saw a thread about Missouri, and why Republicans are so successful there.  A poster claimed that part of the reason was Southern Baptists, and how they are basically stupid.  I don't think it was necessarily mean-spirited.  People just assume that Evangelicals are stupid, and our culture reinforces that belief.  And they've been doing this at least the 1920s, when they performed character assassination on William Jennings Bryan.

I am basically an Atlas unicorn.  I am an Evangelical from the Bible Belt who did not vote for Trump despite the fact that I did vote for Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and other Republicans at the local level.  My family also refused to vote for Trump.  I had many reasons why I didn't vote for Trump, but if he hadn't been an inspiration to racists across the country, I probably would have held my nose and voted for him.

Here is an interesting article:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/no-the-majority-of-american-evangelicals-did-not-vote-for-trump/

I actually was not born into an Evangelical family.  My parents were moderate Lutherans when I was born (I think it was Missouri Synod, but I don't remember, it might have been ELCA).  When I was very young, my family temporarily moved to the UK, and my parents became Evangelical Christians.  They appreciated how British Evangelicals rarely talked about politics.  Despite the fact that they didn't preach about abortion, my mother was convicted that it was immoral from reading the Bible.  This was in the late '90s.

At that time, I was a very young child.  I have been attending Evangelical churches most of my life, often Southern Baptist churches.  During that time, the pastors didn't talk about politics very often, and I was never told how to vote.  The only times I remember hearing about politics were on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and a few messages around the time of Obergefell v. Hodges.  IIRC these were Sunday school messages, not regular sermons.  My most recent church in Kentucky doesn't preach politics at all, and the preacher condemns racism just as often as he condemns abortion (maybe even more often).  The main theme of his sermons are always the gospel, though.

Many people act as if Evangelical Christianity was invented by Jerry Falwell to get Christians to vote Republican.  It wasn't.  We've been around long before the Republican Party and we'll be here after the GOP dissolves.  We exist on all Continents and speak many different languages.  Don't let your hatred for the GOP tarnish your view of a diverse international religious movement.

it hadn't been quoted yet when i deleted the OP and went to bed. :p

Um, no?

Leaving out the questionable inclusion of a young kid like Baron, does The Holy Hand Grenade scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail offend you? Should it offend Catholics?

Here's a hint. Yes, is right out!

Um, yes? One can not change their race or sexual orientation. One can change their religion and political party.

Wow, I didn't realize you were so post-modern. ;)

I would argue criticizing Evangelicals as a social group is acceptable, given their remarkable penchant for bigotry and hypocrisy. Discriminating against them based exclusively  upon religion, however, is neither acceptable (though criticizing many of their wacky religious views is), although very few people actually do discriminate against them.

Ugh, what a typo.

     Religion correlates heavily with culture and heritage, and is a deeply personal aspect of one's identity that carries connections with spirituality, family, and tradition. You're going to respond by saying it doesn't have anything to do with family and tradition for you. This response is irrelevant, because your experience with and attitude towards religion isn't really typical of most believers throughout human history and cannot be proffered as a template for such.

     People throughout history have endured great suffering and even martyred themselves for faith. Just because it isn't an immutable factor, doesn't mean it's a random label that everyone simply adopts as they please.

I think BRTD probably doesn't support killing people because of their faith. The problem, rather, is that he probably doesn't see how the relegation of religion to a "vulnerable" trait could lead to just that. Forced conversion has, in the past, been a way of expressing superiority over conquered cultures or some other manner of enforcing conformity with the standards of new rulers. All this aside, one would surely hope that he realizes the extent to which Islamophobia is tied up with race.

That said, he in the past has implied support for state-backed conversion for non-Christian immigrants.

State-backed? No.

And Islamophobia is not a form of racism. Muslims are a VERY diverse in terms of ethnicity religion, and many of those groups have significant non-Muslim members too.

Do you think racists are particular about facts?

As the West secularizes (or in some Christians like BRTD's case, adopts a hyper-individualistic ecclesiology) it is becoming increasingly ignorant of religion as a sociological phenomenon. To put religion in the same category of "chosen traits" like say, one's taste in music or clothing is risible.

