Abhorrence of Christianity?

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What you call abhorrence of Christianity is like telling a child there is no Santa Clause so I guess it is the same as an Abhorrence of Santa Clause What a convenient way to avoid responsibility When I was growing up there was a comedian named Flip Wilson. He had a character named Geraldine; one of her catch phrases was "the devil made me do it". This way responsibility for whatever actions she took was somebody else's fault. The right supposedly feels that each person should take responsibility for their own actions yet they don't practice what they preach. Instead of taking personal responsibility for their actions they say an outside force controls what they do; avoiding responsibility for whatever personal short comings they may have

BTW my father was a minister and I have a brother who is a minister too.

Have you ever heard a rock and roll song? Because I am not aware of any that are about hate, greed, fear, or violence.

I'll give you an example of several examples of discrimination I have witnessed or been the target of, being a Christian.

I have relatives who live in China by the way, so I probably have more experience of physically being in China than you do.

Example #1:

I physically attended a gaming session at an autistic group in my city that went on for 2 hours. I mentioned that I was a Christian and then the whole group started talking about how Christians are typically bigots and are hateful people. Ironically, they seemed to be expressing hate towards Christian folk, without me having provoked them in any way.

I was new to the group and while other people had been treated well when they introduced themselves, I was met with hostility when mentioning Christianity. That would be an example of direct discrimination, i.e, being treated terribly because of belonging to a religion.

Example #2

People who insinuate Christian folk are 'stupid' because Christians have a belief system that doesn't necessarily adhere to strict, evidence based thinking via the scientific method.

Most Christians acknowledge that belief is a different type of thinking than science based thinking. Some people are both religious and scientific.

When people express this sort of sentiment, i.e, an atheist expressing this to a religious person, it is often direct discrimination because the atheist who makes judgements about the Christian in this scenario, does so more based on a general idea of the Christian meta image of the other person, rather than taking into account that individual and their merits.

Example #3

Person A), a non Christian, says to person B), a Christian, that they must be a paedophile if they are a Christian, because the Catholic church or other denominations of Christianity have had issues with child abuse, historically. This would be an example, of discrimination by association. And if you are part of a Christian community, you'd know this happens a lot.

Example #4

People often underestimate the level of education of a Christian and point to the generalization that Christians are often less educated than their atheist counterparts. Whilst there is some truth to this, it isn't the case for every Christian, and for highly educated Christians, this group is often a recipient of discrimination by perception.

Example #5

John, a Christian, works for a business that has non-Christians in management. He is excluded from social activities due to his religious affiliation, such as alcohol drinking meet ups, because he is wrongly perceived as not liking alcohol.

He is denied promotion for a role he is eminently qualified for and a less qualified (both in terms of education and job performance), non Christian, friend of the non-Christian management in this organization, takes the promotion instead.

Need I go on?

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess how Christian folk might be discriminated against.

This sort of thing happens to Islamic folk and other people who are religious, too.

^None of those are examples of discrimination. That's not what discrimination is. Otherwise, by your examples, literally everyone is discriminated against.

All of those examples are the types of discrimination I put in italics. They are technical terms and are widely known as the different types of discrimination.

Educate yourself.

A link to help you on your path to enlightenment:

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/disability-discrimination/types-of-discrimination/

This link explains the different types of disability discrimination, but each heading apart from the second one listed, can also be applied to any protected characteristic and discrimination based on any protected characteristic.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 17 Nov 2024, 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Direct discrimination (can be a type of religious discrimination).

Discrimination arising from disability (not applicable to religious discrimination).

Indirect discrimination (can be a type of religious discrimination).

Harassment (can be a type of religious discrimination).

Victimisation (can be a type of religious discrimination).

Failing to comply with duty to make reasonable adjustments (can be a type of religious discrimination).

I have a qualification in equality and diversity by the way, I'm guessing you do not?

^ Really? An appeal to authority?

Any more logical fallacies you want to get off your chest?

