Question for Christians

@SunshineGirl That’s certainly true of politics. But I haven’t seen any other religion attacked here in the way that Christians sometimes are.

@MartinII That might be less a matter of singling out Christians, as of most of the religious users of SW being Christians. So more targets to attack. Though many of the most snide comments are against the basic concept, not against any specific faith or sect.

There is fault on both sides though, as some who profess to be religious are just as nasty towards "atheists", which seems their blanket term for all who are of any other faith or none.

So if one lot is horrible towards the others, some of their victims retaliate in kind.

I agree with SunshineGirl though - too many people cannot debate anything in a civilised way. I wonder why they use a forum that is supposed to encourage debate!

@MartinII I would say that the reason you haven't seen other religions treated the way you see Christianity treated is that members of other religions don't treat people the way a lot of Christians do. I can post about literally any situation that's going on in my life right now, be it political, having to do with my dad, the fact that I had a flat tire on my car yesterday — anything. And the fact of the matter is, there's going to be somebody just itching to tell me that Jesus is the solution.

Never mind that I didn't ask. Never mind that I have my own religious beliefs. Somebody's going to try to bring up Jesus.

@ArishMell I agree with everything you say, but I would add one thing. In the west at the moment there seems to be a general reluctance to criticise most religions (and in most contexts, quite right too) that doesn’t always extend to Christianity. Part of the widespread rejection of our history, I suspect.

@LordShadowfire Perhaps they are trying to be helpful, albeit in a cack-handed way.

@MartinII Interesting point. That had not occurred to me, but it has become fashionable in some quarters to indulge in high-minded, very negative, self-destructive navel-gazing that concentrates only on the bad, not on any good things contemporary with them.

@ArishMell People tend to overlook how the biblical fairytale says how believers are to treat (kill) all who are of a different religion or who have no religion.

Moses had his thugs kill over 3,000 people who engaged in freedom of religion. The First Commandment says to invade other people's lands, destroy their religious artifacts, and enslave or kill them. And later on, believers are supposed to go to a town and see if the people are believers in a different fairytale. If they are, the believers are supposed to kill everyone and animal in the town and to burn the town to the ground and to prevent it from ever being rebuilt.

@Diotrephes To be fair I do not have a Bible but I thought the First (of Moses' Ten) Commandments defined God. I take your point though that the ancient Hebrews were not the hard-done-by goody-goodies they wanted everyone to think.

@MartinII I'd say that may come from greater familiarity with Christianity than other religions and more confidence in expressing criticism. I was at school in the 1990s when the Conservative government legislated for a 'daily act of worship' in every state school. In reality this was a daily act of Christianity. It was painful for all concerned and usually counter-productive as it imposed a burden on teachers and pupils who were not engaged. In my school we got around the problem by our year head reading stories from a medieval book of saints lives or teaching us about ancient hellenic religious practices. The lasting legacy is that a generation of children came to regard modern religion with tongue in cheek.

I am firmly atheist, but I appreciate the importance of Christianity to many people and its centrality to our shared history. That is why I generally steer clear of religious debate. Other religions I have too little knowledge of to offer any opinion other than my observations of their external effects.

@SunshineGirl Yes, I agree with what you say. I’m interested that in the 90s everyone found the act of worship painful. Thirty years previously we had one too (probably also a legal requirement) and nobody had a problem with it. It was an integral part of morning assembly, which included administrative matters as well as religious observance. I had become an atheist by the time I was 14 but I still joined in the hymn singing (though not the praying) enthusiastically. Times change!

@MartinII The painful part was asking an intelligent teacher who had no faith to pretend that they were doing something sincere and spiritually enriching. Still, they had plenty of time on their hands after they were banned the 1980s from "promoting homosexuality in the classroom" 😉

I loved the singing too 🙂

@SunshineGirl I did not know this. I thought the 1944 Butler Act was still in place.

I don’t think imposed religion has any impact on anyone. If anything it will turn you away from it.

The Thatcherite government had a lot to answer for. It’s message hypocrisy , lack of compassion and greed.
A message that continues today.

@SW-User There was nothing new in those failings,, so trying to make them party-political goes nowhere.

@ArishMell Gosh to think there are still some Conservatives around in this country. And this is in a Christian site.

@SW-User Strange response. There is no, or should be no, connection between whichever party one votes for, and whichever are one's religious beliefs.

Also, I have not said if I support the Conservative, Labour, Liberal-Democrat, Green or one of the Nationalist parties.

Nor have I said if I am Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindhu, Sikh, Wiccan, agnostic or atheist.

@ArishMell [quote]There is no, or should be no, connection between whichever party one votes for, and whichever are one's religious beliefs.[/quote]
I'd say there's one exception to that. If the candidate in question wants to mandate certain practices pertaining to his, her, or their religion and force them on everyone.

@LordShadowfire True, but that tends not to happen in British politics, because law-making here has to treat everyone as fairly as it can.

I don't say it necessarily always gets it right - no human system is ever infallible - but they do make the effort.