The problem with saying "Islamophobia is not a form of racism" is that the people who are the most likely to be victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes (in North America, at least) are specifically Middle Eastern and South Asian people.

Even people who aren't Muslims (like Sikhs) are often victims of Islamophobic crimes because Islamophobia also involves a lot of racism. This is a tragic example of this. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Olathe,_Kansas_shooting)

I'm sure this woman would be interested to hear all the Islamophobic hate mail she's received is based on race:

()
()

Whoosh

So unless someone makes that conscious effort to change their religion to one you don't disapprove of, it's okay to disparage their faith. Got it.

Um, yeah?

I would NEVER belong to a religious group that marginalizes women and gays and lesbians. Absolute litmus test. It doesn't matter about whatever my heritage and background is, I value my politics FAR more. All liberal all the time after all.

There's no way I could POSSIBLY ever imagine myself being like this:

"Hey I see you're drinking a Coke."
"Yeah, that's what this is."
"I'm not really a fan of Coke. You should try this Pepsi."
"I have actually. I much prefer Pepsi."
"Oh, then why aren't you drinking it instead?"
"Well I grew up drinking Coke and most of my family drinks Coke. And most people with a similar ethnic background makeup as me drink Coke. So even though I despise the aftertaste of it, it wouldn't be right for me to drink anything but Coke."

By that standard, since some peoples' sexual orientation change, just like some peoples' religious convictions change, gay bashing is completely okay, too.

I mean, I can't make rules about what is or isn't okay to "criticize."  However, attacking someone's religion is pretty unquestionably low-brow.

On Atlas, sure, but that's because Atlas is left-leaning, and Evangelicals are (as a whole) strongly Republican-leaning. Surprisingly, there's also a decent amount of malice towards atheists here, not sure why.

In America as a whole, definitely not. While you could certainly find people who attack Christians in America, there's much more anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-secular sentiment here.

I'm not on the religion-bashing train here, but sexual orientation is a lot more complicated than religious convictions.  They're not comparable.

Also I will note that there is a difference, I think, between bashing religions and bashing religious beliefs.  I don't mock Evangelicals because they are a large and diverse group of people, but I do mock people who believe that the world is 6000 years old.

Hate to generalize, but there really are two kinds of atheists.  Only one type gets ridiculed here, and for good reason.

Indeed. This type of atheist gets mocked all the time, including by people who aren't religious:
()

Both involve performative roles based on the cultures we're brought up in.

Yes, but only one has biological factors involved (though it is still not well understood).

There are also biological determinants involved in political and aesthetic persuasions.

I kid. Idiotic postmodern social science is a hilarious and sort of screwed up my early twenties.

I bash whoever I want for whatever reason.

I don't think it's normally a good idea to bash anyone.

Religion, like many subjects, is on some levels a truth claim. Different people have different answers to basic existential questions and they have come to these answers through a wide variety of factors, from biological to conditioning to emotional to rational and everything in between.

In the US, we deemed that freedom of thought was an important thing to protect. That goes back to our understanding of rights in our civic framework. If people are free to consider whatever set of fundamental ideas they believe in, then freedom to practice a religion is critical to that. It is one of the most critical aspects of freedom of thought, since it involves the most deeply personal and comprehensive classes of thought. As such it makes sense for religion to be protected in the US.

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

Mormonism?

I've seen the first two but not Mormonism. People are surprisingly respectful of it, given some of the church's social stances. Ir maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong boards :P

I openly ridicule all religions and denominations except Judaism, Islam, and nihilist Christianity.

I criticize Evangelical Christianity from many perspectives...societal, cultural, political, and most seriously, from a religious/Christian perspective.

I grew up in a non-church going family but went to a non-denominational (read:  Evangelical) Christian school that used Bob Jones University Press and Abeka books, was involved with ELCA and LCMS churches and an independent Baptist church.  Then I went to a Catholic university.  I’ve made the rounds.

