I have understood there are people on this forum who are former Christians and have read some posts from still practicing Christians. This forum seems pretty clean compared to some other places I have visited in the meantime. What I have experienced in certain other places is that, as soon as you mention just about anything in the biblical texts that might be incorrect, no matter if you propose it to be modified by people or otherwise, a lot of people and I mean a lot start replying with biblical quotes and posting repent in all caps. My question is: Is that really a good representation of how bad Christians behave in the United States or are they just the loud mouths on the internet?
Hello, @Mountainman. Did we meet before on exchristian.net or Valerie Tarico’s forum? Your handle sounds familiar. If so, nice to see you again. If not, nice to meet you.
Xians have gotten really bad, including on the net. If you’re watching now, the Repugs are attempting to force their the Xian agenda on generations to come by forcing this Amy, handmaiden person, into the late RBG’s former seat. Even the lack of effort to follow the science in order to control the pandemic is another part of their stupid and ignorant agenda.
or are they just the loud mouths on the internet? -- Mtman
When I started doing this in 1990 something, the loud mouths on the internet were easy to spot and it was an interesting academic exercise to talk about them. Fast forward to Steve Bannon helping Trump get elected. I don't think we can dismiss the loud mouths anymore. We now have a generation of adults and soon-to-be adults who were raised with social media in their hands. Their suicide rates are up, their mental health is poor. We have nurses that are anit-vaxxers and farmers that say "organic" is not "toxic".
They’re possibly great Christians doing what they think is right. The alternative is that they’re self-righteous Christians doing what they think is right in an arrogant and rude way.
Understanding that many Christians are honestly trying to save what they believe is your eternal soul, goes a long way towards forgiving them their rudeness and non-existent reasoning. The local JWs have a safe haven at my place because they know I’ll disagree with everything they say yet we always have a good time and are on great terms.
It’s the lying, fake victimhood, and lack of an open mind that spoils any goodwill even the most forgiving people like me might have. Explaining to someone that they’ve made the same false claim or made the same logical fallacies for the umpteenth time, only to have them get mad and make the same mistakes yet again, is a totally valid reason to let your annoyance show.
The fact you’re here and appear to be an honest guy looking for honest answers from people who probably don’t agree with you, makes you a rare and special fellow.
@mountainman You haven’t heard about her? I thought everyone in the U.S. had heard about her and her cult and the fact that the dotard and his cronies are trying to push her on the U.S.
I will have a read about this Amy you mentioned. -- MtMan
Amy Coney Barrett. RBG should have been a clue, but I know, sometimes I skim forum posts. I tried reading one recently from one of our long time members, CC, but it was late on a Saturday, so the mind wasn't quiet functioning at full capacity. It was better in the light of a new day.
As a general rule I tend to think either poorly or highly of Christians depending on “where” they are. On the Internet, they’re often repugnant. In politics they almost always are. In person they’re generally pretty decent people for the most part. It’s like any group. There are good ones and bad ones but you mostly only ever “see” the loud ones, which generally represents the worst of them.
@widdershins Do you really think Handmaiden Amy won’t impose her cult views into court rulings? If that’s what you think, better think again. She refused to answer certain questions, but that doesn’t mean she won’t use her religious cult views to rule in cases.
@mriana She would fall under the category of a Christian “in politics” which I stated were “almost always” repugnant. I absolutely opposed “Christian values” in the courtroom. Anyone who thinks God’s law trumps “man’s law” has no business being in a court room, where only man’s law is relevant.
IMHO the “louder” they complain, the more they prove that they don’t actually believe what they say. For example, I believe the earth is round. My confidence in that belief is so overwhelming that if someone in this forum said it was flat, I wouldn’t have the need to shout “IT’S ROUND IT’S ROUND YOU IDIOT IT’S ROUND”. So all the shouting they do, to me is a sign of how weakly they hold their beliefs. Same with going to church. If you need to read your bible every night, and go to church every week or more, hmmm, unless you’re old and nearing the end, or maybe have a dying child, your beliefs just aren’t held that confidently.
In a lot of way I think that’s absolutely true. I’ve speculated in the past that the need they feel to constantly defend their beliefs, even though absolutely nobody was talking about their beliefs before they brought it up, is more to convince themselves that it’s true than it is to convince anyone else.
I think it’s a little different with flat-earthers and other believers of conspiracy theories, though. For the most part I do think that most of them don’t actually believe what their spouting. There are a few. I have a friend who is avidly interested in flat Earth right now. Before that he was avidly interested in alien visitation of Earth, which isn’t compatible with flat Earth. And before that he was avidly interested in 9/11 conspiracy theories. And I am pretty sure he actually goes all-in on these beliefs because he has some sort of mental problem. He’s a smart guy and a good friend of mine from all the way back in high school, but he’s never been quite “right” and it has only gotten worse as he got older. So yeah, I think it takes actual mental issues to really believe a lot of this stuff.
But for the rest of the people who claim to believe it, which is likely the vast majority, I am pretty sure something else is going on. Most people with completely functional brains aren’t going to actually believe the Earth is flat. They aren’t going to actually believe that our 74 year old obese president who has 20,000 confirmed lies to his time as president alone is a secret CIA ninja working to take down a global Democrat pedophilia network. These things are stupid. They are not even remotely believable. They don’t believe these things, but they have convinced themselves that they do. Why? Because it’s exciting. They get to pretend they have secret knowledge about a shadowy conspiracy. It’s essentially a worldwide LARP (a Dungeons and Dragons knockoff) for people who are too stupid, too lazy or think themselves too cool to actually go LARPing. It’s an exciting role playing adventure and the more people they can get to play, the more they get to play. And if you can get your neighbor to play along you only have to go right next door any time you want to play. That’s all it is. A bunch of grown-ass adults role playing without admitting to themselves that that is what they are doing.