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Old 02-28-2007, 10:08 AM   #31 (permalink)
jorgelito
All important elusive independent swing voter...
 
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Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia
Great post roachboy, I'm glad you asked those questions. I appreciate your honesty and sincerity. Allow me to address your curiosity.

I purposefully chose to use the term "outing" to evoke a feeling. In other words, for me, I felt I had to "hide" my religious identity amidst a hostile environment to my chosen religion. I wanted to offer that perspective to the board at large to share what it's like to be on the other side in the hopes of eliciting empathy.

Secondly, my use of the term "anti-Christian" is specifically aimed at prevailing attitudes towards that peer cohort by the mainstream which I define as non-religious or atheist (I'm using these labels for convenience and arguments sake). Some of these attitudes include attacking Christian belief, snide remarks, and downright hostility. In context of the OP and reference article, there has been a lot of reaction that can be reasonably defined as "anti-Christian".

What you are saying roachboy I actually do agree with but within the given context. In fact, we could open up another thread on that. The problem isn't the disagreement. Disagreement is healthy and stimulating. It's when it turns nasty or personal that all semblance of civil debate or "higher evolved learning - what the tfp is all about, (ironic isn't it) is decayed and discussion ceases and bashing begins.

So roachboy, no, "anti-Christian" does not mean non-belief.

I think some of the reactions we see are due in part because of the high-intensity level of emotions involved and the rush to "defend", or the panic effect when one group feels it is under attack. I would also contend that the Christian community is very diverse and not easily stereotyped. As such, wholesale assumptions and generalizations are not useful. What exacerbates the communication is the inherent laziness in people to reduce things to simple binaries: us vs them, good vs evil, Christians vs everyone else, everyone else vs Christians, Democrats vs Republican - when the reality is, in fact, much more complex, much more subtle, and much more deserving of a qualitative examination instead of the usual perfunctory glance over and typing. I suppose this would be part and parcel to the memes you always speak of. The reduction of complex issues to overly simplified sound bites.

And Roach, this is just my opinion too

note - Minority in a social context does not necessarily denote a literal numerical minority, but rather a power one. So while there could be a numerical Christian majority, it is possible for that group to be underrepresented in the power structure or otherwise feel unempowered in a social context.

Last edited by jorgelito; 02-28-2007 at 10:11 AM..
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