I only ever saw evangelical christianity as a restrictive, oppressive, authoritarian, incurious, insular, closed-minded, judgmental form of social control. (Will this be deleted for trolling too?)

These were things I noticed early on.  Then I realized I was gay and that alienated me to it completely so I always felt like an outsider looking in and an imposter.  It allowed me to see it for what it is.  It is destructive to people who are forced to grow up in it that do not fit the “correct” mold.  I would say even a form of child abuse after a certain point.

I’ve met plenty of absolutely wonderful Evangelical Christians.  I’ve met a good handful of gay ones who go to liberal churches and worship God almost as an act of defiance. 

But the type that cones to mind when someone says Evangelical...is the closed-minded, judgmental, hard-hearted, controlling, and frankly miserable hypocrite.  I can imagine God cringing at the sound of their prayers.

I think that was more of a 2012 thing due to Dem hacks wanting to attack Romney over it.

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the two *types* of atheists, exactly?

Militant ones who refuse to accept that anyone *rational* can be anything other than an atheist (i.e., they'll be "civil" with you as long as you go into the debate with the preconceived agreement that YOU hold your positions due to FAITH, which is just fine by them, but they hold their positions due to LOGIC ... if you do not adhere to this, and maintain that you believe in a God or whatever due to rational or scientific theories, their panties get into a very big bunch) and, well, normal ones who don't let being an atheist define who they are/don't think being an atheist says something overly special about who they are.

This. There was quite a lot of it.

People who simply don't believe in God, and the Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens types and the people on r/atheism. People who think being an atheist makes them intellectually superior or some sort of ubermensch. Also who push pseudo-historical crap like mythicism.

Sorry evangelicists. I changed my mind. There is a huge double standard.

While not frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist, I've never heard the LCMS described as moderate except perhaps in comparison to the Wisconsin Synod. Note also that despite the name, the ELCA isn't what most people today mean when they use the term "Evangelical". Granted, they aren't a fully liberal denomination like the UCC, but at the time your parents would have been members they had some conservative congregations that have since split off.

(Sorry for the necropost, but the post I'm quoting from just got added to the High Quality Posts thread.)

Okay, did some research and the LCMS seems conservative.  It must have been ELCA.  I was thinking LCMS because my dad went to an LCMS as a child.

Evangelicals are criticized more frequently because they wield an outsized amount of political power relative to other religious groups in the United States.

All religions deserve criticism, though.

Not from me, I hate all religions fairly equally.


To be clear, that doesn't mean I hate religious people, as my spouse and many of my friends are religious - I just hate religion itself.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

How is that statement edgy? Surely everything in life deserves at least some criticism...

That interpretation would make what he said completely meaningless.

I fail to see how this is an "edgy" statement, and I was mostly implying that people (secular people, specifically) who criticize Evangelicals should similarly discern problematic attributes in other religions.

Enough implication of secular people being neckbeards. It's a small minority of the agnostic/atheist/deist/pantheist population.

People who make edgy comments like that are. And Deists/Pantheists? All 5 of them are surely neckbeards.

That's the thing... the content of the comment itself is actually something I agree with. Religions are truth claims and ought to be considered as such. However, "criticism" of this sort usually more closely resembles a random and illiterate heckling than an entertainment of ideas in good faith.

FWIW I did not intend to be edgy at all with that comment, and it was little more than a throwaway thought at the time. I am sorry that it got mischaracterized it as such.

I should clarify that "All religions deserve criticism" was more of a direct response to the question posed by this thread ("Is there a double standard between criticizing Evangelicals and other religions?") from a secular perspective. There is somewhat of a double standard with the way irreligious people criticize evangelicals because of their outsized influence, and it should be logically consistent for them to criticize other religions to the same degree. I have noticed that there is often a tendency in secular circles to go after the most egregious religious practices or churches with the most power in society (or worse, discriminating against members of a specific group rather than the institution itself). My comment was more an earnest expression of how it is important for secular people to look at how religion functions on the whole, rather than attacking one antagonistic group.