Quote:
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Originally Posted by irateplatypus
Christianity is everywhere. Everyone seems to have some notion of a Christian heritage by virtue of being a part of the American culture. The natural tendency when surrounded by the trappings of something as monolithic as Christianity in America is to assume a certain level of knowledge and authority about it. It's clear from many posts I've read and many conversations I've taken part in that such assumptions are often misplaced.
Some views expressed are, for lack of a more diplomatic adjective, based in ignorance. It's a dangerous brand of ignorance because it's based on a superficial assumption of authority. People who have never read the Bible or, for some reason or another, dislike their first perception of Christians take part in discussions with the false assumption that they are properly equipped to debate
So, let's continue the debates... but I encourage all those who are not Christians to re-assess how much they really know about the people they sometimes insult so sharply.
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Ok, there was so much I object to in this post that I'm not sure where to start, so lets start with the obvious:
Christianity is everywhere.
I don't know where you come from or how you were raised but being in the U.S. I would hope that there are several places Christianity is not at: the Government, public schools, and courthouses. The U.S. was founded with the idea of seperation of church and state, let's remember that. Secondly your assuming that the U.S. and western European countries are the only important places with this statement. Christianity is not
everywhere, but it is widespread in the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe. And by virtue of it being widespread, yes, many people do have a notion of what Christianity is about, mainly from interactions with Christians, and I have happened to notice that for many people, being a Christian and following actual Christian dogma are seperate affairs. Oh, and yes I can listen to the radio and flip through television channels and come nowhere close to a sermon. As for churches being everywhere, with the majority of the U.S. population being Christian it's gonna happen, go the the Middle East and you'll probably find a similar situation with mosques.
Next your assuming that all Christians are versed in the bible and know a lot about it and their own religion. That is simply not true, I've met
Christians that know less about the bible(and what Christianity stands for) than I do and I'm Jewish and have never read the bible.
Next statement:
Some views expressed,....are based in ignorance.
What about the fairly common misbelief that Jews killed Christ? Isn't that based in ignorance? As for people commenting and debating Christianity without researching the bible, well, as I said before, many times their arguments are based on interactions with Christians themselves, not the bible. And as far as I'm concerned, what the members of a religion say and do has far more bearing on the religion than the text it's based off of.