Abhorrence of Christianity?

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I see a lot of negative attitudes toward Christianity today in online forums & social media, particularly from the Left, but also on the Right. Plenty of Trump supporters are atheist. In fact, Trump himself said that he is not a Christian. Which is what I would expect.

I think all sides of the political spectrum are down on Christianity today, everywhere Europe and North America.

I used to be evangelical atheist like a lot of posters here on Wrong Planet & Reddit. Then I worked for some years among Christians that were not so uptight or judgemental. That moderated my views. There are good people, hard-working, honest.

I also read about and studied Christian culture, history and thought. It is deep and diverse and not monolithic as some churches pretend. Orthodoxy only got established hundreds of years after Christ, and heresies persisted long afterward and to this very day. I tend to be heretical in my speculations, but accept that I do not know.

I will not argue for or against Christianity, but will share this.

There is a rich culture of art, music, and literature in the religion based upon two thousand years of Western history. If you turn your back on all of that, because of what you saw on television or a movie, you are missing out, your universe of experience is much poorer as a result. Open your mind to it, and there are useful patterns and algorithms that can be applied to your daily life with the reinforcement of the cultural relics. View Christianity as a tool for personal change and development rather than as an identity, a tribe, or a monolith.

Churches in my opinion are unnecessary for us, although they may be helpful for NTs that seem to require frequent social stimuli.

I mean I am not a Christian but I grew up as a Christian, and well as you can imagine the only explanation is things pushed me away from it and so I became an atheist. I know there are still good christians, but still I cannot accept their belief system, I can accept if they are a true christian and don't go judging people on their religious standards. LIke I can respect a Christian if they can respect that I don't share their spiritual beliefs. If we are both working towards a better world than Idk if they believe differently than me....really the issue is when they try to push their beliefs on other people. Like for religious canvassers, like yes I have heard of Jesus and the bible, and those aren't my beliefs so leave me alone about it.

The percentage of self identified Christians in the US has been declining, but they are still a substantial majority. So I'm not sure if your perception is completely accurate. I can respect Christians who believe in basic tenets like goodness and charity, but many Christians are not like that but instead choose to be judgmental and even hateful. As for myself, I think it's all nonsense. I don't believe in God or that Jesus was a God so it's all meaningless to me.

Goodness, charity, forgiveness and redemption are just a few positive attributes of Christians, to name a few.

I think that a lot of Christians still keep to the sort of values that make the religion worth following for some people.

Hateful Christians are just like any other group of people. There are hateful people of all different political stripes and religious affiliation. That is just the human condition.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 16 Nov 2024, 9:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think that's true. There are politically motivated right-wing Christians that specifically use Christianity to be hateful and judgmental, and it's very widespread. It's encouraged and promoted by the very churches they attend.

Churches don't typically promote hate, especially not in places outside of the United States.

Even within the United States, there are plenty of churches that are non-hateful. Some even embrace LGBTQ+ members and so on for those that are concerned about gay acceptance or come underneath that umbrella themselves.

There are plenty of hateful leftists in the western world, and also hateful 'anti-westerners' who form a general minority of people.

There is a lot of left-wing radicalization that exists on the internet, and in a small portion of cases, some of those radicals turn to violence in real life.

Right-wing radicalization is not a unique phenomenon.

I'm not aware of any left-wing violence.

Unless you're mislabeling property destruction and vandalism as violence. Violence can only be perpetrated against people or animals, not inanimate objects.

There are several examples of left-wing violence being prevented by relevant authorities. I shall share a relevant recent news story from the UK:

"A left-wing anarchist has been jailed for 13 years for preparing acts of terrorism by compiling and sharing a bomb-making manual, after declaring he wanted to kill at least 50 people."

Article continued below:

https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-graham-left-wing-anarchist-jailed-for-13-years-over-terror-offences-after-declaring-he-wanted-to-kill-at-least-50-people-13097584

It is also not unusual for left-wing protestors to be violent, as if the case with Antifa and other such groups.

^An example of someone who didn't commit any violence.

There is no violence at leftist demonstrations, and what Antifa does is not violence, firstly because it is very mild and not done with weapons or intended to do grievous harm, but also because it is done in self defense and defense of others.

Books have been written about left-wing violence. There is a Wikipedia entry on it. I'm not an expert but I have seen several videos historically, that depict left-wing, violent protestors punching people, throwing objects at people and so on.

Interestingly, violence is theorized to be a justifiable means to the end of revolution, for some left-wing folk.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-30897-0_6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_terrorism

Are atheists here evangelizing or simply expressing their views and opinions?
I don’t think anyone here would deny that. Many atheists, including myself, appreciate religious art, music, and literature while also acknowledging the harm that religion has caused/continues to cause which often stems from toxic writings/doctrine in the holy books themselves.

If you have to reach back into history that doesn't count. The fact is that there is virtually no left wing violence or terrorism in the present day. The sources you provided say as much. It's right wing propaganda that seeks to portray leftist movements as violent, such as Antifa, or law enforcement declaring environmental groups eco-terrorist, which is a false label.

It might be true that left-wing folk are less likely to be radicalized, or to participate in violence than right-wing radicals who might participate in violence, but to say that left-wing violence "virtually doesn't exist" seems a bit naive.

It's just a fact.

I guess you're saying that Project 25 is going to be implemented in a kind and benevolent way; no it is going to be crammed down people's throats whether they like it or not. In WWII Germany was afraid of their country being invaded by the Russians in 1945. They were afraid of the Russian brutality they might endure. They were afraid the Russians would treat them the same way as when they invaded Russia in 1941. To use a biblical reference; they did not want to reap what they had sowed. Project 25 implementers would do well to remember this. There are over 10,000 different religions in the world and for one religious belief system to claim there's the only correct interpretation is conceited.

Project 25 hasn't been mentioned in this thread and seems slightly off topic considering the OP's intentions.

Not defending Project 25 gor a moment. I am not American, but I think it would be almost impossible to implement, and likely to cause tensions on the Right.

Back to the original topic.....

I agree with the OP that many folk go totally overboard in their attempts to denigrate every aspect of Christianity.

They should also consider how hateful radical Islam can be ans how the extremists run places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.