Blitz, some of your examples appear to be centered on people disagreeing with you/critiquing your beliefs. People can disagree with beliefs and even think they’re stupid without believing that those who hold them are. Most people know very intelligent Christians or people who believe any number of things that aren’t well-supported by facts or research. Intelligent people can believe in conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories and religion share overlapping traits and are indistinguishable at times.

People can also believe that bigotry is a major issue in religion, including in Christianity, (because it is) without believing that ALL Christians are bigots. There certainly are open-minded, liberal Christians. Even those who have some religious-based bigotry aren’t necessarily horrible people. Many members of my family are intelligent in terms of IQ. Most of them are also sexist, homophobic, and transphobic due, in large part, to the many problematic passages in the Bible which have been cited and discussed elsewhere.

Disagreeing with someone’s belief system is not discrimination nor is it abhorrence. Criticism of the Bible, religion, or religious institutions/practices isn’t, either.

Human institutions, including religion, should not be above scrutiny or criticism.

Examples of discrimination are notoriously difficult to prove. I mean, anyone can deny being discriminatory or make up an allegedly justifiable reason as to why they have discriminated against another person.

I'd have thought that people with disabilities who are invariably, at some points in their lives, subject to disability discrimination (whether they are open about their disabilities, or not), would understand this experience well.

It happens to religious people too, and people of colour, to women, to LGBTQ+ folk, to pregnant woman specifically, to married folk or to older people (ageism).

I'm sure some that some of the people in the thread already know this, but people generally need reminding of this sort of thing, in my experience.

And we don't all live in the United States where Christianity is still relatively popular (in some states more than others).

Having disabilities, being in the LGBTQ+ community, or belonging to a specific gender or age demographic do not involve man-made, human institutions that people make the choice to belong to, so it’s not quite the same thing. Religion continues to cause a lot of harm. Scrutiny and criticism have been vital components towards bringing about change although given many religious groups’ ongoing issues with abuse and bigotry - much of which stems directly from the Bible itself - we have a long way to go. People are currently citing the Bible to justify genocide. No matter how grotesque that may be, there is a lot of biblical justification for it.

"View Christianity as a tool for personal change and development rather than as an identity, a tribe, or a monolith."

The majority of them subscribe to the latter, hence the abhorrence.

I believe the Catholic Church as an organization has played out it's role in society.

I totally disagree with what you said, that it have had some issues with child abuse. It's a ongoing part of their organization, worldwide and it is child sexual abuse. I can't understand how anyone can defend it. (not claiming you are defending it)

Over 1,000 clergy accused of pedophilia in Spain’s Catholic Church

CSA and CSA coverups are also a big problem in many smaller Christian organizations, such as among Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and various fundamentalist Baptist sects, especially those connected with the IBLP. Yet, these same groups have the gall to complain about persecution when they persecute others due to this and their stance on LGBTQ+ issues among other things. At any rate, financially supporting or otherwise endorsing a church that covers up CSA is enabling.

Many of these groups use the Bible to justify physical abuse as well:

Proverbs 23:13 “Do not withhold discipline from your children; if you beat them with a rod, they will not die”

You talk about music, but I look at society on a broader scale and hate, lust, greed, fear and violence are problems within Christianity (they are problems outside of Christianity as well, but my point is that Christianity is by no means free from these things). The MAGA form of Christianity/Christian Nationalism is defined by those things, in fact.

I don't really care what secular vs Christian music looks like up against that, not at all.

(Off-topic: I adore Christian music in Early Music and Classical music. I listen to it a lot. But I will clarify that's because I appreciate Early Music and Classical music in general. I have never really gotten into contemporary Christian music. And when I see things like the lead singer of Skillet going onto the Christofascist Trump-worshiping FlashPoint show, I'm glad I never got into them.)

Because we don't like the taste of Christianity. Whereas other people love it

I was specifically referring to protected characteristics under UK law.

Religion does not hold a lesser weight than any other protected characteristic under the Equality Act of 2010.



Source: https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights